Labour have committed to single sex spaces

[flumpetto]

Excluding trans

This is a step in the right direction at long last....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-trans-women-labour-b1924832.html

@NiceGerbil

Very interesting theory which makes some sense to me - and which suggests that the silly comment about 'more feminine' would, if you take a very gendered view of the world, be evidence that the speaker thinks 'like a man'.

Anyone can be feminine imo. It doesn't make you a woman.
I object to any make in the small number of spaces I think should be separated by sex. Women were never asked. In the past it didn't seem to be an issue because the numbers were small but I worked in acute mental health services and met a lot of men who I would not have wanted to share a space with. Cross dressing (the language was different then) was a feature of a high % and many hated women. Most were not a physical threat but would definitely get off on making a woman feel uncomfortable

A flipping boat, country or car is ‘female’ but is doesn’t make it a Woman.

Here's the full text of the relevant parts of the statement by KS, selectively quoted by the Independent who have now changed the headline of their piece from the original.

In specific circumstances like prisons, domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres, homeless women's refuges, hostel dormitories, female counselling services, right Robin?

The absolute separation of sex and gender would ensure all groups needs were met. Keep the factual sex marker on birth certificates, they should always be truthful, and add a gender marker (for those who believe) onto other documents
It could be made much easier to add the gender marker and there could be third spaces. Keep male and female spaces so nobody feels a lack of privacy, safety and dignity and that an ideology isn't forced onto them
Simple

For all that is holy - not the zombie claim about the suicide statistics again (Independent clip).

Full Fact are usually very good at following up with individuals and organisations when they repeat zombie claims and persuading them to desist. They're either not doing it with this topic or people aren't listening to them.

fullfact.org/health/young-trans-people/

I like the full statement more. It says:

• easier gender self-ID
• uphold EA2010, including provision of single-sex spaces where appropriate

I'd be good with that. However, as was mentioned upthread, there is already the ability to change your sex marker on your driving license, passport, medical records etc based on self-ID. This legal fiction needs to stop. It's obfuscating the law and, particularly in the case of medical records, creating an unnecessary barrier for trans people to access appropriate healthcare (eg cervical screening).

@InvisibleDragon

I like the full statement more. It says:

• easier gender self-ID
• uphold EA2010, including provision of single-sex spaces where appropriate

I'd be good with that. However, as was mentioned upthread, there is already the ability to change your sex marker on your driving license, passport, medical records etc based on self-ID. This legal fiction needs to stop. It's obfuscating the law and, particularly in the case of medical records, creating an unnecessary barrier for trans people to access appropriate healthcare (eg cervical screening).

They don't mean it though. They're literally just quoting the law whilst knowing the ability of any person or organisation is currently severely hampered when trying to uphold any kind of single sex space. Single sex exemptions are currently just theoretical because of the fear of enforcing it and capture by lobby groups.

They know the law as it stands is not working for women and they don't care. Keir will say this then move on.

We aren't going to see him in the HoC or at party conference demanding to know why male rapists and murderers are being moved into women's prisons. He's not going to get outraged and demand that this travesty of human rights is ended right now.

He knows he can make this glib statement safe in the knowledge nothing will change from the current status quo of abusing and erasing women.

The Tories nearly changed the law but thankfully left it alone. Labour plan to allow self ID by law which I am against so I cannot support Labour's proposals to change the law.

On suicide a lot of trans people have mental health issues. I am not sure we can say that is because of bullying but probably every teenager in the land has seen bullying at school - it is all over the place against all kinds of people.

@RobinMoiraWhite

Here's the full text of the relevant parts of the statement by KS, selectively quoted by the Independent who have now changed the headline of their piece from the original.

He wants a process of 'gender self-identification', so everyone has a free choice of what 'gender' they want to be.

He also wants to keep the single-sex exemption which allows the provision of women only spaces. But he also thinks these should include 'transwomen' except in specific circumstances. But a 'transwoman' is any man who self-declares that he is one.

So single sex spaces would no longer be single sex spaces, because they'd be open to any man who wants to self-identify into them, except where a service provider can find a way to exclude them in 'specific circumstances' (assuming the service provider wants to). Does he specify what those 'specific circumstances' might be?

Do you have a link to the full statement Robin?

OvaHere

Whilst I agree that the statement is fairly paltry and doesn't indicate a major change in policy, I'm still a bit hopeful because of the explicit distinction made between sex and gender. The statement could have talked about 'women's spaces' for example, but chose to mention sex.

I can't believe it's got to the point I'm writing this, but at least Labour acknowledge that biological sex exists. This is more fence sitting yes, but at least we have some definitions we can work with.

@EdgeOfACoin

The men didn't say much. Anyway he went and sat with them and they were obviously deeply uncomfortable. I think there was even a jokey fancy me then conversation. And what it was in the end was that they knew he was a man. But their brains were taking in legs heels hair etc and telling them sexy lady. They were confused and unhappy about it.

With the objectification of women that has always gone on. And the fact that men generally have no need really to assess as we do the other way around. I think probably lots of men DO see the trappings. And some, maybe not much else. Hair legs boobs heels. Sexy up for it. Ogle.

Posie Parker (Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull) has made this point in the past too. Many men can't see beyond hair/legs/tits/teeth. If someone has those things, a lot of men don't pay any further attention and just see 'woman'.

and this is why transwomen get beaten up by men. Because they are angry that theyve been duped into homeosexual thoughts by stealth. And nothing upsets an alpha male more than catching gay.

and its why the male attacks on transwomen are not the same as male attacks on women - the latter is misogyny and the former homophobia

So single sex spaces would no longer be single sex spaces, because they'd be open to any man who wants to self-identify into them, except where a service provider can find a way to exclude them in 'specific circumstances' (assuming the service provider wants to). Does he specify what those 'specific circumstances' might be?

My brain just goes 'clang' at this point, and I start rocking while singing daisy daisy off key.

It's the usual politician solution isn't it.

We will care about women and have single sex spaces!
But male people can be any sex they like and choose which space they want.
And these two positions absolutely can exist in the same space time continuum because Reasons.

And we'll exclude and discriminate against vulnerable and marginalised females because they don't have a loud voice and presence on twitter, don't threaten to hurt or abuse anyone when they're displeased, and don't have large government funded political lobbies fighting their corner, so mostly no one's going to notice that we've totally abandoned them and any sort of morals along with them.

I'm still a bit hopeful because of the explicit distinction made between sex and gender. The statement could have talked about 'women's spaces' for example, but chose to mention sex.

But he talks about 'the single-sex exemption which allows the provision of women only spaces' and then says that in most cases this 'assumes the inclusion of transwomen'. I'm not hopeful at all that he wants to exclude men who identify as women.

We will care about women and have single sex spaces!
But male people can be any sex they like and choose which space they want.
And these two positions absolutely can exist in the same space time continuum because Reasons.

It's so obvious that self-ID of sex* cannot co-exist with the provision of single-sex spaces based on biological reality. If everyone just chooses what 'sex' they are, single-sex spaces just become mixed sex with people choosing according to their feelings regardless of biology.

How can anyone find this difficult to understand?

*This is what the GRA does. It's called 'gender' recognition but what it does is change a person's legally recognised sex.

twitter.com/nadiawhittomemp/status/1440690835767513101?s=21

Exactly as we suspected

Well thank you Nadia for confirming that people born male will have freedom of access and priority at all times under Labour, regardless of impact on females. Females get no voice, no say, no boundaries.

Vote Labour, get male supremacism.

Got it.

Oh great. What a let down

What a rollercoaster of a thread. Still going to vote Labour, conservatives are worse.

So single sex means mixed sex according to Labour. When are they going to listen to actual voters rather than shouty types on Twitter?

Well no surprise there then.

Despite the odd clickbait way this has been phrased by the Indy, Starmer has actually just committed to supporting the existing (still vaguely defined, but recently clarified) EA2010 provisions while also supporting Labour's ongoing resolution to reform the awkwardly hacked-together GRA to allow self-ID.

So really, what he's actually said is: business as usual.

As one of those evil devious trans women mentioned above, who has very much benefited from the GRA and happily invisibly passed through single-sex spaces for the last twenty years and harmed precisely nobody, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that Labour isn't detonating existing protections just yet.

There aren't many of us - nowhere near enough to have an appreciable statistical impact worth catering to, politically, in comparison with much larger forces present - but we do exist, and we're perpetually cowering in terror and bracing ourselves for the caustic fallout whenever there are rumblings about GRA reform and EA clarifications, as we're both the awkward speedbump that stands in the way of the formation of the unisex gender utopia and the secret enemy within, invading the sisterhood.

'GRA reform' is one of the more frightening things to read rumbles of in the news, as that's a door that can swing multiple ways, and our voices are always lost in the shouting. Whichever way things swing, it's hard to see change as an inherent positive. Which is an uncomfortably centre-right place to find yourself standing in a polarised world where the right very clearly isn't the one that has even a shred of regard for your safety.

I'd support the provision of self-ID on principle simply because the GRA was always an incomplete hackjob that happened to be quite useful within the paradigm of the time, but I'm not sure how to square the circle and make everyone happy, and I'm not convinced there's a way to avoid the 'Brexit effect' of crystallised reactionary stances and catastrophising hyperbole from both sides overwhelming any attempts to seriously conduct a discussion about consequences.

GRA reform, right now under a Conservative government that is demonstrably hostile to the notion of reform, looks an awful lot like a great way to make things appreciably worse for everyone.

I'm not sure it actually looks much better under Starmer Labour, either.

It clearly needs to happen, but the Appeal to Consequences seems overwhelmingly strong, here.

You were not invisible as you ignored women's boundaries.

What are we going to do with the boring old female type humans who cannot access services at all in order to make absolutely everything for women mixed sex?

Or do we just not care about vulnerable, marginalised humans if they're female?

How intersectional is transactivism? How inclusive is it? How feminist is it?