It is not the first time that Mordaunt has been accused of misrepresenting her record on issues of gender during the Conservative leadership campaign. Penny Mordaunt clashes with fellow Conservative party leadership candidates Kemi Badenoch and Liz Truss over her record on trans rights. "I'm a woman, I'm a biological woman, if I had a mastectomy I'd still be a woman." In any case, her current claim that biological women and “legal women” are not necessarily the same thing says nothing about whether or not she would continue to allow biological males to participate in women’s sports, transfer to women’s prisons, stay on women’s hospital wards, and so on - all of which have an impact on women’s safety.
Mordaunt’s performance on the trans issue perhaps contributed to her less than stellar polling on who won the debate, with a snap survey from Opinium finding that just 12 per cent thought she had done the best on Friday evening, a third place finish that contrasts heavily with early polls suggesting that despite her relative lack of public exposure she was the top choice of the party membership. Foreign Secretary Lizz Truss - with calls from Badenoch to “tell the truth” in the background - admitted that there was such a plan in place from Mordaunt’s department when she came into power as Minister for Women and Equalities, backing up Badenoch’s account. Mordaunt protested that her position should be on government record, yet, to date she has not provided such evidence to the public. I didn’t work with Penny, but my understanding was that the previous minister had wanted self-ID”. This was promptly refuted by her successor as equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch, who said: “When I took over as equalities minister in 2020, the policy that was being pushed was self-ID, so I don’t understand how that would have changed unless someone else did it in between. A post shared by Penny Mordaunt MP went on to claim that as equalities minister, she was never in favour of people being allowed to self-identify as any gender they prefer without the need of a doctor to certify a condition of gender dysphoria or other similar conditions.