Uh oh. Parliament has a new bill coming up that will torpedo women’s rights all over again.

Women’s rights campaigners have been warning ministers that the bill, which is intended to introduce a new digital ID system, will play havoc with the ability of companies such as gym chains and public bodies like the NHS and police to ascertain someone’s sex – just after the Supreme Court ruling intended to bring much-needed clarity.

The bill will allow people to prove their identity and facts about themselves by using a new voluntary Government app that is linked to what the bill calls “digital verification services” (DVS), backed by a government “trustmark”. It will draw data from a number of sources but the bodies being presented with the app won’t be able to tell which documents it is relying on.

That means that if the app states that the user is “female”, that information could, in theory, either be based on the sex stated on their passport or driving licence – which can be changed relatively easily from someone’s biological sex – or a birth certificate, which can be changed but only if the individual first obtains a formal gender recognition certificate (which has to be approved by a panel made up of lawyers or medics.) 

To worsen matters, says Helen Joyce, of the women’s rights charity Sex Matters, under the new system the app will have to be “treated as more authoritative than any pre-existing record – or the evidence of your own eyes.”

It’s like a religion. Believe the magic words, not the reality you can see with your own eyes.

On Wednesday, the Conservatives attempted to amend the bill so that sex data would be taken solely from birth certificates. The amendment was defeated by 363 votes to 97, meaning the bill will now move onto its final stage – the third reading – before becoming law.

Tory MPs had previously warned that “inaccurate data entrenched by the Bill” could “pose a risk” to vulnerable people, but the MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, was among many Labour MPs who criticised the Opposition amendment, calling it “a targeting of the trans community which is deeply regressive.”

Aaaaaaaaaargh! Female Labour MP throws women overboard yet again! While calling the women regressive!

Heather Binning, chief executive of the Women’s Rights Network, agrees with the Conservatives’ concerns. She says that the new law will essentially introduce gender self-identification – a system which involves the state adopting whichever gender an individual chooses to be known by – “through the back door”. “It flies in the face of the Supreme Court ruling,” she says. “It will be mayhem if it goes thorough as it is. If official documentation says a man is a female with the new system, employers and others will be inclined to accept it. This part of the Bill needs to be scrapped.”

Scrapped and buried and forgotten.