LABOUR said today it welcomes government plans to review the Equality Act, potentially defining sex explicitly as “biological sex.”

“Clarification is a good thing,” the party said, adding it would wait on specific proposals.

Such a move would make it easier to mandate single-sex access to certain spaces without risking legal challenges over exclusion of trans women.

It follows decisions by sporting bodies such as World Athletics to bar male to female trans athletes from participating in women’s competition if they have undergone male puberty. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated on Tuesday he would back such a review, after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) wrote to Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch suggesting such a clarification could have more advantages than disadvantages. The letter was welcomed by organisations for sex-based rights but criticised by trans rights campaigns.

The EHRC’s letter — itself a reply to a request for advice by Ms Badenoch — said that in consultations “out of all protected characteristics, sex was important to the highest proportion of respondents, and many were concerned about the interaction between the protected characteristics of gender reassignment and sex.”

It identified eight areas where a definition of biological sex would provide “greater clarity,” including pregnancy and maternity rights, freedom of association for lesbians and gay men, single-sex spaces, sport and data collection for social and medical research.

It said that in three areas‚ equal pay, direct and indirect sex discrimination, a definition of biological sex could be “more ambiguous or potentially disadvantageous.”

It also advised that much of the language in the original Act should be updated, with terms like “transsexual” having declined in use compared to “transgender” and “gender-fluid.”

The review follows demands for a definition of sex as biological from groups like Sex Matters, which launched a petition calling on Parliament to amend the Act to this effect. The Communist Party of Britain has also called for the change as a way of defending women’s sex-based rights.

LGBT charity Stonewall criticised the advice, saying it works with “hundreds of employers week in, week out” and that feedback suggested the original Equality Act was working well.

“This move risks opening another chapter in a manufactured culture war that will see little benefit to women, cis and trans alike,” it said.