Starmer rowing back on self ID - what do we think?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

The Times is reporting in its live politics feed that KS has explicitly said Labour will not push for self ID without public backing. I know not everyone can access their content so here is a copied n pasted version: what do you think?

Sir Keir Starmer has shifted Labour’s position on transgender rights as he said the bitter rows over Scotland’s Gender Recognition Bill showed the party must consider public opinion on the issue.The leader of the Labour Party has previously insisted it was committed to updating the Gender Recognition Act to introduce self-identification for transgender people.However, in a significant shift in Labour’s policy, he said the backlash over the SNP’s gender reform bill had made him think again. The SNP passed legislation this year that would make it significantly easier for people to acquire a gender recognition certificate and reduced the minimum age for doing so to 16. The bill was blocked by the UK government.Starmer said: “I think that if we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.

“And I think that’s a very important message and I think that’s why it’s clear that in Scotland, there should be a reset of the situation.”

No-one has a "gender". That's all madey uppy nonsense.

Everyone has a biological sex and a personality.

Wouldn’t it be fabulous if Starmer showed that he had listened and learned by giving Rosie Duffield a prominent role? I am not holding my breath as I am reliably informed that too many around Starmer are still feeding him bollocks about gender policies. However, some issues such as Sturgeon’s downfall, what trusted MPs who are inner members of his circle feedback and high profile legal cases do penetrate even the most closeted leader - and they are closeted and fed lines by advisors a great deal. If one was being charitable (and I’m not inclined to be yet) then the loud voices of TRAs were hugely adept at getting their views on his desk.
All we can hope is that Starmer and other frontbenchers do game play this question properly ahead of the election and realise there is no tenable way they can repeat earlier ludicrous responses.

I wonder if there is a clash of views within the party between strategist and policy advisors, and until the Scotland rapists in women's prisons issue, the policy advisors were winning.

Whatever has happened it's led Labour into a hideously muddled position where no-one understands them (trans twitter are accusing starmer of being transphobic, aligning the Labour Party with Nazis and that a vote for Labour is a vote for actual trans genocide)

Why can't the TRAs get off their backsides and start their own political party so that the other parties can get on with the important stuff - then we'll see how many people actually support rainbow flags and rapists in female prisons.

This. Yes, I think Starmer saw the impact of self ID in Scotland and has realised that he's put Labour in a very vulnerable position politically. And yes, the way to burst the bubble and get the inevitable furious TRA tantrum out of the way before the next election is to publicly apologise to Rosie Duffield and the Labour Women's Declaration and engage them in a prominent way. But he won't. And hence my X won't be going Labour.

Whatever has happened it's led Labour into a hideously muddled position where no-one understands them (trans twitter are accusing starmer of being transphobic, aligning the Labour Party with Nazis and that a vote for Labour is a vote for actual trans genocide)

They just need to ride the wave of hyperbole for a while if they want to get out of the pickle they are in. They’ve been pandering to trans ideologues for years now so I imagine there will be a fair amount of flouncing and tantruming before normality can resume. But if they go through with it they will find themselves with so much more room to manoeuvre. It will be liberating.

Agreed!

I think this really, but I think we need to use this little chink in the armour to push them further. I don’t really see that there is any alternative to doing this.

This sounds a lot better - until you remember that Wes Streeting was in a secret What's App group set up to drive GC women out of Labour.

And that - only last autumn - gender critical women were banned from the Labour conference.

How can we trust any of them?

Because there aren't very many of them and the loudest of them are angry incels who are unemployed or unemployable.

I know there are people on this forum who would strongly disagree with my view, and I expect their right to do so, but I also believe they are wrong.

I wouldn't be so sure @user1471453601, there are plenty here who likewise wonder why there was such indecent haste to push through the Scottish legislation when as you say there are far more important issues at stake (Scottish public services are in a terrible state). So perhaps he needs to quash any talk of self-ID at all until the country is back on its feet.

For that matter, given the public sector is very overstretched at the moment, perhaps he should instruct schools and other public bodies to stop paying for external training and memberships which clearly provide poor value for money (quite apart from the dubious stuff they teach). Then to avoid the NHS being sued into oblivion as the long term effects of hormones and surgery become apparent, he should discontinue the provision of this and redirect the funding towards adolescent mental health services - in many cases this just seems to be the latest iteration of self-harming/anorexia, only this time it's encouraged.

Precisely - but it would be fascinating to watch them trying to get organised enough to co-ordinate a political movement on their own and gather enough support to attract more than a handful of votes. The in-fighting world be a sight to behold.

Should we start a drinking game?

Every time a Labour MP gives us the old “we need less heat” in the women’s rights debate we can have a little 🍷or 😬

How quickly would we all end up plastered?! 😂

Less heat, is the new no debate. Its a silencing technique.

This sounds a lot better - until you remember that Wes Streeting was in a secret What's App group set up to drive GC women out of Labour.

If I recall that group was set up by lily madigan. Streeting really needs to explain the extent of his involvement

Yep
Less heat
🙄
Means I can’t answer

Look at those clips below they can’t answer a simple and fundamental question

Does anyone have a link to what he actually said?

It's linked in my post.

Streeting 'We need to learn from what happened in Scotland'.

FFS, what happened in Scotland should not have come as a surprise if 1. Your party was capable of critical thinking 2. Your party did not ignore women who tried over and over again to raise this with you.

Nah, it means, "We're are going to pretend there is an equivalency between violent threats, actual violence & doxing from TRAs on the one hand, and GC women asking to have a stand at a Labour conference on the other. We will use that false equivalency to pretend that we are taking the moral high ground and finding a fair compromise when, in fact, we are simply taking rights off women and giving them to men."

Be careful what you wish for.

The full expression is "more light, less heat".

And the more light that gets shed on this nonsense, the better.

I've scrolled through all 10 pages. Must have missed it. Could you repost it?

Re https://twitter.com/ripx4nutmeg/status/1582797649446850560
Posted by ResisterRex

I feel viscerally furious and almost sick to see him standing with that ‘holy’ green field backdrop, orating with that air of concentration and sincerity how much the qualities of justice and fairness matter to him - taken what he is willing to see happen to women in the way of ripping away justice and fairness.

Here

According to men, it's just "culture war crap":

twitter.com/edcmpbl/status/1638967017607688207?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

They'd never say this about any other group being abused like we are.

Similar to Labour accusing the Tories and SNP of using trans people as a “political football”.