Why should it be up to Kemi Badenoch (and a piece of paper) to decide if I’m a woman or not?

The latest move by the Tory party to end ‘confusion’ over sexual identity only signals one thing: the continued demonisation of trans people like me in the name of ‘culture wars’, writes barrister Robin Moira White

Women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch (PA)

We knew it was coming, and sure enough – the Tories have pledged to overhaul equality laws to end “confusion” and “protect women-only spaces”.

But what does this really mean? It only signals one thing: the continued demonisation of trans people like me, as part of the governing party’s desperate bid to cling to power ahead of the election.

With her promise to “clarify” the legal definition of the term “sex” to mean biological sex and not “redefined meanings of the word”, women and equalities minister Kemi Badenoch is effectively making a bid to strip trans people of the dignity and acceptance we have built up in society over the last half-century.

Return a Conservative government, Badenoch says, and it will amend the Equality Act so that access to female spaces – like the toilets at the supermarket – will depend on the sex recorded on an original birth certificate.

It is madness, of course. This subject never comes up on the doorstep, political canvassers say. “Evidence” of the need for change is non-existent, and – when it does come up in conversation – it is most often an expression of prejudice.

What the public really care about is the cost of living or the waiting time at their local hospital. The Tories have no clear answers on those important points, so instead they resort to the tactic of finding a wedge issue to do the trick with the voters. But even with this, they’re overlooking one crucial element: that most UK folk are inherently kind and understanding; that this will just confirm the image of the “nasty party” and we will see their polling get even worse.

Even their own members agree: London assembly Conservative member and gay man Andrew Boff posted on X (formerly Twitter) that it was an attempt to turn the Conservative Party into “a hate filled sect”. With Tory MPs already defecting to Labour, why are they risking it?

There is no need for this measure – would it really protect women and girls? And if someone is filled with intent to harm, will they really be put off by not having the right birth certificate? Who even carries their original birth certificate, anyway? Do you? When were you last asked for it?

In many American states where similar “bathroom bills” have been tried out, butch lesbians (around 40 times more common than trans people) have found themselves being questioned, harassed and excluded. And what of trans men, who can look very masculine indeed? Are they to be forced into female spaces?

Trans people have been protected from discrimination in UK law since 1999, and have been able to have their gender change recognised by the state since 2004. Sure, it would “simplify” those matters to take these rights away. It would also simplify property ownership if we returned to a time when, on marriage, a woman’s property was vested in her husband.

Elections would be simpler if a few electors in a rotten borough decided on an MP. But is this really who we are as a nation? Is this who we want to be?

Trans people’s right to be respected is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, read into our law by the Human Rights Act. Badenoch should know, with her experience in office, that the ECHR is baked into a number of trade agreements as well as the settlement in Northern Ireland. All would be at risk under these amendments.

We need to recognise this move for what it really is: an election tactic in the “culture wars” the Tories are apparently insistent on fighting. It’s a dare to Labour, who are currently proposing no changes to the Equality Act. Instead, they have described it as a jewel in the crown of the last Labour administration.

Let’s keep it firmly there in the next one.

Robin Moira White is the first barrister to transition in practice at the discrimination bar