Who are the Gender-Critical Greens and why are we here?
Gender-Critical Greens are members and supporters of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW) who are concerned that the party has been captured by a militant minority of gender identity extremists, aka trans rights activists or TRAs.
The party performed well in #GE2024. All four of our target MPs won. The party stood 574 candidates and many saved their deposits. The nation is more positive about Green values than ever and local parties are active up and down the land. But most local party members, not to mention the public at large, are unaware of the problems at our national level: the governing central committees and the annual conference.
Broadly, the problems are the democratic deficit at conference and the clampdown on free speech by a disciplinary system that has been weaponised to punish members – mainly women – who speak up for sex-based rights and against so-called ‘gender-affirming’ care for children and young people: puberty-blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery.
The democratic deficit
The party has roughly 50,000 members but few take part in the conference and so policy is often decided by less than one per cent of our members. They are a self-selected few who have the time and resources to attend. They are not delegates but represent only themselves. Consequently, disproportionate time is spent on gender issues compared to environmental issues and extreme policy gets on the agenda. For example:
- Conference in Spring 2021 supported ‘the right for individuals to update their legally recognised gender by self-determination’, otherwise known as ‘self-ID’, which is the very policy that brought down the government of the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland in Spring 2023.
- A year later at the Spring 2022 Conference, a ‘Purge’ Motion sought to suspend the membership of anyone who had signed the ‘Women’s Declaration International’ in support of sex-based rights – see https://gcgreens.uk/statements/the-purge-motion
Clampdown on free speech
While the ‘Purge’ Motion failed on a technicality, other central committees of the party have ploughed ahead by other means. Party members have been expelled or placed on no-fault suspension (NFS) by Green Party Regional Council (GPRC) aided by the Disciplinary Committee, both or which are dominated by TRAs, for speaking out about sex-based rights or puberty blockers for children.
NFS is effectively suspension without trial and it has been weaponised to silence gender-critical members: see gcgreens.uk/suspended-expelled-resigned. The disciplinary rules include ‘Queerphobia’ guidance which contradicts the right to express ‘protected beliefs’ under the Equality Act 2010 and the ruling in Forstater vs CGD.
For example:
- Alison Teal, highly respected Councillor and tree campaigner and duly elected Parliamentary candidate for Sheffield Central, was on no-fault suspension for 18 months, then deselected as Parliamentary candidate. She resigned to campaign as an independent Parliamentary candidate in #GE2024.
- Three former co-chairs of Green Party Women, Dawn Furness, Emma Bateman, and Zoe Hatch, who expressed opinions about women’s rights have been suspended or expelled.
- Darren Johnson, who was a Green Party member of the London Assembly (2000-2016) and twice stood for Mayor of London, was suspended in May 2024 after criticising the party’s dismissal of the Cass Review. It had reported that puberty blockers were of no benefit to gender non-conforming children and was widely discussed during #GE2024. But it was not mentioned in the party manifesto. Further, it seems that the party’s original statement on Cass was withdrawn due to pressure from LGBTIQA+ Greens.
- The party discriminated against former deputy leader, Shahrar Ali, over his ‘gender-critical’ beliefs and, in February 2024, he won his court case against the party.
The party is paying legal costs for cases it should be trying to resolve out of court. One consequence for local parties is that they will not get ‘capitation’ funds from 2024 onwards, which are the reimbursement of members’ fees from the central party to the local party based on how many members a local party has.
What can you do?
Keep informed by signing up to a mail list:
Attend Conference in person or online. For more information see https://greenparty.org.uk/get-involved/conference/
See greenwomensdeclaration.uk/resources/websites for more information.