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.

Amen.

People were given the issues and there was nothing trans/women’s rights related on the list.

Imagine if the list had included 'extreme gender ideology impacting upon the lives of young children in schools'.

@RealityFan

In response to your question, yes I think this is the position he's decided to go to the GE with.

His gamble is that he can burn both ends of the candle simultaneously whist neither gets blown out by a sufficiently large breath of resistance.

I'm sure that many people will buy into the gaslighting that it's an insignificant issue in the grand scheme of things.

The question is are those voters in the key swing seats he needs to win and do they form part of the wider demographic he needs to win over from blue to red.

Personally I think this race will be much tighter that many people think it is and in the context of the poor performance of recent Conservative Governments that actually quite a shocking concept - Starmer should be shooting at an open goal.

He's in a tight spot - that's for sure. There's too much on record to do a 180 on this, even if he could survive doing so in respect of the party grassroots and PLP.

So fundamentally I think it's going to come down on him being able to get his team to follow orders and not inflame the situation further (and I don't think that's assured from either side - Rosie isn't taking any prisoners atm and we know what the likes of Lammy are capable of saying) and being sufficiently well briefed on answering questions of sex vs gender without tripping over themselves and looking foolish.

I think that's a big ask especially in the context that the Conservatives will make hay on this issue and that the positions of many of the shadow cabinet have been very ill advised.

He damn well knows he's gaslighting us with his 99.9%, pulling on the "greater good" and nobody is talking about this rhetoric but I presume he has calculated that's a winning strategy.

Personally I don't think it is because it's undermined by a few simple questions.

• so you believe 0.1% of women were born male and most still have a penis?
• how can you form effective policy re: the NHS, pay, prison reform and impact of the cost of living crisis when you render the impact of sex inequality as immaterial?
• if nobody was talking about this issue, why do you feel the need to address it?

As I posted previously, it's a topic that punches above its weight, not because it's a major voting point for many, but because it's a topic that has massive potential for Labour to lose credibility and gravitas over in spades when challenged with simple questions they have to fudge in a way that makes most voters think 🤯

Cue over 12 months ahead of the GE, of Starmer and that pained expression he's cultivated so well, as he keeps saying he's a champion of women, the party are the traditional champion of women's rights, but that some women have a penis, and they fully deserve him as their champion and the party as the champion of their rights too, as much as the vast majority of women who of course don't have a penis

And that biological women everywhere will surely understand this, the British people are the most tolerant and fair-minded in the world.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

The Tories love a culture war so will use this. However the general mood where I live (classic red wall) is that people don't give a shit about this other than they believe it is in the main bullshit.
They don't think about it beyond the basics (even when I go on about it, they tend to agree and move on). They are much, much more worried about cost of living and having enough food and being upset about the state of NHS and social care. This will not be an issue they vote on. They are in the main skint and worries about eating and how their kids will ever afford to leave home.

Now that there's some patronising rubbish.

People are able to hold more than one concern in their head. The impact of the cost of living crisis does not stop you noticing that your teenaged dd has stopped using the mixed sex school loos for fear of boys hearing her change her pad and then teasing her mercilessly for weeks.

Or that your Muslim neighbour has had to stop swimming at the leisure centre because they can no longer use the changing rooms or the 'women'-only swim hour.

Or that female sexual assault victims are not allowed spaces to discuss their trauma without men present.

Or that you cannot complain about any of it out loud without being verbally attacked and classed as a Nazi or a Terf or an agent of hate.

It is very a much an issue that concerns women.

As I posted on the other Starmer thread, knowing what a woman is, is not a political issue. I think the Conservatives would be judged as opportunists if they made it one.

Starmer is damaging himself. People are aware of gender issues. It is in schools, in girls sports (DD played University sport against a team with a transwoman in their 30s. She ended up bruised and battered. The 18 year olds in the other team would not have been allowed boundaries but would have had to change and shower with a man more than a decade older than them), in more than half of the main stream media. He is losing trust. People who should be supporting him, and in many ways he seems like a decent man, think he is a weasel.

There is a reason why 60% of the population apparently don't know which way they will vote in the next election.

@Broadbeachshallow I agree with you. Just the reality is that the people I know around here don't care that much and definitely not enough to vote on it.

The problem is, it will come up.

Sturgeon didn't think it mattered, the NZ PM didn't think so.

But when they can be made to look like ignorant, misogynistic, lying, petrified fools, it does matter.

It's eye opening. Many people may not be aware of what's going on, which is why it comes as something of a shock to see it displayed so acutely.

There an incredulity to it. Not just the inability to define words like woman, but the obvious fear of doing so.

For many people, there's an attitude of, crikey, not this again, stop shoving this gender nonsense down our throats. There's a weary contempt to it all.

Which is why seeing politicians reduced to frightened, gibbering idiots over it, is bloody shocking.

The power being wielded to stop world leaders defining normal words becomes patently, blindingly obvious.

And it really does matter.

I think that's the crux of the matter, most won't vote on it directly but it is making Starmer and the Labour party look like utter fools and the Conservatives look like the party of common sense.

It makes me think of this.

And if politicians won't stand up against something they know to be nonsense, I can't trust them to stand up to anything.

For me ‘no rolling back of women’s rights’ is not good enough. There needs to be active rolling back of eg Stonewall influence and gender identity in schools. The Tories are having a good go at this and I’m hoping for more.

Starmer needs to say more about how he will actively protect women’s rights given that Stonewall and much of the trans movement are attacking them.

I heard the interview live on the radio and was hugely disappointed - I think it is widely discussed topic. Many more people have woken up to what is happening and its impact on young people. I think it is extremely important that the current situation is tackled as in my view this threatens the values we have as a society.

And the fear. No one wants to see a potential prime minister so obviously frightened of a lobby group.

And we know it's because they're scared. The only way trans ideology has managed to become so extreme, is through threats.

People know all about cancel culture and the loss of free speech. It's splashed across the papers daily. They know people are being subjected to it.

What they won't stomach is politicians saying they are going to address it, whilst simultaneously cowering from it.

The next election should be an easy win for the Laobour Party, given what the Tories have done to the country in the last 12 years. And yet - they just keep shooting themselves in the foot by Keir Starmer coming out with shit like this. Is every Labour MP staffed by blue haired tosspots who delete all communications from women constituents?

Quite. Polls at the moment show a sizeable proportion of the electorate think Starmer 'lacks vision' - although news sources like the Guardian won't drill down into that in anything other than the proscribed ways (i.e. subtly blaming a thick electorate).

The Guardian's editorial today is blaming Sanna Marin's loss of her premiership on jitters about borrowing, and says glumly this is despite 'pursuing an authentically social democratic and egalitarian agenda'. It does not of course drill down into what this 'agenda' might be, or why it wasn't strong enough to save Marin and her party from the supposed 'fear of state borrowing levels'.

It's really clumsy sleight of hand by the liberal left media, designed to disguise the fact that there is growing disdain for leaders who are into genderwang as it is being equated in voters' minds with lack of leadership. It's a weird self-sabotage, given that meanwhile the media to the right are reporting on genderwang and reporting it often.

This short piece in the Spectator gives a nice summary of KS’s pronouncements about trans stuff:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-brief-history-of-sir-keir-starmers-flip-flopping-on-trans-rights/

I don’t think he’s changed his mind, he just doesn’t want anyone talking about it or making him look silly by asking him questions about women with penises!

I don’t think he’s changed his mind, he just doesn’t want anyone talking about it or making him look silly by asking him questions about women with penises!

Which I get. Totally.

But they're gonna.

This made me laugh out loud. Especially these parts:

"Separately, Sir Keir’s team briefs the media..."

"If you want us to stop talking about it, maybe choose one view and stick to it Keir…"

I don't know why I found the first one so amusing, I think it was the choice of "separately, [INSERT LP OPS]"

More to the point, that potted history does prove the Weathercock analogy. Dangerous in a PM.

From that article -
He said
Labour would work to update the gender recognition act to enable the process for gender self identification and we also continue to support the implementation of the equality act, including the single sex exemption.’

This sounds like what most women on here want - sex based exemptions so womens only spaces are protected?

Fudge yesterday, fudge tomorrow, and to be honest, nothing but bloody fudge today, either.

Labour have also confirmed that males can be included in those single sex exemptions for women.

I've just watched the LBC interview of Starmer with Nick Ferrari.

His pained expression like being told his favourite pet has just died, has been replaced by fingers on the temples, resolute "I'm setting the agenda and the parameters of the discourse".

Kind of an intellectual "rolling up your sleeves and getting down to business".

But the abiding impression that is left is that he's ignoring a real and present danger, both actual to women, and to language and logic.

And no way can Starmer maintain the "women's rights will always be safe under Labour" line anymore.

With the Left's obsession on intersectional grievances analysis versus traditional class based analysis, women's rights are absolutely at risk.

He doesn't have to roll back any current hard fought rights for women. By allowing men to ID as women, they jump in the pool of women's rights. And then women's rights count against women.

The Tories used to be the party of business. You could never imagine voting Tory for an anti-business outcome.

Then Brexit came along, Boris said "Fuck business!", the slow puncture to our economy started.

Now Tories now can't be trusted on business.

Now Labour can't be trusted on women's rights.

I don't know if I made that clear - Labour, when pressed, said that 'single sex exemptions' for women should include males who wish to say they are women.

They are doing the same thing Lady Haldane did, which claimed that single sex spaces exist, but also that anyone can choose or change their sex. Also remember Haldane said that 'sex' and 'gender' are interchangeable.