Rishi Sunak to overhaul gender laws to protect women’s sport and same-sex spaces

GENDER laws will be overhauled to protect women’s sport and same-sex spaces.

PM Rishi Sunak’s plans to clarify the legal definition of sex will try to shut a trans loophole.

Only biological women would be able to access female-only spaces, sport and shortlists — even if people legally change gender.

Gender Recognition Certificates, which state a person’s acquired gender, would become all-but irrelevant.

Mr Sunak vowed a shake-up during last summer’s leadership campaign and ordered a review before Christmas.

A source close to him said: “The PM remains committed to his campaign pledge.

“This is a sensitive and complicated issue but the secretary of state is taking that work forward and he supports her.”

Kemi Badenoch, the Women and Equalities minister, has written to rights experts for advice on how to amend the current Equalities Act.

She said there were “legitimate questions” about the way the current law applied and that recent battles in Scottish courts had muddied the waters over trans and gender rights.

Baroness Falkner, the chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the change would “bring greater legal clarity” to eight areas including women-only shortlists, single-sex spaces, and sport. She said the plans “merit further consideration”.

Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price said: “The Equality Act is very clear that sex is the protected characteristic, not gender.

“We should be clear that GRCs establish a legal identity for trans-women as women but the protections afforded to women by virtue of their sex must not be compromised.”

But there are fears the move will also make the law even more complicated in equal pay and sex discrimination cases.