Anneliese Dodds ‘Sex & gender are different’

Anneliese Dodds

Anneliese Dodds ‘Sex & gender are different’

Woman’s Place UK welcomes Anneliese Dodds’s recognition that sex and gender are different

For the past three years, Keir Starmer and Labour front benchers have struggled to answer seemingly simple questions such as “What is a woman?” and “Do women have a penis?” We are delighted, therefore, to see Anneliese Dodds, the shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, state unequivocally: “Of course, women do not have a penis”. It will be a relief to women across the board, to hear Dodds on Sky News this morning, acknowledge that “sex is not the same as gender” and that “it’s important that we keep the two separate.”

It’s taken a long time to get there, but it seems as if the Labour Party leadership is finally coming around to the common-sense position held by most people, namely that biological sex is real and that it’s impossible to change sex. Last month Starmer stated that Labour would be “at the forefront of women’s rights”, including single-sex wards for hospital patients based on biological sex.

We hope that this signals a recognition on the part of the Labour Party that women’s sex-based rights are important. The Equality Act protects women’s right to single-sex spaces, services and activities where they are needed to maintain safety and privacy. We look forward to seeing a robust commitment from the Labour Party to uphold that right.

#DefendingWomensSpaces


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