A Conservative MP has attacked the push to allow transgender people to access single-sex spaces on the basis of "self-identification" alone.
Miriam Cates, the member for Penistone and Stocksbridge, told GB News presenter and former Labour MP Gloria De Piero that it was impossible for her to believe in both biological sex and some trans rights activist's assertions that "trans women are women".
"99.99 percent of us are born either male or female, and I as a scientist don't think you can do anything about it from that point," Cates said.
"It's a free society, you should be free to live and present how you want and be treated with respect and dignity and have equal rights and be free from discrimination," the MP stressed.
"Where it becomes difficult is when that starts to impose on women's sex-based rights, and let's remember there are real reasons why we have sex-based rights," Cates said.
"Although we have equality between men and in this country in the law, and that's a really good thing, women will always be vulnerable in certain areas because we are less powerful than men," she added, pointing out that almost every sex offense is perpetrated by men against women.
"So there are certain points where you have to keep women separate, and that's right for our dignity and our protection," Cates said.
Cates, a former chemistry and biology teacher who studied genetics at Cambridge University, said a "sensible, logical and scientific" consensus on the issue was needed.
"The problem with the debate at the moment, [it] has become so toxic and so difficult that people who have one particular view are almost afraid to speak up."
Feminists and some gay rights activists welcomed Cates' comments.
Under current UK law, a transsexual can obtain an official Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) — without having to undergo gender re-assignment surgery — if they get a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and live as a member of the opposite sex for at least two years.
But some trans rights activists now insist that the process is too lengthy and restrictive. LGBT lobbying group Stonewall, a registered charity that also charges for consultation services to companies and public bodies, has been advising clients to allow staff to use toilets and changing rooms of the sex of their choice, without the need for a GRC.
A string of high-profile government departments and public corporations have since stopped paying to be members of Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme.
The Mail on Sunday reported over the weekend that Home Secretary Priti Patel had ordered "woke" police forces to stop recording offenses made by trans women in the 'female' section of statistics.