Write for us!
Over the past week I have spent some time on Blue Sky. Partly because this is where a lot of Lib Dem MPs are now posting and I wanted to read their reactions to the EHRC guidance (in summary they have been largely silent except for the Women and Equalities spokesperson who condemned it as a huge step back for human rights – which I disagree with).
However, I ended up in several conversations with trans activists on the app who are making the same kind of arguments that failed on Twitter (X) three years ago. One of the key arguments being made to me by activists is that there is no conflict between women’s rights and ‘trans rights’.
Calling people bigots is no substitute for rational argument
Several activists within the Lib Dems say the same thing. In fact, when I told one woman campaigner on the phone that I didn’t intend to vote for her preferred candidate as PPC (to be our future local MP) because when asked about women’s rights, she immediately pivoted to trans rights, the campaigner then shouted down the phone at me that ‘rights were not a pie’ before hanging up. Apparently, this counts as totally normal behaviour for some trans activists in the Lib Dems who are incapable of voicing a coherent argument and rely solely on slogans. ‘Trans women are women’ being a classic when discussion gets really tricky (occasionally followed by ‘bigot why don’t you join Reform’ sentiments on internal party forums).
These slogans have been described as “thought-terminating clichés”: phrases that discourage critical thinking and prematurely close down discussion. In political movements that value open debate, they can become a way of avoiding engagement with difficult questions or internal contradictions, replacing argument with repetition and discouraging dissenting views.
The term was coined by Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Lifton developed the concept while studying political indoctrination and coercive persuasion in totalitarian regimes. Thought-terminating clichés function as a means of shutting down debate, reducing scrutiny and freedom of thought – values that should be central to a liberal party.
Surrendering women’s rights to men is not going to happen
Coming back to the ‘women’s rights and trans rights are not in conflict/not mutually exclusive’ cliché it is worth unpacking what is meant by ‘trans rights’ in this context. Used in this way, ‘trans rights’ means the ability of trans people to access the services, spaces, sports and opportunities of the opposite sex. This is sometimes termed ‘gender appropriate spaces’ or ‘spaces that align with their (the trans persons) acquired gender.’
In reality it means giving the rights of males who say they are women access to female sports, female spaces such as changing rooms, rape crisis centres and female quotas. No surgeries or aesthetic changes are required for the male to do this. The past decade saw self-ID become the default norm (males could say they were women by simple declaration) but following the Supreme Court judgment it is clear that neither self-ID nor gender recognition certificates give people the right to access the spaces and sports reserved for the opposite sex.
Reality matters, whether you have an argument or not
Those who insist that no conflict exists between women’s rights and trans rights are therefore avoiding a difficult reality. If women are entitled in law to single-sex spaces and sports, and some trans-identifying males wish to access those spaces on the basis of gender identity, then a tension clearly does exist. Pretending otherwise does not help either group.
The Supreme Court has now provided much greater legal clarity by confirming that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, sex means biological sex. That does not remove the need for practical accommodation for trans people, particularly those who may feel uncomfortable using facilities associated with their biological sex. But it does mean politicians and institutions should speak honestly about where rights and interests may come into conflict, rather than relying on slogans that imply no balancing exercise is required.
A solution is possible, but requires honesty
A liberal approach should seek to reduce conflict rather than inflame it. In many contexts there is a way to relieve that conflict through expanding the availability of fully enclosed unisex or third-space facilities in addition to single-sex spaces. Such an approach, which is one taken in the EHRC guidance, is more constructive than denying the legitimacy of concerns held by either women or trans people. Too much of this debate over recent years has been characterised by moral intimidation, sloganising and indulging in institutional evasiveness. Liberal politics should be better than that. It should be possible to defend women’s lawful rights, acknowledge the realities of sex-based protections, and still treat trans people with dignity. A political culture that cannot tolerate the open discussion of difficult questions either by pretending that conflicts of rights don’t exist, or when they do, making accusations of bigotry, is fundamentally illiberal and will not build lasting social consensus.
