Keir Starmer - Trans Rights Can't Override Women's Rights

[chevvyroo]

In The Times

Seems like he's done a strategic U turn. I bet at least he's glad he can stop dodging the "what is a woman?" question.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6841074a-d0a9-11ed-85a8-caaa67d15364?shareToken=2360ce9b239c4fae805bc8364adaea73

Good! We've been waiting for this and it's good to see that it's starting.

TRAs have rejected Labour, so he doesn't need to worry about upsetting them now, particularly as they're showing themselves to be a liability with their violent intolerance.

I expect Labour to move even further back and I would hope (ha!) that questions are also asked of the other political parties. So far, only UKIP, the SDP and the Communists can be considered GC.

Politely, I disagree. It isn't a start.

Starmer is just demonstrating, yet again, he thinks women are stupid enough and low value enough that he can manipulate and soothingly head pat them while fixing male supremacism into law to harm them. But it won't matter, because only women.

Even if the Labour defending libfems are telling women it's All Better Now, it isn't. The left is going to have to be dismantled and rebuilt from the ground up by new people with the capacity to regard women as equally human before I will trust them further than I can spit.

It's quite remarkable that he's admitted that while Labour regards 99.9% of women as female, the .1% "with penises" still somehow hold their policies to ransom.

How did this happen? Why can't he tell the .1% pretenders to look for support elsewhere?

It would be interesting to find out who is actually in control of Labour's stance here, and how they manage to maintain it.

He desperately wants the woman issue to go away

But he can’t override his beliefs or those of his party

99.9% is a gender lie. He hasn’t changed anything.

The left the left, do people really think the right care about women? Look at the fucking state of women’s right now, that’s all the Tories doing.

but I still won’t vote Labour

bahhh

I really would recommend finding the 'webchat' he did right here on MN when the leadership race took place.

It was very plain right there and then what he thought about women and what interest he had in their lives or anything they had to say. And that the man could not lie straight in bed, never mind honestly answer a question.

The fact he has just discovered he might actually need the group he has zero respect for or interest in and is perfectly happy to see abused, harmed, raped in prisons, excluded from refuges and left in life threatening relationships, unable to equally access health care yada yada, must be getting right up his superior little nose. But he will do nothing more than make a few head patting noises in their direction, and only for as long as it takes to use them for his purpose.

The webchats are useful things, you get a measure of a politician extremely quickly.

He's just stating whats going on, but not demonstrating that understands the problems, or as come up with any solution.

Yes, we understand that a group of men believe that they are women, and we know the state has given some of those men female birth certificates (a known number) and passports (a number no-one has bothered to record).

But what does that mean for SSE? When a changing has woman on the door, who gets to go in? Is it just the 99.9% of women who are women because of sex, does it include the ones with GRC, the ones with a passport, or any man whos wearing a wrap dress?

And what does that mean for safeguarding and privacy?

So there are .01% of women for whom it is not biological and they do have penises?

Women's rights will not be upheld by a Labour government and nor will single sex spaces and services because there will be 'special' women who are not biological and have penises that will be allowed access.

I don’t get how we have these threads saying he’s saying something new.

Not having a go at op I think Starmer is trying to look like he is saying something new.

But if 0.01% of women have a penis then we haven’t moved on. They’re in a female prison and sports etc

0.01% of women who are TW are in charge of biological women. That's what he thinks, which is no different to last week, month, year.

Oh and he thinks we will accept that, nothing to see here and move on happily in the knowledge that he has our back.

Right.

From:

He isn't going to pretend the 0.1% "don't exist in some way".

So just say that gender dysphoria is a real thing, and that people should be helped, but that you can't identify your way into being a woman?

I guess he thinks he has a "sensible compromise" by echoing trans activist rhetoric: it's bad to deny their existence.

Denying women's reality isn't better though.

Unless you believe fundamentally that biological females are of less value than biological males.

It's the "of course" bit of his statement that annoys me ("Of course they haven't got a penis")

He cant pretend to be so so sure and cavalier after he stuttered and declared it was wrong to say only women have a cervix. It shows a lack of authenticity.

Really not impressed. He would have done better to have shown growth rather than pretend he's always thought that.

“I think there is a fear that somehow there could be the rolling back of some of the things that have been won. There are still many battles that need to go ahead for women and I don’t think we should roll anything back. I think we should go on to win the next battles for women. And that is a very important sort of starting point for this debate.”

He is not really keeping up, is he? The rolling back is in full swing. Either he is totally ignorant, or he thinks we are. Neither are a good look for him.

Woman = adult human intelligent adult

This is a worldwide phenomena and nothing at all to do with the Tories.

The second adult should read female of course.

Is this the same Kier who visited Kent today without bothering to mention it to his only Kent MP (Rosie Duffield)?

Until he endorses Rosie’s views and stamps out the harassment of her from within the party, it will be hard to take his “u turn” with any seriousness.

I am curious about this - can you explain what the Tories have done /are doing to women's rights?
I am talking about explicit women's rights, not just general issues like cost-of-living, childcare, etc. that affect women more than men.

I do think it is a slight shift of the Overton Window.

I hope it means that when push comes to shove (and we need to make sure it does) he would say no to males in sport, and to rapists in female prisons.

Which is a very long way from where I want to be. BUT I would be pleased to take those as a given, and move on to no men at all in female prisons, no male patients in female wards, no female prison officers forced to strip search men, no strips searches of women by males, being allowed to request same sex care, etc.

Still don’t trust he has women’s best interests at heart but I’m glad he didn’t throw JK Rowling under the bus. Saying he respects her position is enough to get him in the militant TRAs’ bad books. Pity he didn’t go further and condemn the awful threats and abuse she has suffered as a result of speaking up for women’s rights.

He also needs to stand up for Rosie Duffield and put that dreadful screeching Lloyd Russell Moyle back in his box. Then maybe I’d start to trust him, but I won’t hold my breath.

Lost me at 99.9 per cent Keir
Must do better

I think we should go on to win the next battles for women. And that is a very important sort of starting point for this debate

Its 2023, why do women have any battles to fight?

We should be in our rightful place, with single sex whatever we require. We are 51% of the population but treated like we do not matter. Treated like dogs in fact, no actually treated worse than dogs.

But by now for certain we should have no real battles. It's a sign of how lowly we are thought of. By all political parties.

What makes me so angry is all the bullshit of “a toxic debate on both sides”. Women spent god knows how many years trying to have a debate, just trying to speak opening ly about our concerns (all of which have been proved to be legitimate) and we were told by many including Labour to Shut The Fuck Up, You Bigots.

Until Starmer apologies for this I don’t want to listen to what he’s got to say.

Yes, I had the same thought.

Whilst many politicians and Trans activists including women think us as worthless. I have taken heart that many ordinary men, don't hate us, they think what's happening is a disgrace and are speaking up for us.