A women’s rights charity has accused MPs and peers on two select committees of being ‘openly hostile’ to the government’s preferred candidate for the next chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).
Sex Matters has written to two parliamentary committees – the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) and the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) – about the questioning of Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson earlier this month.
The government announced last month that Stephenson was the preferred candidate to succeed Baroness Kishwer Falkner as EHRC chairwoman when her term ends in November.
Stephenson, who has worked in the equality and human rights sector for over 30 years, appeared at a joint hearing of both committees on 1 July for them to assess her suitability for the role.
Sex Matters said questions to her relating to sex-based rights and trans rights were, but for a few exceptions, “openly hostile to those who hold gender-critical beliefs, ill-informed about the law and unsupportive of the EHRC doing its job of ensuring understanding and enforcement of the Equality Act”.
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The charity, led by Maya Forstater, who won a landmark belief discrimination claim over gender-critical views in 2022, said the hearing subjected Stephenson to questions which, had they been in a regular job interview, “might well have led to a successful claim of unlawful belief discrimination”.
In 2015, Stephenson signed a letter to The Guardian criticising a “worrying pattern of intimidation and silencing of individuals whose views are deemed ‘transphobic’”. Another letter in 2017 with signatories including Stephenson defended the rights of women to discuss legislation on gender identity.
She also donated to a legal fund of Allison Bailey, the barrister who won her victimisation claim for holding gender-critical beliefs against Garden Court Chambers in 2022.
During the hearing, Stephenson defended her actions, saying: “All of the open letters were about my opposition to practices of no-platforming and attempts to close down debate. I urge anybody who is concerned about me signing them to read the wording of the letters, because they have been quite widely misrepresented in terms of what they actually say.”
She added: “The donation was specifically because I was upset at seeing women being harassed or sacked from their jobs for peaceful expression of legally protected beliefs, and I gave a donation. This was at the stage, which has happened, where the employment tribunal agreed that unfair discrimination had taken place.”
Following the hearing, the committees’ chairs wrote a letter to Bridget Phillipson, the minister for women and equalities, saying they “do not feel we can endorse her appointment to the role”, citing concerns about vision and leadership, about Stephenson’s breadth of expertise across the wide remit of the EHRC, and about rebuilding trust in the equality watchdog.
It stated: “The debate in parliament, in the press and on social media, as well as the volume of correspondence received by both committees, make clear that the EHRC has lost the trust of some communities. This is not the fault of the candidate, but it does mean that whoever is appointed must be able to tackle this challenge.”
‘Discriminatory and misinformed’
Sex Matters said the committees referred several times to letters and emails received from organisations raising concerns about Stephenson. It said the communications form part of a “well-established pattern of attempted ‘cancellation’: the smearing, mobbing, intimidation, discrimination, harassment, and no-platforming of gender-critical women”.
It said high-profile targets had included Professor Kathleen Stock, Dr Hilary Cass and JK Rowling, and that there had been hundreds of “witch hunts” against women standing up for sex-based rights, including the EHRC’s current chair, Baroness Falkner.
It gave examples of MPs’ questions at the hearing that it described as “discriminatory” and “misinformed”. It said that Peter Swallow, a Labour MP and JCHR member, seemed to suggest that Stephenson would engage in unlawful discrimination against people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, when he asked: “Would you welcome a trans commissioner being appointed to the EHRC?”.
Stephenson had replied: “Yes, if they were suitably qualified. Obviously, you cannot not want to have people with different protected characteristics on the commission.”
Sex Matters said that “any prospective chair who would not welcome a suitably qualified commissioner with any protected characteristic would clearly be unsuitable for the role” and that Swallow’s insinuation that this would apply to Stephenson was “preposterous”.
The charity also highlighted that Rachel Taylor, Labour MP and WEC member, had incorrectly asserted that the Supreme Court disagreed with the EHRC’s interim update on the implications of the Supreme Court judgment on the definition of sex.
She said: “The Supreme Court noted that the EHRC’s interim guidance or statement went beyond what the law required.”
The Supreme Court has made no such comment. In the transcript of the meeting a correction is marked saying Taylor was thinking about comments made by the former Supreme Court Judge Lord Sumption.
Sex Matters said that Lord Sumption has not commented on the EHRC’s interim update either. His only public commentary was made on BBC Radio 4, two days after the judgment, and before the interim update was published.
Unisex toilets
Baroness Kennedy, Labour peer and JCHR member, stated that there were no unisex toilets at Waterloo station and challenged Stephenson on what she would say to a trans woman who wanted to use the women’s toilets there.
Sex Matters pointed out that there are unisex toilets right next to both the male and female toilets at Waterloo station and that it was “extremely disappointing” that the committee asked questions which were not fact-checked.
It said a key part of the chair’s role is to “ensure that the EHRC delivers on its mandate to make sure the Equality Act 2010 is understood, implemented and enforced. Dr Stephenson’s answers indicated that she understood this”.
The charity said: “The EHRC should engage with a wide range of interest groups, including those that are disappointed at the Supreme Court’s ruling. But it cannot do its job and appease people who do not accept the definition of man and woman in law, and it should not try to.”
According to media reports, Phillipson disagrees with the committees’ criticisms of Stephenson’s experience, and is set to proceed with her appointment.
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