Starmer and his 99.9%

[bellinisurge]

The Labour leader is desperately trying to stay on the fence with his 99.9% of women are biological women schtick.

He repeated it in the recent MN interview.

Let me be clear, as he is so fond of saying, 100% of women are biological women. And as long as you keep pandering to this alleged "0.1%", we will lose the language we need to describe us, and we will lose the right to single sex spaces. Women are a sex class. And any attempt to pretend otherwise will fall over at the first scrutiny. And you will lose the election because you have manufactured an existential crisis for women. Try harder.

Something shifted in the Conservative party after May left and johnson took over. I think a lot of trans sympathisers were swept away, and their replacements werent on board with the changes suggested.

No party seems willing to look critically at how the GRA and the PC of GI in the Equality Act allows for self id, though. Or how giving a man female id works in sex segregate spaces.

According to the Cass Review's website, "The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People (The Cass Review) was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement in Autumn 2020 to make recommendations about the services provided by the NHS to children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender incongruence". There's no mention of the politicians involved, but Matt Hancock was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at the time.

cass.independent-review.uk/about-the-review/terms-of-reference/

I did appreciate the way Justine put these questions: firstly by introducing the question of gender as being a matter of women's rights and children's safeguarding, and then following up with a question about women's spaces. I was surprised that Starmer was so direct about children not being transed without the consent of their parents. However, the vagueness that followed, that safe spaces should be protected in some undefined way - and "open decent respectful discussion" - I might be hypersensitive but I hear that sort of thing as a criticism of gender critical women who have so far tried to stand up for women's rights and have been accused, unfairly in my view, of being "toxic" and "hateful"

And Mordaunt was out of role in Women & Equalities on 24-7-19?

Yes, no mention that Labour Women's Declaration weren't allowed a stall at conference despite saying that they would pay the going rate. I'm not sure where KS thinks the discussion is happening within Labour!

And despite him saying he was aware of the Cass Review I cynically noted that he didn't straightforwardly say that he had read it himself, which was what he was actually asked...

I’ve never voted Tory in my life but I will next time while Labour spout this shite.

And Mordaunt was out of role in Women & Equalities on 24-7-19?

Yes, replaced by Amber Rudd who Mordaunt had herself taken over from. But it was Liz Truss who was in post when Cass was announced!

I noticed that too. I was mentally shouting “HOW are you facilitating debate in Labour, Keir, and with whom?”

Did I also notice him blench slightly when Justine said “And now here’s a question from The Biology Stupid” ?! Your handle must have given him a rather unsubtle clue as to what so many mumsnetters think!

I was too busy picking my jaw off the floor at being mentioned to notice his reaction - I'll have to watch that moment again!

His calculation imo is that there will be less fuss from left wing women (who can mainly be gaslit and shamed into keeping quiet) than young noisy activists. I think he’s a fool. The tories will keep this issue simmering until election year, then blow it up into a huge issue du jour. he needs to tackle it now rather than hoping the issue will go away (it won’t, it will get worse).

who formed that advisory committee who resigned en mass?

off to ask Google (will probably get endless Peen News articles…)

Advisory Panel Resignations March 2021 (blamed on Truss and Badenoch)

theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/government-adviser-quits-over-hostile-environment-for-lgbt-people

Looks like the LGBT Advisory Panel were a Penny Mordaunt thing? Announced March 2019:

www.gov.uk/government/news/government-appoints-first-national-adviser-for-lgbt-health

This October 2019 Vice article suggests that Dominic Cummings was the driver re: appointing Truss!

www.vice.com/en/article/evjqzk/gender-recognition-act-whats-happening

And pretty much everything that has happened since (scrapping of the GRA update, Cass, slowing down the conversion therapy bill etc) has been under Truss with Badenoch as junior. Presumably Sunek has made Badenoch boss of that department to continue along the same lines that Truss started under Johnson?

screenshots are the timeline for the W&E’s handovers (from wiki) the bit from the vice article and a Peen News article I’m not linking to:

Thank, @TheClogLady, that’s very helpful indeed. It makes you see better the damage that Mordaunt did in her short tenure in Women & Equalities under Theresa May, with a cohort of civil servants who seemed entirely happy for it to happen. (And in the case of the Cass review, NOT happen, because it’s clear now that Mordaunt - despite her backtracking drivel in the first leadership contest tv hustings - failed to instigate it as promised.)

@trytopullyoursocksup "I was surprised that Starmer was so direct about children not being transed without the consent of their parents."
Yes, that surprised me too. That was quite a shift and I wonder if the TRAs noticed. Because parents have been investigated by social services in some countries for "failing" to affirm their "trans kids". And there's all that hyperbole about "protecting trans kids" and the truly horrible "better a live daughter than a dead son".
Perhaps he's testing the waters to pushback the tide. He's not got a lot of time, if he is. As of right now, it's not nearly enough.

SchoolsWeek seem to think Cummings was responsible for the DfE guidance (no teaching children that they are born in the wrong body)!

screenshots are a couple of tweets from Cummings (deffo him despite no blue tick) and the SW article, plus two from the Mail:

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-relationships-sex-education-guidance-cancel-culture-anti-capitalism-trans-rights-culture-war/

(presuming DC is using ‘trans man’ in the old fashioned, ‘transsexual male’ way here!)

So I suppose it’s just about plausible that Amber Rudd did some preliminary work re: Cass but it seems like it’s the Johnson/Cummings/Truss (and Badenoch) team that pushed it through?

Here’s the Mail on Sunday article referenced by Vice: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7542003/Equalities-minister-Liz-Truss-abandons-drive-relax-laws-changing-gender.html

Cummings is married to Mary Wakefield writer at the Speccie:

spectator.co.uk/article/parents-must-resist-stonewall-s-gospel/

Much as I find Cummings annoying (and the Barnard Castle excuse ludicrous) he did have excellent political instincts re: Vote Leave (unlike Starmer, whose second referendum manifesto pledge is probably the single biggest cause of Johnson’s stonking majority).

I bring Brexit up purely to link Cummings back to the thread subject and potentially as a sort of foreshadowing - can Starmer ever admit he’s completely out of touch with great swathes of Labour voters beyond the London/Cosmopolitan bubble? On Brexit or on the ridiculous concept of non-female women?

inews.co.uk/opinion/keir-starmer-advocating-second-referendum-brexit-1721731

Cummings does have incredible political instincts and since he left his post advising Johnson's govt and has been tweeting furiously as a renegade, two of the things he has been saying about Labour is that they should 1. drop this gender nonsense (and pay attention to violence against women, which ordinary people think is frightening, disgusting and has to stop) and 2. get a non-southern-metropolitan woman leader (I think he was specifically saying midlands at one point). I am fascinated by these points being hammered by the populist Cummings as my pessimism about engrained cultural misogyny has given me no faith that either of those measures would actually land with potential Labour voters.
BUT. in favour of those points I then find myself thinking:

1 - the media is misogynist and the traditional power seekers have courted that filthy hateful media for so long - am I confusing the media and the kowtowing to it for real misogyny in normal people? Sure it exists, but half of the voters are female, and lots of the other half have some women they respect in their lives;

2 - how would I, or anyone else, know whether a true pro-woman good faith stand would land with voters? no one has ever tried it.

Here’s my rough timeline, I really don’t believe Mordaunt deserves any credit for Cass:

W&E Cass Timeline:

(May Government)
April 2018: Penny Mordaunt takes on W&E role (replaces Amber Rudd who replaced Justine Greening)
July 2018: Matt Hancock replaces Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary
July 2018: GRA reform consultation goes live
September 2018: Mordaunt ‘orders’ inquiry into massive rise of referrals to GIDS
March 2019: Mordaunt appoints LGBT Advisory Panel

(Johnson Government)
July 2019: Rudd replaces Mordaunt
September 2019: Truss replaces Rudd (Kemi Badenoch is appointed junior for Equalities at the W&E department at the same time)
December 2019: GE - Johnson increases majority
September 2020: Cass Review announced
September 2020: minimal changes to GRC process announced (lower cost and online forms).
March 2021: some of the LGBT Advisory Panel quit
April 2021: LGBT Advisory Panel disbanded
July 2021: Sajid Javid replaces Hancock as Health Secretary
July 2022: NHS England announces intent to close GIDS
September 2022: Steve Barclay replaces Javid as Health Secretary
(WEIRD LIZ TRUSS PM INTERLUDE, followed by Sunak)
October 2022: Kemi Badenoch takes over at W&E.

I hope Mordaunt didn’t bow to pressure from her OWN advisory panel because it certainly doesn’t seem like anything much was done re: GIDS referrals increase inquiry until after Truss took over?
Potentially a whole year wasted by Mordaunt fannying about!

I agree with @trytopullyoursocksup and much as I loathe Cummings for all his shit-stirring especially wrt Brexit (and the trip to the optician’s beggars belief), Labour really do need to drop their hardened stance on gender ideology and the 0.01% or whatever Keir believes 😵‍💫because the REAL issue that needs dealing with in the UK is VAWG and the misogyny entrenched within institutions such as the Met.

Very useful timeline, TheClogLady. It does illustrate how precarious this is, though - the shift in policy came with Johnson and the people he appointed to key positions. Without that, there would probably have been no Cass review and the GIDS clinic would still be in place. I think May had already decided to abandon GRA reform, or at least temporarily shelve it, but probably for reasons of expediency.

It looks as if Sunak will continue what Johnson and co started, mercifully. I don't know what Starmer is playing at. He obviously doesn't want to open up dialogue in the party as he has ignored all requests from gender-critical members to meet with him, and he hasn't told his own members to stop bullying Rosie Duffield. If this was an entirely self-interested position, then I could at least understand it, but in fact it seems highly unlikely to me that self-ID is a vote winner, especially in the red wall seats. Perhaps he is making some political calculation that is not obvious to the rest of us.

Here the tweet thread by Cummings that trytopullyoursocksup references above, for the curious:

twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1451147084237787143

@RoyalCorgi Yes, he really really should be standing up for Rosie ❤️. It’s shocking that he’s remaining silent.

Cummings has bugged me quite a bit before but this could work. If the next election doesn’t go their way maybe they’ll finally learn and do it for the next.

I hope they don’t win so they get rid of the gender lies that’s throughout and change direction.

Cummings recommends Lisa Nandy for leader. Lisa "I'm completely ok with rapists and male paedophiles in women's prisons" Nandy. She'd be gift that keeps on giving to the Tories.

Yes, he’s clearly wrong on that one!

I too once had high hopes for Lisa Nandy, she would’ve been my 1st choice in that leadership election if she hadn’t ended up completely stuck on feeling sorry for her oft mentioned teen ‘transgirl’ constituent that she segued straight into advocating for male rapists to move to women’s prisons based on the rapist’s request.

As it was I voted for Starmer as he was the only one who didn’t sign the more batshit version of the two trans pledges.

A very low bar indeed.

Still, there must be a non-London no-nonsense soft-left female Labour MP that could fit the remit… mustn’t there? Somewhere?

*sad, doubtful, face.