Sir Keir Starmer on women's rights, sport, and penises, in LBC interview

Yes I suspect it is linked to agreements/donations too.

There is no reason why any party would actively work against 51% of the electorate in plain sight, social justice or not, it does not ring true.

Biden it was discovered had made agreements prior to the election, it was covered extensively by American journalists. We might yet discover why Labour are so welded to their philosophy which comes at a (high) cost to their chances of actually ever being in government again.

Well the Lib Dems got “ donations” for a big pharmaceutical company so that explains their ridiculous stance, so maybe a decent journalist should have a wee look at the Labour party’s donations. Following the money is often a fruitful path.

Keir must see that he is breaching the human rights of women by continuing with this stance, he must know and can not care.
Are women not entitled to 'social justice' tabby?
Unless you are part of the 1% your rights, safety and identity is irrelevant unless you are a man of course and then it is guaranteed?

can Kier, with extensive knowledge of equal rights and the law, see that he must separate ideology from equal rights advocacy in the Labour Party?

He's a muppet. And a bigot. And we need a leader who can lead an effective opposition not someone who does not have the balls to share an actual opinion.

'I am truly wondering why Starmer and Labour ARE so deeply invested in the first place. Why? Donors maybe?'

Because politicians are a self-selecting group. They enter politics with agendas, in this case 'social justice', rather than 'justice'.

One lobby group makes up at best 1% of the population
The other group is 51%

Anyone would tell you it is a no brainer. I just don't understand it.

I am truly wondering why Starmer and Labour ARE so deeply invested in the first place. Why? Donors maybe?

Why is there such an entrenched position that is so alienating to 51% of the population? Not to mention themselves, family members etc or do they imagine the coal face of consequences will not be experienced by them?

"Be kind " got us to this point. Now it's time to be honest

Well yes quite. Being kind has got us absolutely nowhere apart from a loss of more rights.

It would be good to start from a position of fact at least, and work from there.

He's obviously bumbling around hedging his bets, speaking in semi-coherent half-sentences, avoiding the point of the questions and so on - but OTOH that's pretty much the Boris Johnson speaks ALL THE TIME

Good point fifteentoes - but Johnson does this because he knows he's likely to say something inappropriate - a joke when he should be serious, a racist comment, something offensive. That's why he's incoherent as he's learnt he must self censor as the "real" Johnson's thoughts are often so unacceptable.
Starmer bumbles when asked whether women can have a penis because he knows yes is not an acceptable response. If he was honest and said "yes" - then the floodgates would open as the population would realise the massive con that's been created behind those closed doors.

He's got a lot invested in concealing the female penis from the voters.

" I think there is consensus on some issues - safety on hospital wards, rape crisis centres, DV refuges, male midwives etc etc is broadly agreed in all circles in my experience."

Only the voices that say that Transwomen should be allowed to access these are not being shut down. The head of Edinburgh Rape Crisis is a man who dresses as a woman. They lied about what sex they were and still got the job.
A woman has been raped on a single sex ward and was disbelieved for a year because the police were told there were only females in the ward. One of those "females" was a bloke.

"Be kind " got us to this point. Now it's time to be honest.

He's obviously bumbling around hedging his bets, speaking in semi-coherent half-sentences, avoiding the point of the questions and so on - but OTOH that's pretty much the Boris Johnson speaks ALL THE TIME.

Having defended KS, I just have to say that BJ, as you say, speaks like that all the time. That's how he talks. So it doesn't seem odd when he er's and ah's. Irritating but not odd. But KS doesn't speak like that normally. So it sounds shifty and ill-prepared when he speaks like that. He really needs to pull up his political socks. He can't just expect to win an election on pointing at the Tories and saying we'd have done better. He needs to develop political nous and speak better under pressure. This topic comes up in interviews all the time, so he must be be expecting it and yet he seems ill-prepared. He has to come out with something concrete rather than saying it's rude to discuss this. It's the cumulative effect of seeing him looking shifty that will be his downfall, not the actual issue of transgenderism.

I don't understand how so many women (not sure what percentage of all women) are on board with such very recent events as Lia Thomas being viewed as a woman in women's sports while the BBC article on endometriosis initially defined it as a medical condition which affects 'people,' even though almost every single case affects only biologically female individuals (The terms were changed after many women complained, though).

You take these two things together, and it is clear that 'woman' is becoming something that means people who like pink, sparkles, high heels, and pillow fights while the biological term is now being erased.

I think there is consensus on some issues - safety on hospital wards, rape crisis centres, DV refuges, male midwives etc etc is broadly agreed in all circles in my experience. I have a diverse set of friends and we now talk about this - we lost a labour seat of forty odd years here to a female tory and she is very aware of the issues facing women and girls. I had a very direct conversation with her, because I believe it could be a dealbreaker at the next election.

At one point he says something like "of course adult female human beings are women.'

This means that he thinks trans men are women and that nonbinary (notlikeotherigirls) female-bodied people are women! Tut, tut, transphobe Starmer. (The latter two groups would protest this and so, indeed, would the whole faux woke gender movement).

So Starmer doesn't understand what the gender identity ideology actually demands: You CANNOT define any part of womanhood as based on a biological concept. NONE.

Starmer lumps together women who are biological women with women who are biological men but identify as women. These are NOT the same group of individuals in terms of the political issues which affect them.

This is a very common error (a foundational one) inside many of us (I had trouble with this for a few years), perhaps because we are so used to the biological part of womanhood and cannot quite believe that it is going to be erased. So we take the old category (women who are of the female sex) and add it to a new small category of women who are not of the female sex but wish to be seen as women and think that we achieved inclusiveness!

But then we are told that we are excluding the people who excluded themselves by walking out of the group 'women' and who now wish to be called men or nonbinary! They can now not just be added to the large group to preserve inclusiveness: the old group must be renamed. It will be called 'people' as anything else is now not inclusive.

He's obviously bumbling around hedging his bets, speaking in semi-coherent half-sentences, avoiding the point of the questions and so on - but OTOH that's pretty much the Boris Johnson speaks ALL THE TIME'

😁 Very good point. Still a pretty pathetic showing

@Swayingpalmtrees Fair enough. Statements about what "most women" think are difficult of course because we all mix in different circles. Most of the women I know are either totally on board with TWAW or just don't say anything about it, but I probably move in generally pretty woke circles. You're right that I shouldn't extrapolate from that to the country as a whole.

It's also very possible that the ones who don't say anything have strong feelings against it that they just haven't mustered the courage to express yet.

Re feeling sorry for him from pp, I used to, now I just feel annoyed

What are the actual changes Labour want to make to the GRA/GRC & knock ons’ for the Eq Act?

My then Labour MP was clear that the Equality Act was to be changed by removing gender reassignment as a protected characteristic in favour of gender identity. This was to be accompanied by making it impossible to have female-only legal set asides that exclude males who identify as women (i.e. their gender identity is woman, whatever the fuck that means).

That position I thought would not be maintained after the general election manifesto stating a commitment to single-sex exceptions, but the correspondence I got after that continued to insist that Labour would change the Equality Act "to better protect trans people".

If you want to know what it means to protect on the basis of gender identity rather than gender reassignment, it's like protecting Catholicism rather than the right for an individual to be a Catholic.

The latter allows for freedom of belief in Catholicism for Catholics and freedom of disbelief in Catholicism for everyone else. The former takes us back to the Middle Ages.

As I've made clear before I have no time at all for Sir Keir, but I'm not sure that interview is quite as bad as people are saying. He's obviously bumbling around hedging his bets, speaking in semi-coherent half-sentences, avoiding the point of the questions and so on - but OTOH that's pretty much the Boris Johnson speaks ALL THE TIME. It would be interesting to put the same question to him and see if the response was any clearer. It would be miraculously out of character if it were.

He did raise the issue of exceptions (spaces for protection of women against violence etc.) that should be made to any equalities provision for trans people. Short of saying "I agree with Mumsnet, and all the TRAs can go fuck themselves", I'm not sure any politician can go much further than that in the current climate.

fifteen My conservative MP, and I believe Liz Truss and others ARE bringing this up regularly, they do see the danger and risks. I have emailed my MP about it numerous times, as dd's college loos are constantly being used by boys with their mobile phones. They know it is an issue, and one that is growing. It will become even bigger once the sports thing takes off.

It was niche, it no longer is. Labour are late to the party on this. Most of my friends like me are very liberal and have become really aware of this.

I think you are underestimating what most women feel about this

He must think the electorate are idiots. He's obviously been told to say "I've been protecting women's safety for years as DPP" as if that is an adequate response to this.

To be honest, it just doesn't come up as a key issue. It's not something branch meetings spend much time talking about or passing resolutions about. It's possible that some women members are secretly thinking it's a load of cobblers, but for most it doesn't create real practical problems yet that require getting off the fence about.

Which is probably a pretty fair representation of most of the country. I think most people like the idea of defending trans rights, all else being equal. People shouldn't be discriminated against in job interviews, accomodation etc, just because they're trans. That's just basic equality awareness and taking forward the same attitudes that had to be fought hard to win for black people, gay people etc.

Most people haven't yet been in the situation where they've been sexually harassed by a transwoman in a changing room, had to face a transwoman in a rape crisis centre etc. So until that starts impacting directly on their lives, the inherent conflict of interests involved is just avoided.

nightlystroll the mental image of Sir Keir looking tearful/constipated puts me in mind of the old Syrup of Figs adverts featuring listless schoolchildren. I daresay he could corner a small market in adult commercials once he retires from politics.