Mr Beattie said he believed transgender people should receive support, particularly around healthcare and bullying, but argued this should not undermine the rights of women.
Independent MLA Doug Beattie has said the debate around transgender issues has become “hijacked” and insisted his focus remains on protecting women’s rights rather than debating the rights of the wider trans community.
Speaking to Belfast Live, the former Ulster Unionist Party leader was asked whether the experiences of transgender men who were born female are sometimes overlooked in the wider discussion following the UK Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of sex in equality law.
Mr Beattie said there were “grey areas” that needed to be addressed, including how facilities should be provided for transgender people, but argued this should not come at the expense of women’s single-sex spaces or protections.
“The conversation I’m having is about women’s rights, what women deserve,” he said.
“It’s not about men’s rights, it’s about women’s rights. Now, of course, you know, when you talk about women’s rights, it suddenly has an effect on other people who are from the transgender community, but that’s not what the conversation is.
“The conversation is about women’s rights. Do women deserve to have their own spaces free from biological males? Yes. Do women deserve to have sport which is free of males? Yes, they do. Do women deserve to have language that is associated with women protected and not changed? Yes, they do.”
Mr Beattie said he believed transgender people should receive support, particularly around healthcare and bullying, but argued this should not undermine the rights of women.
“That’s the conversation about women’s rights. The conversation about the transgender community is a different conversation completely, although one’s been hijacked by the other.
“I look at the transgender community as a community; I think they need to be looked at. They need to be given support, particularly the bullying that they receive when they’re in schools. I think that needs to be looked at, and I’ve raised that on many occasions.
“I think that we need to make sure that we have healthcare which can help with them and deal with any of the issues that they have. So I’m fully supportive of the trans community and making sure they get assistance.
“What I’m not supportive of is them being able to trample over the rights of women. So we need to find a way around that, we can still do that by being respectful, and I’ve never said anything unrespectful, and if you have listened to, to any of the commentary I’ve given, I have not done anything about, the trans community.”
Reiterating his stance on privacy, he said: “Everything I’ve talked about is let’s make sure we secure women’s rights, women’s right to their own space, women’s right to privacy, women’s right to dignity, and women’s right not to have biological males be in their spaces.”
Mr Beattie was also asked about concerns that transgender men who were assigned female at birth but present as male could, under sex-based policies, be required to use female facilities.
“Anybody who’s biological male should be using biological male facilities. It’s as simple as that, and likewise for anybody who’s biologically female, they should be using biological female spaces.”
When asked what measures should be put in place to stop a predatory biological male from claiming to have been born female in order to access female spaces, he acknowledged there were complexities in some situations.
“Now there is of course a grey area there, and you’ve just highlighted that grey area about what do we do about those people who present in a particular, in a particular way, and for me there’s absolutely no issue whatsoever if we can provide spaces for them, you know, everybody talks about toilets and changing spaces, and that’s fine.
“This is not just about toilets and changing spaces. This is about women’s groups. This is about rape groups. This is about all sorts of sort of things.”
Mr Beattie said he believed practical solutions could be found, including additional facilities where appropriate.
“I’m for making sure that everybody has the facilities they need, and that means that in an area where we have a male toilet, a female toilet, and a unisex toilet, then why not.
“I think we can be innovative in what we do. I think we can support the trans community, but that’s what they are. You know, your sex is biological. You’re either male or female. But if you identify as something different, let’s make sure that we can support that, and the space is there for them. But let’s not destroy women’s rights in doing that.”
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