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

I'd feel sorry for him Nightlystroll if he wasn't so determined to throw women and girl's safety under the bus. He gets all huffy puffy about his record for dealing with VAWG as a lawyer, yet refuses to acknowledge that in supporting self ID and fetishising this group of people as the most vulnerable group ever, he fails to appreciate competing rights.
He's allegedly a political leader yet he can't string a coherent sentence together about why or how the sex category of women must now include men. His choice of "adult female" is yet another sleight of hand to avoid recognising that all this is a mess.

If any man can self ID as a woman resulting in crimes like indecent exposure being removed from statute and women and girls being required to undress, shower & sleep in the presence of the naked male penis, then he owes it to us to be explicit.

Six years is long enough to work out who half the population is, and to realise mathematically an election can not be won without them.

I feel a bit sorry for Keir Starmer actually. I know he gets a hammering on here but he's not been in politics for long and I think lack of political experience shows. He'd only been an MP for 6 years before becoming leader and, really, it's just not long enough. He looked unhappy (at one point he looked ether constipated or that he was going to cry), uneasy, and he couldn't answer questions without looking shifty. As a barrister you'd think he'd be used to thinking on his feet but maybe that's just in films and actually barrsters have everything worked out in advance. His slow delivery just made him sound like he was unsure of himself and struggling. On top of that he doesn't have any connection with people or charisma. He's an intelligent man, who shows some gravitas which is a refreshing contrast to Boris Johnson. But if he can't act the part, he can't make a connection with his audience, and he can't state clear policies, I wonder how successful he's going to be. At this point he does seem to be investing his political career on Boris messing up rather than winning in his own right. He's so lucky he got Boris as an opponent, that's all I can say.

I am speaking as an average woman, this could have been sorted out with stronger safety measures at the beginning. Unisex loos should have been available, unisex changing rooms and prison spaces at the start. Women's and girls' spaces should have always been a protected area for obvious reasons. Sports could be unisex in some cases, football etc and for the rest should be divided by sex due to the unfairness and disadvantage to women. Again the fairness and equality should have been the motivator to ensure women's sports were not wiped off the face of the earth.
And yet we had David Cameron bowing and scraping at the opportunity to be cool and down with the kids (he is doing something similar now in Poland) Just running after the applause and trends. Instead of standing up for the truly vulnerable (those at rape crisis units and such like) and yet the moment was lost when it was possible to really assert that 'progress' was not progress if it dismantles the rights of another.

I admit I thought it might even be good for women and girls, we will no longer have to worry about gender stereotypes, how naive! I even thought we might finally get something approaching equality! I did not expect our identities to be stripped altogether, our rights violated in hospitals and prisons and our daughters unable to compete in sports, our femininity stolen and rehashed as drag. Demeaning labels forced on to us like chest feeder etc.
I imagined in a world of Mx that we could overcome misogyny and everyone might be a winner....looking back I think many of us did. What utter naivety, because what is fuelling this campaign is not a wish to protect women but to erase us, it does not come from a place of love but one of hate. Anyone that seriously loved or cared for women would not put us at risk, would not ask us to give up a hard fought rights and would not take away our protection and safety. This is a hateful destructive force that has been hijacked, and now supported by huge political parties, seemingly happy to champion our demise.

I do feel sorry for him. But that's not a good emotion to have about a politician.

The problem comes back to there being a mechanism for a man to obtain a female birth certificate and strong id.

Few politicians want to acknowledge this process, how it works and the reality that it means that a man with a penis, who has no intention of removing that penis, is legally called 'female'. That's the bit that no politician wants to explain.

To avoid the real issue, it seems the tories are saying sex matters (but not really saying if it's legal sex or actual sex), labour is flip flopping between saying sex doesn't exist anyway to whatever the hell Starmer thinks he's saying.

As a feminist, I'm raging at politicians redefining women and our right to organise without the permission of men, and to even have words to describe ourselves with including men. But I understand that no political party is going to be truly feminist. So just getting them to be honest, would be a start.

Why are they making it so bloody difficult for us!

'I'm not sure how he'd get out of that, unless he started claiming that 'female' was also a category that males could 'identify as', so is just as meaningless in his world as the word 'woman'.'

This is exactly what he means.

It's a shame Nick didn't comment and make him admit that if all adult females are women then all adult males are men, so transwomen are men.

I'm not sure how he'd get out of that, unless he started claiming that 'female' was also a category that males could 'identify as', so is just as meaningless in his world as the word 'woman'.

So he can't possibly identify the female members of his family by their ownership of a cervix

How does he square his own arrival into the world then? Or that of his children? They were all delivered by storks?
How does he describe the sex of his own children? Or does he call his own children it and they?

This is unbelievable.

bellinisurge:

They often do, though, don't they? The Maughams, the Pullmans, the Alex Sobels. Just like people had wives and children when they were putting witches on ducking stools. It doesn't stop them being unable to see women as human beings with full agency and autonomy.

He has a wife and, I think, at least one daughter. He has prosecuted men who commit violence against women. He's been in the Labour Party all his life so he will have met many LGB activists.
The idea that he doesn't really know what the issues are and needs to speak to people about it is FRANKLY LUDICROUS.
Lesbians and gay men are being called transphobic for not accepting transwomen or transmen as sexual partners.
Women's sport is under siege from cheating men.
Safeguarding is put at risk if women aren't allowed to have single sex spaces.
Predators became priests, teachers, TV personalities to access the vulnerable and ensure those victims wouldn't be believed. Do you seriously think a predator wouldn't just self-ID into that access if they could without any safeguards in place.
Claim there will be safeguards? Tell that to the woman raped and disbelieved in hospital. Tell that to women victims who should expect to be "re-educated out of their prejudice " by a man dressed as a woman who currently runs Edinburgh Rape Crisis.

I am astounded at how politically tone deaf Keir Starmer is on this issue. Why would he go to the trouble of tackling anti semitism and driving out the problematic hard left only to go on to alienate and horrify half the population? I guess they don't want to be elected.

Someone on Twitter just told KS, 'Mumsnet is right. You do always look like your hand is caught in a drawer and you're trying not to show it.'

He definitely does.

I can't work out why Starmer is deliberately making Labour unelectable - what exactly is going on here, does anyone know?

Do you suppose he said to his family Happy Cervix Haver day

Tutt tutt @Swayingpalmtrees

Keri said no one should say "only women have a cervix" it's an unspeakable phrase.

So he can't possibly identify the female members of his family by their ownership of a cervix. Or presumably at other exclusively female bits of anatomy. 🤷‍♀️

That should say over legislating.

Iggly

I think on the whole it's because the Tories have tended to favour not legislating in favour of legislating. Many Tories believe in small government and 'leave it alone', and they don't like spending money. So while this takeover has been happening quietly, they've been content with it. Now it threatens free speech in universities and is resulting in much more exposure, they a) see that the ideology is damaging in a way they didn't before and b) see that it can damage Labour more than them.

We still have to persuade them out of their general 'leave it alone' mentality.

That’s what I don’t get?

He wants an open discussion but does not want to contribute if it gets too tricky for him.

The Tories have been better on this, but still not brilliant. They have ruled out self-ID and X marker passports, saying there are two sexes in UK law and it will stay that way.

They say they will protect single-sex spaces but there seems to be a spat between the Government Equalities Office and the EHRC about exactly how to do it, with the conflict being about the same thing as above: whether female-only spaces should always/sometimes/never admit TW and NB people and in what circumstances.

I really wish Starmer would just speak plainly and fearlessly about this issue, at least then I would have a clue on what Labour might actually do if they got into power, especially if in coalition with the Lib Dems. I have never felt so politically homeless before.

Starmer's a barrister. He should be able to understand how the law works and the implications of changing it, as well as understanding why definitions in law are important.
He either does understand all this and is lacking the backbone to speak up.
Or he doesn't understand it and is lacking in the ability to understand and navigate difficult issues.
IMO, whichever way you look at it, he's not qualified to be leader of the opposition and definitely not prime minister.

What is the Conservative position on this? I’m meaning to write to my local Tory MP.

I don’t think about of the parties have got this right but not sure why Labour are getting more of a hammering than the party who have been in charged for 12 years and have the power to do things we may not want them to.

Are they worried that we are currently ok now (are we???) and that any Labour government will make it worse?