Other parties’ manifestos
We are asking candidates and parties to #StandUpForSingleSexServices:
- Stand up for single-sex services and sports for women and girls.
- Protect children by implementing the Cass Report and finalising guidance for schools.
- Say no to gender self-id, and get sex recorded clearly and accurately.
- Drop dangerous plans to criminalise so-called “conversion therapy”.
- Make sure no-one is hounded out of their job for saying sex is real.
See also our analysis of the three main parties’ positions on these issues; the manifesto of the Green Party of England and Wales and the Scottish parties’ manifestos.
What do the parties in Wales and Northern Ireland, and other smaller parties, have to say?
Wales
Plaid Cymru
The section of the manifesto about equalities has two points on women (on pension rights and gender representation in the Senedd) and an eight-paragraph section headed “LGBTQ+” in which the Welsh nationalist party writes of “culture wars” and calls for the Senedd to be given powers to pass a “simplified, demedicalised gender self-identification system”. This is, in other words, sex self-ID, the policy passed by the Scottish parliament and blocked by the UK government.
The party says it will “promote LGBTQ+ inclusion throughout society”, explicitly mentioning “participation in sport”. Given that no-one is currently excluded from sport, but some sports exclude males from the female category, this must mean letting trans-identifying males into women’s sport.
Plaid Cymru pledges an end to “so-called conversion therapy practices related to sexuality and gender identity”. This LGBTQ+ section of the manifesto talks up the Wales Gender Identity Clinic, but there is nothing here or in the health section about the Cass Review.
The education section is silent on the issue of gender-distressed children and guidance for schools.
Northern Ireland
The manifestos of the main parties – DUP, Sinn Féin and Alliance – are silent on these issues, despite the fact that conversion practices legislation was recently discussed at Stormont.
Since it is not clear what the devolved government in Northern Ireland plans to do regarding the implementation of the Cass Review, a position on this might have been expected, but the report is not mentioned by any party.
The SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) manifesto has a section on “LGBT rights” in which it refers repeatedly to “LGBTQIA+ people”. There is a commitment to “a comprehensive ban on conversion practices” and to “assuring provision of gender-affirming healthcare services”. The Cass Review, which has a bearing on both these issues, is not mentioned. There is nothing about single-sex services.
The Equality Act does not cover Northern Ireland, which retains older sex-discrimination legislation.
Reform
Amid a full manifesto, the Reform Party addresses gender ideology in schools and online. There is also a line about single-sex spaces, though nothing about the Equality Act or about the Cass Review. The manifesto says:
“Ban Transgender Ideology in Primary and Secondary Schools: No gender questioning, social transitioning or pronoun swapping. Inform parents of under 16s about their children’s life decisions. Schools must have single sex facilities.
Review the Online Safety Bill: Social media giants that push baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory should have no role in regulating free speech.
Mandate Single Sex Spaces: Public toilets and changing areas must provide single sex facilities.”
Party of Women
As a one-issue party, the Party of Women’s short manifesto focusing on issues relating to sex and gender spells out the party’s concerns and proposed solutions.
“Our concerns:
Men who claim to be women are in female-only spaces.
- Children are being indoctrinated into this nonsensical ideology at school in PSHE, as well as the entire curriculum.
- Female language is being erased and diluted. The NHS refers to birthing persons, chest feeders, cervix havers, menstruators or vagina havers.
- Women’s sport is being given away to mediocre men who pretend to be us.
- Women are not able to speak freely about our concerns in our places of work, within the NHS, to our children’s schools, and in all areas of our public and private life without fear of intimidation or punishment.
- Single-sex spaces and services are vanishing in care, hospitals, and schools, and even on Girl Guides residential trips!
Our solutions:
- Repeal the Gender Recognition Act 2004. This act created the legal fiction that allows men to be recognised as women.
- Remove the protected characteristic of “gender reassignment” in the Equality Act. This is often used to discriminate against women.
- Restore all government institutions and services to reality based, impartial and professional establishments.”
Workers Party
This party’s manifesto does not address any of our specific policy asks relating to sex and gender such as stopping transgender ideology in schools or implementing the Cass Review in healthcare. It makes a general statement that:
“There will be no support for identity politics or non-jobs for middle class graduates to support the NGO-industrial complex. Everyone will be encouraged throughout the educational system to ‘be their own person’ and to be personally proud of their lifestyle choices instead of depending for their worth on the weird theories of university theoreticians and the neuroses of American progressivism.”