A Woman’s Place UK: the right side of history

Woman’s Place UK: The Right Side of History

 Woman’s Place UK (WPUK) was founded on 22nd September 2017 in response to the Conservative government’s proposal to reform the Gender Recognition Act (2004). The campaign was formed by women from trade unions and social movements who were already meeting privately to discuss feminist concerns about trans activism. The government proposals, and the violence meted out to women speaking on them, created an urgent need for a public campaign.

 We were determined to ensure that women’s voices were heard in a consultation which would have serious implications for our sex-based rights and that those rights needed to be recognised and upheld. 

It is sometimes hard to recall how difficult it was to hold any kind of discussion in 2017-2020.  At the time we were founded, sex self-identification had cross-party support. Along with others, WPUK forced a public debate, and gained legitimacy for our position, holding our meetings in community hubs, local government and university buildings. Women all over the UK who felt silenced and ignored were desperate to meet up and speak. 

Our meetings were organised in response and were only possible through grassroots action by local women and local groups working with us, suggesting speakers, finding venues, promoting the events and stewarding. They gave a platform  to women from all backgrounds, walks of life and experience and became places of real connection and vibrancy.  

Our aim was to amplify the voices of opposition and ultimately to defeat the proposals.

That opposition to the extreme legislative proposals for reform to enact self-identification for the purpose of the Gender Recognition Act has been wholly successful.  

We are proud of our part in the movement that delayed the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act. This resulted in significant feminist pushback to the proposed changes which ultimately reversed the position of the then government and opposition parties. The silencing effect of #NoDebate has been totally broken – the mainstream media now covers aspects of the sex-gender debate on a near-daily basis.

After seven years we are ending our campaign, knowing that we have largely achieved our original demands.

Woman’s Place UK has had a clear strategy of defending single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act, and on women’s right to speak about proposed legislative changes.  Our founding values included opposition to discrimination and upholding the rights of all, including those of gender non-conforming and trans-identified people which, properly defined, need not conflict with upholding the sex-based rights of women and girls.
 
Thanks to the efforts of WPUK and other organisations, both the Conservative and Labour parties dropped commitments to self-identification of sex, and have been forced to make commitments on single-sex exceptions. After the UK government abandoned plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act, we faced another major battle when the Scottish government decided to carry out its own reforms. Along with a number of other organisations, we fought hard against the reforms and, although the bill was initially passed, it was eventually vetoed by the UK government. 

In the new government we have seen commitment to full implementation of the Cass Review, and this is reflected in education policy, the continuation of the puberty blocker ban and closure of the loophole in Northern Ireland, commitments to single sex spaces, a recommitment to use of Section 35 to prevent the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill and no sign of reform of the GRA in the direction of self-identification at Westminster. 

These policies do not go far enough, and substantial pressure will be needed to hold Labour to their current commitments and continue moving them in the right direction. We have therefore been heartened to see Labour Women’s Declaration, whose first public meeting was in our defence, become a force to be reckoned with in the, now governing, Labour Party. 

Woman’s Place UK has always been unapologetically part of a left that can envisage the radical transformation of society necessary to end sexism and men’s violence against women. The abandonment of a materialist understanding of women’s oppression and the growth of neoliberal identity politics in other parts of the left have been massive betrayals of women.  Conversely, we have long warned that the embrace of gender conservatism and tolerance of – even support for – the far right in parts of the ‘gender critical’ movement is an enormous danger to women.   

From the start, this has been a grassroots, volunteer-led campaign. 

We have never wished to become a permanent, professionalised organisation or NGO. There are other brilliant women’s sector organisations and policy specialists doing this important work. Ours has always been a different but complementary project.

Over the past seven years we have been very active in several areas. We have held 34 public meetings, two large, one-day conferences and 12 webinars. We will always be grateful for the support of local women and other organisations in organising these events, in particular Fair Play for Women, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, With Woman, UCL Women’s Liberation SIG, FiLiA, Centre for Women’s Justice, Southall Black Sisters,and the National Assembly of Women.

We have responded to numerous consultations, lobbied politicians and policymakers and supported legal challenges, commissioned legal opinion and research. On social media, we have built up a following numbering in the tens of thousands. The policy documents and videos of our meetings hosted on our website have provided a substantial resource helping feminists challenge the undermining of women’s rights by trans activism. We are proud to have played a major part in the new feminist resurgence.

We have always recognised that attempts to undermine women’s rights by replacing sex with gender identity is not just a legal issue, but an institutional and cultural one that needs to be addressed through a different type of campaign. One of our early campaigns encouraged people to write letters to councils asking them to replace the incorrect term ‘gender’ with ‘sex’ in their list of characteristics protected by the Equality Act.  

Similar policies and practices are now being challenged by other groups, such as the staff network SEEN groups, professional interest groups such as CAN-SG and With Woman and academic networks, including UCL Women’s Liberation Special Interest Group, the Open University Gender Critical Network as well as Sex Matters and the ‘Declaration’ groups in all UK political parties. Murray Blackburn Mackenzie have demonstrated what good public policy development and drafting looks like.

Strategic litigation will continue to have an important role in shifting policies with important cases ongoing, in particular the For Women Scotland (legal definition) case being heard this week, and the Sarah Surviving/Survivors Network case. These follow on from the important legal successes of Maya Forstater and Jo Phoenix in their employment tribunal cases. 

Reasserting the feminist understanding that gender norms are part of the system of sexism is the work of successive generations and a project with which we, individually, remain engaged.  The guarantor of our rights ultimately will be a thriving women’s liberation movement, internationally, nationally and locally. The terrain of women’s activism in the UK has entirely transformed since 2017 and we are confident that, collectively, women will continue to build our strength and power.

We are no longer actively seeking donations and have contacted our regular donors to thank them for their support and to let them know of our decision. We will undertake a review of our funds early in 2025.

We are immensely grateful to those who have spoken on our platforms at local meetings, webinars and our conferences as well as to those who have organised meetings, and supported us in a myriad of other ways.

We also salute all those who bought tickets and braved harassment and censure for attending our meetings. 

We are proud to have been instrumental in bringing women together to fight for our rights – the struggle continues.  

The archive of our work will remain as a resource for the women’s liberation movement and beyond. We are considering the best way to archive the history of the campaign and will post any updates on the website. 

 

In sisterhood

Woman’s Place UK

Reform of the Gender Recognition Act 

Our meetings, webinars and conferences

Watch our meetings 

WPUK submission GRA Reform 

WPUK original demands, founding values

Turbulent Times Ruth Serwotka 

There’s more than one way to erase women Jayne Egerton 

Democratic norms trump single-issues 

The resurgence of the far-right 

WPUK submissions index

WPUK legal commission

Defending Women’s Spaces campaign 

The Political Erasure of Sex 

Campaign Councils and the Equality Act 2010