Starmer: Almost no-one is talking about trans issues

[SidewaysOtter]

To quote from the rolling news section of this morning's Times:

"Almost no Britons are “talking about trans issues,” Sir Keir Starmer has said as he questioned why such issues are a focus of political debate.

The Labour leader sought to win over gender critical campaigners and MPs at the weekend, telling The Sunday Times there would be “no rolling back” of women’s rights if the party formed a government.

Speaking to LBC this morning he repeated his position that “for the vast majority — let’s say 99.9 per cent — biology matters” in defining a woman. He said that Labour was trying to agree a “common sense, respectable and tolerant position”, but that it was “not prepared to ignore” the small number of people who identify as a different gender to the one they were born in.

He insisted it was a marginal issue for many voters, however. “As we go around the country campaigning, I talk to thousands and thousands and thousands of people. They want to talk to me about the cost of living crisis, about the fact they can’t pay their bills, they want to know what they’re going to do about their council tax,” he said.

“Almost nobody is talking about trans issues. I do sometimes just wonder why on earth we spend so much of our time discussing something which isn’t a feature of the dinner table or the kitchen table or the café table or the bar.”

Funny, because I think there's quite a lot of people talking about "trans issues". Whether it's the treatment of Posie Parker and the 72-year-old woman who were violently assaulted last weekend, male-bodied people in women's sports/changing rooms/hospital wards/prisons, the medicalisation/mutilation of young adults, or the vilification of those who speak The Terrible Heresy that you cannot change your biological sex. And yes, we're talking about it at the dinner table, the café bar or wherever.

"No rolling back of women's rights" doesn't mean shit if you count men as women, Mr Starmer. And you can wang on about "respect and tolerance" all you like but we know what you really mean by that is wanting us to be quiet and stop being awkward. That isn't going to happen.

Yes it’s easy to see the trend across the western world.

The question is where do countries land. Alongside NZ or Canada or do they start to pull back on language, and action.

There is no compromise! That's the whole point. Starmer knows that and you've only got to look at his face in that interview in which he says that it should never be said that only women have a cervix, to know which side of the debate he is on. I saw that interview and was horrified.

I think some of that is because of the no-platforming that was happening mid 2010s. There were only limited places to find a GC view, meanwhile people were being told to "educate themselves" so we all ended up reading GC reddit/gendertrender/mumsnet and different nationalities started sharing what had been happening

I don't think Maria Miller started the debate but I think her bonkers consultation gave credibility to self ID and at that point you were definitely called transphobic if you expressed concern. So politicians were all falling over each other to back self ID and not face public approbation.

Juggernaut is taking a while to turn

I'm open to the idea it's come from Silicon Valley. How else could it have been propagated across vast swathes of the world so quickly, and with such similar harm to children being seen in such similar time periods? Starting with sites like Tumblr.

Suzanne Moore has written a good article today in the Daily Telegraph on this very topic.
'Women’s right to single-sex spaces either matters to the Labour leadership or it doesn’t. They cannot have it both ways – and have left a wide open goal for the Conservatives to simply declare that they will defend them'.
So glad I took out a subscription, excellent coverage no 'no debate' has ended.

What ways can you legally 'treat a man as a woman' whilst simultaneously exercising a single sex exemption?

The exemptions are to do with single sex spaces/provision. What other way would you be 'treating a man as a woman' other than allowing him access?

Forced pronoun use? That's the only other thing left.

Plus, it's too late. When they created the exemptions, they didn't for a single second think that places like sports federations and prisons would not want to use them.

It's all so duplicitous. They, understandably, but naïvely, allowed the SSEs to be discretionary.

They simply didn't take into account that women have no idea how much man hate them.

Coupled with a change to the EA so that single sex spaces are a specified requirement, rather than only allowed in specific circumstances, I would accept that.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/04/04/keir-starmer-trans-debate-labour-women-gender/

Something sinister could be at work or in the water for so many to have been so complicit with arrant nonsense and anti-science

I live in Mexico City and I have a very clear memory of a poster campaign organised by our (very corrupt) mayor at the time, in 2012, against discrimination against transgender people. It was so weird and out of the blue. Mexico has a serious problem of racism against the indigenous population and the disabled need a lot more support, but he chose to centre such a minuscule group of people in a city where people have always been broadminded.

Pronoun use/title use
Don't discriminate on the basis of gender e.g. refuse to employ someone/serve someone etc (unless a sex exemption is in place)

Similar to LGB provision in the EA. I'm not an expert but I think it would be a reasonable compromise

Yes, a clear separation of sex and gender. Everyone welcomed to have GRCs, easy to get, hand them out like sweets, but sex recorded and specific to single sex provisions.

Accessible mixed sex and specialist facilities provided via govt funding alongside single sex provisions AND a legal requirement to provide female only single sex provisions, only for those born female, so that all women have accessible provision.

Then you will have to deal with how practically you gatekeep these spaces from male people who will walk in and declare entitlement, particularly in places like toilets and changing rooms and leisure centres where a woman alone may end up dealing with a very angry, large, alarming man. Because this gate HAS to be kept again and men have to be made to respect women's access and inclusion, because that's been lost. Entirely. And the political lobby will send female born women who appear outwardly as men to try and mess with this, because usual reasons. The idea that female people need access too will be unacceptable. Those shouting inclusion and diversity don't believe in it.

And there will also need to be clear protections, pathways for complain, and consequences in law for vexatious complainants who try to bully female only spaces and resources into stopping being female only, through bombardment, threats, attempting to hijack the services' time and resources and the other multiple bent ways of control and abuse.

The bottom line: this will not ever be seen as a compromise, because while some form of femalehood exists that men cannot control and own, the need has not been met. It's a zero sum game. If there was capacity in this movement to reciprocally care about women we wouldn't have got into this mess.

Pronoun use/title use

How does that work in reality? TW comes into single sex space. I trot off to alert security. I refer to 'him' in the changing room? Do they remove him/her from the changing room, or me from the gym for using the wrong (but right) noun and pronoun? How would I tell security what is happening without referring to correct sex-based pronouns?

Oh and forgot - undo the political capture at local authority level and ensure that funding streams are not quietly distorted so that any resource providing a female only anything is unable to compete.

Pronoun use/title use

What do you mean by this? What happens if someone uses the pronoun that matches the sex

Why would I know? I'm not a lawyer. I'd assume like the EA generally it would be aimed mainly at employers not employees. So don't go round addressing letters to a transwoman "dear Mr blah". If someone repeatedly uses the wrong pronouns, discipline them

That will be the downside for GC women, that we won't be able to refuse to call a male with a GRC by female name/pronouns

Not a hill I want to die on if my sex based rights are enshrined in law effectively, which they aren't at the moment

In any case Starmer is actually one of the few people in government with a track record of actually making things better for women, when he was DPP and changed the way rapes were prosecuted (subsequently reversed by Alison Saunders).
I don't think he hates women and would prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt than risk the current conservatives staying in power.

It’s worse he wants to ignore all the views here and elsewhere unless TRA. Woman don’t feature. Although I’m sure he appreciates any benefit of the doubt.

I hope it backfires on him as it did Sturgeon and to lesser extent Penny M.

Which politicians do you support marsha?

Also, I wonder why KJK is not taking on Jamie Wallace, first trans mp?

Yes Kier. No one is talking about it

twitter.com/sexmattersorg/status/1643236702322847745?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

<awaits latest panicked move from Labour HQ>

That would be like taking candy from a baby, I don't think attention seeker Jamie could take Posie's 20 yard stare, lol.

No, Keir is the perfect foil for Posie, he'll be forced to have to flesh out his plans under the steady spotlight Posie will shine.

The politicians in the Labour party when the Bill was passed in 2004 are mostly still alive. I would like Tony Blair who was PM then to be asked exactly what he intended to be achieved by the GRA at that time.

Have the Tories not had the sense to de-select Jamie Wallis? I wouldn't vote for him after his Sugar Daddy website and recent driving debacle.
It is a lost seat if they do not stand someone else.

I’m more for politicians who can actually say adult human female

First hurdle they are not failing at something so basic yet fundamental to me

I could not vote for 99.9% politicians, or ones that call us turds, or ignore decapitate them whilst talking about TRAs

The left gender ideology is not something I can accept. Of course we’ll see what happens at the GE but if we end up like NZ or Canada it won’t be on my vote.

I have no idea about that second line. KJK focusses on women’s rights not going after trans people specifically. She wants women to speak, it’s a platform. Why is that MP so relevant?

What do you mean by ‘taking on’ anyway, seems a bit of a curveball

KJK has always been for LWS. It’s centred on the topics we want to discuss.

Which is pretty much a direct contrast to Starmer

Me too. But it was after I had been further peaked earlier on by Nandy and Rayner going on about the fact that 'TWAW' in the Labour leadership election.

Yes she would run the risk of winning the seat if she stood against Wallis. She would be accused of transphobic bullying though as well.