Author: Steph

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(Pronouns - she/her) - Steph Richards is a 73-year-old 'post-op' trans woman with a Gender Recognition Certificate and works as a human rights activist. She was the elected Women's and LGBT Officer at Portsmouth Labour Party 2021 - 2024, CEO of Translucent.Org.UK, winner of the LGBT Organisation of the Year at the National Diversity Awards in 2022, co-founder of Women's Action Network (Portsmouth) and a volunteer at a Women's health charity. Steph was shortlisted as a "Gender Role Model" at the National Diversity Awards in 2025. Steph has been platformed live on BBC Radio 4 three times, including Women's Hour. She has also appeared on Times Radio, LBC Radio, GB News and Channel 4 News. In 2023, Steph debated trans human rights at an American university event alongside Harvard biologist and author Carole Hooven, PhD. Steph (an intersectional feminist) is passionate about the inclusion and acceptance of trans people in society. She advocates for women in prison, specifically pregnant women and calls out the mounting concern that abortion rights are at risk in the UK. She was the recipient of an Inspirational Women of Portsmouth Award in March, 2023.

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The Liz Truss speech on the 22nd of April has, of course, sent a tidal wave of despair around the trans and allies’ communities, but the definition of ‘women’s places’ has still to be defined.Now to be fair, I can understand some of the TERFS concerns. If my daughter were in prison, I would be concerned if some nut had worked his way into a female jail saying he was a trans woman when he was not. And the same would apply in a women’s refuge. Some men abuse women, and in these circumstances, it is correct that a woman…

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There has been lots of “bad press” against trans women prisoners in recent months. The Daily Mail, (and others) have been very vocal on this issue. It started with Rory Stewart, once a Tory minister but who was subsequently expelled from the Conservative party saying that trans woman prisoners had attacked prison officers. On the 22nd of April 2020 Baroness Mc Donagh from the House of Lords asked a written question (HL3198) saying this:To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many sexual assaults have been carried out by trans prisoners against women prisoners and prison officers in prisons in each year since…

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