Win for Women of Wessex

Bristol City Council has apologised “unreservedly” to two women’s rights campaigners it barred from meetings and City Hall for six months after they challenged its trans inclusion policy. The Council has rescinded the bans and agreed to pay 70 per cent of the women’s legal costs, according to their lawyers, Conrathe Gardner.

Dr Phoebe Beedell and Wendy Stephenson, members of the Women of Wessex group, were excluded after a council meeting on 4th November 2025. Green councillors displayed placards and some walked out. At an earlier meeting, 18 Green councillors had walked out as members of the public questioned gender ideology.

When Beedell challenged council leader Tony Dyer about the placards, he told her: “This is a democracy … councillors have the right to decide whether those statements are offensive to them and how they want to respond.”

The women challenged their exclusion in a judicial review, arguing that they had not been told the evidence against them or given a chance to answer the allegations. The case has now been settled.

As part of the settlement, the Council said it no longer maintained that either woman had acted in a “threatening, abusive, disorderly or intimidating manner”. It accepted that it should have investigated before imposing the bans, informed the women of the allegations and evidence, and given them a meaningful opportunity to respond.

The Council also says it has revised its Trans Inclusion and Gender Identity Policy to recognise that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act and that freedom of belief and expression must be considered. In its statement, it said: “Bristol City Council recognises the importance of public participation in local democracy and the right of members of the public to express lawful views, including views on matters of public controversy, when engaging with Council meetings and public forum processes.”

Responding to the news Beedell told* Local Government Lawyer *magazine: “I am delighted that the allegations against us have been withdrawn. But the legacy of this case is wider than Wendy and me. Whatever their views, members of the public must be able to scrutinise policy, question elected representatives and disagree with the current dogma without fear that they will be vilified and shut out. Like everyone else, Councils and councillors everywhere must obey the law. They must let women speak.”

Stephenson said the action had secured recognition of “the protection given to lawful gender-critical beliefs and the need for a much fairer process before anyone can be excluded from democratic participation”.

“After what has been a long and difficult dispute, I hope this settlement draws a line under what happened to us,” she added. “More importantly, I hope it makes City Hall a place where difficult questions can be debated rather than closed down, and where councillors and members of the public can disagree without lawful dissent being treated as wrongdoing.”

As TERF Times has previously reported, the dispute comes amid a longer record of Bristol City Council backing trans-activist positions. In July 2022, it passed a motion to “recognise and affirm trans men are men, trans women are women” and pledged not to take advice from, or award contracts to, organisations promoting an “anti-trans agenda or propaganda”. The Times has also reported that the Council criticised the Supreme Court’s April 2025 ruling that “sex” in the Equality Act means biological sex.

Some local campaigners remain concerned about the policy’s use of “single-gender” for facilities, which they believe risks sidestepping the Supreme Court ruling.