GB News host Dawn Neesom has shut down trans rights campaigner Steph Richards in a heated row over Labour’s block on gender guidance.
The Women and Equality Secretary has been accused of blocking the new guidance to force businesses to provide women only bathrooms.
It’s understood that Bridget Phillipson has given a statement to the High Court describing the proposed rules as “trans-exclusive” and has failed to sign them off more than three months after receiving them.
Discussing the guidance, the Good Afternoon Britain host was forced to intervene as Ms Richards consistently took aim at “gender-critical people”.
Discussing the guidance, Ms Richards told GB News: “There’s an awful lot of cisgender women that actually support trans human rights.”
Host Tom Harwood then asked: “When you say cisgender, that means women who were born as women, just to be clear?”
She responded: “Biological women assigned at birth, yeah.”
Dawn then hit back, stating “just women, basically”, to which Ms Richards responded: “Well, yes, you can put it that way.”
Dawn Neesom shut down a GB News guest for consistently referring to ‘gender-critical people’
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Dawn grew irritated by the remark, telling the trans activist: “The Supreme Court did say we were biological women, so that’s good enough for me.”
Ms Richards then argued: “Well, indeed, that was in regards to a particular issue around quotas, and didn’t actually infer on trans people as much as what perhaps is being propagated by certain gender-critical ideology movements.”
Taking issue with Ms Richards’s criticism, Dawn then fumed: “Sorry, with due respect, you’ve used that phrase twice now, ‘gender-critical ideology’. Being gender-critical isn’t an ideology, being a woman is a fact of biology.”
The founder of TransLucent hit back: “Well, there’s 72,408 cisgender women, biological women, who have actually signed saying that they don’t agree with the gender-critical ideology movement.
Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson is yet to publish the guidance | PA
“And it is a movement, Dawn, with great respect, because I was a women’s officer at Portsmouth Labour Party for three years, and I was elected in that position by women.”
Highlighting the impact of the lack of guidance on single-sex spaces, Dawn then stated: “Okay, we can sit here and argue the pedantic of the whole thing, but meanwhile we have we still have male prisoners who are identifying as women being held in women’s prisons.
“If this guidance was published, then the authorities, the hospitals, the prisons, the local authorities, the sporting facilities would know exactly where they stood. At the moment, women are still being put at risk by men who identify as women in their prisons.”
Disagreeing with Dawn, Ms Richards told Dawn and Tom: “Well, can I just remind you that trans women actually suffer crime at twice the rate of biological women?
“How many trans women are actually in women’s estate Dawn, would you like to tell me? I can tell you, Dawn, it’s five, and they’ve got vaginas just like you.”
Steph Richards said the discussion around trans people has become a ‘toxic debate’
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Tom then interjected the row, asking Ms Richards: “Is that true, that there’s only five transgender women? Is that because the transgender women who haven’t had the surgery, to be specific, are in the male estate?”
She responded: “Yes, and 29 per cent of those trans women are suffering sexual abuse.”
Concluding the debate, Dawn pressed Ms Richards: “So the bottom line here Steph is that if this guidance were published, everybody would be clear about whom should be allowed to go.”
She said: “Well indeed, and it’s a fine balancing act and we obviously want to get it right. I am very keen that we get this right for everyone, and I’m sure that the Secretary of State is trying to do the same thing.
“It’s a toxic debate, which we need to take the toxicity out of, and I’m going to do everything possible as indeed my team will do at TransLucent to do exactly that.”
A Government spokesman said in a statement: “The EHRC has submitted a draft code of practice to ministers, and we’re working at pace to review it with the care it deserves.”
