Telegraph - Keir Starmer: Pro-trans laws are needed across UK

[ResisterRex]

At first glance, just (just!!) a rehash of his video from last year. Which said what it said. But there's this:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/12/23/keir-starmer-pro-trans-laws-needed-across-uk/

"Asked by The Telegraph about the leader’s comments to Pink News, Labour confirmed that he stood by plans to reform the GRA.

A party spokesman said: “All political parties agree that the process needs modernising. A future Labour government will consult on what that looks like, while upholding the Equality Act and maintaining single-sex spaces.
“Labour has a strong and proud record of standing up for women’s rights. Our commitment to them is unrelenting.”
Trans rights have become a key electoral battleground in the USS_ and are expected to be similarly important in the UK at the next general election."

Do all political parties agree the GRA needs updating? The Tories just made it easier to get a GRC, and they've not said they plan to do more.

Once again the "maintaining single sex spaces" rhetoric. But next to the Haldane judgement? Come on.

It is not a coincidence that it’s only the liberal democracies of the world making these changes to their laws. Counties that are democracies but not liberal once’s such as Hungary or Poland in central and Eastern Europe or countries such as Malaysia or Singapore in Asia aren’t making these changes, it’s just in the liberal West. That’s not a coincidence and there seems to me to be a very obvious reason for that.

How do you explain Ireland and Malta being two of the first countries in Europe to pass self ID laws? Both of these countries passed self ID laws before they legalised abortion (I think abortion is still illegal in Malta).

Many South American countries have also introduced gender self ID while still outlawing abortion.

The US also seems to be going backwards on women's rights whilst going full steam ahead with genderism.

This all fits with genderism being a men's rights movement.

It’s not surprising to me that a liberal society would eventually reach the point where it would seek to free people from the constraints of their individual sex or gender by giving people the legal right to choose which gender they were in law

Why? What's the point? People can't change sex and gender has been used as a tool of oppression. Why would you even want people to have a legally recognised 'gender'? It's useful to have a record of what sex people are in a population, but what is the point of recording how people feel about 'their gender'?

Once we lose our rights it could take 100 years to get them back. I am not willing to sit back and do nothing while that happens.

Do we need to explain all the rights that have been eroded over the last 12 years?
Shall we start with the right to protest?
Have you seen what Sunak is proposing in terms of strikes?

Well, this doesn't pull any punches!

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11577761/If-Starmer-doesnt-stand-women-trans-issue-Ill-never-vote-Labour-says-JULIE-BINDEL.html

I think it's quite remarkable how an ideology based on the most regressive of stereotypes and that is anti facts, anti debate and anti free speech has convinced so many that it is a liberal movement.

That is an interesting through. I posted some facts earlier on in this thread, it seemed that it was not a widely appreciated move.

That's powerful.

Powerful and accurate. As is often said on here, if Starmer hasn't the courage to stand up to those peddling lies, let alone those cynically targeting children for their own benefit, how the hell will he stand up to Putin, organised crime networks and a host of other challenges.

That's also quite a departure from Julie Bindel's usual insistence that feminists should stand with the left no matter what. If even she's losing patience then things could get interesting.

Something is afoot, I'll wager.

There does seem to be a lack of movement by the misogynists men in the labour party with the Labour Women's declaration and the WPUK having had zero impact with their failed "place at the table" demands.

Thank heavens for all the women and men working so hard in all the other organisations set up to reverse the transactivists removal of women's rights and child safeguarding.

The bit I didn’t agree with in Julie Bs article was that there is something that is true trans. I really don’t think we can make Exceptions to the rule of men cannot be women, however nice or known to us personally they might be. It really weakens our argument if we agree to even the slightest concession on this.

Another strongly worded piece:

Send Nicola Sturgeon’s gender act to judicial review

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/897df710-8603-11ed-bb21-8f4d97ec7b02?shareToken=08df08f7a0cab8360f37fd38b9cef0b2

"South of the border you can’t become legally female just by putting on a dress."

"people will change their sex when they cross the border...That is clearly absurd and, contrary to popular belief, the law cannot be based on an absurdity. Either the UK adopts self-ID by the back door or Scotland doesn’t."

"The LGBT-friendly civil service will no doubt be advising Jack to relent on the grounds that the UK already accepts GRCs from countries including Ireland, which has something similar to self-ID. Surely, minister, they’ll say, the government should take the line of least resistance."

My favourite:

"Except that there is a line of considerable resistance here from the gender stakeholders everyone seems to forget: women. They make up half the population and have yet to be properly consulted."

There is indeed "considerable resistance". Good to see Maya and Allison mentioned as well:

"Already we see high-profile English court cases, where gender-critical women such as Maya Forstater and Allison Bailey have fought for and won the right to declare that trans women are not women."

Thank you for the share.

‘The equalities minister Kemi Badenoch has made clear that she believes self-ID poses a threat to the safety of women and girls. Most voters bear no ill will to trans people but do not believe that humans can change sex.

This is an increasingly vocal majority. The UK government must surely avoid allowing Sturgeon to dictate who is and is not allowed to be a woman in England.

There is only one place that this issue can be resolved and that is in the Supreme Court. The UK government should withhold royal assent to the gender reform act and allow it to go for judicial review. The judges may be getting tired of adjudicating on constitutional disputes between Holyrood and Westminster, but that is their job. Get to it.‘

Yes, I thought that paragraph weakened the whole piece. It's the sort of thing I might have said about 5 years ago.

There are no 'really trans' people in the sense of people who were literally 'born in the wrong body'. There may be people who suffer from gender dysphoria to such an extent that extreme body modification is the best option for them (although I'm becoming less and less convinced of this). But even for these people, the best solution is improved psychological support, not a complete disruption of society in order to accommodate their discomfort with their sexed bodies.

That piece in the Times is excellent. He really makes clear what the objections are. It's about any man being able to become legally female.

It is not at all clear that women voters in England are prepared to accept that bearded men with male genitalia are women just because they say they are.

In Scotland even convicted sex offenders can now change their sex and demand to be housed in women’s jails — a practice that not only places female prisoners at risk but also skews crime statistics.

She's certainly changed her tune a bit hasn't she. I wonder why?

Well remembered Signal. I had a vague thought she was quite firm about not departing from Labour/the left but forgot about that tweet.

Yes, I thought that paragraph weakened the whole piece.

It does jar a bit but I'm far more interested in the part about spoiling her vote last (local) election. I've never seen her say that before. Julie pisses me off sometimes (although I can never stay mad at her for long because she always ends up making me laugh) but, given all the disparaging things she's said previously about 'single issue' voting I think that's a big turnaround.

Sorry I wrote that last post, lost it, had to write it again and now I've crossed with Signal! But yes, I remember that Twitter thread.

Ian MacWhirter's article was very good - he has actually understood what the problem is.

Julie's article is fine (and she has certainly changed her tune) but I agree that it's weakened by that one paragraph. I notice that a lot of people on the gc side feel obliged to add something about "of course I have every sympathy for trans people who genuinely struggle with their gender dysphoria". This one from Ayaan Hirsi Ali is another example: unherd.com/2022/12/the-year-the-west-erased-women/

I suppose people hope that this will mollify the trans activists and protect themselves against accusations of transphobia. It never does, though.

I doubt whether Julie's bothered about mollifying trans activists any more. I get the impression she does it for more personal reasons.

I think that tweet and the conversation around it made me question my own position at the time. I’d love to know what changed her mind.

Also there was a fairly lively conversation on here about it...

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4585429-julie-bindel-sharron-davies-cant-believe-women-centre-their-politics-around-the-trans-issue

I think people say the bit about sympathising with genuine trans ppl because they really feel it, not necessarily for any other reason. Whether theyphrase it as ' those who id as trans', 'ppl who struggle with dusphoria' or 'genuine transexuals' or anything else might indicate something about their understanding of what is going on, or might just be a short hand, but the sympathy is real I'm sure.

That's an excellent piece by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, thanks Corgi:

If 2022 has been the year of the “woman”, it is a tale with two different final chapters: one hopeful, one less so. The first is set in a distant country, where an archaic, theocratic regime threatens to be toppled by women throwing down their hijabs and demanding their emancipation. The second plays out in a more familiar setting but in an unfamiliar language; a Western nation where the word “woman” itself no longer has any meaning, its definition rewritten to include “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”.

This is the paradox of the past 12 months: the existence of women is being questioned in the very place where female emancipation has come furthest, while in places where women remain shackled to medieval notions of honour and chastity, true feminism is at its strongest.