Starmer Radio 5 "A woman is an Adult female"

[fromorbit]

Starmer says "a woman is an adult female, let's clear that one up."

Here the words of reality - 1.27:40 Radio 5
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001p101

Not so difficult was it now was it. So where is apology to Rosie, Tonia and everyone in Labour Women's Declaration?

Let them attend conference.

Also lets hear what Scottish and Welsh Labour think. Explain if they differ and why.

Context is all. Does he actually mean a woman is an adult female how we mean it, or is he including transgender biological males in his category of “female”?

This is key I agree

If it hadn’t been for all the years of gaslighting, expulsions, women losing their jobs and being attacked, I might have welcomed this.

I would like some clarification if men can be included in his definition of 'female'...also, if he is serious about this definition of biological women - how come he has sat back for several years while his colleague Rosie Duffield and others have been slated for saying the same thing?

Don't expect too MUCH logic at once. Still listening. The rest of interview is hilarious. Nicky has him squirming.

Biological Women need safe spaces but not clear what from?

Goblins, tigers, aliens? Something dangerous is out there Starmer is just not quite sure what it is.

I don't trust him. A few years ago I would have rejoiced to hear this, but now I think he will just find weasely ways to add caveats that include men with the lady feelz.

Still spoke of safe spaces rather than single sex spaces I notice

God the reverse ferreting of the Labour party now there's a GE in the pipeline an they've seen the initial polling is just vomit inducing. TOO LITTLE TOO LATE MATE!

i don’t trust them until they stop using this weaselly phrase! Starmer is a lawyer, he knows definitions matter hugely and there’s a world of difference between a “single sex” space and a “safe” space

I still would feel better if he had referred to separate sex spaces instead of just safe spaces for women. OK he said a woman was an adult female - but I do hope his definition of female is the same as mine.

Nicky Campbell was trying to goad him into saying that there was a specific danger from transwomen and I am a bit disappointed that he didn't say that there was no way of bio women knowing which bio males were dangerous and which weren't, so the only safe way is no bio males in women's spaces. He did use the term biological women though.

It's reassuring that they don't intend to go down the route of self ID, but I would like to know more about these modernisations of the GRA.

I would imagine that his definition of "female" includes anyone who says they are female, regardless of biology. So not worth a dime. I cannot in any way trust anything that Starmer says on this issue.

And as others have said, why all the hate and anger at women for saying this before he got round to saying it? Where is the apology and the recognition that women were and are right to expect consideration for their safety and dignity?

Hurray! The tide is turning. It will hopefully mean more sanity to follow. It will also prevent the Tories from using this to pretend they care about women.

The commenters below the like on the guardian are either indifferent (the world is burning , who cares), or are raging and bringing up all the old classics - “a sign on the door won’t stop predators from getting in the bathroom!”, “are we going to do genital checks ?” , “transwomen are the most vulnerable , straight men are the real danger”.

Please don't all forget, come the GE, that for many, many years Labour were publicly saying "of course a woman can have a penis" and ejecting members for saying otherwise.

I won't forget and I won't vote Labour because of it (and would never vote Conservative either before anyone starts telling me how self servicing they are and would say their Granny had third leg of it benefitted them).

There’s a possibility he’s heading uphill, though I don’t see evidence that he’s peaked, so he’s almost certainly vulnerable to being got at by TRAs.

Is there hope?? Can I really vote Labour now? or still have to wait for a GC Women's party to magically appear?

We need to push back against 'safe spaces' at every turn, it's just more linguistic deceit .. single sex spaces.

Bingo, you fell for it! What he left out was the fact that he thinks that anyone who says they're female is female. It's just more weasel words.

This is the long-term destruction these Men's Rights Activists have caused. No one can simply use the word 'woman' any more: they have to qualify how they define a woman or female.

"A woman is an adult female, let's clear that one up" is hilarious. This is the question that Starmer and his fellow shadow cabinet members have flailed and floundered over for the past three years. Now he's pretending that it's all pretty simple, actually.

Where can we read the detail of Labour's new policies on updating the GRA? I have just read James Esses' article in the Grauniad and this bit is worrying.

"At first glance, you could be fooled into thinking that Labour's U-turn was a positive intervention — a triumph for feminists who have long pointed out the obvious dangers that self-ID poses to women-only spaces such as prisons and rape centres, and indeed to women's sport.
But dig beneath the surface, and it's clear that the Labour party will still push a regressive and divisive ideology should it ever win power ...
Dodds plans to abolish the current system, under which a panel of independent doctors decides on whether or not to award a 'Gender Recognition Certificate' (GRC) to someone with gender dysphoria. Crucially, under these rules, the applicant does not know the identity of the doctors, which allows them to make their decision fairly and in private.
Under Labour, a single doctor chosen by the applicant, and a registrar instead of a panel, could award the certificate.
This gives all the power to the person who wants a GRC.
It also means an applicant could simply attend one of Britain's many private gender clinics (often run by self-professed trans activists) and pay a few hundred pounds to receive a diagnosis, possibly even after a single telephone conversation."

And of course they mean to do away with the misnamed spousal veto - which should be called the spousal escape clause.

I think he is right to say this is a cynical political ploy because they saw how things went down in Scotland. I don't trust them reverse ferret again on virtually everything if they get into power.

I don’t trust him either. Who knows what he’d do once Labour got in?

We shouldn’t have to choose between public services and women’s rights. We really shouldn’t.

Sorry - not in the Guardian, in the Daily Mail (which is why I didn't foist a link on you all.)

Slippery sod was my first thought. He knows he has to say it to try abd win back a swathe of voters whose only alternative was the Tories. I don’t believe him for a second.

Heaven forbid!

Don't fall for it. Carefully chosen weasal word to try and play both parts of the electorate. Biological females and the trans lobby. He's a lawyer. Look at how carefully and consistently he uses the wors 'reflect' and 'safe spaces' not single sex spaces. India Willoughby claims that toilets and prisons are already safe spaces for women like you, me and them, IW is a biological make who claims to have a cervix remember.