Ooh Bridget Phillipson has defined ‘woman’

I want David Lammy wearing a dinosaur suit in the HoC and Lisa Nandy on QT in a Tunnocks outfit.

But seriously, I can’t elect Rayner, Lammy, Nandy and the rest. Imagine what they would do with a decade in power.

If someone makes a small positive step and the response is "not good enough, you should have stuck your neck out more", I can't see them finding that encouraging. Anyone looking on who might have thought about doing similar isn't going to be encouraged either.

With a normal person I'd agree. With an elected politician who has the power to create and influence policy based on their own idiotic ideology, a quick u-turn based on public reaction just doesn't cut it and why should we trust them? Especially as Labour councils have passed such damaging motions recently. They had 1 job, they failed, they should resign. We rightlt wouldn't be so forgiving on any other issue or to the Tories on anything at all so don't be nice here. This was likely to cause real danger and harm to a lot of women and they just want our vote.

Oh no, tabby, I'm going to need to see a lot more than this before I come back.

A fucking apology would be nice. I want Starmer and Nandy and Rayner and Lammy and the rest of the beeeekiiiinnnd totalitarians to admit they got it wrong.

‘The comfort I'm taking from this is that the issue is clearly cutting through now, and they've realised that their position is disastrously unpopular.’

But does that mean they can just change it and we’ll all vote for them? They believe TWAW. The front bench of the Labour Party is made up of people who have (variously) supported Mermaids, bullied women for speaking their minds, supported women being housed with men in prisons, backed Stonewall to the hilt etc.

I am sorry to say it (I have voted Labour all my life) but I think they’re unsuited to governing me.

I also really like to see testimony from doctors who diagnose gender dysphoria. What criteria do they use?

Do they make a distinction between a transsexual and a transvestite? How do they do that?

Let's have the conversation. Its so overdue.

What is the legal process? We all know it's fairly basic and straightforward, despite TRAs claims to the contrary.

Who is eligible? Anyone including rapists and pedophiles. No surgery or hormone treatment required.

What does it give them access to?

How the exceptions cant work.

How the 'legal process' is completely unnecessary anyway.

Let's have it.

I think Labour’s intention is for anyone to be able to use public bathrooms (no policing at all), for services to make their own changing room policies (presumably based on self-ID), and to bring in self-ID so more formal institutions and services (crisis shelters, prisons, sports) can say ‘single-sex’ and actually allow in males who say they are women or NB.

Sadly, I think this is true- they are still on the stonewall playbook. Theoretical sex-based exemptions will exist but will almost impossible to implement because of self-ID.

‘Less than two years ago the Lib dems were suspending anyone who talked about women being adult human females and two of three candidates for Labour leader wanted it to get you thrown out of the party.’

And they have let that situation go on for years. But suddenly (weeks before the local elections) they’re all queuing up to pretend to care about women...

I think this is a good starting point. That is the current position regarding transition. There is a legal process you can go through to be recognised as the opposite sex/gender (unfortunately conflated). And the exemptions to the equality act set out when services can exclude someone who is legally one sex but biologically the other.

The issues are that:

• there are proposed changes to the legal process that remove existing safeguards (self-ID with a solemn declaration of sincerity)
• there is huge social pressure, mostly on women, to accept a de-facto self-ID, in which anyone who says they are a woman must be accepted as such.

Which is a start, but the interesting questions are related to single sex spaces, free speech, childhood transition, sports, etc.

Very true. It's going to be harder to get interviewers to start to really drill down but the last week is still fab progress.

Less than two years ago the Lib dems were suspending anyone who talked about women being adult human females and two of three candidates for Labour leader wanted it to get you thrown out of the party.

Nauticant: true, but if this is more language designed to obfuscate the fact that Labour is not prepared to distinguish between two groups, and are simply justifying their conflation between the groups, it doesn’t help us. I’m pleased if any politician can recognise what a woman is but we do need to hear the detail.

It seems to be a fair description to me.
I do not want trans men or trans women to feel marginalised by society so if we can agree on a description that is acceptable to everyone that has got to be a positive.

I still can't help thinking though that we don't have as much debate about trans men because they're not bio men and don't have the same sense of entitlement.

If someone makes a small positive step and the response is "not good enough, you should have stuck your neck out more", I can't see them finding that encouraging. Anyone looking on who might have thought about doing similar isn't going to be encouraged either.

It's a small step isn't it? It's moved on from Don't say only women have a cervix to woman as an adult female. And Lammy's science denial men can grow a cervix appears to be confined to the basement with his collection of captured dinosaurs.
But everyone's right - the devil is in the detail and the press need to make them clarify what the implications of their enthusiasm for self ID means for their sudden acceptance of legitimate single sex spaces.

Labour need to wise up and stop this ridiculous stance and quickly. Or they'll be looking at a Tory government for a really long time. It's embarrassing watching them turn themselves into human pretzels trying to avoid stating something that we all know to be fact. If they can't string a coherent and factual sentence together, no one is going to trust them with running the country.
Honestly, they should be miles ahead of this current government but they fuck it up every time

I think Labour’s intention is for anyone to be able to use public bathrooms (no policing at all), for services to make their own changing room policies (presumably based on self-ID), and to bring in self-ID so more formal institutions and services (crisis shelters, prisons, sports) can say ‘single-sex’ and actually allow in males who say they are women or NB.

How far the Tory strategy differs from this is still a question.

I think this is the beginning of that conversation though. At the moment the meaning of the word 'woman' has been hijacked. Until politicians can be persuaded to be clear there's no point talking about single sex spaces because they are voided by the woolly descriptions of who can use them.

Tbh I object to them using the term women at all. They aren't. Except in the nicety of a legal lie.
I think people get confused by the terms transwoman and transman. To me their meanings should be the other way around so that trans woman would mean female who transitions to present like they imagine a man to be and trans man would mean a male who transitions to present like they imagine a woman to be.

Using the word woman in any way to describe someone who really isn't, just reinforces their view that womanhood is something a person can actively choose and become.

‘We know that exceptions can still be made under the EA but a man with a GRC 'is' legally a woman.’

But that is a legal construct. It’s not the reality. The exceptions in the EA and the definition of sex in the EA are there to recognise that there is a category of sexed humans called females, and TW are not them.

If that can’t be recognised under current laws, those laws need to change.

Politicians can’t hide behind the law. They need to be able to recognise need, and make law accordingly.

But it’s not that different from what Dodds said in Parliament: ‘I am a woman... obviously. But some people transition and become women.’

Etc.

Unless there is recognition of the need for (and the reality of) legal distinctions between TW and female people, we are no further along.

It's a clever word choice. Recognised as could be in the legal sense, the physical sense (passing?) or in a societal sense.
We know that exceptions can still be made under the EA but a man with a GRC 'is' legally a woman.

Oh good. I have always liked her . Was frustrated that she didn't speak out like so many of the other Labour women Mps ( or stand up for Rosie -maybe she did privately). She always struck me as someone who could be a good leader. Anyone would be better than Starmer or blooming Ange etc

Exactly: ‘recognised’ as women means they are women. Which they are not. I don’t mind them using the term, but it has to be reasonable to point out (when necessary) that they are not.

Which is a start, but the interesting questions are related to single sex spaces, free speech, childhood transition, sports, etc.

I know some people transition, medically, socially, legally, to be seen as women.

What I want to hear are the so whats.