It's hard to say when Sir Keir Starmer saw the light of day. Back in 2020, the cervix was a no-go area for Labor.
MP Rosie Duffield wondered if I was “transphobic” for knowing that only women have a cervix…?!< /p> >
Andrew Marr on the BBC confronted Starmer with this heresy. Was it transphobic to say that only women have a cervix? “This is something that should not be talked about. It's not right,” Starmer replied.
Dufffield was thrown under a bus, like any woman inside or outside the party, who questioned Labor's increasingly nonsensical claims about women and our anatomy.
But now it seems Starmer is leading his colleagues in a sharp turn; Shadow Secretary for Equality Anneliese Dodds announced this week in an op-ed in The Guardian a policy change that says Labor has completely dropped support for transgender self-identification, saying Labor will defend “same-sex spaces” for “biological women”.
This followed a Labor Party brainstorming weekend and Starmer later appeared on Nicky Campbell's radio show to claim his Damascene transformation into reality. He wanted to reformulate the terrible penis question. “First of all, a woman is a grown woman, so let's get this clear…”
He added, “We don't think self-identification is the right way forward. We were thinking about what happened in Scotland…”
But will the party follow suit – and should women like me, who have felt betrayed by Labour's recent gender track record, trust this change of heart?
Labour MP in Brighton, Kemptown Lloyd Russell -Moyle was an outspoken supporter of transgender people – along with Ben Bradshaw – yelled at Rosie Duffield and Miriam Cates of the Tories in Parliament for daring to voice their concerns about spaces for men and women. He also participated in the trans rights protests.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle takes part in Pride in London with representatives LGBT+ Work Credit: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures via Getty Images
But Russell-Moyle told me yesterday that he, for one, generally agrees. “There are parts of the interpretation of the management statement that I think go beyond compromise,” he says. “I told them about it.
“It is important to recognize that Labor politics is a huge step forward from where we are in the UK. Self-identification is a bad name for the demedicalization policy that I support. I want to make it clear that demedicalization is vital.”
He adds: “We can achieve this through an external review process and with the help of other non-medical professionals (social workers, counselors, etc.). These are the detailed changes that I will be promoting, but I support moving forward to improve the lives of transgender people in the UK.”
Most importantly, Russell-Moyle tells me: “I am also pleased that we will maintain the current system of gender characteristics and gender protection in the Equality Act, giving people the flexibility to make exceptions based on biological sex, legal sex and gender reassignment. on a case-by-case basis, using the legal principle of “proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim”.
This is a significant shift in a party that has been heavily divided over self-identification, and the danger of factions is something Starmer, who has promised to unify the party after Jeremy Corbyn, is keenly aware.
Looks like Starmer is leading his colleagues in desperation. Credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Shortly before Starmer was elected leader, a YouGov poll showed that 80% of people thought the party had split. In June 2020, this figure was 32%.
But while Starmer has gone to great lengths to repair the damage done to Momentum and anti-Semitism, gender politics has been a thorn in his side. threatening to undermine all his efforts to achieve unity.
Not everyone is as open to policy change as Russell-Moyle. Ben Bradshaw, one of the party's most outspoken MPs on transgender issues, says he is concerned about Starmer's “departure” from self-identification, or, as he puts it, the “demedicalization” of the sex change process.
“I am delighted that we are defending the Equality Act while the Tories are proposing to deprive transgender people of their protection under the Act, and that we are once again committed to modernizing the gender reassignment process, which is currently inhumane and overly bureaucratic,” he says. . . “But I'm concerned that we seem to be backtracking somewhat on our commitment to demedicalize the process.”
Brent Central MP Dawn Butler tweeted: “Several people have asked me and I confirm that my position on the issue of transgender people has not changed since 2020. position for 2020. We must not fall into the Tory trap.”
Will Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, change her mind when she says “some women are born with penises”? Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development David Lammy said anti-transgender people are dinosaurs hoarding rights and, more mysteriously, “people can get cervix.”
Whereas trans women cannot do this. ovaries, Lammy said: “I understand that the cervix is something that you can get after various procedures, hormonal treatments and everything else.” Is he on board?
What about Leeds North West MP Alex Sobel, who, when asked if there should be separate facilities for women in schools, hospitals, shelters and prisons, replied “No “. Or East Nottingham MP Nadia Whittom, who gambled on a complete Maoist re-education: “The Labor Party should educate the ignorant, not the ideological.”
Shadow Secretary of State for Upgrading, Housing and Communities Lisa Nandy (“I think trans women are women and should be put in the prison of their choice”) and Salford and Ackles MP Rebecca Long-Bailey signed letters demanding the exclusion of who they consider “transphobic” – both individuals and “hate groups”, organizations such as the LGB Alliance and Women's Place. Did Starmer talk to them?
Many can rely on the absence of debate. I tweeted Norwich South MP Clive Lewis yesterday on this issue and found that he blocked me. So much for dialogue.
Meanwhile, Rosie Duffield, who many women feel needs an apology from Starmer before Labor gets their votes, says: “I have not been consulted about this policy, I I just read it on paper like everyone else. Are we really doing this?”
Duffield adds: “It seems to have been decided by the young London staff around Keir, but we are the ones who have to sell politics, who deal with the public. Starmer hasn't met with me since September 2021.”
She wants to know what the details of all this will be, as she says Conservative Kemi Badenoch is working with government officials to resolve difficult issues. – for example, who is watching this.
“In the end, you can’t shield these questions, you fall,” she says. “Starmer is on the rope and he's wobbly. What will happen to the unions, for example?”
I'm not so cheapskate as to deny that there is some progress here. But I don't jump for joy either. Too many women have been pilloried, lost their jobs and their reputations for proclaiming what is now considered Labor politics.
Duffield, for example, faced what she called “intrusive harassment” from party members and a lack of leadership support. She said being a member of the Labor Party is like being in an “abusive relationship” and that she feels the party has a “women's issue” after she raised concerns about Nicola Sturgeon's gender recognition reform bill .
Understandably, Rosie Duffield believes that some Laborites need to eat a piece of the humble pie. Photo: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Handout via REUTERS
The idea that we're all about to swoon over a party that has minimal understanding of women's rights or even rudimentary guarantees is patronizing. Several factors contributed to this. First, it is a rollback for all Corbynite policies.
Self-identification was part of Labor's 2019 election manifesto: “Labor is committed to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to introduce self-declaration for transgender people.” The problem with self-declaration is that it is open to abuse and puts feelings before facts, for example: a man who does nothing to transition may declare himself a woman just because he feels like a woman.
Poll after poll shows that most people – and especially women – are fairly liberal and tolerant of trans women, but when they are notified, most of them retain male genitalia, are less comfortable sharing shelters, prisons, locker rooms with them or forcing them to engage in intimate care.
According to a YouGov poll last year, 35% of people support gender-neutral toilets and 48% of Britons feel uncomfortable using them in public. Sport, of course, was also a big revelation, as every sports body had to look at the sheer injustice that athletes who have the advantage of having passed male puberty compete against biological females.
< p>Over the past few years, the medical transfer of troubled adolescents, primarily girls, has also come under scrutiny due to the Cass Review into Gender Identity Services for Children and Youth and the closure of the NHS Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS).< /p>< p>As a result, trans rights organizations like Stonewall and Mermaids seem to be collapsing. Former Stonewall executive Nancy Kelly is gone, as is Mermaids' Susie Green. Starmer hung out at the Pink News Awards last October. A month ago, the bigwigs of Labor had dinner with Stonewall. Their MPs, including Russell-Moyle, who previously shared a platform with Sarah Jane Baker, a transgender woman now back in jail for recently publicly advocating violence against women.
So excuse me if I don't think they suddenly believe different things. This is a political reality. Labor saw what happened when Scotland – against the wishes of the public – tried to push through a reform of the Gender Recognition Act.
The hypothetical arguments became much more real when we saw the “woman” of the rapist Isla Bryson, his genitals. seen through pink lycra.
Clearly, Labor doesn't want to lose female voters, but the fundamental recognition that sex and gender are two different things goes a long way. Now we need a lot more clarity on what self-identification means, if it is to go through only one doctor, a possible recipe for self-declaration through the back door through unscrupulous medics.
We need to know what is safe gaps actually mean. We need to understand how what many of us have been publicly condemned for has now become Labor policy. We need to understand how Labor is going to oppose Scottish and Welsh Labor.
Understandably, Rosie Duffield feels that some Labor need to eat a piece of the humble pie. “The whole pie, actually,” she says, laughing.
Many of us who have been vilified refuse to be erased from history. All of this set off a tsunami of misogyny while the party stood by and watched. Mostly it didn't concern transgenders at all, I was always worried about the protection of women and children. We have failed.
We need much more than vague political statements to regain our credibility. We have receipts, remember.
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