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Green Party candidate criticised for 'only wanting to represent those who agree with her'

By Mark Mansfield
Green Party Senedd Candidates (left to right)Tessa Marshall, Anthony Slaughter, Angela Karadog and Paul Rock

Martin Shipton

A Green Party Senedd candidate has been accused of only wanting to represent “her community” following a row with a gender critical women’s rights group.

Tessa Marshall is number two on the Greens’ candidates list in Caerdydd Penarth, behind Wales Green Party leader Anthony Slaughter. Some polls have suggested she is likely to win a Senedd seat.

Responding to an email from a member of the Women’s Rights Network Wales who raised concerns about the Green Party’s policy of allowing trans women to access single sex women’s spaces, Ms Marshall stated: “I believe I answered your questions in full. If I’m elected I will be representing my community - ie the LGBTQIA+ and feminist communities which make up the majority of Cardiff and the Vale, and not the homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic community which Women’s Rights Network Wales represent.”

The organisation posted a message on its X account that said: “Tessa Marshall, the Green Party candidate for Caerdydd Penarth, will refuse to represent the interests of any constituent who doesn’t share her views.

“She also doesn’t hold back on what she thinks about anyone who believes in privacy, dignity, fairness and safety.”

Cathy Larkman of the Wales Women’s Rights Network said: “We are really disappointed to see this level of vitriol directed at women in Wales. And to see it from someone who is likely to actually gain a seat in the Senedd.

“Should Tessa be elected, she’ll discover that representation is a privilege and a duty, not a favour to be meted out to those in 'her community'. She might like to read up on the Public Sector Equality Duty.

“The Supreme Court judgment of 16th April 2025 clarified the law on single-sex spaces. Tessa’s ignorance on this and her apparent willingness to disregard the rights of women and girls are unfortunately shared widely within the Green Party.

“These are not good signs for the women and girls of Wales.”

During an interview at the Wales Green Party’s annual conference in November 2025, Ms Marshall said last year’s Supreme Court ruling that the word woman in the Equality Act 2010 means a biological woman was “a very slippery slope towards fascism”.

'Challenging'

Asked about the current social climate as it affected people who talk about the kind of issues she does, she said: “It’s challenging. It’s something I think you have to expect, I think, if you’re going to talk about being queer or being disabled or being a woman, you're going to get blowback because people do not like it. Those Reform bots, they really do not like it when you talk about your lived experience.

“I think it’s really important that we keep doing it, because at the end of the day we live in a community. We are people who live in Wales and these issues that we face - the increase in hate crime, not only just against queer people, but against disabled people, the increase in the cost of living, the cuts to welfare - all of these things are really creating a systematic kind of onslaught against people who are disabled, and people who are queer.”

Referring to last year’s Supreme Court ruling, Ms Marshall said: “We’ve seen the Supreme Court come out with an anti-trans ruling which seeks to exclude trans people from public life. We have to speak about this because this doesn’t just impact on trans people - this will impact women, this will impact non-binary people, this will impact intersex people, and effectively it is trying to exclude people from public life on the basis of who they are, which is a very slippery slope towards fascism.

“So I think it’s really important that we talk about that and we refuse to be silent. We’re going to be visible. I’m going to be visible. I’m not going to stop talking about it. People can say whatever they want - I’m not going to stop talking about it.”

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22 comments

Uhh

These groups love pretending they represent the majority of women and girls on this issue. Even when survey after survey shows that is not the case. The LGB Alliance is headquartered at 55-57 Tufton Street for goodness' sake.

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J Wilson

The LGB Alliance has nothing to do with Trans or Queer. It is there to support the sex based rights of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals and in doing so sticks up for the rights of biological sex - women and men. It had nothing in common with TQ+ so please get your facts right.

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Brychan

Yep. 55-57 Tufton Street is in Westminster. It houses a number of well funded, often overseas lobby organisations. Including climate science deniers, Brexit think tanks, the HQ for the Centre for Policy Studies, a right wing gaff, who, by the way lobby to change the tax system to put men in charge of family finances, the Adam Smith Institute and Civitas, a well funded fossil fuel lobby group. This is probably how and why they've specifically honed in on a low listed Green candidate in the Senedd election. Thrown in some the transgender tropes. An attempt to rouse gender hate and a culture war against a candidate in our national elections. Nothing to do with supporting women and girls.

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Chris Davies

Which polls suggest the Greens could win two in Caerdydd Penarth? I’ve not seen a single one. For a party to guarantee two seats they need 33.4% of the vote, or they could win two with a vote of around 22-24% if a lot and I mean a lot of other factors come into play (namely finishing second). Are the Green’s going to do that? Honestly genuine question.

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Oliver

About time someone stood up to these gender critical fanatics. They think every party owes them, a fringe group, utter fealty. It's bonkers.

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Sue

Fringe group to support the legal and moral right of women to have single sex spaces? Most women and men support women's rights, why don't you?

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Charlie

What comes next is the legal test of that right to single sex spaces which may be discriminatory.

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Milo Scope

It's so tiring being trans with these people constantly painting me as some terrible threat. It's obvious that none of them have ever spent time with any trans people, and they won't because that would endanger their bigotry. Their self-righteous hatred of trans people is their entire personality, there would be nothing left of them without it.

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Heather

But, as with any other group (men, women, tall people, short people etc), there is a threat. You can't stereotype either way. 99% of people could not care less about trans people and just want everyone to get on with their lives. However, when that extends to biological men and boys demanding (often very aggressively) access to the changing rooms, sports, toilets etc of biological women and girls then I'm afraid that, for the majority (particularly women and girls), that is a step too far. It is really that simple.

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Milo Scope

You can claim a majority all you like but the most supportive group in general for trans women is cis women. The people who want to stop trans people being able to function in society are a small, noisy and very well-funded minority.

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Stuart

It is absolutely that simple. Another aspect I’ve observed is there is a dearth of instances of people born female, who identify as men, acting in the same way as individuals such as Isla Bryson, Rose Henderson and Beth Upton to cite 3 examples. It is hard to not see “male rights activism” as arguably being the better description as underpinning what occurred in those cases and other instances we’ve seen. Another example from Scotland was that of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre. I am sure reasonably minded people can appreciate why women accessing such a Centre may want a single-sex space. However, under the leadership of that Centre’s then CEO, it had not been ensuring the Centre provided women only spaces for nearly 18 months. It is indefensible. You can read at your leisure about how that came to light and the stance the CEO and some others took defending it. Let’s not follow the disastrous path Sturgeon’s government tried taking. .

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J Jones

So she wants to try and deny the Supreme Court decision preventing men from going into women's toilets and changing rooms. Someone who doesn't agree with important laws shouldn't be anywhere near anything that involves making any public legislation. Greens are a small group of self serving chancers who need to be forgotten, so we can concentrate on keeping Racist Reform bigots out of this country.

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Milo Scope

The Supreme Court decision does no such thing, I suggest you read it.

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Tan

Fantastic to see women standing up for women's rights. Sad that they still have to. Hugely important that biological men are kept out of the spaces of biological women and girls. Great article over at The Guardian this morning too on the sensible Olympic ruling.

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Louise B

It's not fanatical to want women's services that meet the needs of women. It may well be the case that there is a conflict of interests with what trans people want, but it's not for women to give up they need to square that circle. Our politicians are well paid - find a way to meet trans people's needs without taking away from women. Name calling women who don't think they should be pressured into undressing in front of some men as a gender validation service is pathetic.

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Neil G

Nail on the head.

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Benjamin

Ethiopia, Romania, Cambodia. It is always the same with these utopian Marxist types. They do not see those who disagree with their John Lennon Imagine fantasy to have any rights when they gain power. The Greens are dangerous.

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JoJo

Being a woman isn't something you can opt into, or out of. That's it. Biological reality. We have laws to protect people on the basis of the disadvantage that both biology, and societies attitudes towards people with those characteristics, create. Reality must be the overriding drive for any political party, not fanatical, desire driven "wants" and ideologies.

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Louise B

The Equality Act is a reserved matter - that's why Scotland's Gender Recognition Reform Act failed. The Supreme Court judgement states that where services are divided into separate services for men and women, this must be done on the basis of biological sex. Transsexuals aren't banned from anywhere, you are quite right. They are just asked to not use the opposite sex's space. They can use unisex spaces or the space for their biological sex. It doesn't help trans people to lie about this stuff, it must be humiliating to be called out and removed from opposite sex spaces. Support trans people by helping them make informed decisions about how they are likely to be received.

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Beth

The Equality Act 2010 does indeed apply to the whole of the UK. And UK law always takes precedence to any Senedd/Scottish/Northern Ireland parliaments. All the Supreme Court did was clarify and clearly state what the actual law has always stated The fact many councils, regional parliaments and even Westminster has been following Stonewall law to the detriment of women is a national disgrace Moving on to your comments on Cathy Larkman. They are libellous, I’m surprised Nation Cymru wanted to be the platform you used to make them.

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Susan

A political party that does know what a woman is isn't likely to know what a sound fiscal policy is, and we could really do with a government who has one of those. This calibre of candidate is just going to lead to another 4 years of monoculture mediocre midwits.

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Neil G

No, sorry, you are wrong. It simply reiterated that female only spaces are defined by biological sex, ie a biological man has no right to go into them. It was very clear. If PC want to spend their time and money overturning the SC ruling then that would be silly, and not great for Welsh women and girls.

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