Scottish Labour accused of silencing women members in ‘adult human females’ row
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Labour has been accused of silencing its female members after their call for the Scottish party to recognise them as “adult human females” was rejected by party officials.
The Scottish Labour Women’s Conference previously passed a motion, which it had expected to be debated at the full party conference this weekend, which called on the Scottish leadership to harden its stance on transgender issues and “acknowledge women’s existence as a sex”.
However, the text was replaced at the 11th hour with a drastically watered-down version – which included no reference to women as “adult human females”.
Female members claimed the party hierarchy had moved to stifle an open debate on gender issues, in a bid to avoid a public row.
Some trade unions officially back the stance of activists who insist that biological men who say they identify as female are women. A party source had condemned the women’s motion as “trans-exclusionary”.
The party’s women’s conference in December passed a motion, with a significant majority, recommending the “Scottish Labour leadership follow [Sir] Keir Starmer’s lead and openly recognise women as adult human females.”
The passage was struck out after it was merged with another motion from the party’s Rutherglen branch. An expression of concern over “commercialised egg donation and commercialised surrogacy” was also deleted.
‘Voices being silenced’
Elaine Smith, the former Labour MSP, said the amended version “does not do justice” to the views women had expressed.
She said it had previously been assumed that full motions from the women’s conference would go forward to the main conference unamended.
“I do understand that motions are sometimes composited but I do feel very strongly that ones from the Scottish Women’s Conference should go in full to the conference,” Ms Smith said.
“If women had decided that’s what they wanted heard, then that’s the way it should be.
“We now need a rule that whatever comes out of the women’s conference goes forward to full conference unamended, or else it looks like women’s voices are being silenced or watered down.”
The replacement motion, to be debated on Saturday at the three-day conference in Glasgow, refers to “the principle of women’s sex-based rights” but does not explicitly call for the party to change its policy on trans issues.
Only 78 words of the original 171-word motion passed by the women’s conference is included in the final motion.
Scottish Labour officially supported Nicola Sturgeon’s gender self-ID law in December 2022.
However, the law was later blocked by the UK Government and UK Labour dropped its support for self-ID in the wake of the Isla Bryson scandal, in which a double rapist previously known as Adam Graham was initially sent to Scotland’s only all-female jail.
While Sir Keir has previously struggled to define a woman, he changed his position last year.
He declared a woman was an “adult female” and said he did not believe self-ID, in which men could legally become women simply by declaring themselves one, was “the right way forward.”
‘Not a good look’
Ann Henderson, a spokeswoman for the Labour Women’s Declaration, said that the original motion had been passed overwhelmingly by the women’s conference before it was drastically edited at the last minute.
“The idea of allowing the women’s conference to put forward motions was that it would be for women to democratically decide what their priorities were,” she said.
“Then the whole party could then discuss it and express a view. If some delegates, including in the trade unions, don’t agree, they are more than welcome to debate and say so publicly. For whatever reason the party hasn’t followed that principle.
“The amended motion does still include reference to women’s sex-based rights, which is welcome progress, and encourages positive debate.
“But women rightly expected that the full motion would come to this conference. That’s not what has happened, which is not a good look.”
A Scottish Labour source said it was “standard practice” for conference motions to be changed and that the text had been agreed with delegates who first proposed the original motion to the women’s conference.
