CfW lodge formal complaint about the behaviour of MP Penny Mordaunt

Dear Sir / Madam,

We are writing to you to object to the manner in which Conservative MP, Penny Mordaunt, promotes gender ideology, via her position as a Conservative Minister. In Parliament this week, while speaking at the dispatch box, she stated 'trans men are men, trans women are women'.

 
While this statement, on the surface, makes little sense, it is part of an ideological drive that is doing enormous harm. The Conservative Government recently consulted extensively on options for reforming the Gender Recognition Act and concluded that no substantive changes should be made; rigorous gate-keeping must be maintained around provisions for people to change their legal gender markers. Penny Mordaunt is openly undermining government policy via her privileged position at the dispatch box. 

Below we set out the ways in which gender ideology is undermining important foundations of our society. In our view, the Conservative Party, which has been in government for more than ten years, is doing too little to stem its tide. It is not too far-fetched to say that the Party is therefore complicit in undermining the values it exists to protect. Nobody voted for this ideology; it is in no manifesto. By participating in its promotion, the Conservative Party also undermines trust in our democracy. Please could we meet with you at the earliest possibility to discuss further?

1. Gender ideology eliminates the boundaries between the sexes. If, as Penny Mordaunt says 'trans women are women' then we might as well drop the 'trans'. Anyone is a woman who says they are a woman. At a stroke, this eliminates the boundary around spaces that have been created to keep women safe. Men can self-identify into women's prisons, refuges, toilets, and changing rooms. Gender ideology undermines the safety of women and the dignity and privacy of both sexes.

2. If trans women are women, that is the end of sex-segregated sport. Globally, we already see a pattern of men self-identifying into women's sports and taking prizes. How can this be justified?

3. If trans women are women, there is no mechanism whereby women, including elderly and vulnerable women, can request sex-segregated intimate health and social care. There is no way to maintain single sex hospital wards. There is no way to maintain the elementary, ancient, essential boundaries between men and women.

4. Gender ideology is promoted heavily on the internet, in online social forums. Vulnerable teenagers are persuaded that they will find their 'true self', and a resolution to the difficulties in being human, via an 'inner gender identity' which may bear no relation to their biological sex. Then, as they seek to enforce new names and invented pronouns, they can find themselves at loggerheads with those who love them the most, and provide their only security in their world - their family. Some of these teenagers go on to buy cross-sex hormones online. Some go on to seek surgery that will render them medicated for life, and leave them sterile and without sexual function. This is a medical and safeguarding scandal which continues to unfold.

5. Some young people are facing a sustained attack and challenge to their sexual identity. Young women and men face being called 'transphobic' if their sexual preference is for biological men or women, rather than for anyone according to their gender identity. Lesbian women appear to be under the most sustained attack, with men opting to 'self-identify' into their spaces. 

6. Gender ideology, because of its flimsy unscientific foundations (biological sex is binary and immutable, and there is no science behind the idea of an 'inner gender identity') relies on an ongoing attack on free speech to maintain its ascendancy. The flimsy foundations must not be challenged because they will be exposed in all their emptiness. People are being removed from twitter for pointing out that trans women are biological males, and reported to their local police for 'hate'. 

7. We are drifting towards 'compelled speech'. Women have been instructed in Court to refer to violent males as 'she'. Prison officers are informed that they should use female pronouns for a male prisoner who requests it and male prisoners have demanded to be searched by female officers.

8. Newspapers produce stories that are literally not true. We don't even have a name for this. (Lies?) We now read newspaper stories about violent and sexual crimes committed by women. It turns out they have been committed by men. This literally changes our perception, our understanding, of our world. This is dangerous for women and for younger people, learning to navigate the world. How do they feel, when they discover our newspapers literally publish the opposite of the truth?

9. We are eroding the integrity of science. Biological sex is binary and immutable. This basic foundational scientific knowledge is being undermined. 

10. We are eroding the integrity of statistics and data gathering. The 2021 Census will allow people to record their sex according to gender markers on documents such as passports. How many people in this country even know that you can change your gender marker on your passport with ease? (Where was the democratic consensus for this?)

11. We are undermining our democracy. There is no democratic remit for the aggressive roll-out of gender ideology that goes on across our public institutions, under the Conservative Government. No democratic remit said yes to men self-identifying into women's prisons, or yes to the 2021 Census undermining the concept of biological sex, or yes to police forces recording our online discussion about sex and gender as hate, or yes to any of the above.

Please could we meet with you to discuss how the Conservative Government could do more to help turn the tide on this pernicious ideology?

Conservatives for Women