It shouldn’t be said that “only women have a cervix”.

[Paddingtonsmarmaladesandwiches]

Watching Keir Stammer on Marr this morning scrambling to answer whether or not it is transphobic to say “only women have a cervix” was the final nail in the coffin for me this morning with Labour. In the aftermath of The Lancet calling women, “bodies with vaginas”, I think I’ve finally figured out that the current belief system is that transwomen are women, but women who were observed female at birth are “bodies with vaginas”. Clearly Labour aren’t in need of the votes of bodies with vaginas, brains and a spine.

I agree that this is all crap and Labour need to sort itself out on the issue but for those long time supporters what will you vote instead? For a man who continually breaks promises, is racist and a misogynist. Has screwed this country over?

*There have been too many stories of trans people not receiving the care they need due to medical records being changed and the patient not being able to tell medical teams or not being able to admit it.

It is so important that the NHS and other health systems finds some way to manage this*

Actually what the NHS should be doing is concentrating on its fundamental raison d'etre which Is making sick people better. Not spending vast quantities of money bowing down to pressure from a tiny minority.
If you want to change your gender identity and insist on your medical records being changed to reflect this don't expect the NHS to make sure you are getting medical treatment appropriate to the sex you've told everyone you aren't.
Or we could just insist on medical records being held under biological sex ie male and female.

And for him to say this on the heels of that dreadful Lancet quote. Bodies with vaginas. A body with a hole, not a woman. It's unbearable. And UCLA removing the word woman from RBGs quote about abortion.

I had a lot of time for Keir Starmer, I thought he was experienced, intelligent, hard working. But now, I think he is weak and perhaps not as clever as I thought. I can't belive what he said to be honest. So disappointing.

@rose69

I agree that this is all crap and Labour need to sort itself out on the issue but for those long time supporters what will you vote instead? For a man who continually breaks promises, is racist and a misogynist. Has screwed this country over?

This is a conundrum. We're stuck between a rock and a hard place

I don't know what to do, I have always voted and would tell people who didn't that they had no right to complain about any government if they hadn't put that X on a ballot. But now... I really don't know. I can't vote Tory, the LibDems are as bad and so are the Greens from where I'm standing. I'm thinking of spoiling my paper.

I agree that this is all crap and Labour need to sort itself out on the issue but for those long time supporters what will you vote instead? For a man who continually breaks promises, is racist and a misogynist. Has screwed this country over?

Yeah, it's awful. That's why it's taken me this long to definitely rule Labour out. But voting Labour just feels like being in an abusive relationship now.

I hope if enough people email their MPs and tell them, maybe it will influence policy? They need to know what we think. But I know many people already have and Keir ignores them. Here's hoping for the Greens...

"I'm donning my hard hat for this next comment but I think you're in a position of privilege if who shares the changing rooms at the local swimming pool is your most pressing concern rather than how to afford to pay for your children's shoes and food"

Oh I know, @Ninjawannabe those privileged women who may have been raped, sexually assaulted etc not liking a male bodied person in the cubicle next to them while they're naked and extremely vulnerable, what a place of privilege they come from...

The only people I saw on Twitter that were actively annoyed by the statement we’re trans men.

Why can we not separate sex and gender identity?

Sex should be about reproductive systems, which cannot be changed chromosomaly or internally however you identify.

Women have eggs, men have sperm.
This is fact and shouldn’t be a place to cause offence to those who want to identify differently, it will cost people their lives.

We’re heading in a really worrying direction.

How is what he is saying wrong. Do trans women have cervix?

Nope @Oblomov21

Also left Labour over this and know many women and men who won't vote Labour because of it. But I wonder if anything will make them rethink? I think they're stuck on this and will refuse to back down, even if it means risking enough votes to lose another election.

I won’t be voting labour until I’m satisfied they support women. I won’t be voting for the conservatives either as I don’t believe they are any better for many reasons. I’m not sure what I’ll do . I’ve always voted labour

So he wants a debate, but we're not allowed to express certain beliefs and facts that are, in law, actually protected, because men like Keir Starmer and Ed Davey say so?

Yes but also we’ve been told for 5 years that there is “No Debate”, now it’s well, we all need to tone down and talk kindly with each other. Women have been wanting that for years.

It’s just gaslighting now.

I'm donning my hard hat for this next comment but I think you're in a position of privilege if who shares the changing rooms at the local swimming pool is your most pressing concern rather than how to afford to pay for your children's shoes and food

1. I hope you're not implying that those in poverty aren't capable of having concerns about anything other than money.

2. Has it not occurred to you that women worrying about where the next meal is coming from are just as likely, or perhaps even more likely, to have had real life traumatic experiences which make worrying about who's in the next cubicle an urgently scary matter, rather than something they just enjoy ranting about on Twitter?

How is what he is saying wrong. Do trans women have cervix?

No, trans women is the term for biological males who "feel like a woman on the inside" (whatever that means, I don't feel that and I am a woman).

The vast majority of trans women (men) keep their male genitalia, even those who are put into women's prisons. This is a problem (understatement).

@rose69 I am a long term, previously passionate, labour supporter. I’m incandescent and so, so disappointed in Starmer. In a weekend where brexit has given labour an open goal he shafts 51% of voters. I live in Scotland - my choices are now Tory or spoiling my ballot paper.

@AngeloMysterioso

Transmen can have cervixes so it's not only women.

THEY
ARE
WOMEN.

I’m sorry but I’m so done with this shit. Absolutely done. I’m tired of being polite, I’m tired of being “kind”, that is what got us in this unholy mess in the first place, and I am done. If a transman wants to be addressed with male pronouns or have a male name or present themselves in a masculine way that’s fine, crack on, I’m not gonna be a dick about that for the sake of being a dick. But I’m not going to lie and pretend they aren’t women.

You don’t get to identify out of (or indeed into) womanhood and then insist that we remove or change all the language we use to represent ourselves because it makes you feel better. If you have a cervix, you’re a woman. If that’s a difficult truth for you to hear then that’s a pity, but it’s not my problem.

Exactly. Transmen have cervixes because they are biologically women. If they cannot face that fact then they have problems that nobody else can solve. They need to accept reality. Present however you want, call yourself whatever you want, but it doesn't change biological reality.

I'm sick of #bekind, when what they really mean is 'women, shut up and stay quiet and don't make a fuss'.

Be kind? What about be honest? or be realistic?

Men cannot become women, no matter what kind of 'feeling' they have in their head. I'm all for freedom of expression, but it should not outweigh the right to single sex spaces for women.

Self ID is coming to a government near you unless women push back hard against this.

@NeverDropYourMooncup

This is where it gets even more confusing, as some TW will say that surgery has given them a vagina which is just the same as anybody else's. So any body with a vagina doesn't mean what is being implied, either - if it was said 'a natural vagina' or 'a vagina that has not been created through surgery', that could be interpreted as being equally transphobic, couldn't it?

The vast majority of TW retain their male penis.

@EstuaryBird

Bear with me…I’m 66 and a bit confused here. So is it OK to say that Only men have prostates Only men have testicles Only men produce sperm Etc etc

Or does this denial of basic human biology only apply to women?

In the 70s my 1st husband’s band used to play Natural Born Bugie (aka Natural Born Woman) and he always used to dedicate it to me 😊.
Poor bugger’d probably get dragged out and lynched if he did that now 😡

Was your 1st husband in Humble Pie?!!! Or in a band that covered the song ? You're right either way.

And YANBU OP, I've only ever voted for Labour but like many other women, I'm politically homeless now.

I’m not surprised but it’s so depressing after that glimmer of hope he gave us by saying he supported single sex spaces. Clearly it was bullshit and he’s supporting single sex spaces but with fucking men in them.

An utter joke. I won’t be voting for them that’s for sure

@COVIDQ

Also left Labour over this and know many women and men who won't vote Labour because of it. But I wonder if anything will make them rethink? I think they're stuck on this and will refuse to back down, even if it means risking enough votes to lose another election.

That’s a great question COVIDQ if we can’t change it at the ballot box, what do we do?

@the80sweregreat

I'm beginning to think that the LP prefer being the opposition. When you think about how the economy is struggling after brexit and covid, the recent petrol fiasco and how unhappy most people are , would you want to be the ones having to sort it all out ? Much easier to say all this about a tiny section of the population ( and piss off 50 percent of it) and ' slag ' off any Conservative voters then sit back and watch scarcely anyone vote for you! You can then watch the other lot try and get the country back on track from the sidelines whilst bleating on about the correct pronouns. I do believe they are running scared of being anywhere near number 10 , I really do.

This is an excellent point and one I have thought for years. You can't fail as an opposition as you never get to put your money where your mouth is.

[quote Helleofabore]Sajid Javid has entered today’s twitter storm with.

Total denial of scientific fact.

And he wants to run the NHS.

twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1442082718402154498?s=21[/quote]
Fuck me, some of those comments are dire. Disingenuous bull shit from tossers* who are being deliberately obtuse. Maya replied and is being piled on (by people who seem unaware she won her case. ) And the usual crap of 'are you saying me/the person I know who had her cervix removed isn't a woman? Meanies!'

*I wonder how their mothers feel about the being happy to reduce women to our body parts?

Alienating 51% of the electorate is an unusual strategy.

Maybe they are just operating in an echo chamber of women within the party who have been bullied into submission. In the sanctity of the voting booth we are free to say what we really think.