 | |
| Formation | 2017 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Judith Green Ruth Serwotka Kiri Tunks [1] |
| Type | Gender-critical feminism |
Region served | United Kingdom |
| Website | https://womansplaceuk.org |
Woman's Place UK [a] (WPUK) was a British political advocacy group founded in 2017. [2] The group was opposed to gender self-identification for transgender people in the UK, and has advocated restricting access to women-only spaces on the basis of "sex, not gender". [3]
The group was founded in response to the British government's launch of a consultation on proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act away from a medicalised system towards one based on statutory declaration. In late-July 2018, the group issued five demands:
In September 2018, Leeds City Council cancelled a booking made by WPUK at Leeds Civic Hall, stating that the group's views were "not in line with Leeds City Council’s values and policies on equality and inclusion" and venues that hosted previous events by the group had attracted safety concerns. [5]
In February 2020, WPUK held an event titled "Women's Liberation 2020" at University College London, including a number of panel discussions and workshops, marking 50 years since the first National Women’s Liberation Conference in the UK. [6] [7]
The group announced that it was ending its campaign on the 28th of November 2024, saying on its website:"After seven years we are ending our campaign, knowing that we have largely achieved our original demands." [8]
In November 2020, WPUK published accounts revealing that the University of Oxford was one of its biggest funders, having paid the group a £20,000 consultancy fee for its "support research into women's sex-based rights" one year earlier. [9] [10]
In December 2020, Lush gave WPUK £3,000 for "events organisation". [11] [12] After facing criticism for the donation, Lush issued an apology, stating that "we want to assure you that [deliberately funding campaigning against trans rights] would never be our intention and we are sincerely sorry that any of our funding has gone towards doing this". [13]
The group has been described as transgender-exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs). [3] [1] It has faced opposition from Pride Cymru and the Wales Equality Alliance. [14] The Labour Campaign for Trans Rights has described it as a hate group. [15] London Feminist Library organiser Lola Olufemi described the group as "a clearly transphobic organisation" after she withdrew from an event at the University of Oxford. [16] [17] In her 2021 book The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice , author Shon Faye described the organisation as "the most well-known grassroots anti-trans feminist group". [18]
The group has opposed being categorised as TERFs, stating that a number of trans women who oppose gender recognition based on statutory declaration, such as Debbie Hayton and Kristina Harrison, speak at their meetings. [3] [19] [20] In February 2020, 13 academics at University College London wrote an open letter to The Guardian arguing that the group was not a "trans-exclusionist hate group". [21] [22]
Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. Transphobia is a type of prejudice and discrimination, similar to racism, sexism, or ableism, and it is closely associated with homophobia. People of color who are transgender experience discrimination above and beyond that which can be explained as a simple combination of transphobia and racism.
Sheila Jeffreys is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality.
The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male is a 1979 book about transgender people by American radical feminist author and activist Janice Raymond. The book is derived from Raymond's dissertation, which was produced under the supervision of the feminist theologian Mary Daly.
Deep Green Resistance (DGR) is a radical environmental movement that perceives the existence of industrial civilization itself as the greatest threat to the natural environment, and calls for its dismantlement and a return to a pre-agricultural level of technology. Although DGR operates as an aboveground group, it calls on others to use underground and violent tactics such as attacks on infrastructure or assassination. A repeated claim in DGR literature is that acts of sabotage could cause a cascading effect and lead to the end of civilization. DGR and far-right ecofascists use similar accelerationist and anti-majoritarian tactics, seeking systemic collapse.
Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely.
The Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) is an American self-described radical feminist advocacy organization that opposes transgender rights and related legislation. It has engaged in litigation on transgender topics, working against the Obama administration's Title IX directives which defined sex discrimination to include gender identity. WoLF describes itself as radical feminist, and according to its mission statement, it wishes to "abolish regressive gender roles and the epidemic of male violence using legal arguments, policy advocacy, and public education". It has been described by news sources, including The Washington Post, The Advocate, and NBC, as feminist, but progressive and feminist organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)and the National Organization for Women (NOW) challenge this characterization, with NOW describing WoLF, alongside Women's Declaration International, as "anti-trans bigots disguised as feminists".
The Swedish Women's Lobby is a Swedish gender-critical organization that claims to work for "sex-based rights."
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term TERF was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists who reject the position that trans women are women, reject the inclusion of trans women in women's spaces, and oppose transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists assert that these ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people. The use of the term TERF has since broadened to include reference to people with trans-exclusionary views who are not necessarily involved with radical feminism. In the 2020s, the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is used synonymously with or overlaps with "gender-critical feminism".
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time.
Shon Faye is an English writer, editor, journalist, and presenter, known for her commentary on LGBTQ+, women's, and mental health issues. She hosts the podcast Call Me Mother and is the author of the 2021 book The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice. She was an editor-at-large at Dazed and has contributed features and comment journalism to The Guardian, The Independent, VICE, n+1, Attitude, Vogue, Verso and others.
Magdalen Berns was a British YouTuber. Berns, a lesbian radical feminist, became known for her series of YouTube vlogs in the late 2010s concerning topics such as women's rights and gender identity. She co-founded the non-profit organisation For Women Scotland, which campaigns against possible changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, among other things. Some transgender rights activists characterised her vlogs as being transphobic and Berns as a TERF.
The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group and registered charity founded in 2019 in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender". The group has opposed a ban on conversion therapy that includes trans people in the UK, opposed the use of puberty blockers for children, and opposed gender recognition reform.
Holly Lawford-Smith is a New Zealander-Australian philosopher, author and associate professor in Political Philosophy, University of Melbourne.
Labour for Trans Rights (LfTR), previously known as the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights (LCTR), is a British pressure group within the Labour Party, founded in February 2020.
For Women Scotland (FWS) is a Scottish campaign group that opposes proposed reforms allowing individuals to change their recorded sex in legal documents by means of self-declaration. The group campaigns against changes to transgender rights and has been described as anti-trans, as trans-exclusionary radical feminist, and as a "gender-critical feminist group".
The Women's Declaration International (WDI), formerly the Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), is an international advocacy organisation founded in the United Kingdom. WDI has published a Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, and has developed model legislation to restrict transgender rights that has been used in state legislatures in the United States.
Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism, is an ideology or movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology", the concept of gender identity and transgender rights, especially gender self-identification. Gender-critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, while believing gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, to be inherently oppressive. They reject the concept of transgender identities.
FiLiA is a British gender-critical feminist charity founded in 2015 that describes itself as part of the women's liberation movement. FiLiA organizes a conference, held first in 2008 as Feminism in London, in different cities, which it now describes as the "largest annual grassroots feminist conference in Europe". FiLiA is gender-critical, and states that it supports "sex-based rights" and opposes what they refer to as "gender ideology." It has lobbied against gender recognition reform and considers gender self-identification a threat to "women's protected rights." Critics describe it as anti-transgender and transphobic. FiLiA is critical of the sex industry and as a result, it considers pornography harmful. It has campaigned on behalf of women internationally, and has held campaigns in countries such as Iran, Cyprus, and Kenya. It has been described as one of "the most important 'gender critical' groups" alongside Women's Declaration International. FiLiA has faced protests and attempted cancellations, notably in 2023 when the venue Platform attempted to cancel the conference due to alleged transphobia. In 2024 FiLiA launched the book The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, on what the authors describe as a campaign for "sex-based rights" by J.K. Rowling and others.
Transphobia in Norway has evolved over time. Since the late 20th century and into the early 21st century, acceptance of transgender people has greatly increased. Norway has made significant progress in transgender rights, with strong support from political parties ranging from the most left-wing to the Conservative Party. In the 2020s, Norway has seen an increase in the anti-gender movement, from both gender critical radical feminist groups and the far right. Recently, hate crimes against transgender people have increased, and several anti-trans groups campaign against transgender people. The 2024 Extremism Commission's report cited sources that pointed to "the connections between radical feminism and Christian conservatism" in relation to anti-trans activism, noting that "these are groups and individuals who use violent and dehumanizing language and are also threatening and extremely active."
The early 21st century saw a rise in and increasing organisation around anti-transgender sentiments in the United Kingdom, the most common strain being that of gender-critical feminism. This has led to some referring to the United Kingdom by the nickname "TERF Island".