On September 26th, Labour’s National Women’s Conference is scheduled to take place in Liverpool, where trans women are barred from being delegates, meaning they can’t sit on the conference floor, speak in debates, or vote – the three core functions defining full participation.

Trans men (now, because of the highly controversial Supreme Court judgment, who, for Equality Act purposes, are deemed to be ‘women’) face a similar practical exclusion.

To have been selected as a delegate, a trans man would have been required to disclose his trans status to his Constituency Labour Party (CLP) – engaging his Article 8 right to a private life and seeking nomination from members who reasonably expect a delegate with lived experience in womanhood. Because Labour Party membership data has historically been collected by gender rather than biological sex, CLPs lack clear mechanisms to identify trans men for nomination, effectively closing this path in practice.

Obviously, it is extremely unlikely a trans man would ever put himself forward and face such an ordeal. The result is that an entire protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, that of Gender Reassignment, is functionally excluded from the National Women’s Conference.

While no political organisation would hold an event that excluded wheelchair users or people based on their race or religion, for the Labour Party, trans members are the exception.