The Big Lie

The Women’s Equality Party wasn’t captured by gender ideology – it was founded on gender ideology

(by Jane Doe, a member of the WEP)

When the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) was co-founded in March 2015 by author Catherine Mayer and TV presenter Sandi Toksvig at the annual Women of the World festival, held at the Southbank Centre in London, tens of thousands of women rushed to join, feeling for the first time that a political party had been formed that was dedicated to us. After all, we were in the name!

Since then thousands of women have been leaving, feeling let down by a party that was meant to be for women & girls and our rights. But it is a mistake to think that WEP was captured by gender ideology – it was founded on gender ideology. We women will never ‘recapture’ it as it was never ours to begin with.

The first clue is in the introduction to the party’s first policy document published in October 2015 which stated “We also recognise that the binary words “woman” and “man” do not reflect the gender experience of everyone, and support the right of all to define their sex or gender or to reject gendered divisions as they choose.” (This can again be seen in the introduction to the 2017 general election manifesto on page 5: 

How did that wording get into the manifesto and how had it been missed/overlooked by so many members? In the beginning, all posts of power and influence, such as the steering committee and even the party leader- journalist Sophie Walker - a friend of Catherine Mayer, were held by unelected volunteers who lived in London. It began around their kitchen tables, so practically, you had to know the co-founders or their friends and live in London to be a part of building the party. 

A lot of members believed that the party was built by us, the policies decided by us and that everything was democratic – it’s what we were told! However, there was unease with the top-down, hierarchal, London-centric nature of WEP. The first party conference, held 18 months later in November 2016 in Manchester promised to do everything ‘right’. For the majority of attendees, this was our first time attending a political party conference (for many it was our first time joining a political party) and we were not clear on the rules.

On the other hand, the party officers were very clear on the rules, seeing as they had written them. This made it easy to control what motions were permitted to be heard and how to get a majority vote. At this first conference in November 2016, we were told that we would not be voting in any motions decided by individuals or branches because party-led working groups had spent 18 months writing policies around 7 (6+1) equality objectives.

The first 6 equality objectives were decided by the co-founders, on April 18th 2015 “jotted down on a napkin, during a meal with friends.” (A seventh objective on Equal health, was later added by Mayer). Our role as members was simply to vote them in.

At a WEP conference, only members who attend party conference are allowed to vote on policies. This may be how it is done in other parties, but WEP had promised to “do politics differently”. When you have a few hundred women in a room (it can be a minimum of 70 – section 4.3 of the constitution), who are told by leaders, steering or executive committee officers why this or that motion is fabulous and are only given a few minutes to read the wording and decide on it, it makes it far more likely the motions that get through will be the ones approved by the party leadership.

The wording that “anyone can define their sex”, was decided in 2015 and to my knowledge, has never been part of a motion put to a vote by members but was written by the co-founders working group steering committee, many of whom were then (if they wanted to stay on) voted into post at the first conference.

The next thing that Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig did to ensure that their party could never be taken away from them by say, a majority of gender critical feminists, was to give themselves lifetime steering committee posts. This was snuck in at the second party conference, held two years after the first, in Kettering in September 2018.

This means that Catherine Mayer is Lifetime President and Sandi Toksvig is Lifetime MC (section 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 of the constitution).

Two lifetime, political party leaders, pulling strings behind the scenes, does not suggest a ‘new politics’. It does not even suggest democracy.

So how did Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig get so woke and forget the definition of women? Let’s start with the facts. This party, supposedly for women, was not founded by radical feminists or even by women known for their feminist theory. Catherine Mayer was a biographer of Prince Charles and Sandi Toksvig presented quiz shows on radio and TV. Although I have much respect for their intellects, their background was in middle class ‘luvvie’ arts and culture. 

Catherine Mayer’s commitment to gender ideology can be gleaned from her 2017 publication “Attack of the 50ft. Women – How Gender Equality Can Save the World”. It’s clear from the book that Mayer believed in gender woo when she founded the party.

Chapter 3 “All Womankind” begins with Mayer’s close friend, an autogynephilic trans-identified male: “Simon Wilson found sexual pleasure in the act of wearing female clothing.” – page 88. Wilson, the managing director of a manufacturing company transitioned to Simone in 2011. In an imagined conversation with Germaine Greer and how Wilson would convince Greer that they are a woman, Wilson says, “I was born with a female brain…I am female in my thinking” – page 92.

Mayer also has a non-binary relative called Cat/Milo - “Cat / Milo, at 19, no longer identifies as female. Cat / Milo is trans.”

“The transition (is)…from she to ‘they’ the preferred third-person singular pronoun for many non-binary people.” – page 100

Mayer then continues with her gender woo beliefs, “Many Mxs are, like Cat / Milo, fourth-wave feminists.” “Women and men comfortable within the gender assigned to them at birth are ‘cisgender’”. – page 101.

In the book’s final chapter, Mayer’s vision of a gender-equal world is called ‘Equalia’, Mayer dreams that science has made “it possible for babies to be grown outside the human body.” Page 296. (A dream that is straight out of the transhumanist playbook and is repugnant to feminists.)

The citizens of Equalia, “perceive gender not as a binary but as a spectrum…the gender neutral pronouns ‘ze’ and ‘zem’ are used in place of he and she, him and her, in contexts where gender is either unknown or non-binary.” – page 300

In Mayer’s brave new world, Equalia “elected a trans woman as Federal Prime Minister” which has “shed reductive notions of what it is to be female”. – page 300. Reductive as in, understanding our sexed bodies as the reason for our oppression.

The Women’s Equality Party was almost (more aptly) named the Gender Equality Party, on 28 March 2015. Some of Mayer’s working group thought the “Gender Equality Party (w)as an easier sell to male and gender non-binary voters,” page 32.

The W̶o̶m̶e̶n̶’̶s̶ Gender Equality Party was founded on dictatorship, nepotism and gender ideology. 

The nepotism continued in the October 2020 online conference, where party leader Mandu Reid got her motion passed that allows the party leader to select three deputies of their choosing. Three deputies who had already been announced and have been in the role for months. So much for nominations and votes!

So why did former leader Sophie Walker resign? Officially she wanted, “to ensure that women of colour, working-class women and disabled women see themselves reflected in this party and know they can lead this movement.” But I think Walker’s resignation was forced, as after the 2018 Kettering conference, Walker went on a prolonged period of ‘leave’ between October and December 2018, before officially resigning in January 2019.

Why had Walker fallen out with her friend Mayer? I believe Walker had begun to see the harms caused by gender ideology and the threat to women’s sex-based rights. As members, we were alerted to this problem by Heather Brunskell-Evans who had been elected at party conference in 2016 as our Spokesperson for Ending Violence Against Women and Girls. Brunskell-Evans shared her concerns about gender ideology harming children in November 2017 on Radio 4’s moral maze. Following this programme, complaints were made about Brunskell-Evans by a trans-identified male, ‘Toni Harrison’, and from an ideologically captured branch of the WEP.

WEP expelled Brunskell-Evans from her post.  

By September 2018, Walker knew a motion was being brought to party conference to accept self-identification as part of reforming the Gender Recognition Act. She knew that all motions that are debated are ‘democratically’ voted in by the majority in the room, (or very rarely sent back to the proposer to be re-written – which in effect kicks them into the long grass as WEP conferences are only held every 2 years).

Walker managed to arrange an emergency motion to have the GRA motion debated and no vote was held. It was also agreed that all members would be consulted on the GRA.

So what do all the members of the Women’s Equality Party think about the Gender Recognition Act and self-ID?

WEP don’t know yet.

They decided not to ask us because Stonewall had insisted on ‘no debate’. No debate meant telling all branch officers to be neutral on WEP social media channels and in party meetings. ‘No debate’ was an easy way to silence everyone for 2 years and hope that the government reformed the Gender Recognition Act. But what about the agreement from the 2018 conference that members would be consulted?...

Well eventually in September 2020 (2 years later!) WEP got round to organising a member assembly. Selecting only a handful (perhaps two dozen) of their 30,000 members and supporters and asking them to listen to witness testimonies over 3 online sessions organised by NatCen. NatCen until recently had a deputy chief executive called Nancy Kelley (now Chief Exec of Stonewall) who employ a WEP candidate for the 2021 London Assembly Election…no nepotism here folks.

The member assembly abruptly ended when the Government finally responded to the public consultation on 22nd September 2020 and to the relief of us all, did not introduce self-identification. (Note: Another member contacts me to say “This isn’t quite correct. There were 60 people chosen and it didn’t end abruptly but is still following the plan the Advisory Group devised. The assembly members have until 24/10/20 to answer the questions on the recommendations and no one is allowed to comment until after that.”)

But the worry for gender critical feminists is not over. Our sex-based rights under the Equality Act have been misrepresented and many organisations do not understand or incorrectly apply Equality Act law. At the October 2020 online conference, a motion to conference to ask for WEP to affirm women’s sex-based rights as per the Equality Act 2010 was permitted to be heard, but members were denied permission to vote for it.

According to the LGBTQ+, 100% inclusive, 100% intersectional gender woo members in the party, that’s because WEP are planning to continue with their member assembly and/or consult membership on the GRA. Who knows, it may take them another 2 years to finish.

It is a bitter blow to women to realise that the Gender Equality Party was never for us in the first place. WEP is clever to not advertise that too much. They keep women in the name and they keep women joining. They need our membership money and donations for their election funds! Then they can select woke candidates who believe in gender woo to stand in elections.      

Where women’s rights are compatible with (or do not conflict with) trans rights WEP will fight for them – on areas including abortion, gender pay gap and male violence. But in areas based on our sex-based rights – sports and female-only spaces – women are hung out to dry.

This is the benevolent dictatorship of the Gender Equality Party. 

by Jane Doe, WEP Member.