Did Keir Starmer just say

[Helpuschoose]

To Nick Ferrari on LBC that transwomen with a GRC will not be allowed in female single-sex spaces? It sounded like it. Is this a clear move or does it still leave wriggle-room? I’m not sure.

Shame he wasn't asked to define a woman before starting the discussion.

@Chersfrozenface @OldCrone @AstonUniversityDataScrapingDepartment @TWETMIRF thanks for clarification. Sorry I got that wrong. (Will try harder).

@ResisterRex Venturing an answer to your question re source of info on NHS 'So if Starmer truly believes that this isn't happening then why? Who's telling him this? And who's telling him that staff aren't identifying as women, as that didn't feature in his reply either?' I understand his wife works in the NHS.

I think he's saying someone else will have to figure out how to accommodate them, so they are treated as women, but the women's spaces are 'safe'. And tying himself in knots.

Given his repeated pandering to the trans lobby and grim bumbling answers I do think that this is significant. Isn't it the first time he's ever said the NO word to transactivists? A man with a GRC can't be on a women's ward.

Presumably the polls are telling labour that his "women's rights and child safeguarding is just a culture war to men like me" comments have gone down like a lead ballon. Otherwise he's be still dismissing it and moaning about us toxic women.

Now to get him onto safeguarding children and Cass.

Slightly off topic but two thoughts from me:

1. I love NF's tone whenever he's interviewing some idiot who claims that sex is just a feeling and TWAW - polite incredulity mixed with slight caution - the sort of tone one would use when accidentally confronted by a delusional lunatic
2. Whyyyy does KS always revert back to his time as chief prosecutor whenever he gets a question on social issues which he finds awkward to answer, or cannot/will not give a straight answer to? Like yes Kier we know you were chief prosecutor. Yes we know that makes you a Very Clever Boy. Now answer the damn question!

Harumphh. Side rooms should be allocated on the basis of clinical need. You know for people with infections, at risk of infections, or people at the end of life.

Are trans people going to be given priority?

Who wouldn't prefer their own side room to a cramped ward with 6-8 beds? On what other basis would those needing (or merely wanting) single rooms deserve priority?

Seems to me that it's heads the Gender Ideologues win, tails they win.

Thanks for the transcribing as I've not been able to listen. This does sound significant.

Well done to Nick Ferrari - a lot of broadcasters wouldn't have asked such a clear, specific question.

I'll be accused of being naive, but I'm heartened by this. Yes, it only scratched the surface. But time was limited and implementation will be a complex matter. KS is saying quite clearly that men with GRCs will not be forced to bunk in with the other men, but won't be in with the women either. This is a big shift for Labour and TRAs will be furious (it will be good if gc msm showcase their response because it will highlight how mad they are).

Thing is Keir blokes are already in women's toilets, changing rooms, wards, sports, awards, short lists...the RSPB ffs advertises 'women only walks' that they explicitly state anyone can identify into. It's happening now with or without a GRC. What's to stop this dismal situation continuing. Sure men can be excluded, but they aren't. If obtaining a GRC is made easier, more men will feel emboldened to violate women's spaces. I can't see M&S suddenly telling them no.

Nothing wrong with feeling heartened - I am too! It doesn't win back my trust or my respect or my goodwill, let alone my vote, but they're going to win regardless and any shift is a positive.

Edited to add: That said, I'm also following the thread on Woman's Hour and that sounds thoroughly depressing.

Well done to Nick Ferrari - a lot of broadcasters wouldn't have asked such a clear, specific question.

TBH NF has been asking these clear questions about trans/women's safe spaces, on air, since 2022. But since the bien pensant don't listen to LBC, he's been immune to cancellation or screams of twansphobia (also because if anyone tried to cancel him he'd just ignore it, which is, of course, the only sure defence against cancellation).

Does he really think that a policy which means anyone can just say they're trans and get a private room to themselves won't have labour catastrophically 'losing control of hospital wards'?

Good grief. I knew he'd inflame it. Because he doesn't know what he's talking about.

So alongside men who want to get on women's wards, you're now going to get a whole bunch of people determined to get a private room, or accuse the NHS of rank transphobia, 'because Keir Starmer said we could'!!

Utterly clueless. Can't wait to see him 'sort this entire thing out on day one'.

@lcakethereforeIam

Institutions are failing on necessary/useful sex segregation because they fear social or legal consequences. Having the government say it's OK is the essential first step.

Captured institutions will be more vulnerable to subversion from within, and under more competitive pressure from alternative sex realist offerings. I won't go to M&S if Next has trans exclusive changing rooms.

Exactly. There needs to be a penalty for advertising something as a single sex, when it isn't.

This.

They need to be put in the with the menz where they belong.

Kier changes his position daily depending who he is speaking too. Many of his front benchers are much more consistent in their TWAW proclamations.

Has Kier condemned the abuse of Rosie Duffield yet?

Maybe turn it around and require providers to specify whether things are trans-inclusive?

Should ask him if he's going to make it clear to girl guides that their current position isn't actually legal and they need to refuse admittance to transgirls and transwomen

This is why I thought it might provide a small sliver of hope. It doesn’t change the position on the ground, as it were, where there is much ignorance or cowardice on the part of institutions as to what the law actually allows them to do to protect single sex spaces. All those battles have to be won individually, which is exhausting but almost inevitable. However, I thought it was a position from KS which is ever so slightly more supportive of the legal reality that single-sex spaces are biological-sex based in law. The practicality of monitoring that is, sadly, still in the hands of those women fighting daily battles, but at least it’s better than KS saying a GRC qualifies you to be in a single-sex space. Small, even tiny, wins! Anneliese Dodds on the other hand seems to have a different agenda, which I’m at a loss to fathom the reasoning behind.

I agree. It's heading in the right direction.

I just don't think he's got hold of the rudder.

If you're going to make special, extra provision for people who say they are trans, you have to be prepared to supply it.

People generally think of that in terms of a mixed sex space, that people can opt into if they want to, whilst preserving single sex spaces.

But a private hospital room isn't that. Which just tells me he hasn't thought about it.

And neither do I think a mixed sex hospital ward is the answer either.

Hospitals should be based on biology.

Good point about where he might be getting this information

Don't think he has, no.

Agree.

What I'll also say is that if someone suggests additive/additional spaces, the whole issue evaporates.

Because those lobbying for men to be let into women's spaces claim it's for the safety of delicate transwomen, but aren't in fact interested in separate spaces.

We saw this play out perfectly with Lia Thomas. The extra, additional category was created, and lo and behold, nobody raced in it.

What activists are demanding is the acquiescence and support and indulgence of women; it's not about the spaces.