Politics Live Emily Thornberry

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Has just said that it’s “factually incorrect that only women have cervixes because some men have cervixes.”
I’ve held out cancelling my Labour membership but I can’t justify it any longer.
So pissed off with the misinformation.

The advantage of allowing genuine debate is that you get to make a bloody fool of yourself in private, so you can iron out the nonsense before you go public. My worry is that Labour are just too daft to run the country. Well, amongst my worries....

Not sure this was her finest hour tbh (and she has many not finest hours to choose from) as she also managed to imply that Angela Raynor was in drink when she made the scum comments. I am not sure who the interviewer was but she coukd barely contain her glee when she jumped on that.

Jo Coburn was the interviewer

Thornberry feels confident saying a man can have a cervix. I want her to be on air saying unequivocally that a woman can have a lady penis.

This. Please, any interviewers who may be reading - press all politicians on this point next. Please.

Yes, I think that's a good idea. Given a large percentage of women have no idea what a cervix is, it's likely not many men will have much of a clue about it either. The jarring effect of someone saying 'her penis' or 'yes, a woman can have a penis' will be considerable and nobody of voting age could be in any doubt what's being said.

@AtLeastPretendToCare

God the smirking. Infuriating.

I’ve been back and watched it and I have to say I though Helen Lewis did well in making alternative arguments. And I think interesting that she was saying things you rarely hear on TV about conflation of sex and gender, that sometimes sex matters and that Stonewall has driven no debate. Plus calling people transphobic because they aren’t using current activist approved terms is not a vote winner.

I thought she was good. Calm and measured - I whooped when she said it was stonewall that started this culture of no debate.

@EdgeOfACoin

And these people have the gall to call out climate-change deniers and anti-vaxxers as being 'anti science'.

Then they stand there with a straight face claiming that a man can have a cervix.

Unbelievable.

This is very much my view. I have so many friends who write gleeful and mocking Facebook posts about anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers, about how silly and anti-science they are. And then they will claim that trans women are women.

The perverse effect it's having is to make me feel quite benign towards anti-vaxxers. They might be wrong-headed, but being opposed to vaccination isn't even in the same league of stupidity as believing it's possible to change sex.

I just feel depressed today. What on earth is wrong with them all?! These are WOMEN speaking this nonsense fgs!!! They might as well come out and say they agree with female genital mutilation, it would actually be less upsetting for me. At least they'd be talking about women having vaginas and a clitoris as a hard reality!

Being a woman feels so horrible to me right now. We're being told we shouldn't talk about our body parts and women are getting murdered in the streets and yet, every politician can only keep talking about how marginalised transpeople are!! I can't trust a single politician on the labour side to care about my basic rights. In 2021! Not even the female ones.

Also thought Helen Lewis did brilliantly. Very clear and will have made sense to lots of people. Stark contrast with the ummm and ahhh's from squirming politicians. Hope she doesnt get any flak for it.

I do agree many people dont know what a cervix is so this whole thing is passing them by.

I don’t believe for a second that Emily Thornberry actually believes what she said. I don’t believe most of the people parroting this stuff believe it.

@DysonSphere I completely agree. They talk about people who are marginalised, but we aren't even allowed to call ourselves women.

@IsabelBeck

Help me out here, I'm a simple soul.

So when ET says some men have cervixes is she talking about (trans) men who were born female but now identify as male?

So they were women once - hence the cervix. Or does she mean some men (who don't transition) have a cervix and presumably, a penis?

Either ET believe that (may not have had any education in biology), or places greater importance on the public profession of that as an ideological position than acknowledging reality. I really think that most people don't honestly think someone who identifies as the opposite sex, becomes the opposite sex.

I read out an article in the paper to my OH. 'A man is after having a baby'! I went on roughly along the lines of 'they were born female but have transitioned (maybe 'living' or some such) into a man".

Cue my audience yawning and saying "So not really a man having a baby after all"

Maybe someone believes what ET said. I would be surprised if anyone not compromised, wanting to deflect activist ire or to gain ideological kudos, would consider it a credible statement of fact.

Helen Lewis was very good there.

She is still being called transphobic on Twitter though.

Really - how many men have cervixes? How do they know if they've got one after a lot of women don't know. Maybe all humans will turn out to have cervixes now we are so much better at understanding biology.

I couldn't make out at first if Starmer had mis spoken but it seems this is a carefully orchestrated. They're starting to seem deranged.

There’s clip of it on Twitter.

Jeez that Emily women is a right smirker for sure

Helen Lewis was on Radio 4 Woman's Hour this morning and was v good As was Emma Barnett, who also asked the Shadow SoS for Scotland the cervix question

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00101jn

I'm really liking Emma, and I think there has been a very definite shift in editorial policy at WH, which is allowing her to explore issues properly at last.

We are not just redefining the word 'woman.' We are also redefining what constitutes a cervix to include an inside-out penis with its innards scraped away.

Oh Brave New World.

A 'man with a cervix' coming up on R4 'PM' next

I have actually gone and watched this now. Kudos to ET for not fudging the issue but coming out with something clear. But it was what Helen Lewis said which interested me. I partially transcribed it:

No it’s not transphobia. Transphobia is fear or hatred. It’s not fear or hatred to say “Oh, I thought you meant women in a biological sense”. That’s what I’ve grown up think, some people are born women or born men. That’s still common language…….Languages change really quickly, and that’s fine…. So of course people just haven’t caught up, but what you really can’t do is tell you that there’s something wrong with them for not having tuned in to the latest bit of activist language.

Sounds reasonable. We're not transphobic, just behind the times.

There was a feeling that this is an inevitable development, which we will all be behind when we've been educated. But language doesn't just change. People change it for their own reasons. Lewis showed no awareness that there is a substantial group of people who haven't just "not caught up with" the change, but fundamentally disagree with the change, for real reasons, because it negatively impacts them.

Still, it was an enormous step forward from "no debate".

Yes, the majority of people won't accept that it's normal for a man to want to be a woman or vice versa.

That’s what I’ve grown up think, some people are born women or born men.

Only some people? What are the rest born as? What can a body with a vagina say to that?

@IsabelBeck

Yes, the majority of people won't accept that it's normal for a man to want to be a woman or vice versa.

Aside from someone's desire to be the opposite sex, I would be surprised if the majority of people (aside from adopting magical thinking) believe a person can literally become the opposite sex.

Irrespective of how heartfelt that desire is.

Yes, the majority of people won't accept that it's normal for a man to want to be a woman or vice versa.

Well of course it's not normal, or everybody would be doing it. But that's not the point. It doesn't have to be normal. If a man wants to be a woman it's entirely (possessive adjective of your choice) business. One person's normal is another person's freakishly odd.

The point is that it becomes impossible for women to organise as a political class, or to have single sex spaces if the word "woman" is appropriated. That's the point.

It's laughable for Thornberry to claim she is the one who is factually correct when what she is actually doing is playing linguistic games.

Thing is although woman means adult female human it kinda gives these people a wee bit of an escape

If it were male and female there would be no escaping their actual meaning, I’d be curious to see whether the same people would disagree with ‘only females have a cervix’

They probably would…