Aristocratic campaigners fighting for women to have the same inheritance rights as men in the House of Lords have criticised a baron trying to become the first transgender peer.
Charlotte Carew Pole of Daughters’ Rights and Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, co-founder of the Women2Win campaign have both questioned how Matilda Simon, the 3rd Baron of Wythenshawe, could stand.
Ms Carew Pole told the Telegraph: ‘Lady Matilda, Baron of Wythenshawe, has helped highlight several issues around inheritance and gender laws, where we now find ourselves in the absurd position of a younger son inheriting a title but identifying as a woman to stand in the hereditary peers by-elections, so keeping her new identity of a woman and the rights of a man to inherit.
‘If Matilda is a woman, surely her older sister should have the title? Matilda can’t have it both ways. She’s either a man or a woman and must give something up’
Matilda inherited the title but the Lord Chancellor had to approve the claim to the peerage last year, due to the gender identity change.
The Gender Recognition Act 2014 says a person changing gender ‘does not affect the descent of any peerage or dignity or title of honour’.
In 2018, five daughters of hereditary peers took the Government to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing they were being discriminated against by being blocked from the Lords.
Source: Aristocratic daughters hit out over Baron bidding to become the country’s first transgender peer