Hi, I’m Bernadette O’Malley and I live, work and have raised my family in Hertfordshire.

Full statement

I became aware of the threats to women’s sex-based rights in 2018 when the government opened a consultation proposing to enable people to self-identify their “gender” without any definition of what “gender” was. I was confused, the safeguarding implication of allowing men to self-identify into women only safe spaces like hospital wards seemed obvious to me and when I realised that this same ability to self-identify would allow men to access women’s prisons, refuges, changing rooms and toilets I was horrified. Then to learn that political parties, unions, and councils were ignoring these blatantly obvious safeguarding failures I decided to campaign, to reaffirm women and girls' sex-based rights and challenge the discrimination that we experience from the replacement of the category of sex with that of ‘gender identity.’ The Party of Women has a simple manifesto stating that we cannot change sex and that allowing children to believe that is possible is abuse. I am standing as a candidate for the Party of Women to change the policies, laws and guidance that have been corrupted to ensure that sex is clearly understood, safeguarding is restored and truth can be spoken.