Rosie Duffield
MP for Canterbury · Independent · United Kingdom
“Our APPG on birth trauma report in 2024 was the first in Parliament on that subject. We heard from more than 1,300 women and families. The report was titled, “Listen to Mums”. I am glad that an independent maternity commissioner will finally be implemented, after our years of calls for one.”
“In the 25 months since Theo Clarke and I produced the first ever parliamentary report on birth trauma, and nearly four years since we discussed the East Kent Kirkup report in this place, we have seen more and more reports, more and more scandals, more and more heartbreaking stories, and several Health Secretaries.”
“Detransitioners often experience years of extreme distress and choose not to speak publicly about their own personal stories, but some would willingly engage with Ministers and Members.”
“Separated parents, many of whom will not agree with each other about whether to affirm their child’s chosen gender identity, how to treat their gender distress or what, if any, social transition to accommodate at home or school, will be potentially battling each other over whether or not their child should be participating in this or futu…”
“Last autumn, on the announcement of the trial of puberty blockers on children, a cross-party coalition of Members and peers assembled who have serious concerns and are campaigning together for the Government to reverse this terrible decision.”
“I was told no—categorically no—so a child presenting with possible gender dysphoria pre puberty could actually have been as young as eight years old.”
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“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, but there are plenty of things that the Labour Government seem to be pushing through that were not in the manifesto. The people now in charge were campaigning, with those of us who were here then, against Brexit several years ago, and I would like them to stick to that. Our trade opportunities and international standing, and our very security, depend on us showing political leadership. This is the basic requirement of political premiers: taking decisions—not just tough decisions on the economy, but bold, swift, courageous decisions during shifting geopolitical circumstances. Our tourism, arts, farming, university and financial sectors need help.”
“At a time when male violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels in the UK, women’s single-sex spaces could not be more important. Our desire to be kind, inclusive and accepting are worthy and valuable human traits. It is that pursuit of tolerance that underpins our law on discrimination.”
“Very few examples of that clash have played out as publicly and discordantly as that between sex and gender identity: that is, the rights of biological women, and sometimes men, and the rights of those who change their social gender to transition to women. Significant feminist gains have been made in policy and law since the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s. Those gains include recognition of specific rights and services for women on the basis of their sex, be that in hospital wards, prisons, rape services, domestic abuse shelters, lesbian dating sites and clubs, women’s health organisations and women’s sports teams—spaces that meet our specific requirements as women. Those gains are being eroded by the blind acceptance by some, including policy makers in this place, that anybody who identifies as a woman de facto becomes one.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered gender critical beliefs and the Equality Act 2010. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. The Equality Act, passed by a Labour Government in 2010, protects people from discrimination based on nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. The Act has a commendable objective: to prevent people from acting on their prejudices and disagreements in a way that results in the discriminatory treatment of others. It exists not to eliminate difference or ensure conformity, but to foster good relations and tolerance between different groups. Sometimes rights clash.”
“That has been clearly demonstrated in the terms that have been used for women who think that our biological sex matters, that it is a material reality that cannot be changed and is entirely different from gender identity—that is, gender-critical women like me. Nasty, puerile terms, many unrepeatable in this place but repeated ad infinitum across social media, such as bigot, Nazi, fascist and TERF—trans-exclusionary radical feminist—are just some examples.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his point. I agree that all of those beliefs should be—and are—protected under the law. Our desire to be kind, inclusive and accepting are worthy and valuable human traits, and it is the pursuit of tolerance that underpins our law on discrimination. They are essential values in a pluralistic democracy where we can acknowledge, navigate and respect our differences. Yet a tendency has arisen in polarised debates, particularly around sex and gender, to treat holding a belief opposing one’s own as not merely a point of disagreement, but a moral defect in the person with whom one disagrees.”
“Gender critical people face severe consequences for engaging in the debate, ranging from social ostracization to loss of employment and livelihood, all for holding three core beliefs: that women—adult human females—are materially definable as a class of human being; that women are culturally, legislatively and politically important, with our own set of needs, rights and concerns; and that women have the right to meet and discuss freely that which affects our lives profoundly.”
“Our evidence base is limited, as academics are afraid to research this area for fear of ending up hounded out of their jobs, as academics Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix, Laura Favaro and many others have been. None the less, the body of evidence is growing. In its rapid evidence review on harassment and censorship to inform the Khan review published in March last year, More in Common found significant anecdotal evidence of harassment faced by groups of gender critical activists. Gender critical people face high levels of harassment in their everyday lives, leading to self-censorship on a scale that should alarm anyone who believes in liberal democracy—including gender critical MPs who have yet to speak up in public.”
“Still, day after day people who raise concerns about boundaries around single-sex spaces such as changing rooms are being disciplined, dismissed, and hounded from their workplaces. Two such cases currently attracting huge attention are those of the Darlington nurses and the Fife nurse, Sandie Peggie. Their tribunals have brought the clash of rights into sharp relief. Few people reading that when adult female nurses challenged their employers to stop biological men changing in the women’s changing room could believe that they were disciplined. I have yet to speak to a single British voter who believes that a man should have whatever access he desires to spaces where women are getting dressed or undressed for work. .”
“Those within organisations that sign up to expensive re-education programmes, many of which misrepresent the law, and diktats on all employees signing off emails with pronouns, legitimise the constant, passive-aggressive and soft—or even aggressive and open—bullying of those who refuse to comply. Those who disagree with gender critical beliefs routinely stigmatise women like me as bigoted, a view that arises from a total misunderstanding of what our beliefs are or the motivations of many of those who share them. The social and financial costs of voicing gender critical beliefs, and of challenging assumptions in their workplace, mean that many are afraid and feel they cannot afford to speak up.”
“The tribunal found that Maya Forstater’s beliefs, which she sincerely holds, are widely shared, based on fact, and are reflective of the law of the land, yet despite that judgment, in the four years since there has been an unprecedented run—a steady stream—of similar high-profile and costly employment tribunal cases involving gender critical beliefs that point to a problem that many in this place refuse to acknowledge, including, I am afraid, the Minister responding to this debate. The normalisation of visible hostility towards anyone expressing widely held gender critical beliefs, even on our own green Benches, has been framed as an expression of solidarity with trans and non-binary people.”
“Women and girls must be able to use language to describe our experiences and not be persecuted for causing offence or distress. To believe in women’s sex-based rights and publicly advocate for them results in being readily labelled as hateful or transphobic. However, I am gender critical because I am a feminist and care deeply about the rights of women and girls. I do not seek to destroy the rights of trans-identifying people or any other group, and never have done. My sex-based rights as a woman have nothing to do with those other groups of people. Gender critical beliefs are legally protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act 2010, following the Forstater employment tribunal case in 2021.”
“Absolutely, and I thank the hon. Member so much for raising that case. It shocked and peaked quite a lot of people that just asking for single-sex services when they are more vital than ever got Roz Adams into so much hot water. It is absolutely unbelievable, and good luck to her in her fight. Ironically, the name calling—the extreme, nasty and degrading names used for women and sometimes men who do not accept that biological men can be women—is often under the guise of “being kind”. Gender critical women are frequently shut down, told to be quiet, or told that it is not right to use accurate language to describe our bodies. Words and language matter, and material reality matters infinitely. There are situations where sex matters and the rights of women and girls must take precedence.”
“I have been hounded, harassed, sidelined and briefed against by a party now in government. It is time the Government got to grips with this issue, perhaps by following the lead of the incredibly brave women I have referenced here and the unsung foot soldiers who fight for women’s rights in the workplace the world over.”
“I finish by paying tribute to the brave and incredible women—and some men—who know that only women have a cervix and who have stood up to those hounding them at great personal and financial risk to themselves: Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jo Phoenix, Rachel Meade, Roz Adams, Denise Fahmy, Eleanor Frances, Almut Gadow, Laura Favaro, Amelia Sparrow, Jenny Lindsay, Kathleen Stock, Rosie Kay, Selina Todd, Rosa Freedman, Lizzy Pitt and my dearest TERF friends Jo Rowling, Suzanne Moore and supreme shero pioneer Julie Bindel. Those women are just the tip of the iceberg. I was elected on a manifesto pledge to make the country work for working people. These are working people who are being persecuted for their legal and respectable beliefs. They continue to be let down by cowardly leadership.”
“I thank the right hon. Gentleman so much for raising that important point. Just for speaking up, I, a left-wing member of the Labour party, have been called a Reform member and all kinds of names, and it has been suggested that I join a right-wing party, yet an awful lot of the articles I read agreeing with me are in the Morning Star . People do not really listen to the ideology behind our beliefs and why we speak up for the rights of working women, which is what the Labour party was founded to do. We have a duty in this place to ensure that people who hold gender critical beliefs are given the respect they are entitled to. We need to find a workable solution that respects everyone’s beliefs and protected characteristics.”
“T9. The University of Kent, which is the largest employer in my constituency, is making yet more redundancies due to the enormous debt it owes to international banks. Will the Secretary of State commit to holding crisis meetings with desperate universities and their creditors, to help secure more sustainable terms and a potential way out of the financial emergency that they face?”
“Q13. Under his Labour Government, does the Prime Minister believe that the UK’s estimated 3 million millionaires should contribute more to our vital national security, or is it just the world’s poorest, by no longer benefiting from our international aid programmes, or the shameful almost 6 million children living in poverty in this country who should pay for it? What happened to the wealth tax, Prime Minister?”
“It is very hard to get even on the second rung of a ladder when we have to start all over again with explanations, evidence and examples relating to a campaign or specific health issue every few months because the departmental personnel and teams change so often, so women here will keep campaigning and holding debates to push women’s health further up the agenda. I will keep working with the Birth Trauma Association, the MASIC Foundation and others to help to end the postcode lottery and extreme inequalities for black and south Asian mothers experiencing what should be straightforward and perfectly safe childbirth. I again thank all those parliamentarians, campaigners and activists who just will not take no for an answer and who fight every day to bring about better experiences for other women.”
“It may be considered good manners, kind and courteous to refer to those who identify as a different gender in the way they prefer, but for the specific purposes of recording vital and potentially lifesaving data, we must accurately record patients’ biological sex. Otherwise, trans patients may miss being called for screening for sex-specific conditions, and that has potentially fatal consequences. That has been highlighted by Professor Alice Sullivan, who was commissioned by the last Government to tackle the issue of recording sex data, including in the NHS. Her review is due to be published, and I would be grateful if the Government could confirm the date for that as soon as possible. In the last seven years, we have had seven Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care.”
“I have recent experience of this, with my dear friend Nicky Clark experiencing a heart attack in January. She is now tirelessly campaigning, because compared with men, women are less likely to be admitted to hospital when they complain of chest pain and they have more than double the rate of death within 30 days following a heart attack. Medical professionals know that heart attacks present very differently in women, compared with men, and yet the classic symptoms listed in campaigns are specific to men only. Recent trends in the collection of data highlight how vital the accurate recording of this is in a medical context. Women’s health issues all arise from our specific biology. A man cannot get ovarian cancer and a woman cannot get prostate cancer, for example.”
“And for the avoidance of doubt, let me be clear: by female I mean women, adult human females, the kind who have a cervix and who definitely do not have a penis. Despite women being 51% of the population, women’s health services are frequently deprioritised, with the healthcare model based on a default male, and women existing within a system built around men. The inequalities in health outcomes between men and women are scandalous. Compared with men, women are more likely to experience common mental health conditions, more likely to be misdiagnosed, more likely to receive less pain medication after identical procedures and more likely to be undertreated for pain by doctors. A perfect example of how women must exist within a healthcare system built for men is that of heart attacks.”
“Since I came to this place, a big focus for me has been women’s health, whether it is the devastating and shocking findings of the Kirkup review of East Kent Hospitals maternity care; the setting up of the APPG for birth trauma; the plight of women who now have no recourse to any healthcare or medical treatment in Afghanistan; the women whose health and wellbeing means precisely nothing to the warring factions in places such as Tigray; the tenacious mothers who have tirelessly fought for changes to sodium valproate labelling; female cancers; vaginal mesh; menopause; the mental stress and health toll on WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality —or 1950s women; female genital mutilation; or domestic abuse survivors. All of those and so many more are health issues that affect the majority of the population, who are female.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) on securing this debate, which is one of only a handful to tackle women’s health in general.”
“Recent headlines about safeguarding failures have badly eroded trust in the Church. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom I have had the pleasure of working closely, resigned his position in recognition of that so that the Church could move forward. I congratulate the Second Church Estates Commissioner on her powerful speech at the most recent Synod. Does she agree that those selecting our next archbishop must not be implicated in safeguarding failures of any kind?”
“Does the Minister believe that the NHS should expect biologically female nursing staff to get changed in front of biologically male colleagues who identify as female?”
“Q10. Since 2012, the Drax power station has been given £7 billion of green subsidies by the Government for burning 27 million trees per year. That is enough money for five years of pensioners’ winter fuel payments. While Ofgem has been asleep at the wheel, a recent KPMG report has concluded that Drax claimed those subsidies illegally. Will the Prime Minister demand to see that KPMG report before giving another pound of taxpayers’ money to Drax?”
“Last week, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner found that just 5% of reported domestic abuse results in a conviction. Does the Minister share my concerns that lengthy investigations into non-crime hate incidents are potentially diverting vital resources from the criminal justice system and from prosecuting actual violence against women and girls?”
“Last year, on average, at least three instances of antisocial behaviour per day were reported to Kent police in the city centre of Canterbury alone. We have great beat officers who I know keep our city as safe as they can, but given that the economy of our historic UNESCO city relies so heavily on tourism, how will the Government work with Kent police to further tackle this issue so that residents, businesses and visitors feel safer?”
“T4. Since 2017 I have been raising the crisis facing East Kent hospitals university NHS foundation trust. Seven different Health Secretaries across those seven years have promised much but delivered nothing at all. Patients continue to face unacceptably long waits on trolleys in corridors, and last month the Kent Online paper compared these conditions to a war zone, with an average of 40 very ill patients a day facing more than 12-hour waits. Will the Secretary of State meet me and the CEO of our trust, who is desperate for even the most basic diagnostic equipment, to ensure that this does not continue to be the case for another seven years?”
“T9. Elizabeth Fry first began her work to create sex-specific prison facilities for women in 1813, with the primary aim of protecting female prisoners from rape, and the Gaols Act 1823 put this into statute. Yet 200 years later, Fry’s legacy is being betrayed as girls and women continue to be housed with boys and men. One such example is Wetherby. Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the Women’s Rights Network that Susannah Hancock’s work on this is urgently needed, and can she give any indication of when Susannah will conclude her review?”
“T7. My constituent, 14-year-old Lewis, has been out of school for two years and his education has been disrupted for four. He is yet another child whose parents have been told by Kent county council that he must attend a particular school despite the school saying that it is unable to meet his specific educational needs. This is typical of the battle that many families I see have to go through for years, costing them time and money and causing infinite stress. Will the Minister meet me and the parents to ensure that he is one of the last children to suffer from Kent county council’s continual neglect of SEN children?”
“Given the new Government’s collective condemnation of the two-child limit over the eight years since it was introduced, which includes condemnation from many Government Members on Select Committees, will they at the very least commit to scrapping its heinous, sexist and frankly disgusting rape clause element?”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the 285,000 people who signed the petition about renationalisation that I helped to present to Downing Street a couple of years ago, particularly those in the beautiful coastal town of Whitstable, have been badly let down by Southern Water on a daily basis?”
“I welcome my dear friend to her position, and I know she will be absolutely brilliant. I was thrilled to attend the 30-year anniversary of the first women ordained at Canterbury cathedral earlier this year. The service was conducted by our dear Bishop Rose, our much-loved former chaplain to the Speaker. Will my friend join me in congratulating those pioneering women, including my partner’s mother, Canon Eileen Routh, who faced a degree of hostility when entering into their new vocations some 30 years ago?”
“7. What steps she is taking with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to help ensure that health and social care providers collect sex-based data.”
“I know that the Secretary of State agrees that vulnerable women with learning disabilities and all women should be able to access same-sex care, particularly with regard to intimate physical care. That is especially important in the light of the shocking report by the Women’s Rights Network and Jo Phoenix on rape and sexual assault in hospitals and care settings. That is why the proper collection of data based on sex is vital. Does the Minister agree?”
“Does she agree that these academics, politicians, writers, psychologists and actors, along with any other people who have questioned the signing up of their workplaces to Stonewall law, have now been vindicated by Dr Cass’s expert review, and that they should be apologised to?”
“Let me first thank the Secretary of State for her thoughtful and considered statement on the Cass review, and especially for mentioning the journalists, such as my friend Hannah Barnes, who blew the whistle on the Tavistock clinic. As she has said, those who have raised this issue over the last few years, desperately concerned about the safeguarding of vulnerable children and young people—too young to make life-changing decisions—are owed a heartfelt apology for being no-platformed, ghosted, sidelined and disciplined at the behest of a few extreme groups of activists, some within political parties.”
“The murder of animals for fun is also condemned by Chris Packham, Bill Bailey, Joanna Lumley and Sir Ranulph Fiennes, as well as MPs and activists across the political divide and those with no political affiliation whatsoever. The legendary Jane Goodall said: “Trophy hunting is utterly cruel, utterly unnecessary and utterly disastrous from a conservation perspective. It inflicts pain and suffering on animals for no other reason than to boast of some ephemeral ‘prowess’. There is no material human need met by it; it is a hobby, pure and simple, and a deeply wrong one at that.” I urge colleagues to support the Bill. I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley for bringing it forward. I echo the words of the Humane Society and say that there is “no excuse” for trophy hunting, so let us get the ban done.”
“Peter works with the fantastic campaigner Eduardo Goncalves, who we talked about earlier, and who is supported by many across this House, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (John Spellar), who has never given up fighting to protect animals during his time here. He steps down at the next general election, but it is vital that we carry on his compassionate work. I absolutely pledge to do that to the best of my ability. No speech about animal welfare should leave out top animal champion Ricky Gervais. He could spend his days polishing his many awards, but instead he chooses to condemn trophy hunting and shame those who consider the murder of animals to be a hobby. He supports the ban and has called trophy hunting “humanity at its very worst”.”
“There are so many British people who show such kindness—who campaign on behalf of animal charities, who volunteer, who make donations or fundraise, and who share a love for our planet and the incredible, breathtaking wildlife that we are so fortunate to benefit from. How dare a few wealthy individuals decide that they have the right to buy and cause the death of a lion, polar bear or elephant. Alongside our constituents, there are those who use their fame and public platforms to fight for the protection of animals. Those campaigners include frequent visitors to Parliament whose passion is infectious—people such as the wonderful Peter Egan, friend to many in this place, who for years has fought hard to raise awareness and keep a ban on trophy hunting imports at the top of MPs’ agendas.”
“Exploited animals used as pathetic props to maintain, even elevate, an online self-image of superiority, without any shred of guilt or conscience.” He describes those taking part in these killings as having “a tragic lack of empathy and the highest form of narcissism”, and says that “to be complicit in this most extreme, callous form of animal cruelty, plus then to harvest the body parts and ship them back home to the UK, couldn’t be a clearer indicator of violent antisocial behaviour.” Every Member of this House will have had emails and letters from, and meetings with, constituents who love and value animals, and loathe those who exploit, harm or kill them.”
“My good friend the vet and animal welfare campaigner Dr Marc Abraham OBE agrees. He says: “Anyone with an ounce of compassion and kindness despairs at seeing these images of cowardly, pathetic trophy hunters grinning over their still-warm kill.”
“The opposite is true, live animals support the population of their species.” The League against Cruel Sports says: “We believe this multi-million pound industry is unjustifiable from an animal welfare point of view, but also for conservation, as it is responsible for endangering several species around the world.” As for “sport”, that word is usually reserved for activities that revolve around the more positive aspects of life: fitness, healthy competition, teamwork, friendship, personal achievement, endeavour and endurance. Not a single one of those could be attributed to an activity that involves an individual choosing to photograph themselves grinning triumphantly as they celebrate killing a once gentle and graceful giraffe, whose lifeless body now lies slumped and twisted at their feet, pumped full of deadly bullets.”
“All of us here are familiar with the term “trophy hunting”. We have come to recognise the evil acts that those two harmless-sounding words represent, but for those watching who may be less familiar with the term, animal welfare organisations such as SPCA International define it as “the hunting of…animals for sport, not for food. Usually, the animal is stuffed or a body part is kept for display.” They go on: “Many hunters claim that trophy hunting isn’t bad for animals. They say they are supporting animal conservation.”
“The Bill prevents a parent from suggesting that their 15-year-old son should start on a course of puberty blockers, which will render him infertile, as an adult instead, when he will be entirely without doubt and less confused.”
“However, in today’s toxic climate, they are pressurised into dating so-called lesbians with a penis— in other words, men. In his opening speech, the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) described his Bill as stopping people from being at risk of losing their identity. However well-intentioned and worthy that goal might be, how is that to be defined and by who? Laws that cannot provide clear definitions are just useless pieces of paper. Attempting to convert or coerce anyone away from being who they choose to be, or to make them straight if they are gay, is cruel and, thankfully, against the law. This Bill does nothing to change that. It merely suggests that anyone trying to stop their daughter cutting off her healthy breasts as a teenager—before long-term, serious thought and a careful pause—is breaking the law.”
“Serious legislators should never create flawed and unnecessary legislation merely to send a message; that is law created by social media, rather than laws that we expect of a Government —or a Government in waiting—to be upheld by our courts. This Bill is unprosecutable and, without evidence of need, it brings criminal law into an area that simply needs to be regulated by policies and guidance. The other aspect, as I mentioned earlier, is the problem that, currently, nothing can be properly described. Given broadcasters are labelling brutal men who murder as women, and are reprimanded if they correctly name a person by their biological sex, who is appointed the arbiter of what constitutes conversion? Feminists believe that lesbians should be free to date only women, as they choose.”
“In everyday conversations among friends or families, who steps in, and at what point, to decide that those conversations amount to attempted conversion? Feminist groups, Labour Women’s Declaration, the Gay Men’s Network and the LGB Alliance are fearful that legislation like this is dangerous, and it sends the message to those who need to confide in professionals or even those closest to them that it is not safe to do so, and that they will be forced to be gay when they might want just to be gender questioning, or vice versa. The message is that the situation is so bad that we need a new criminal law to deal with it.”