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ED: The Conservative Party has been watching over recent weeks as some senior Labour politicians have been quizzed and sometimes struggled to answer questions about non-trans and trans people. Trans people, those who identify as a gender different from that assigned at birth.
Questions such as ‘What is a woman?’, ‘Can a woman have a mans bits?’, that kind of thing, have been thrown at Labour with many members taking the view that a transman is a man and a transwoman is a woman, full stop, whatever body parts they may have.
Well, the Torys now have their own problems regarding trans, having promised a ban on conversion therapy for anyone LGBT, a ban on carting off a teenager to a dodgy therapist who tries to stop them being themselves. Erm, given that some think the ban is more complicated where trans people and children are concerned the party has effectively u-turned on that pledge as far as tran, trans people go. The ban on conversion therapy won’t apply to trans.
Now, it’s provoked an angry backlash from many LGBT groups, for example the Government’s own LGBT business champion has resigned over their u-turn today and the Government was also hoping to organise a huge international LGBT conference later this year. It was a manifesto commitment, but the UK participants are now boycotting it.
So what is the Conservative party thinking on trans right now? About twelve days ago we heard from Andrew Boff, a patron of the Conservative LGBT+ group and a supporter of the trans cause. But does he speak for the party? Today I spoke to an influential back-bench MP and the former First Secretary, Cabinet Minister er former Cabinet Minister, Damien Green. First I asked him where is he on conversion therapy?
DG: Conversion therapy can mean a number of things to different people and when you’re righting legislation you’ve got to be precise and so if you say that any questioning of a gender identity expressed by a teenager, particularly. I think there’s a huge difference between how you should treat children and adults in this. If you say that a medical practitioner, saying ‘are you sure?’ If you outlaw that then actually you’re outlawing potential therapies that could be useful. So, having a long cool look at this legislation is extremely sensible. My worry is why I make the distinction between teenagers and adults, if you like, is that I don’t want anyone to do anything irreversible to a child, essentially.
ED: Medication? For a trans teenager?
DG: So medication, absolutely. The puberty blockers and those sorts of drugs. Which, you know, at best cause permanent alteration and can cause permanent damage. I think doing that to children is abusive.
ED: Does it matter to the Conservative party at this point, or to you as an MP, that a lot of years, really, of hard work of trying to kind of clean up the party’s image with some of the LGBT groups seems to have been lost in the last few days. We’ve had the LGBT business champion, Ian Anderson, stepping down today over this issue.
DG: Yes, it does matter and I think if we have this debate in a sensible tone then that shouldn’t happen. You know there are clearly various political, er, pressures at work here erm, you know, the biggest one this debate has introduced is the fact that quite a lot of politicians, particularly as it happens Labour politicians can’t answer the question, you know, ‘what is a woman’? Erm, which is clearly absurd. But nevertheless, if you think, as I do, that a woman is an adult human female, you know, that does not mean that in any way you’re transphobic, er, as indeed we’ve seen in recent days. The first, the first trans MP is, is a Conservative MP and he’s therefore a colleague and friend of mine and I would like him to continue to feel comfortable
ED: But In a way, what you’ve just said is that a transwoman isn’t a woman. And that isn’t the position, is it? You’re not really saying a transwoman isn’t a woman, or are you saying that?
DG: Well, I’m, I’m saying there’s, biologically a transwoman is, is not the same as a woman. I mean, er I think a woman is an adult human female but I think, you know, a transwoman needs, you know, the appropriate respect er, should be allowed and encouraged to er, get on with her life in, erm, as, as good a way as possible and I think this does give rise obviously to the points where, if you life, the rights of trans people can be seen to conflict with women’s rights. I think in the end biology has to be recognised as real and that the two sides need to engage.
ED: But I think there would be people in your party who would say that going as far as you do in saying a transwoman is not biologically a woman and biology is real and therefore a transwoman isn’t a woman, they’re a transwoman, and that’s a different category to someone assigned female at birth. By going that far you are really putting a very very large wedge between you and the trans community that there isn’t going to be any reconciliation there. You could say, ‘let’s make it a nice debate and let’s be polite’ but you are really failing to recognise the gender identity at all then, aren’t you?
DG: I recognise the gender identity but I’m saying that’s different from biology. I’m fascinated by your question. You’ve said that I’ve asserted that biology is real as though that’s something controversial. I think once we start saying that scientific facts are not real then, then we really are in a difficult phase which I don’t think, as it happens, helps transwomen or transmen either. And particularly things like women’s refuges where I’ve spoken to people who run women’s refuges and they say that some of the women who’ve had terrible experiences do not want biological males around the place, I think that attitude needs to be respected as well.
ED: Let me ask you about where the Tory party is. You’re probably fairly mainstream I’m guessing, in the Conservative Party. If it is observed that Labour, the Labour leadership is getting into tangles over asking questions about what is a woman, do you think that should be an issue that your party push at the next election and that you should play this card?
DG: I think we should have a clear position ourselves and I, the party would broadly speaking agree with what I’ve just said, and indeed the words I’m using are very close to the words the Prime Minister has used on the floor of the House of Commons. Frankly, if Labour politicians can’t answer basic questions then we don’t need to push it at all, Journalists will ask them questions. If they can’t answer them then the general public will, will draw their own conclusions. I think that will be the sensible approach because, as I say, overall erm, I want to try and lower the tone, er, not lower the tone, lower, sorry, lower the temperature …it’s difficult, it’s difficult to lower the tone in some cases but actually to, to lower the temperature so that people don’t feel that this is too delicate an area so. It’s clearly an important area, so it needs to be discussed by politicians. But the way they discuss it is very very important.
ED: Conservative MP Damien Green there on the view of the trans issue in the party. We always when we cover these topics we get an absolutely huge reaction. There are many people very heavily invested in these arguments. I also know that there are many listeners who find them very hard to follow.