Standing for Women founder arrested

Despite the current draconian regulations prohibiting public gatherings, there is an exemption for political events. Thanks to this, protests such as Black Lives Matter have been allowed to go ahead unimpeded. But according to West Yorkshire Police, women’s rights are not a political cause. A police officer told Kelly-Jay Keen that Standing for Women “failed to meet the legal definition of a political organisation”, though he himself seemed unable to explain what the legal definition of a political organisation was. The socially distanced crowd then divided into smaller groups of six to comply with Covid-19 regulations, but nonetheless officers began to take the names and addresses of attendees and the planned speeches were left unspoken.

On the same day as women were arrested because their protest was not deemed political, Caroline Wheeler, Deputy Political Editor of The Times reported on the very issue that had brought most of them together; the proposed amendment to the GRA. Standing for Women’s campaign against the reform of the GRA has centred upon the definition of “woman” as meaning “adult human female.” The proposed legislative reform would have in effect changed “woman” to mean “any person who identifies as a woman” effectively making women-only refuges, changing rooms and hospital wards mixed sex. It now seems likely these proposals will be ditched.

Stonewall, the UK’s largest LGBT organisation, opposed women’s groups by lobbying for the introduction of gender self-identification. They also campaigned to lower the age to access legal gender change from 18 to 16 and for recognition of so-called “non-binary” identities. Interestingly, despite the duty to uphold the law free from “fear or favour” West Yorkshire Police pay a subscription to Stonewall as members of the “Stonewall Diversity Champions” scheme.