Why I resigned from the Green Party

 Written by Andrea Carey-Fuller

It was with great sadness that I resigned my position on the Green Party Regional Council and left the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW), having been a member for 8 years, in May 2021. I come from a human rights background acting as an advocate standing up for the rights of vulnerable groups of people. I had quite a high profile in Lewisham - having worked collaboratively with other groups of people on the Stop TTIP campaign and the Save Tidemill campaign. I stood in Lewisham local elections 3 times, and in the General Election 2019 (Lewisham Deptford). I was the London Federation AGM Coordinator for about 5 years, and worked on education policy for a year. 

Until I stood in the General Election in 2019, I had no idea of the toxicity bubbling underneath the Green Party regarding Trans Rights Activists (TRA's) viewing anyone who stands up for women's rights as being 'Transphobic'. When I pledged my support for A Woman's Place manifesto (among a host of other pledges such as support for the Future Generations Bill etc) in the last General Election I was shocked that people in my own party piled on me on Twitter calling me a bigot and transphobic!  

This harassment and bullying from within then continued and reached epic proportions when I stood for Deputy Leader on a platform of increasing engagement in the party, the need for a Women's Rights policy, and encouraging members to vote in more Greens of Colour. 

When I put myself forward as a candidate for GPRC London Rep, the online abuse started again and the Elections Coordinator for the London Regional Green Party (Stephan Liberadzki, complicit with Colin Boyle the Coordinator)) tried to avoid counting the vote (as I had won by a slim margin) and attempted to re-run the election again to get a different result!  

They both ignored my complaints about lack of due process and had allowed Danny Keeling who identified as a man in the 2019 General Election to put his name forward for the female rep role. I found out shortly after this that Stephan himself had called me transphobic on Twitter during the GPEX Elections 2020 as well! Colin’s view of the abuse and harassment was that it was “fair comment”! 

As a GPRC rep I saw how the complaints system was being abused to continually suspend 'Gender Critical members.' This view that Women's rights is 'Transphobic' is being continually touted by the current leadership of Sian/Jonathan/Ameila/Liz Reason (Green Party Executive Chair) and the CEO Mary Clegg. It was Sian Berry and Caroline Russell who spoke against my motion at Conference to have a women's rights section (supported by Baroness Jenny Jones) put under the Green Party's Rights and Responsibilities, declaring the motion to be "transphobic and trans-exclusionary."   

Following Conference, our Co-Leader Sian Berry, was crowing on Twitter that she had defeated the Women's Rights motion as if this was a good thing! This action on Sian's part was both undignified, and irresponsible. I have known both Sian and Caroline Russell (both of whom I used to have high regard for), for a number of years as I have worked alongside them in London on various campaigns. 

By wrongly repeating 'Trans Activist' rhetoric and mantras about women's rights being transphobic they continue to fuel division, and incite toxicity within our party - making it an unhealthy place for any member who dares to support women's rights as set out in the UN Convention against the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.  (Ratified by the UK Government in 1986 - see: https://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/cedaw.htm) 

It states that parties agree to take all appropriate measures, including legislation and temporary special measures, so that women can enjoy all their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The Convention is the only human rights treaty which affirms the reproductive rights of women and targets culture and tradition as influential forces shaping gender roles and family relations. It affirms women's rights to acquire, change or retain their nationality and the nationality of their children. It also states parties also agree to take appropriate measures against all forms of traffic in women and the exploitation of women." 

I had already raised the issue of increasing levels of harassment and toxicity towards women and anyone who supports women's rights within the Green Party at the GPRC meeting in March saying that we need to have  "a full, frank and open discussion about the ever-increasing levels of intolerance towards Green Party members who speak up for women's rights.” 

This conversation about the divisions and toxicity within our party is long overdue as it is currently tearing the party apart. GPRC, GPEX and the CEO have a shared responsibility to ensure that the Green Party of England and Wales is adhering to UK law - both the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) as well as the Equality Act 2010 - which sets out protection for sex-based discrimination. 

In these laws, women are defined and are supposed to be protected by their biological sex - hence the term sex-based rights. There is no discrimination against Trans Women - because they have their own protection set out in the Equality Act under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.  

Prior to Conference I alerted members to the LGBTIQA+ group claiming that the Women's Rights motions were against Green Party values - this was untrue, and used as a propaganda tool to create yet more hatred against women's rights whilst gathering support for the E03 Self-ID motion which impedes upon women's rights to single-sex services, and also the E05 Recognise Trans Parents Motion which ignores Article 12 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child which again the UK ratified in 1990. 

Under our Rights and Responsibilities policy RR201 - GPEW states "Accepting interconnectedness means that individuals and groups share rights to equitable status, treatment and freedoms. The Phiilosophical Basis of the party (PB303/304) states that the “legitimate interests of all people are of equal value.” The Green Party rejects all forms of discrimination whether based on race, colour, sex, religion, national origin, social origin or any other prejudice. The Green Party promotes the implementation of policies which protect human rights and rejects all forms of exploitation for any purpose whatsoever.' CEDAW is one of 9 UN Conventions that make up Universal Human Rights. 

Under the Equality Act 2010 there are 9 Protected characteristics and the Green Party only has policies for 8 of them: age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; sexual orientation; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief (limited to Traveller's rights), but, nothing on sex (based rights for women linked to CEDAW/or the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against women). 

We all know that women continue to be discriminated against based upon their sex - only 26% of women in the House of Lords & 34% of female MP's (hence the 50:50 campaign to aim to have 50% of female MP's in Parliament: https://5050parliament.co.uk/) which I was the GPEW representative for (and resigned from after the Conference motion fell); 3-4 women are killed by men in the UK every week; 1 in 4 women will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime; 1 in 5 women will experience sexual assault during her lifetime; in 2018 6,500 women and girls reported FGM; women and girls are subjected to trafficking for sexual exploitation, and there are only 5% of female CEO's in the top 100 UK companies.  

GPRC need to do something about this before more and more women (and men) feel they can no longer in all conscience stay in the party - one of the latest resignations is of Cllr Dom Armstrong who has made this statement on Facebook here: 

https://www.facebook.com/Cllr-Dom-Armstrong-404663170083504/

If you have been sitting on the fence on this issue, or if you have been put under the spell of the Trans Rights Movement (which make no mistake about it is being funded by Big Pharma who have a vested interest in the drugs used as part of the Transition process) then I would urge you to listen to evidence given this week by:

Graham Linehan at the Communications and Digital Committee Tuesday 9 March 2021: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBDcsAzm88s 

I look forward to supporting a kind and open discussion about these issues to try to find some resolve for the party going forward. 

The final straw for me was a report to GPEX by the CEO in May 2021 - stating that "women's rights infringe upon Trans rights." I spoke with a couple of colleagues before the GPEX meeting to bring this to their attention - because even as a GPRC colleague I would have been barred from raising this issue in a GPEX meeting! I emailed Martha James one of the Co-Chairs asking her to question this report which was wrong in law (Equality Act/CEDAW/HRA) and this would have been a valid and objective reason for the intervention given that GPRC have a duty of care to ensure that the `Party is in line with UK Law!  

A couple of GPEX members made representations regarding the invalidity of the statement the CEO had made but Liz Reason allowed it to go to a vote and the majority of people on GPEX voted in favour - against both the law, but primarily as they saw it, against Gender Critical members and in particular women in the Green Party/Green Party Women. 

I left the Green Party because I could not bear to be part of this unjust, punitive system a minute longer! When I didn't agree with the continuation of suspensions and voted against most of these suspensions bar two - one related to harassment and one related to a member using sexually explicit materials at some meeting (both of these in my view are the real kinds of cases which justify suspension), a complaint was put in about me and efforts to get me removed from GPRC.   

I complained to GPRC and the CEO, but nothing much was done and no action has been taken to support Women Rights under the Equality Act either - in fact by letting GPEX hold this 'vote' in support of Mary Clegg's statement GPEX has cemented the Trans Rights focus of the GPEW. 

The Automatic suspension system is not fit for purpose, there is no right to reply, if you make any representations against your suspension your rep can choose whether to speak for you or not!; it is a system that supports injustice and allows prejudice to be supported.  

I will still keep campaigning on the Environment, Climate Change, social justice and women's/children's rights issues which are close to my heart, and I wanted to thank everyone who supported me when I was in the party trying to bring about positive change. 

I can only hope that the new leadership will bring equality and unity to all members in the party. 

Andrea Carey-Fuller is a former member of the Green Party of England and Wales and Green Left.

Green Party Members Go on Strike – An Interview with one of the Strikers

 

Activists from Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party have gone on strike. Caitlin Collins the local party Co-ordinator, talks to London Green Left Blog’s editor Mike Shaughnessy about why her local party felt they had to take this unusual step.

First of all, can you tell me a bit about yourself and your Green Party activism?

Having been a Green Party supporter for many years, I became an active member about 10 years ago when I moved to Somerset and joined the Bridgwater and West Somerset branch.  I've stood as a candidate in two district council elections and supported our candidates in two general elections.  I've been the Co-ordinator of the Bridgwater and West Somerset group for nearly two years.

You and your colleagues from your local party are on ‘strike’ (your letter is reproduced below), can you tell me why you decided to take this strike action?

Like many local groups we generally focus more on local issues, but some of us had been becoming increasingly concerned about what we saw going on in the Green Party at a national level.  There was a series of events.  I had attended last year's Autumn conference, held on Zoom, and had been alarmed by the aggressive behaviour of some of the trans ideology supporters and disturbed by some of the motions proposed at that conference, including gender self Identification for trans people, which were either very poorly thought through or a blatant attack on women's rights.  It was also worrying to observe that so few voters were present that it was easy for a small single-issue group to have a disproportionately large influence.  

Then came the disgraceful incident in which a man who wishes to be identified as a woman became Co-Chair of the Women's Group.  At this year's Spring conference, again on Zoom, there were similar problems with aggression from trans rights extremists and low voter turnout, and this time the gender self ID motion was passed while a motion to protect women's rights was voted down.  

When I reported on the conference to my local colleagues there was unanimous alarm, with three people saying they would resign in protest.  So you could say we were on the brink of insurrection when we received the news of Emma Bateman's suspension!  The idea occurred to me to go on strike rather than resign, because I believe it is better to stay in the Green Party and fight for it; I am not prepared to let a small group of extremists hijack our party.  So we all agreed to strike – but then our Acting Secretary received an aggressive communication that he found so offensive that he resigned from the Party.

What does it mean practically, what kind of party activity has been halted by the strike?

Having been rather quiet over the past year, due to the Covid restrictions, we were looking forward to resuming local campaigning, and all the things that entails.  Somerset local government is undergoing change, with the creation of a new Unitary Authority to replace the existing County and District Councils, and we were all set to join other Green Party groups across Somerset in preparing for the local elections due to be held early next year.

What are your demands to call off the action?

As a minimum requirement, we want Emma Bateman's suspension withdrawn.  More than that, how the Green Party officers respond to our letter, whether or not they take our concerns seriously, will be a big factor.  We are angry, and we are determined. 

What has been the reaction from members in other local Green parties to your taking this action?

I have received dozens of emails from representatives of Somerset Green Party branches supporting our action.  Two people have said that they share our concerns but are worried in case publicity about the problems in the Green Party adversely affects our local election results.  I agree with this fear – it is a risk, and it would be a great pity if it were to happen.  At the branch level, the Green Party is wonderful; all over the UK communities are benefiting from the contributions of Green Party members who are County, District, Town and Parish councillors.  The fact that Green Party members are doing such positive work in their communities gives me hope that we can turn the Party around and get back to focusing on what matters – the planet is in crisis and environmental issues should be everyone's priority.

Reports from the recent Green party conference suggest that it was acrimonious with attempts by the party leadership to cynically manipulate what was allowed to be debated. What is your take on this?

I know this is being said, but I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the inner workings of the party at a national level to be able to comment on this.

Given the ecological crisis at present, do you see the Green party’s focus on identity/lifestyles issues as a distraction?

Yes.  The Green Party matters.  It's the only party that challenges the prevailing dogma of economic growth.  Labour is all about business as usual, the same old model that has brought us to the brink of catastrophe: pro-growth, pro-nuclear, pro-Trident, and pro-first-past-the-post voting.  The Tories are the same but even more so – just this week we've seen them promoting GM food and nuclear weapons and of course they are championing the eco-disasters of HS2 and Hinkley Point nuclear power station.  The Greens offer a true alternative.  At the grass-roots level the party is still great, but at the top of the hierarchy and in the internal democratic systems there are problems.  I care about the Green Party.  If I didn't, I'd just walk away.  We can't let a bunch of 300 or so single-issue extremists hijack a party with 50,000 members.  We need to get our party back. 

Letter sent to Green party regional officers

To: Ewan Jones, Guy Poultney, and representatives of Green Party branches in Somerset

Subject: Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party Strike

Date: March 18^th 2021 

Dear Ewan, Guy, and everyone

Thank you for an excellent zoom meeting of Green Party Somerset groups on Saturday March 13^th.  I came away full of enthusiasm for helping with whatever local elections we have in the new Unitary Authority Somerset next year.  I reported about this to our meeting of Bridgwater and West Somerset officers and key member activists on Tuesday March 16^th, and we were all set to take part in the campaign.

However, on Tuesday evening we received the news about Emma Bateman's suspension from the Green Party, allegedly for making the unremarkable factual observation that transwomen are not female.  As I'm sure you are all aware, Emma is / was Co-Chair of the Green Party Women's Group.  Her fellow Chair is Kathryn Bristow, who is a man who wishes to be identified as a woman.  Because the Women's Group had been forced by Green Party HQ to accept men who wish to be identified as women, Kathryn was able to join the group, whereupon he put himself forward for election as Co-Chair, was elected, and took up the position.  Kathryn has been criticised for his role in working for Gender GP, the company that was exposed by a recent Daily Telegraph investigation published in the paper version on 27th February (see below) that demonstrated it was selling puberty blocking drugs to children, with no medical supervision.  (The company is run by a doctor who was struck off in the UK and is now based in Spain, and the prescriptions are issued by a doctor in Romania; the only check the company makes on the children is to ensure they can pay.)  Kathryn has recently stated that he intends to lie on the census form, which is an offence liable to a fine of £1000.  Kathryn is enthusiastically supported by the Green Party leadership.  Emma is suspended for telling the truth; Kathryn is applauded for practising deception.

This was the last straw for me.

It follows the debacle of our Spring conference, which demonstrated the catastrophic state of internal democracy within the Green Party.  Out of a membership of over 50,000, very few vote in internal elections or at conferences.  Fewer than 1% of the members voted at the recent conference.  This lack of member involvement allows any determined single-issue splinter group to form the majority of the voters, so they can not only push through contentious motions, they can also elect their preferred officers and control the elected officers whose positions depend on their votes. 

At the recent conference, a gender self ID motion was passed: only 493 people voted, of whom 281 were in favour of it.  281 people out of 50,000 have imposed a policy supporting gender self ID on the entire party.  What would the 50,000 have said?

A motion proposing that the GP should support women's sex-based rights, in accordance with the United Nations CEDAW agreement (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women) was voted down.  Only 491 people voted, or whom 289 people voted against women's rights, and the motion failed.  What would the 50,000 have said?

Because so few people vote, a splinter group can control elected officers, who need their votes to keep their positions.  Whatever their personal views may be, none of the Green Party leaders dare to say or do anything to displease the members of the faction.  The views of the non-voting 50,000 are disregarded because the 300 or so members of the splinter group must be appeased.

At a national level, Green Party democracy is so catastrophically compromised that it permits the leadership to be kidnapped and the party hijacked by a single-issue group.  The system is flawed: it is vulnerable to exploitation by any such group – just now it is the trans rights lobby, but it could have been a pro-Brexit group, or a pro-nuclear group; anything.  One solution to this problem might be to raise the quorum for conferences to a higher percentage of the total membership; there could be campaigns at the local branch level to encourage more members to engage in the democratic process.

Many of you will have read the resignation letter from Dom Armstrong, our only Councillor in Sunderland.  I am including it below for those who have not yet seen it because it sets things out with admirable clarity and because I share his views.

As a result of all of this, I am going on strike.  Not just me: the officers of the Bridgwater and West Somerset branch, along with those active members with whom we work closely on a day-to-day basis, are going on strike.  Our acting Secretary, Tony Seaman, has this morning taken the further step of resigning altogether from the Green Party.  We are not willing to represent the Green Party in its current dysfunctional state; nor are we willing to ask others to stand as candidates or to take part in election campaigning for the Green Party.  This strike will last until, as a minimum requirement, Emma Bateman's suspension is lifted.

With all good wishes to all of you

Caitlin Collins

Co-ordinator, Bridgwater and West Somerset Green Party

Can the Green Party be Saved from its Leadership Clique?

Written by Dee Searle, who is a former member of the Green Party of England and Wales. 

Earlier this month the widely respected campaigning journalist and writer Bea Campbell left the Green Party, citing bullying, authoritarianism and narcissism among radical transgender activists.

Campbell’s description of the impact on the party of what she calls the “extreme trans dogma” that transwomen are women; transmen are men - at the expense of women’s rights and safety - is pretty shocking. Unfortunately, it’s just one aspect of a much wider and deeper crisis in the party. 

The party claims to do politics differently but in practice acts pretty much the same as other political parties. It is riven with internal tribalism; allows key decisions to be taken by small groups of well-connected members; prioritises electoral success over radical environmental campaigning; has a dysfunctional, partisan disciplinary system; engages in some questionable employment practices; and has become a platform for those with political or professional career ambitions and/or who want to advance a particular strand of identity politics. 

Most Green Party members bask in Caroline Lucas’s speeches and/or focus on local activities, oblivious to machinations at national level. However, in my four stints on the Green Party Executive from 2015 to earlier this year, I’ve witnessed the party become more ruthless and less tolerant of genuine discussion. In addition, as an ordinary, elected, Green Party Executive (GPEx) member, I was powerless to make any real difference because the big decisions are taken by the Administration and Finance Committee and/or a group around the leadership and Caroline Lucas’s office. 

This is why I took the sad decision to leave the party in June, after almost seven years of active membership. In addition to GPEx membership and almost daily involvement in national or local organising, I’d spent three years as Chair of Camden Greens, and stood for the party in local council and London Assembly elections, and in Tottenham during the 2015 General Election, when our small, last-minute scratch team achieved our best ever result there. 

Many of the Greens’ troubles stem from the decision taken by the party in early 2016 to prioritise winning local council elections under the Target to Win (TtW) system. The rationale was that we desperately needed a second MP to support Caroline and the way to achieve that was to first win control of a local council as had happened in Brighton. The flaw in this logic is that Brighton is atypical of pretty much anywhere else in England and Wales. Plus, there is only one Caroline Lucas! 

At surface level it makes complete sense for a political party to focus on winning elections. However the underside is that pretty much all of the party’s resources were devoted to developing and maintaining a national election machinery, with no funds left for issue-based campaigning. 

Field offices were established and regular “campaign” schools (in reality elections training) held to enforce the rigour of TtW. Local parties selected to pursue TtW must work only in target wards, with activities limited to door knocking and repeat newsletter deliveries (no street stalls allowed). Newsletters and other publications can only include material on local issues and not cover wider politics, such as the climate emergency or Brexit. 

This concentration of resources on elections goes a long way to explaining why the Green Party is often missing from the big political debates. It’s not just that there are few of us and the media is biased towards the big parties: we actually don’t have much substance to contribute. 

At an internal review of the 2019 snap General Election manifesto, it was revealed that genuinely radical climate mitigation policies developed by the party’s Climate Change Policy Working Group had been removed by a small group around the leadership team and Caroline Lucas’s office because they weren’t vote winners. Yet the election was being held against a background of almost daily revelations about the gathering pace of climate-related environmental calamity. A squandered opportunity to step up campaigning pressure if ever there was one. 

The creation of the manifesto was a microcosm of so much that is wrong with the party. GPEx Publications Coordinator and Policy Coordinator (both roles elected by the membership) were excluded from substantive input, which is slightly odd for a policy-heavy publication. The manifesto was finalised by the group that had removed the climate policies. Green Party Regional Council (which was the body with official sign-off responsibilities) was given around 24 hours to approve an 88-page document. This enabled the leadership to insert favoured commitments (such as transgender people being able to change their legal gender based on self-identification, which is not Green Party policy) and weaken inconvenient ones. 

The party has not published a full internal review of its 2019 General Election campaign, despite the fact that it spent far more than on any previous election (£409,475, according to the Electoral Commission) but was still way behind its best showing (2.7 per cent of the vote, compared with 3.6 per cent in 2015) and didn’t achieve its stated aim of winning a second seat. 

Of course, it’s not unreasonable for a radical political party to underachieve in elections nor to avoid washing its dirty linen in public. What is more worrying is that these unaccountable actions have become the norm for the Green Party, where even those in elected governance positions are unable to hold the decision-takers to account. Instances where GPEx members have been blocked from raising concerns range from the use of social media election ads quoting comedian Jimmy Carr (notorious for tax evasion and a stage show that includes rape jokes) and a woman posing in bra and knickers, to a staff member being summarily dismissed and denied access to union representation, and a court finding of race discrimination in recruitment practices. 

The Greens are supposed to stand for a better kind of politics, based on transparency, integrity, decency and, above all, selfless campaigning to protect our planet’s natural and human resources. The party has no monopoly over environmental politics. Following success by Europe Ecologie Les Verts (an environmentally-focused green party) in France’s local elections, some Extinction Rebellion groups are looking at setting up their own political wing to fight the London Assembly elections and beyond, and there are rumblings elsewhere of setting up a new ecological party. 

This may all come to naught. But if those taking the decisions at the top of the Greens have misjudged the wider mood, they risk leading the party into oblivion. A salutary thought for candidates in the forthcoming leadership and GPEx elections.

Trans issues - a Gift for Conspiracy Theorists or Shutting Down Debate?

Written by Dee Searle

The recent tensions about proposed changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act - to allow people identifying as transgender to legally change their gender without medical diagnosis or other evidence - could (or maybe should) be a gift for conspiracy theorists.

Among the most prominent theories is that the proposals are the work of private medicine providers and pharmaceutical companies keen to cash in on the likely resulting increase in demand for gender reassignment surgery, drugs and other treatment. Another is that it’s a plot by the right to distract the left and liberals from effectively challenging the Government’s incompetence and all-round viciousness by occupying us with splits and hand-wringing about how to critique the proposed changes without appearing to be against trans rights.

Yet another is that the security forces (that’s right - those folks who infiltrated and had relationships with environmental activists in the 1990s) are manipulating young politicos to passionately promote a highly individualistic strand of identity politics, to take energy away from tackling climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, inequality, growing international instability and other bigger strategic issues. Or that the ‘trans extremists’ (as some commentators have dubbed them) are misogynists, keen to undermine the gains made by women in recent decades and reassert global male dominance

Whatever the underlying impetus, the upshot is that there has been precious little thoughtful, in-depth discussion on the left about the implications of the proposed new rules.

While there can be no denying that trans people deserve the right to live in peace and security in their desired sex or gender, it was intriguing that the trans lobby, as well as many of those campaigning for lesbians, gays and bisexuals, leapt so quickly to support the draft legislation and to attack as transphobic anyone who suggested that it would be good to look at the issues in more detail.

The response to even the mildest of Guardian editorials has been claims from trans people that they are being made to feel unsafe or that their very existence is being challenged, while ignoring the fact that anyone questioning the changes are denounced as TERFs (Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists) and subjected to violent threats on social media. 

The issue has caused almost as big a rift in the Green Party as allegations of anti-Semitism have in the Labour Party. Trans activists called the police to disperse a group of three middle-aged women outside the Green Party’s autumn conference who were attempting to give out leaflets providing a feminist perspective on the proposals. And Labour has not escaped entirely: trans lobbying resulted in Jeremy Corbyn declaring his support for the legal changes with the result (according to Labour Women for Women’s Rights) that women are leaving the party.

The government’s consultation has now closed, but several pertinent questions remain unanswered, such as:

What is the motivation?

It’s bizarre that a particularly right-wing Tory government, preoccupied with Brexit and the mess caused by some of its previous legislation, such as Universal Credit, would spend Parliamentary time on a minority rights issue. The consultation document and accompanying factsheets read as though they have been drafted by trans activists rather than lawyers or civil servants. The government doesn’t have a track record in doing the right thing. What are they seeking to gain from relaxing procedures to change gender identity?

What are the implications of self-certification for trans people?

At least one group of transsexuals has expressed ‘deep concern’ about the proposed weakening of controls on who can self-select their gender. Their concerns include the blurring of differences between transsexual and transgender people.

They state that transsexual is a “medically diagnosed condition from childhood. It involves acute stress from knowing that psychologically that person is of opposite sex to the physiology of their body. A transsexual person knows that you cannot change biological sex but extensive psychotherapy and medical assistance alter their body to match with the mind and live in harmony. 

A large majority have had surgical alteration.” Whereas a transgender person has “a desire to adopt the lifestyle of the opposite sex, full time or part time, often expressing this via clothing and makeup. The desire to have surgery or other medical treatments is much less common (some suggest as low as 10 per cent). Few wish to see doctors or be psychiatrically evaluated. Some transition back and forth.”

What are the implications for women’s protected spaces?

There has already been at least one case of a self-identified trans woman prisoner being transferred to a women’s prison (although she was still physically male) where she sexually assaulted two female prisoners.

People working with the homeless report having to deal with male rough sleepers who self-identify as women to gain access to women’s shelters. This is sometimes because women’s shelters tend to be nicer and safer, but could also be to gain access to vulnerable women. Even if it’s the former, many homeless women are fleeing violent men, so being confronted by a biological male in a supposedly women-only space is likely to be traumatic.

More broadly, self-identified trans women would be able to use female toilets and changing rooms, and to access facilities, such as youth clubs, gym and swimming sessions, reserved for women and girls. These sessions are often the only opportunity for women and girls from some religious and cultural backgrounds to participate. It’s highly likely that they would not be able to attend in the presence of of trans females who were physically male.

Where are the voices of female-to-male transgender people?

Almost all of the public support for self-identification has come from male-to-female transgender people but almost none from the female-to-male trans community. Is that because they understand the risks to women’s safe spaces, which they possibly have experience of?

What about male behaviour?

Trans activists claim to be the most persecuted of any minority in Britain. Given that these claims come from male-to-female trans people, presumably the persecution comes from men. Yet the proposed amendments to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act do nothing to address male violence or attitudes. If the activists were genuinely concerned about enabling trans people to live in their desired gender, safe from aggression or abuse, surely they should be more concerned about tackling the source of the problems. However, none of the trans lobby groups has actually mentioned male behaviour.

Regardless of the worth of the proposed amendments (and any possible underlying malign agenda), they have caused deep divisions in left-leaning political parties and campaign groups such as Stonewall. The real question is not whether transgender people should self identify (or whether Jeremy Corbyn is anti-Semitic) but how can the (green) left build its confidence and develop a robust overarching political agenda, while being inclusive of (but not taken over by) special interest groups.

Unless we can do that, we will continue to be vulnerable to emotional pressure from the loudest voices, which saps energy from the challenging task of creating a fairer society that can live within the planet’s resources.

Dee Searle is a member of Camden Green Party and a Green Left Supporter