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.

To be fair this country is in such a mess I'm not surprised "trans issues" aren't the first thing in people's minds. Not if they've got a child in hospital again because they can't get rid of the mould in their rented home, or they've had a life threatening issue missed because the NHS is in crisis, I could go on.
But that doesn't mean it's not important. It's just that other things are a bit more urgent for a lot of people at the moment. People will pay more attention when their lives allow it, or when it affects them more directly. Which it will do.

Have you looked at other countries?

Gender ideology is not just here

Eh? This thread is about what Keir Starmer said. He IS just here.
What's your point?

@AdamRyan You are trying to find some mutually agreeable middle ground or third way. It doesn’t exist. Or maybe it did 20 years ago before the inexorable rise of TRAs determined to enter all women’s spaces.

I support single sex spaces where women need them for safety and dignity. I also support trans peoples rights to be treated as their acquired gender where there is no risk to womens safety/dignity of that happening.

Are you using ‘gender’ interchangeably with ‘sex’ here when you say acquired gender?

You say that you don’t want to get into scenarios but without examples of where there is no risk to safety/dignity, it’s hard to see your position on this.

So it wouldn’t be okay for women to have a women’s book club?
Or a FB group for women only recovering from a mastectomy after breast cancer?
Or what about a women’s only university society group to talk about the patriarchy?
Or a lesbian booking a venue for women only lesbian speed dating?
Or an outdoor pool for women only?

In those cases there’s (arguably) no threat to women’s safety/dignity but they’d like to not have any men, the biological kind or the kind holding a GRC.

So, are those cases where you would support a TW ‘right’ to enter because those spaces are ones for their acquired gender. Is that right?

I would like to see the GRA and GRC process used more to give people an official trans status; I'm fully aware this means updating it so people have to declare their GRC

Putting aside the fact that TW would argue that declaring their GRC would breach their dignity, Lady Haldane wrote: "I conclude that in this context, which is the meaning of sex for the purposes of the 2010 Act, 'sex' is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex."

There is no ‘trans’ status. TW do not want or campaign for or are open to a trans status, neither is the Labour Party. Those with a GRC are legally of the sex class women. Thus, they enter single sex spaces. This is the reason women do not trust Starmer or the Labour Party. Easier process to acquire a GRC, the more men have to be legally treated as women.

If woman = legal women = male + GRC then can’t you see that there are no more single (biological) sex spaces.

Would you support that?

I am feminist, pro women rights, and of course not 100% trans exclusionary. I don’t even know what you mean by ‘trans exclusionary’. Exclude them from work? Or public places? Or from being represented in film or tv? Of course not, how ridiculous to suggest otherwise!

Unless it means excluding biological men with a GRC ie trans women (= legal woman) from biological women only spaces. Then, yes, I would exclude them from those spaces to uphold the safety, dignity and privacy of the biological sex class woman.

Please, do not vote him in

Saying gc women use darvo is disgusting.

It's a meta DARVO.

I support single sex spaces where women need them for safety and dignity. I also support trans peoples rights to be treated as their acquired gender where there is no risk to womens safety/dignity of that happening.

I wonder how safe Helen Joyce and Kellie Jay Keen would feel sharing say a toilet space or changing room space with the violent, abusive TW who has just plead guilty to making the most appalling threats against them, what say you @AdamRyan ?

Thank you, yes. I agree with you.
If a space is single sex in accordance with the Equality Act, no males should be in it.

The EqA is pretty vague we need @DadJoke to tell us how much it excludes

The answer is not at all

The EqA is pretty vague we need @DadJoketo tell us how much it excludes

Yeah apparently the safety, dignity and privacy of women is not a legitimate aim.

Exactly. Anyone trumpeting that one is saying males in single sex spaces

100% trans exclusionary - someone who feels no people in opposite sex spaces under any circumstances.
E.g.
No women in men's golf clubs.
No men in womens book groups.
No women in men's networking events

Everything operating as for the benefit of one sex is completely and totally barred to the opposite sex.

In which case trans men are women and trans women are men, just differently presenting.

And there is no need to support trans people, because there is no such thing. Just men and women who present differently.

There's no value judgement from me on people who take that view. But this board is very proudly "no men in womens spaces ever". Which to me is incompatible with "supporting transgender people" . Hence why I asked the question.

Go by sex class

Why not?

Twenty years to change attitudes

I agree with you. I feel the same way.

So you'd be labelled a terf and TRAs would feel justified in threatening to rape and ķill you. But you defend them? go figure.

I've been labelled a terf loads of times. Don't really care. I am quite confident with my position
Whats only recently started happening is getting called a TRA all the time. That is a bit weird after years of being called a transphobe

Men talk over women. If women want a women only book club, there's a reason for it. Who are you to shout that down? what you should be doing, if you feel you can defend it, is saying there should be no women only book clubs. There's no more reason to let a TW into a women only book club than a shy retiring man who feels unable to say his piece when in the presence of alpha males.

Yeah it must be. But you're arguing for letting TW into some women's spaces whilst refusing to explain which ones, why and why not let other males into that too which is going to aggravate people and confuse.

So you do want to exclude

You’re all over the shop

Unless it means excluding biological men with a GRC ie trans women (= legal woman) from biological women only spaces. Then, yes, I would exclude them from those spaces to uphold the safety, dignity and privacy of the biological sex class woman.

Do people just create lack of clarity to fill posts?

I can’t believe the crap people spend time dealing with

Yes, all over the shop. Plus, if you want to sometimes exclude TW, it means you don't think they've literally changed sex, and that you think sex sometimes matters. Which means you're GC.

Well yes I've never said any different

AdamRyan

*100% trans exclusionary - someone who feels no people in opposite sex spaces under any circumstances.
E.g.
No women in men's golf clubs.
No men in womens book groups.
No women in men's networking events

Everything operating as for the benefit of one sex is completely and totally barred to the opposite sex.

In which case trans men are women and trans women are men, just differently presenting.*

This is very clear, thank you, and it would be my position, yes. What are you going to do about it?

They’re wasting time with this stuff