Starmer Radio 5 "A woman is an Adult female"

Is there hope?? Can I really vote Labour now? or still have to wait for a GC Women's party to magically appear?

There’s a possibility he’s heading uphill, though I don’t see evidence that he’s peaked, so he’s almost certainly vulnerable to being got at by TRAs.

Please don't all forget, come the GE, that for many, many years Labour were publicly saying "of course a woman can have a penis" and ejecting members for saying otherwise.

I won't forget and I won't vote Labour because of it (and would never vote Conservative either before anyone starts telling me how self servicing they are and would say their Granny had third leg of it benefitted them).

The commenters below the like on the guardian are either indifferent (the world is burning , who cares), or are raging and bringing up all the old classics - “a sign on the door won’t stop predators from getting in the bathroom!”, “are we going to do genital checks ?” , “transwomen are the most vulnerable , straight men are the real danger”.

Hurray! The tide is turning. It will hopefully mean more sanity to follow. It will also prevent the Tories from using this to pretend they care about women.

I would imagine that his definition of "female" includes anyone who says they are female, regardless of biology. So not worth a dime. I cannot in any way trust anything that Starmer says on this issue.

And as others have said, why all the hate and anger at women for saying this before he got round to saying it? Where is the apology and the recognition that women were and are right to expect consideration for their safety and dignity?

I still would feel better if he had referred to separate sex spaces instead of just safe spaces for women. OK he said a woman was an adult female - but I do hope his definition of female is the same as mine.

Nicky Campbell was trying to goad him into saying that there was a specific danger from transwomen and I am a bit disappointed that he didn't say that there was no way of bio women knowing which bio males were dangerous and which weren't, so the only safe way is no bio males in women's spaces. He did use the term biological women though.

It's reassuring that they don't intend to go down the route of self ID, but I would like to know more about these modernisations of the GRA.

i don’t trust them until they stop using this weaselly phrase! Starmer is a lawyer, he knows definitions matter hugely and there’s a world of difference between a “single sex” space and a “safe” space

God the reverse ferreting of the Labour party now there's a GE in the pipeline an they've seen the initial polling is just vomit inducing. TOO LITTLE TOO LATE MATE!

Still spoke of safe spaces rather than single sex spaces I notice

I don't trust him. A few years ago I would have rejoiced to hear this, but now I think he will just find weasely ways to add caveats that include men with the lady feelz.

I would like some clarification if men can be included in his definition of 'female'...also, if he is serious about this definition of biological women - how come he has sat back for several years while his colleague Rosie Duffield and others have been slated for saying the same thing?

If it hadn’t been for all the years of gaslighting, expulsions, women losing their jobs and being attacked, I might have welcomed this.

This is key I agree

Context is all. Does he actually mean a woman is an adult female how we mean it, or is he including transgender biological males in his category of “female”?