Bottom line.
The definition of woman matters legally. If you don't define it by sex then what are you defining it by?
If you define it by gender you mean any male who wants to be female can declare himself to be.
This by definition removes ALL single sex protections women have. All of them.
Sex must be defined in law as biological and protected. Otherwise you want a roll back of women's rights.
There isn't a middle ground on this.
You can protect gender in law, but only as a separate concept. And only if biological sex is defined in law.
This is what the government are looking to do. Define biological sex and the clarify existing protections for gender AS THE LAW CURRENTLY STANDS. All that means is they want to clarify biological sex in legal definitions not change the equality act.
Where Labour stand is they want to define women as being 99% penis free. So in legal terms they want to give clear clarification for penis rights over vaginas. This is a movement on the existing law and will remove single sex provisions.
So Tories women = biological sex and protection of single sex provision as detailed already in the Equality Act so the equality act is upheld as it should be with compromises on social issues but not single sex provision.
Labour women = females plus males who declare themselves to be females. A change in the Equality Act which would actively remove the ability to enforce single sex provision. That a roll towards males having increased rights and doesn't address concerns over safeguarding this creates.
How woman is defined absolutely matters in legal terms. Starmer knows this. He's a human rights lawyer. Trying to downplay it doesn't change the legal ramifications.
So every time there is a failure to answer the question 'what is a woman?' you are asking for a legal definition to clarify the equality act.
99% don't have a penis is a weasely way to say that women shouldnt have their single sex rights protections where it explicitly states legal exemptions as outlined in the equality act continue. It's a male rights grab.