Agree with this absolutely.
Surprised more people haven't spotted the similarity to the way Starmer handled antisemitism in the Laboir party - another issue where he stayed pretty quiet and even made vague pro-Corbyn noises until he was sure he was in power and could afford to remove his enemies on the far left of the party who were most pro-antisemitism.
It's not his style to shout out his views. I've seen him speak to a small group and he is a politician through and through - he knows that keeping his cards close to his chest is essential to gain and maintain power. He will only take action to put his views in practice when he knows it is safe to do that. So I'm not sure we can assume from his fence-sitting to date what his views actually are. But nor can we assume that he doesn't have any.
He knows that Rayner, Lammy etc and the younger left of the party are strongly pro-TWAW - he's not in a position to act against them without considerable support outside of the parliamentary party.
It could be that he relishing what's happened to the SNP as an opportunity to walk back Labour's stance on this; my gut feeling is that his overall politics are anti-racist and anti-sexist ie what we used to see as classic left-wing values. I certainly hope so.
But either way, we won't get to see what he thinks on this genuinely until he's absolutely sure he controls the wheels of power and has widespread support outside as well as inside the party.
So given that - with or without our votes - it's looking increasingly likely that Labour will be the next party of government, in the not too distant future, our priority should be a) to continue making the strength of our feeling on this issue clear while b) avoiding anything that could be seen as linking women’s rights to the far right (as that will make it infinitely harder for Labour to walk back its previous daft comments on women, cervixes etc).
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.