Prospect Union betrays women for ideology
Prospect used to be the union STEM people trusted. It stayed out of the usual party-political circus that Unison and Unite go in for, and stuck to workplace issues. That reputation is taking a beating among many of its female members.
Women’s Rights Network has been talking to its members who are concerned about Prospect and the picture they paint is consistent. Prospect has started treating gender identity as if it overrides sex. Membership forms only ask about “gender.” There’s no clean way to record biological sex. That makes it harder to track or fight the actual sex-based problems that still turn up in STEM workplaces.
The Prospect Women’s Network is supposed to be for people who share the same protected characteristic. Its own terms of reference say so. In practice it runs on Self-ID and includes any person who defines themself as a woman. After the Supreme Court ruling that “woman” means adult human female, that looks like a straightforward failure to stick to the Equality Act. These networks were set up because women face particular patterns of discrimination and harassment. Treating a self-declared identity as the same thing risks leaving the people who need the protection without it. Prospect is failing to comply with its lawful duties regarding its female membership.
At Prospect’s National Conference in June 2026 every equality motion was about trans issues. They committed the union to pushing for full self-ID in UK law that will allow any person to change their birth certificate to the opposite sex on demand. They also told members and employers not to enforce biological sex in single-sex facilities. A motion that simply asked for sex at birth to be protected got voted down and was described as “poison” by activists.
Then in September at the TUC Congress, Prospect backed Motion 17. That motion went after the EHRC’s code of practice on single-sex spaces, the one written after the For Women Scotland judgment. The union’s newsletter presented the vote as a straightforward win for “trans equality at work.” It didn’t spell out what the motion actually does to women’s privacy and safety at work.
Women are already seeing the effects.
Some women feel forced to use mixed-sex facilities and feel unable to complain given the mandate instructing them not to "police the biological sex" of colleagues. There are tribunal cases from other unions, like the Royal College of Nursing, that make people nervous that their own union will side with the institution rather than with them.
Prospect members are mostly analytical science-driven people who deal in evidence. If the leadership keeps putting ideology ahead of the law and biological reality, they risk alienating their membership, as they face a profound loss of credibility and a wave of membership cancellations from women who refuse to fund their own disenfranchisement. Legal challenges aren’t out of the question either.
Read the full details, evidence, and first-hand accounts regarding Prospect's policy shifts and their impact on workplace rights.
Prospect union opposes the rights of its own female workers
Prospect is a trade union for scientists, engineers, tech experts and other specialists. Women’s Rights Network (WRN) members who belong to Prospect look at changes that indicate their union has swapped empirical evidence and analytical thinking for ideological belief.
Prospect has over 160,000 members, predominantly with backgrounds in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and claims: “Prospect’s mission is to advise, support and defend your professional knowledge, skills and work.” Will the union meet those aims for members who are honest about the two sexes?
Three WRN members, “Rowan”, “Emma”, and “Suzy” are concerned by Prospect’s recent institutional alignments and policy decisions. They see them as an indication that the union is abandoning its scientific foundations and mimicking the ideological capture of the large unions, which alienate female members and anyone who knows that biological sex is binary and immutable. More importantly it is not complying with its lawful duties regarding its female membership.
For decades members trusted Prospect because it focused strictly on workplace welfare, pay bargaining, and professional standardisation, remaining legally and structurally independent from political parties. Prospect historically presented itself as a politically independent union for specialists, differentiating itself from giants like Unison, Unite and GMB, which take millions from members to pay directly into the Labour Party treasury for block votes that direct party policy. Although Prospect has a political fund, members can opt out without repercussions.
According to its TUC listing, Prospect’s membership profile is divided by “gender” but described as 36% “female” and 64% “male” (with around 1,000 “other”). Prospect does not differentiate between sex and gender and conflating the two in its own membership data makes that data unreliable.
Rowan said that when joining the union: “The site only gives options for gender, not sex, so ticking anything other than ‘unstated’ would have meant subscribing to an ideology I don’t believe in. I emailed Prospect several times about this but they were unable or unwilling to do anything about it.”
The only Personal Details options for Prospect members
If the ideology of a scientists’ union renders it unable to collect basic statistical data on its own members, what is the implication for its members, specifically women, who need advocacy for sex-specific issues?
Prospect “Women’s” Network
The “Prospect Women's Network” is one of five national equality networks. It operates on a self-identification model (personal communication: “our network includes all self-defining women”) despite the published Terms of Reference stating the “network is open to Prospect and Bectu members who share the protected characteristic.” This presents a glaring contradiction for a membership rooted in STEM and demonstrates that Prospect is not complying with the Equality Act 2010, it is discriminating against its female members.
If trade unions deny women are a material class, they cannot advocate for women’s specific needs. Trade unions created women’s sections to address a historically disadvantaged sex class by confronting material realities such as sex discrimination, maternity rights, the pension gap, and sex-specific medical needs. Within the STEM sector women have, and continue to, face sexism, sexual harassment and sexual assault. Few women in STEM can forget the revelations of female graduate students in the international media, and the delayed termination of Professor David Marchant at the British Antarctic Survey. The documentary Picture a Scientist chronicles three women in STEM, recounting sex discrimination in the workplace from subtle sexism to sexual assault.
Headlines about the sexual harassment of female STEM graduates in remote Antartica
Emma says: “When I joined Prospect I was automatically added to the women's network. I enquired whether this was women only. After a year and chasing three times I finally got a response that said the network includes all self-defining women. At the time I didn’t have the energy to follow this up and question why, but I instantly felt like if I did need the union to represent me on an issue to do with my gender critical beliefs they would say no.”
Currently Prospect Union does not comply with its lawful duties regarding its female membership. Following the Supreme Court definition of woman the law is clear Gender identity is a minority belief that alienates union members who know sex is significant, binary and immutable. The Labour Party has, finally and correctly restricted key aspects of its National Women's Conference to women, however unions that fund Labour have failed to follow the same law. Female Prospect members deserve that its Women's Network be restored as women only.
“Trans equality” motions leave female members feeling abandoned
In September 2026 Prospect attended the Trades Union Congress (TUC) National Conference. The TUC is a national umbrella organisation for nearly 50 trade unions in the UK. Along with other unions Prospect supported Motion 17. The motion actively opposed women’s right to exclude all men from any space, sport or service.
How The Motion 17 was communicated to Prospect members
Who wouldn’t agree with trans equality at work and who would look into it any further or read the small print? The reality is that Prospect is actively participating in a campaign to undermine the statutory rights of women as defined by the UK's highest court. Emma said: “I was so disappointed to read that Prospect had further crossed the ideological line and publicly abandoned women, and had done it in such a deceitful way. Most members wouldn't know that “promoting trans equality at work” actually means campaigning to stop women having single-sex changing rooms and toilets in the workplace and single-sex accommodation on field trips.”
Prospect conference has no diversity in equality motions
Prospect had been busy passing ‘trans motions’ at its own National Conference in June 2026 signalling a stark shift away from protecting female workers. In fact all of its national Equality and Diversity motions were focused on “trans”. Mike Clancy, General Secretary, wrote: “Conference passed several motions in support of trans and non-binary workers, and clarified the union’s policy position in various ways.” It’s hard to believe that there were no other equality and diversity issues in the workplace of importance to unions for any of the other Protected Characteristics in the Equality Act other than those covered by gender reassignment (the statutory term for transgender individuals), but apparently not. All six Prospect Motions were around trans issues.
Motion 2, which called for "continued legal protection for sex at birth" and appeared to offer a balanced approach respecting differing views, was the only one of the six defeated. On this defeated motion a ‘Prospect activist’ wrote, “While this motion contained some positive provisions in favour of transgender people, it also contained a poison – an instruction to the NEC to press for continued legal protection for sex at birth.” It is extremely alarming that the Protected Characteristic of sex is described as a “poison”. However the conference did pass Motions 3 through to 7, formally committing the union to campaign for full UK Self-ID law (Motion 5) and to use its legal resources to actively resist any policies in the workplace that allow for women to have single-sex spaces and facilities.
For female members, this means the union has effectively abandoned a balanced approach to perceived competing rights under the Equality Act. For instance, by carrying Motion 4 that mandates trans people must be able to use facilities which match their gender, Prospect is now mandated to issue an open letter instructing employers that workers should not "police the biological sex" of colleagues. This effectively erodes the structural protection of single-sex spaces for biological women. It reframes basic safeguarding and boundary concerns raised by female staff as ‘unauthorised policing’, while turning union representatives against employers who try to uphold lawful single-sex provisions.
Emma told us: “Prospect has voted to support men who call themselves women to use women’s single-sex spaces and facilities in the workplace and it implies that they wouldn’t support a female member like me who objected as they would say I was policing biology”.
Suzy added: “I was so angry when I found out about the extra Motions at the Prospect conference, all focused on men taking away my rights. There is no way I could expect my union to represent me in that climate. They have effectively written a huge warning to women to say don't bother complaining we won’t do anything. It’s chilling. I feel silenced. I wrote to Mike Clancy straight away, but nearly 3 weeks on I've not even had an acknowledgement.”
Prospect will campaign for Self-ID with no regard to women
Prospect’s commitment in Motion 5 to campaign for self-identification to become law in the UK, is very worrying. Self-ID whereby a person can change their birth certificate on demand to say they are the opposite sex was successfully contested and defeated by women’s rights groups in 2018/19. Emma says: “I actually got into women’s rights back in 2018 because of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act which wanted to allow Self-ID in the UK. Self-ID is detrimental to women and girls and it was fantastic it never became Law. It seems since the Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 that ruled that a woman is, as most people know, an adult human female, transactivists have been looking for new ways to justify men being in female only single-sex spaces, services and facilities. The unions have picked a side in this conflict and it's not the law and it’s not women. I will be cancelling my membership. It’s like paying an abuser to abuse you.”
Unions influencing abusive HR policies towards women
The abuse Emma feels from her union is real, women have been hugely impacted by union influenced HR policies that prioritise trans employees over women. For instance, policies that allow men to use female only toilets and showers, and that compel women (and men) to use the wrong sex pronouns for trans people, and to specify their own pronouns when introducing themselves and in email signatures. All of these things are forcing women like Emma, Rowan and Suzy to go along with a belief system they do not believe in.
Clinical psychologist Dr Dionne Joseph describes this employer bias as abusive to women. Talking to Tanya de Grunwald on the This Isn’t Working podcast, she says: “They've made the workplace a hostile place for women. Employer-initiated coercive control-that's what I call it, we have laws about coercive control in the UK. It's one of the few countries in the world that has laws about coercive control, which is a form of domestic violence, but the same woman who's protected from that in the home, goes into work, and her employer has now become the coercive controller, and women are under constant subjugation.…..by their employers now. The employers, trying to be kind have become coercive controllers.” Unions are contributing to this abuse: they should be fighting male violence against women and girls (MVAWG) in all its forms, not encouraging it in the form of coercive control at work.
Prospect’s guide for trans and non-binary workers dismisses women
Rowan was alarmed by the dismissive nature of her union to women’s rights. She said: “After the Supreme Court ruling, Prospect’s attitude was insulting. Instead of welcoming the legal clarity for their female members, they published a statement all about their concerns for their trans members and new guidance on how to support trans workers, nothing about its female members.” Prospects new guidance Reps’ Guide Supporting trans and non-binary members at work states: “The union’s role is to seek to ensure that workplaces are inclusive for all staff.” It seems they forgot that women are part of the workforce too.
Suzy told us: “Their instruction to union reps to resist what it calls “transexclusionary policies" reinforces how little they care about women. Transexclusionary is simply lawful workplace single-sex policies. How can I go to my union if as a Team leader my female staff are having difficulties with a man who says he is a woman in the female toilets? The Prospect reps will probably call me transphobic!”
Prospect Guide for Reps
How gender identity is embedded in the Prospect constitution
Prospect’s ideological shift has been embedded in its governing policies since at least 2020. For instance in the introduction to their Member’s Guide to Equality at Work they state, ”Prospect is committed to a policy of equal opportunities for all members irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age or religion.” The category of sex isn't even mentioned. Later in the guide they state, "The Equality Act covers all the previous strands of discrimination law, including sex, gender identity, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion and belief, and age." It is deeply concerning that a trade union, whose core duty is to accurately defend workers' rights, has failed to correctly represent the Equality Act 2010 in its own guidance; by replacing the statutory characteristic of 'gender reassignment' with 'gender identity', the union has actively chosen to side with a specific, highly contested belief system over established law, inaccurately conflating two entirely distinct concepts that should never be used interchangeably.
Prospect’s Equality and Diversity guides do not mention sex or women or all of the protected characteristics
Unions behaving badly towards women
Trade unions have a duty to provide members with fair, legal representation, but can women who oppose gender ideology rely on that? There are numerous tribunal cases that show unions have begun to side with employers in opposition to their own members when faced with issues of sex versus gender. As a result, gender-critical employees increasingly fear their unions will abandon them if they clash with the employers’ gender/identity policies that conflict with women’s sex-based rights.
This climate of fear is not theoretical. The Employment Tribunal claim made by Sandie Peggie, alleges that when she raised legitimate safeguarding and privacy concerns regarding mixed-sex changing facilities with her union, the Royal College of Nursing, it withdrew its support of her and actively sided with the trans-identifying male colleague who had been using her facilities. Unions and employers have shown they are willing to abandon women who face injustice when violations involve issues that challenge the distinction between sex and gender.
Prospect’s September 2026 voting record at the TUC Congress signals to its members that it is prepared to join other unions in prioritising gender-identity activism over the statutory workplace protections of biological women.
We have witnessed union members frequently protesting women's events, rallies, protests and gatherings. Following one woman’s experience of daring to oppose a man in a woman’s changing room, women attended a protest at her treatment. WRN reported from the event: “Unison, the biggest union in the country, with 1.3 million members – 70% of whom are women – sent a gang of, mainly, men to noisily counter-protest an action organised by a WRN member who was been banned from Southwark Council leisure centres for having the temerity to call out the unlawful presence of a male in the female changing rooms.”
Rowan attended the action and said: “The Unison protesters were incredibly loud and yet the police seemed scared of doing anything that might provoke them. I felt sorriest for the staff inside the leisure centre having the noise inflicted on them, and thankful that I belonged to Prospect instead of Unison. But now I’m wondering whether I could find myself facing Prospect in a similar situation.”
As Jo Bartosch’s aptly titled piece in Spiked Magazine states , “Trade unions must stop pandering to trans fanatics.” Women pay subscriptions too and account for a large number of members. The Darlington Nurses, felt so let down and disillusioned by their union they set up their own, The Darlington Nurses Union. Emma says: “I really want to join a union that just does its job and isn’t captured by a minority contested belief like gender identity ideology. It’s not kind to women in the workplace to prioritise men who say they are women in this way. It’s a new form of discrimination, but you can’t complain to anyone, not even your union. It’s forcing women out of the workplace, women who are good at their jobs.”
Mostly male Unison members, aggressively counter-protesting a mostly female protest in solidarity for a woman banned from all council gyms for complaining about a man in her female only single-sex changing room. Screenshot taken from this video by Mr Menno.
Emma says: “Whenever I have been to protests or events organised by women, for women campaigning for our sex-based rights, I have been pleased not to see any Prospect union banners or flags in the baying mob that confronts us. There are usually Unite, Unison and PCS members there proudly waving their flags whilst they attempt to drown out our voices and aggressively intimidate us, but now I think it is only a matter of time before I see a Prospect flag joining in the anti-free speech counter-protests. It looks like Prospect is becoming further beholden to gender identity ideology and affirming its abandonment of female members.”
When unions ignore reality members will leave
Prospect’s leadership is treating its educated, science-based, analytical membership like a passive crowd. It seems to assume the union’s members won't bother reading the fine print of its own conference or TUC motions or be able to see through the carefully spun language in its newsletters. But members are paying attention, and trust is actively collapsing. If a union refuses to stand up for the rule of law, fails to protect female spaces, and treats basic biology as an extremist ideology, it is no longer a professional association and has crossed the line into pure political activism. If Prospect’s leadership doesn't change course immediately, a massive wave of membership cancellations is coming.
The time to save the union for scientists, engineers and analysts from gender identity ideology is now. Prospect members can alert their union’s leaders to the value of the laws that protect women’s rights at work and in public; and 1992 Workplace Regulations and the 2010 Equality Act, as clarified by the 2025 Supreme Court judgment. By making clear that the law and associated Code of Practice are valued by Prospect’s members, they can steer the union back towards evidence-based science and vital recognition and protection of women at work.
Prospect members can formally express their dismay at their union’s actions and position by writing to Mike Clancy, General Secretary and National Executive Committee (NEC) via email or via your local union rep.
