If Starmer stated what a woman is...

[Lykia]

Would you vote for him? If he categorically stated a woman is a woman/born with female sexual organs ( ie biological woman) or whatever the correct definition is.

Surely he must know that if he said this then a lot more women would vote for him.

Moreover there are more women out there than trans women so why doesn't he just come out and say this? Is this his hill to die on?

He's an intelligent man surely the next election would be much easier to win if he just came out and said what a woman is.

i am a one issue voter. I was 100% Labour till they became extreme super woke student party attempting to roll back woman's rights. I’m a floating voter now

to back Labour/keir I would need recognition of biological differences between males & females and practical evidence of building legislation to protect biological women in sport, hospitals, prisons, refuges, schools etc. This is extremely unlikely what with Labour being so set on the issue.

I’d also be concerned about Labour caving to pressure from the unions on TWAW.

The so-called LGBTQetc group at the TUC conference passed a nasty little homophobic motion about attacking the LGB Alliance.

Anyone who says "a man is a woman if he says he is" (that's what TWAW means) is either lying or is too stupid to run a bath, let alone a country.

@LadyWithLapdog
Which would you like to be in legislation

(a) • woman
(b) • pre-bleeder
(c) • bleeder
(d) • post-bleeder

@Fairislefandango

It’s a struggle to understand how anyone believes it, but they do.

Are you saying that there are really people who believe that if a man says he's a woman he instantaneously, magically becomes one? Are these people not considered to be utterly deluded?

Asked to define what a woman is, Sir Keir told The Times: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that male adults are women, and that is not just my view – that is actually the law.”

Yes. He did.

“A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that male adults are women, and that is not just my view – that is actually the law.”

To answer the question

ive never voted labour, live in a very safe tory seat so labour wont get in anyway

i think theyve not been a good opposition and that may partly be down to covid and the Ukraine but it doesn’t inspire me to vote for them

i won’t be voting tory either

The problem with that is that the GRA has caveats, and he know that but chooses to assuage the loudest voices and make himself look daft! Not sure why. It puzzles me. But then again, I am a sensible, logical person.

@OldCrone

I think they believe those people have ‘always been’ women. I think they believe being a woman is defined by something other than biology, and that (somewhere?) in every person there is a bio-psychological ‘identity’ that determines whether they are a man or a woman.

I know.

Penny Mordaunt has just said she knows what a woman is. Unfortunately that doesn't mean she has promised to protect single sex spaces or stop self-ID. So it would take more than acknowledging that a woman is an adult human female for me to trust Keir Starmer on this vital issue. I would need to see him apologise to Rosie Duffield and also Joan Smith, as well as committing to uphold women's single sex spaces and stop self ID.

Kier said that "only women have cervixes" is "something that shouldn't be said"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58698406

so that's clear as to his views. Women includes females and males

It will depend on what the next Labour Party manifesto says about single sex spaces and the GRA.

If they commit unambiguously to upholding the right to single sex (not gender) spaces, and to not messing any further with the GRA, then as things stand at the moment, I'll vote for them.

I know other posters expect more from them and they're probably right because this is an embarrassingly modest ask - basically just a promise to uphold current legislation.

...and also, that this is a topic with a lit if self-censorship

@Floisme

They’re nowhere near committing to those things.

They’re nowhere near committing to those things.
I know. It's pathetic how little I'm asking from them but they can't even do that.

Its more than that. He doesn't think that women have the right to link their biology with being a women, and exclude male biology.

@Floisme

It’s hard when you have to face that your natural representatives are laughing in your face when you ask for the bare minimum of respect.

Yup.

Nobody would get to vote for him if he said that cos his own party would knobble him if he did. He’s far from stupid. He certainly knows what a woman is. I’ve seen nothing in his face or body language that suggests he’s enjoying any part of the pantomime required of him.

He also knows that if he acknowledges reality the same vindictive, full throttle attacks and smears we’ve seen aimed at others would come straight for him, aided and abetted by anybody and everybody who would prefer another leader. He could have zero skeletons in his closet but some bugger would dig up a minuscule ear bone from somewhere and wave it about as evidence all the other bones had existed, but they’d been fed to staving dogs. Militant 2.0 would make The Thing We All Now Care About Most on twitter and he’d be toast.

Was just going to post the same thing for @LadyWithLapdog

So wrong to say only women can have a cervix...

It’s a struggle to understand how anyone believes it, but they do.

Yes, I'm sure there are some who have performed the mental gymnastics necessary to bend their mind in that way, but I still think the proportion of people who say TWAW and really, truly, literally believe it is very small.

Labour voter all my life
I'm now 50
Labour have made it very clear what they think of me (that is, an adult human female. It is now forbidden to even use the word "woman" it seems..)
I'll never vote for them again until they regain some sanity on this issue. Never.
Will never vote tory, lib dems and greens are just as bad (worse??) than Labour on this issue, so I'm politically homeless.
I'll probably give my postal vote to my dc and let them close their preferred candidate. Its their future after all.

Possibly, if he clearly said that women’s spaces should be protected, that we should have single sex prisons, fairness in sport etc. Then definitely without a doubt I’d come running back to Labour.