Starmer: “Gender recognition will not be one of the priorities of the incoming government.”

[Rainbowshit]

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-says-snp-lurched-29479637?utm_source=app

He also appeared to aim a dig at MSPs who passed the legislation: “What’s happened in Scotland is a reminder that if you want change, you have to carry the public with you.”
He also said: “Gender recognition will not be one of the priorities of the incoming government.”

Interesting. Are they finally beginning to read the room...?

[DelurkingLawyer]

@teawamutu

Ugh, I follow Lachlan and quite liked him till I read that.

I thought he got how fundamental this is for many of us, but no. Patpatpat wims, we'll definitely sort your stuff out once the Big and Serious Things (that men care about) are all done.

The latest vibes from Lachlan are pretty revealing.

He got a lot of pushback for his comments about how we better all vote Labour because self-ID being dropped from the manifesto was the best we were going to get and if we didn’t we wanted babies to starve.

Now, suddenly, he’s both sides-ing like a good un, saying these mean GC women have become too extreme in their demands: https://twitter.com/Lachlan_Edi/status/1638428624280748032?s=20

And also saying that he doubts the issue “really” has any salience among Labour voters. Riiiight. That’s why he spent several years trying to persuade the LP to drop self-ID. https://twitter.com/Lachlan_Edi/status/1638428624280748032?s=20

I’ve seem this so many times with Starmerite purportedly GC dudebros. The smallest and most ambiguously expressed “concession” and they say “everything’s fine you have to vote Labour now”.

[Rainbowshit]

Lachlan blocked me. I was not in any way rude or abusive.

All I said was that I was a single issue voter and I didn't think he grasped the enormity of what it would mean for women's rights to lose the ability to define ourselves as a sex class.

He thought poverty was more important. I politely disagreed.

I guess he just didn't like a women telling him some home truths.

[Rainbowshit]

@Rainbowshit

Lachlan blocked me. I was not in any way rude or abusive.

All I said was that I was a single issue voter and I didn't think he grasped the enormity of what it would mean for women's rights to lose the ability to define ourselves as a sex class.

He thought poverty was more important. I politely disagreed.

I guess he just didn't like a women telling him some home truths.

When I say disagreed, what I said was that welfare austerity cuts could be reversed. Once we had lost our rights under self id it would be almost impossible to reverse.

[LittleFingerStrength]

@Rainbowshit

Lachlan blocked me. I was not in any way rude or abusive.

All I said was that I was a single issue voter and I didn't think he grasped the enormity of what it would mean for women's rights to lose the ability to define ourselves as a sex class.

He thought poverty was more important. I politely disagreed.

I guess he just didn't like a women telling him some home truths.

Many people don't like truth or logic.

You can use your time to talk to those genuinely interested now.

[ResisterRex]

welfare austerity cuts could be reversed. Once we had lost our rights under self id it would be almost impossible to reverse.

I agree with you, rainbowshit. Look how quickly payments were made to people during covid. Things can be done, changed, and reversed quickly if there is a will to. The government can do it. But losing our rights could take 100 year or more to get back. It would be devastating and I don't want to find out what that's like to live under.

He's dug in even more now on both sidesies. He seems to refuse to get it and is flip flopping all over the place as a result:

"When I first joined this conversation, everyone involved was united in the aim of securing dignity, privacy and safety for women and girls.

One division has now arisen because far too many people have added the aim of denying those very same entitlements to trans people."

https://twitter.com/lachlanedi/status/1638428624280748032?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

And:

"I have always said that the social settlement which resolves this conflict of rights will come about from reasonable people on all sides finding solution, which extremists on wont engage. OJ and Stonewall enrage me most: they could have sorted this but chose extermism."

https://twitter.com/lachlanedi/status/1638477556398579713?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

What does he mean, "reasonable people on all sides"? No women SFAIK set out to remove the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. What's happened is what we here all know has happened. As a result, many of us have even bothered to dig into the GRA Hansard entries and found how badly we were betrayed. It could've been left well alone but the TRAs saw to it that it wasn't.

[MissLucyEyelesbarrow]

I’ve seem this so many times with Starmerite purportedly GC dudebros. The smallest and most ambiguously expressed “concession” and they say “everything’s fine you have to vote Labour now”

All these men believe that it is for them to decide how far women are allowed to go, in expressing their concerns. They are visibly affronted when women demand the right to self-determination of any sort. James O'Brien is the poster boy for this attitude.

[RosaBonheur]

@ResisterRex

welfare austerity cuts could be reversed. Once we had lost our rights under self id it would be almost impossible to reverse.

I agree with you, rainbowshit. Look how quickly payments were made to people during covid. Things can be done, changed, and reversed quickly if there is a will to. The government can do it. But losing our rights could take 100 year or more to get back. It would be devastating and I don't want to find out what that's like to live under.

He's dug in even more now on both sidesies. He seems to refuse to get it and is flip flopping all over the place as a result:

"When I first joined this conversation, everyone involved was united in the aim of securing dignity, privacy and safety for women and girls.

One division has now arisen because far too many people have added the aim of denying those very same entitlements to trans people."

https://twitter.com/lachlanedi/status/1638428624280748032?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

And:

"I have always said that the social settlement which resolves this conflict of rights will come about from reasonable people on all sides finding solution, which extremists on wont engage. OJ and Stonewall enrage me most: they could have sorted this but chose extermism."

https://twitter.com/lachlanedi/status/1638477556398579713?s=46&t=WHoOZZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

What does he mean, "reasonable people on all sides"? No women SFAIK set out to remove the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. What's happened is what we here all know has happened. As a result, many of us have even bothered to dig into the GRA Hansard entries and found how badly we were betrayed. It could've been left well alone but the TRAs saw to it that it wasn't.

If by safety, privacy and dignity for women and girls he means single sex spaces, the only way to extend the same to trans people would be to have dedicated third spaces for trans people.

I have no objection to that in principle. But trans people need to campaign for them (the same way disability campaigners did for disabled people) and society needs to create them.

If your solution to providing safety, privacy and dignity for trans people is to allow them into women's spaces, you are taking those things away from women and girls.

Why doesn't he get it? You cannot afford privacy safety and dignity to both groups in one single space. Either you have separate spaces for each group, or you are choosing who is entitled to safety, privacy and dignity, and who isn't.

And if that's the choice, I choose women. And I believe the majority would also choose women.

[nilsmousehammer]

You cannot afford privacy safety and dignity to both groups in one single space. Either you have separate spaces for each group, or you are choosing who is entitled to safety, privacy and dignity, and who isn't.

And if that's the choice, I choose women. And I believe the majority would also choose women.

Exactly. And that is if every single male identifying into a women's single sex space did so in good faith with nothing but the purest of agendas.

When you add in that this is not the case, it becomes even less acceptable to choose men over women.

[ResisterRex]

Why doesn't he get it?

Frankly it seems like they don't want to. Their misogyny is all over these kinds of responses. It's now painfully obvious how we got the mangled mess that is the GRA, with its concessions on peerages being the prime example of this.

It makes me think of Made In Dagenham. All very "after the revolution, luv" with the irony being that if we get a LachlanLabour-style government, we wouldn't even be able to claim sex discrimination cos it won't exist!! Cos "reasonable people from all sides" (none of them the cnty kind of people) found a "solution". One that excludes us.

#nothankyou

[Rainbowshit]

He's just like all the labour blokes that think they are the "good guy". They tell us what we should think, they tell us what they will allow the stupid women. Everything but actually listen to us or take our views into account.

[DelurkingLawyer]

He’s completely jumped the shark now.


“I think the number of people who know that sex is real and immutable but have never seen any political attacks on trans people now exceeds the number of people who believe sex is on a malleable spectrum and have never seen threats of violence against women and girls.”

https://twitter.com/Lachlan_Edi/status/1638621730523742208?s=20

(PS apparently it’s us not him and nothing has changed)

[FigRollsAlly]

“Not a priority” is hardly the same as “we definitely won’t be doing it” but Starmer hopes that there’s enough ambiguity in his stance that women will believe he is kicking this far away into the long grass. Maybe he is but it’s very hard to trust someone who spins their words so carefully, see also safe spaces instead of single sex spaces.

[teawamutu]

My DH used to do the 'reasonable people need to find a solution'.

He stopped when I pointed out that that usually means men deciding which of our rights women need to give up, in the interests of not making other men sad.

But my DH isn't a sexist arse.

[Emotionalsupportviper]

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Exactly. Keir doesn't seem to credit voters with much intelligence. Both the pro-Self ID lobby and the GC one will rightly understand this as him leaving himself free to do whatever he wants, once in power. So it will reassure no one.

Agree

I wouldn't trust that slimy barsteward if he came with a letter of recommendation signed by the Lord Chief Justice, two Archbishops, the Pope and the Chief Rabbi.

[nilsmousehammer]

@teawamutu

My DH used to do the 'reasonable people need to find a solution'.

He stopped when I pointed out that that usually means men deciding which of our rights women need to give up, in the interests of not making other men sad.

But my DH isn't a sexist arse.

And this is, in fact, exactly what it means.

Men deciding reasonably how much to take off women to give to men.

And anyone believing that once this is achieved it would be done, dusted, and no further encroachments and demands on women will follow? Is being very naive.

[wasteoffunds]

@nilsmousehammer

And this is, in fact, exactly what it means.

Men deciding reasonably how much to take off women to give to men.

And anyone believing that once this is achieved it would be done, dusted, and no further encroachments and demands on women will follow? Is being very naive.

Yes it would be very naive. I think it was Helen Joyce who said we have got to win this and to stop trying to be kind all the time as if you give them an inch they take a mile.
Just as I am coming to the realisation that openly gay candidates have to make it clear they will also speak for the majority of heterosexuals who lend them their vote, I also now want male MPs/ MSPs/councillors to say clearly that they will work to protect all their constituents including women and children etc.
I still stand by a comment ages ago that I would rather be represented by a male MP who doesn't believe in genderwoo than a female MP (however 'nice') who does and states TWAW.

[SammyScrounge]

Starmer always speaks with forked tongue.

[DelurkingLawyer]

Just coming here to drop this. Schrödinger’s gender recognition reform seems to be back on the priority list.

https://labourlist.org/2023/05/labour-manifesto-2024-election-what-policies-npf-party/

[Thelnebriati]

For those using screen readers the text says;
''Build consensus and modernise the process of gender recognition to remove indignities for trans people, while upholding the Equality Act, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex exemptions.''

So when Starmer said “Gender recognition will not be one of the priorities of the incoming government” he meant the exact and precise opposite.

[LizzieSiddal]

So whilst they say they will “uphold single sex provision” we don’t trust them to know what “single SEX” actually means.

[Slothtoes]

Well saying as the first aim that they want to ‘build consensus’ on a question as entrenchedly politically divisive (and literally threatening to dissenting women from the TRA side, as everyone knows), reads like manifesto-speak for ‘we do not want to go near this legislatively with the worlds’ longest barge pole, in our entire lifetimes’.

If so, it’s just exactly like the Tories have done with GRA reform. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9079/

Extremely disappointing to see what looks like both major parties cop out of their obligations to all sections of society including women and detransitioned people.

The Tory government (and Labour, if I’m right about this), seem to take this cynical position to avoid rows over legislation. Also gives future Parliamentary lawmakers a handy threat never quite not closed off, to wave over women campaigners if we ask for too much and piss people off. Self ID etc, GRAs for under 18s, end of spousal veto, always waiting on ice.

[knittingaddict]

"Not a priority" is a completely meaningless phrase which doesn't reassure me one bit. It certainly doesn't mean it won't happen and that Labour won't try and push it through. Typical politician double speak.

[Ourladycheesusedatum]

Tl;dr - I'm quietly hopeful Starmer might be for turning. And the more he sees the strength of support nationally for women’s rights, the more likely this is. BUT you will be disappointed if you expect him to give away any clues, before he knows he's in a strong enough position in the party as well as the country

I dont need clues, I need straight talking. Honest stuff about women and children and safeguarding and prisons and hospital wards and sports and spas and all those single sex spaces we used to have.

Most of us cant vote someone in on a maybe he's seen the light (even though the pitfalls were fucking clear to me as soon as I heard about the GRA, and allegedly kier is better educated than me and should have seen the problems)
What if he hasn't seen the light, we like idiots vote him in and he makes it all so much worse. How will we retrieve our things if we cant even name ourselves. How will we roll back laws made in his only term of office?


If a straight white man , educated, and leader of a political party cannot or will not decide which path his party takes, how am I reassured that he can run a country? If this man cannot or will not control his own MPs now out of power, how am I reassured he can control them when In power?
If he cant decide what a woman is, or doesnt want to talk about this issue, or wants to lob it in the long grass, well that's no longer acceptable to me.


I have been fired up by this, the absolute unfairness of it all, it pisses me right off. We will no longer be last, bottom of the pile, after the revolution babe.

[RosaBonheur]

Tl;dr - I'm quietly hopeful Starmer might be for turning. And the more he sees the strength of support nationally for women’s rights, the more likely this is. BUT you will be disappointed if you expect him to give away any clues, before he knows he's in a strong enough position in the party as well as the country

I suspect Starmer is starting to have an, "Oh shit, how do I get out of this one?" moment.

But I think that, like most politicians, Keir Starmer's number one priority is Keir Starmer. If he thinks that pressing ahead with self ID will cause his promising political career to crash and burn like Nicola Sturgeon's, he'll try to wriggle out of it. If he thinks that most people don't really care that much about trans issues and the people most likely to tank his career are blue haired activists and woke lobby groups, he'll go ahead with it.

Unfortunately, he won't make his position clear before the general election. Between now and then what we can expect from him are vague statements that either side can interpret as they see fit. He'll try and say just enough to convince both women and trans activists that he hears them and that he will fight their corner, even though he obviously can't do that because what women want and what trans activists want are in direct conflict.

This "reforming the GRA is not a top priority" statement is a classic example. If Labour get into power and Starmer decides that pushing ahead with self ID will see him Sturgeoned, he'll just keep saying, "We'll get to it, but only once we've ensured that everyone's rights are fairly balanced so we can bring the British people on board with this." And it will get kicked into the long grass until either the idea itself is as dead as the proverbial dodo, or he's no longer in power and whatever happens is not his problem. On the other hand, if Labour get into power and Starmer decides he's more afraid of the trans activists than he is of women, or if he's in coalition with the Lib Dems and reforming the GRA is a condition of their support, he'll say, "We never said we wouldn't do it. In fact, we said we would do it, just that it wouldn't be our first priority."

That's why I cannot even contemplate voting Labour.

Remember what happened in 2017? All those remainers lent their votes to Jeremy Corbyn to try and get the Tories out and Brexit watered down, or even a second referendum. And then all we heard for the next two years was that 80% of voters, including everyone who had voted for Labour, had voted to "get Brexit done".

Make no mistake, if you vote Labour and they go ahead with self ID, you will be told, in response to any protests, "But we made it clear that we would reform the GRA. You voted for this."

[Slothtoes]

Full list of these draft manifesto headlines is here: https://labourlist.org/2023/05/labour-manifesto-2024-election-what-policies-npf-party/?amp

see section 5 under the heading ‘Make equality central to policymaking’ (which is obviously a good and necessary thing but the devil is in the detail…)

• Ensure that equality is at the heart of all our policymaking, including by implementing better ethnicity data and monitoring into the criminal justice system, introducing mandatory ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting, ensuring international development policy tackles deep-rooted gender inequality and equalising the treatment of all protected groups under hate crime legislation
• Protect and uphold the Equality Act 2010 and seek to build on that achievement for all groups with protected characteristics
• Enact the socioeconomic duty under section 1 of the Equality Act and a Labour government will take its responsibility to conduct equality impact assessments of major announcements seriously
• Introduce a Race Equality Act
• Ensure employers act to prevent sexual harassment, including of LGBT+ people
• Introduce a full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices while protecting legitimate talking therapies, closing any consent loopholes that remain on the statute book
• Build consensus and modernise the process of gender recognition to remove indignities for trans people, while upholding the Equality Act, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex exemptions.
• Work with disabled people to create policies which remove barriers to equality and focus on their representation at all levels of government
• Commit to using the language of the social model of disability, not the medical model

I am not sure how these would hang together because some actions would need a recognition of sex, collection of uncorrupted and sex-based data. Others would need gender identity to be prioritised way over sex reality, in order to happen.