Labour shelves plans to make gender change easier

[boobleblingo]

www.thetimes.com/article/04892a42-1268-4b74-a818-7289c7a0e97e?shareToken=cb138edd47fe74c222687c5a68d2fb76

What a chilling pair of paragraphs...

Good.

If this is true I’m glad to hear it, but it disgusts me that the change in policy is apparently to toady up to Trump and spike Reform’s guns, rather than out of any care for women and girls. FU Keir Starmer.

Ask yourselves Labour, why is looking after women’s rights, safety, sports and single sex spaces so popular? Could it be your opponents have a point here?

It's done to try to secure popularity and future votes, but it highlights that they are aware of the public strength of feeling. Kier jumps on bandwagons, so he is sliding off the "be kind" one to the "back to reality" one.

It’s what working class people want.

It's what a lot of people want. It's not a class or a left - right issue.

I suspect that men on the whole are less bothered than women because it's not their changing rooms that trans identifying males barge into, and it's not their sports that TIMs steal prizes from.

Maybe. They’re happy to brief that they don’t want to offend Trump, but don’t care about offending 51% of the voters.

Let's not forget that Labour have never had a permanent woman leader, yet the Tories have now managed to have four. Even if the last two were and are totally useless.

Me too. Delighted its come.😃🙌

Labour Women’s Declaration have responded to the article:

LabourWomen’sDeclaration
If this is true, we applaud this policy shift. It's the right thing to do, as well as being politically sensible. As we explained in para 5 of our critique of
@UKLabour's manifesto - https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/lwd-responds-to-the-2024-labour-party-manifesto… - the GRA reform plans were unwise & unevidenced
"Streeting said..that the NHS must get “back to basics” rather than focusing on “daft nonsense”. In this light, we hope gov't will also rethink its unworkable & contradictory plans for a Conversion Practices Ban, see para 4 of our manifesto critique.

An interesting question is who are the sources for this article? I suspect we are seeing fall out from internal positioning inside the cabinet and other manoeuvring inside Labour. Streeting clearly is marketing himself as a gender realist of some kind. This article enhances his position as well as that of the declared supporters of LWD who are on the front bench i.e

Shabana Mahmood MP, Birmingham Ladywood, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice
Dame Diana Johnson, MP Hull North & Cottingham, Minister of State (Home Office) - (Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention).
Feryal Clark, MP, Enfield North. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology - AI and Digital Government
Jess Phillips MP for Birmingham Yardley, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office) - (Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls).

However I think this probably comes from the right leaning sources inside the party. Note the most outspoken suporters of TA stuff are now mostly left leaning MPs. The article could be an attempt to use gender debates to further margnalize the left by making their position seem isolated and also try to trick them into doing something daft like attacking Streeting's position directly. Nadia Whitcombe for example might be triggered into doing something. Rayner was a prominent TA and this issue might undermine her too. So while avoiding the threat from Reform will be part of it internal politics also plays its part. Also there may be the possibility of making SNP, Greens and Lib Dems look bad.

Also bear in mind this debate is urgent. Local elections are months away. The Welsh and Scottish elections in 2026 may have a gender element as Reform/Tories certainly will be looking to raise the issue if they can.

Whether deliberately or by some happenstance Reform wont get all the opportunities it though it would to beat Labour.

https://news.sky.com/story/local-elections-for-millions-postponed-as-nigel-farage-hits-out-at-government-13303622

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/jim-mcmahon-england-government-nigel-farage-conservative-b2694284.html

Women are still not at the foremost of Starmer’s mind though. Just his ratings.

It's a sign of the times that a political campaign that works leaves campaigners as unhappy as ever.

Politics seems to be about people's grievances now rather than getting meaningful change.

Labour have a major problem with slowing down the labour market so markedly

Car crash in slow motion as described this morning, but getting worse

Plus trafficking issue

Going up against public sentiment on this won't wash. Thanks to those who keep pushing on here

It's not keeping men out of CR as pledged though

How the hell will this get sorted if it's still referred to as conversion therapy? Stonewall have created an almighty mess with their obfuscating language. They should be shut down and taken to court. Dr Az had 24 years treating gender dysphoric people, only a few went on to have surgery/ take hormones. Yes they were converted but to call successful psychotherapy conversion therapy (with its associations) is criminal. Az's experience should be the model for the government, not the types of institutions that conveniently don't have data or follow up plans in place for patients.

The insiders are most lkely to be people like Morgan McSweeney - those who are steering the ship from behind the scenes, in the absence of political acumen from Starmer.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2025/02/there-is-no-such-thing-as-starmerism

Quite. The wording of some of the quotes suggests they're just waiting for a more amenable political climate for round 2 of forcing everyone to accept the unacceptable.

It's not exactly a full throated defence of women and girls nor an apology for what they've been put through and are still being put through on a local level (e.g Fife and Darlington).

I'll take the wins but if the reasoning is only that they're not doing this because of Trump or Reform then vigilance is still required.

I don't even think it is Starmer who has worked out that this is not a popular policy. It is those behind the scenes ( his PR team - in the manner of Allistair Campbell for Blair) - and for them it really is about stategy and how to see off the competition - rather than concern about rights and protections more generally.

Of course.....when it comes to party politics and governance......reading the public mood is the most critical factor..and how you shape your policy to appeal to that mood.

Personally, don't think there is going to be a big clamour, in the future, for Self ID, anyway. Far from it. So, it will ineviatbly die a death......but that doesn't mean we don't have to help it on its way.

Thanks for that link @Shortshriftandlethal I've not read it yet but I will.

My reaction is still very similar to my reaction to those Trump EOs: regardless of motive, I'm pleased for women and girls and I'm not prepared to wait around for someone with the right intentions to come along and sort it out.

I'm not stupid, I know that, if it's true, it'll be opportunistic, and that the small print will need close scrutiny. (Where will it leave the Spousal Exit Clause?) It'll still be a result and I'll take it, have a small chortle at the thought of Labour watching the Democrats drive off a cliff and going into a panic, and then move on. There's still a lot to do.

I was explaining recently to a devout LibDem why people vote Reform.

She was willing to accept that the LDs were out of touch (though not in so many words), but seemed quite surprised that many people feel that the two main parties are barking up the wrong tree too.

She was convinced that the root of the issue is the migrant boats, but I said no, it's not, it's a whole complex of things.

Wish I'd had your quote to hand to say, wankery like this REALLY pisses people off, especially after they've sat in a corridor off A&E for 48 hours with their 80 year old DM who has a broken hip and a UTI, is becoming delirious, and is waiting for a bed.

Fiddling while Rome burns springs to mind.

I feel very strongly about this, not least because of the blatant lies you sometimes find on Irish birth certificates. That's one thing that needs to be completely factual.

I've long suspected that, if we ever got the GRA repealed - which I don't think is a realistic goal now, but we can imagine it - there would have to be some kind of grandfather rule for the few thousand people who already have GRCs. Which is fine, as long as the law recognises that woman = adult human female for the purpose of single sex provisions.

I suppose there is always someone but I don't remember anyone saying this issue would lose Labour the election. But that it would make their vote less secure. Which I think was a fair assessment, they didn't increase their votes at a time when they ought to have been able to.

My understanding was that the GRA was passed, effectively, to permit men to marry other men before the same sex marriage equality laws were passed. It meant a man who had a 'sex change' could marry another man. Consideration of women's rights and protections were not considered, or even an issue, at that time.

It is still highly debatable that simply wanting to be considered a woman means it should be acceptable for anyone to chage their legal documents such as birth certificate and passport - so I think there is still much to work towards.