\n<\/p>\n
Trans women will be barred from the main part of Labour\u2019s women\u2019s conference next year, the party has said, with entrance to the main conference hall and voting rights denied.<\/p>\n
All delegates will be allowed to attend a fringe programme, under the party\u2019s plans as Labour seeks to find a compromise position it believes will comply with the supreme court\u2019s ruling on gender \u2013 while also being inclusive to trans delegates.<\/p>\n
The decision, first reported by LabourList, means trans women will be barred from voting on policy debates, motions and national women\u2019s committee elections \u2013 and from hearing speeches in the main conference hall.<\/p>\n
Alongside the fringe programme, LabourList said a planned evening reception would be open to all \u2013 as will exhibition spaces.<\/p>\n
A Labour for Trans Rights group spokesperson told LabourList the move was \u201cterrible\u201d, urging the party\u2019s national executive committee to reconsider.<\/p>\n
They said: \u201cTrans members are being cut out of the democratic processes of the Labour party when many have given years of service, knocking doors and standing as candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the gender-critical group Labour Women\u2019s Declaration said: \u201cA one-day, rather than a two-day, women\u2019s conference tacked on to Labour\u2019s annual conference is not ideal. But it\u2019s better than no women\u2019s conference.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group welcomed the party\u2019s \u201cdecision earlier this year to follow the Equality Act in all its internal positive action processes for women, and its decision last week to do the same with the women\u2019s conference\u201d.<\/p>\n
It added: \u201cOpening up the rest of the 2026 women\u2019s conference, such as the reception and exhibition to everyone \u2013 regardless of sex, will need to be evaluated after the event by the party and participants.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party cancelled this year\u2019s event, which was due to take place before the party\u2019s annual conference in Liverpool in September, as it awaited full guidance from the equalities watchdog on the supreme court decision.<\/p>\n
The Equality and Human Rights Commission\u2019s interim advice suggested voluntary organisations should apply the biological women-only rule.<\/p>\n
A Labour party spokesperson said: \u201cNational women\u2019s conference will be held in 2026 after a comprehensive legal review. This reflects our commitment to addressing the underrepresentation of women in the party and compliance with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The former head of the human rights watchdog accused Labour of abandoning women over issues such as gender rights and sex grooming gangs.<\/p>\n The crossbench peer Kishwer Falkner said the party had lost touch with its \u201cfundamental values\u201d and could no longer call itself the party of equality and feminism.<\/p>\n Lady Falkner of Margravine told the Times the government\u2019s failure to publish statutory guidance after the supreme court\u2019s ruling was because ministers were \u201cterrified of their MPs\u201d who wanted \u201ctrans self-identification\u201d across all of society.<\/p>\n In response to Falkner\u2019s comments, a government spokesperson told the Times: \u201cWe are unapologetic about taking the time to produce legally sound guidance that will guide businesses and organisations and ensure they have the safety and dignity they deserve; the alternative \u2013 issuing rushed and flawed guidance \u2013 would be utterly catastrophic and fail women across our country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trans women will be barred from the main part of Labour\u2019s women\u2019s conference next year, the party has said, with entrance to the main conference hall and voting rights denied. All delegates will be allowed to attend a fringe programme, under the party\u2019s plans as Labour seeks to find a compromise position it believes will<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[490,6582,134,7461,2481,418,1214],"class_list":{"0":"post-36190","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-barred","9":"tag-conference","10":"tag-labour","11":"tag-main","12":"tag-trans","13":"tag-women","14":"tag-womens"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}