Rachel Reeves Today R4 just before 8

Legal protections and where needed, additional resources and facilities for transgender male and transgender female people, plus of course NB and all the other many TQ+ gender identities.

AND

sex based rights and spaces, facilities, resources that only those of that sex can use.

Answers that work for and equally respect the access and equality of everyone.

Wes Streeting:

twitter.com/Independent/status/1509111941788323845

[quote PronounssheRa]Reeves did a painful interview in September where it was clear she was reading from notes or a script but was still incoherent. I have no idea what her views are or what she stands for.

twitter.com/LBC/status/1442380463298027520[/quote]
Yes.

This leaves you with two rather grim possibilities as a voter:

• She does know (and the Labour party knows) what their views are and what they would do once in power but daren't admit it out loud - in which case God help us....

or

• Neither Rachel NOR the Labour party know what their views are or what they stand for either.

I'm not sure which is worse.

Another question I'd like interviewers to ask. Would Labour / Conservatives / LDs / SNP / Greens support this carrying on, or do they think the data should reflect the legal construction of rape?

www.lbc.co.uk/news/british-transgender-accused-rapists-recorded-female/

A total of 24 of 47 forces asked said that if somebody was arrested or charged with rape or sexual assault, the official record would show their preferred gender identity, rather than their sex at birth. Campaigners say the stance "puts the feelings of a perpetrator of a sexual crime" ahead of those of the victim.

The Home Office Counting Rules, which provide a national standard for the recording of crime, do not contain any advice on the recording of sex or gender, so practices differ at each individual force.

But obviously that would raise privacy concerns.

A position that pleases most people probably exists. I’d be happy with people having a legal - but limited - right to change their sex. There could be an amendment to the GRA, not a repeal, so people have the right to change (for example) from female to ‘transgender male’, which would be differentiated in law from ‘male’.

Their legal sex would then be ‘transgender male’.

But this would still need to be based on a medical diagnosis of dysphoria, still need to be accompanied by a period of transitioning, and still wouldn’t come with the right to use single-sex spaces.

I think most people would be fine with that.

They are trying really hard to find a position that pleases everybody. At some point they are going to realise that it doesn’t really exist.

They need to start talking to people that really understand this. Of course, there’ll be a massive backlash if they do that.

[quote PronounssheRa]Reeves did a painful interview in September where it was clear she was reading from notes or a script but was still incoherent. I have no idea what her views are or what she stands for.

twitter.com/LBC/status/1442380463298027520[/quote]
Having re-watched that, I am once again hit by how she is literally cannot answer. It really is painful to see her making noises, unable to formulate an answer that she feels won't get her into trouble.

However, what I noticed today, which I didn't in September is that she unintentionally makes her real position clear by saying 'Why are we having to discuss parts of women's anatomy on the radio. I don't feel comfortable talking about women's anatomies and different parts of women's bodies with you, Nick, or frankly with anybody else'

Reeves did a painful interview in September where it was clear she was reading from notes or a script but was still incoherent. I have no idea what her views are or what she stands for.

twitter.com/LBC/status/1442380463298027520

I think it is over-optimistic. Reeves was always very ambivalent. Streeting still believes TWAW (but acknowledges that there is a legitimate debate about sex versus gender). Duffield is obviously very good on this.

But most of them sound like they’ve been planted upside down.

‘there are ALSO people who are born one gender but strongly identify as the other and I don't want to EXCLUDE those people, but biology DOES matter’

I left the Labour Party in the last few days over this issue. I was pleasantly surprised to hear this interview. I think it's progress for an official Labour spokesperson to admit that biological sex exists and single sex spaces are justified, albeit with bit of fluffing around. I hope it indicates a change in policy, as it would be astonishingly incompetent for any political party not to be briefing their spokespeople on how to answer this question. I don't think we can expect a sudden move from the previous official poisition of 'everyone can have a cervix' to sanity in one move. But this felt like a good start. I hope I'm not being over-optimistic.

As they’ve obviously learnt to not put their foot in it so much by modifying language but they should be clear on policy at some point.

Hmm. Better than I've heard from some. But not at all clear what her personal view is, It sounds like she throws everything into her answer to try to placate both sides, but ends up giving a confused and fudged answer which placates no one.

MH: Why has it been so difficult for KS and for other members of the Lab front bench to have a coherent answer on what a woman is in recent weeks?

RR: I don't accept that. The vast majority of women..

MH: There's been a lot of different answers, KS won't engage with the question

RR: Well, let me answer the question

MH: But it's true, isn't it? There have been different responses to this question, I just wondered why it's difficult?

RR: The vast majority of women share biological attributes, we can go through those different parts of the body, if you like, but there are ALSO people who are born one gender but strongly identify as the other and I don't want to EXCLUDE those people, but biology DOES matter. It is the main determinant of your gender, but if people are born as one sex as we saw yesterday with a Conservative Member of Parliament, the first trans MP, he should have the opportunity to define himself .

MH: But the point is that there HAVE been different answers, I just wondered if you agreed with what Tony Blair has said, that you really need to tackle this, so into it and resolve it, to make it clear where you stand and that's all of you who are on the Lab front bench..

RR: Well, I am clear Mishal, that a woman has certain biological characteristics but there are ALSO people who were born into - as a different sex, that identify as one and I wouldn't want to exclude them. They have gone through difficult times, difficult processes, but it's also important that same sex spaces are also available, whether that's in sport, inrefuges and in prisons and the law is clear on that

Thanks, RegisterRex.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove the 11/12 years ago part is at c1:04mins

twitter.com/KayBurley/status/1509439570420633601

Transcript of R4 on Twitter:

twitter.com/anyabike/status/1509425657977135114

Things that leapt out:

'there are people born one gender and ID as another'
first Tory trans MP 'should have the right and opportunity to define himself as he wants to'

So, Labour is still in favour of self-ID

Anya Palmer's much better(!) analysis:

^Executive summary: woman is a sex except when a man strongly identifies as a woman and Rachel wouldn't want to exclude him, biology does matter but he should have the right to define himself as he wants to, but same sex spaces should exist and the law is clear on that.
So: Labour is still not prepared to recognise that women are a sex class, because they are still determined to make that subject to the qualification that men have the right to identify into that class if they want to. Gender trumps sex.
And reading between the lines: Labour still supports making it even easier for men to do that, for example the suggestion that Jamie Wallis should have the right to be treated as a woman even though he has not yet evinced any intention to change anything about himself.
Still no sign that Labour front bench has any understanding that this is not just about the rights of men to self identify as women, but about the right of women who in Labour's scheme of things would be forced to accept or pretend to accept that men can be women if they say so.^

Reeves said this wasn't being debated 11 or 12 years ago. But now it is? Couldn't quite make that part out.

I missed this interview.

Can anyone who heard it clarify @RegisterRex's recollection at all? It seems like another evolving Labour claim to keep in our sights.

i.e. is Labour trying to divert from its own GRA 2004? And pretend all this mess started under the Tories in 2010?

She was better on Sky. She linked biology and single-sex spaces - prisons, refuges and sports.

She also said she doesn’t want to exclude people like Jamie Wallis from living the life he wants to lead (and I’d agree with that, as carefully as it’s expressed). However, it’s not my views that would exclude JW from the biological category of ‘woman’ - it’s just biology. Sometimes that doesn’t matter. I’m not about to go round telling people they can’t wear a dress or call themselves a woman. But if I’m using a space overseen by a law that says the space is only for females, then it does matter, because if it didn’t, we wouldn’t need the law at all.

I heard this - so much waffle. I think they're trying to row back a bit but they're still trying to please everyone, hence all the tying in knots.

Any politician not expecting these questions now must be living under a rock!

Excellent piece by James Kirkup, as ever, though I think he used 'gender' on occasion when 'sex' was what he meant. He must be rivalling Helen Staniland in how many times he's used the word penis.

Do women have penises? No. Not a single woman does. Get used to it, chaps.

Rachel Reeves is wrong; the law is very far from clear on this and that's why we're up to our necks in this mess.