The Gender Quotas Bill is dead

And a written statement does not make a man into a woman. No matter how many people want it to be true.

I was at the cinema with friends watching Jodie Comer’s virtuoso performance in Prima Facie on Monday night when I got a phone call. Obviously, I didn’t take it, and I had my phone on silent. I’m not a complete heathen. But I did engage in a very brief WhatsApp exchange with the caller (Cathy in Wales) and that was how I found out that the Welsh government had dropped their ill-conceived Gender Quotas Bill.

This Bill would have introduced self-ID by the back door in Wales, as well as creating the precedent of “gender” in law. Its supporters meant to enshrine in legislation that men are women if they say they are – or in this case, if they provide a written “gender statement” to that effect. These gender statements could not be challenged, and there was no indication as to what would constitute a false gender statement.

Anyway, I’ve written at length on the problems with this approach to “gender parity” from the Welsh Government here, so I won’t repeat myself.

The news was broken by the BBC who pointed to significant doubts that the Welsh Government could ever have enacted the Bill even if passed, because it lacks the required legislative competency. They even reported that the EHRC view that it would be “unlawful” to allow candidates to self-identify their “gender”. Gasp!

The reaction to this Welsh U-turn was depressingly predictable.

Here’s Sioned Williams of Plaid Cymru correctly noting that Eluned Morgan is the *first female* first minister of Wales. She does know that being female is important, then. Which begs the question; why are Plaid Cymru so keen to implement gender self-identification?

Heledd Fychan’s statement expressed disappointment, and she made the most of her opportunity to bash Labour (although the truth is, as noted by the BBC, Labour had no choice).  

Sian Gwenllian echoed Heledd’s disappointment that a “radical policy” had been dropped. It's almost as if they think radical is a synonym for good.

All these women are Plaid Cymru Members of the Senedd. And Plaid Cymru is the party that admitted discriminating against FiLiA this week. The party that doesn’t understand the Equality Act 2010 and the party that has a culture that silences women and girls who think we should be allowed to have single sex services for rape survivors.

These Members of the Senedd are pushing their party’s ideological agenda in the name of equality whilst riding roughshod over equality law. For shame.

Women’s Equality Network, Wales, aren’t happy either. They believe that unless political parties are forced to have equal numbers of candidates who are “a woman” / “not a woman” Wales is heading straight back to the Dark Ages. But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

They’re not being honest about that, though. The Bill that they’re so keen on is designed to ensure that at least 50% of elected candidates are people who say they are women. Call me old fashioned, but tipping the scales in either direction is not equality and it’s not democratic.

The press didn’t do any better. Wales Online’s Branwen Jones got it all sorts of wrong when she reported that

Plans that would have meant political parties would have had to have at least 50% female candidates have been scrapped by the Welsh Government

If only the intent was to make the Senedd 50% female, eh? But the Bill doesn’t even mention male and female because its proponents think “gender identity” is what counts.

In another article, this time by Ruth Mosalski, Wales Online quotes WEN Wales at length, including their claims that underrepresentation of women will now be “baked in” - presumably because political parties can’t be trusted to select competent women.

Her opening paragraph is factually wrong in so many ways:

Ditching plans to make political parties ensure equal numbers of men and women on their selection lists for election to the Senedd is a "huge step back for Welsh democracy" which could result in the parliament being the "least representative it has ever been at the next election," it has been claimed.

The Bill would not have ensured equal numbers of men and women, though. Not just because it ensured at least 50% were “women”, but because it didn’t mention men at all. And with its unfalsifiable gender statements whereby anyone can be a woman, the entire Senedd could have comprised adult human males (the group of people previously known as men). Enacting this awful Bill is what could deliver the least representative Senedd ever.

That none of these organisations or individuals see any problem in gender self-identification speaks to the level of capture in Wales. They’re happy to endorse a bill that openly discriminates against men who know they are men and elevates men who claim they are women.

Wales Online aren’t even trying to present both sides of the story nor are they explaining the objections to the Bill. And readers are left with the impression that the only reason it has not been enacted is because devolution is too restrictive.

All of this is framed up as a measure to correct a democratic deficit, but this is not what democracy looks like.

The people of Wales deserve so much better.