Mayor of London Sadiq Khan speaks out on Supreme Court’s definition of ‘sex’

[IwantToRetire]

“As the Mayor of London I meet regularly with trans Londoners and I know the stigma they face, the discrimination they face. I know this is one of those vulnerable communities across the country and across the world, and I’m fed up with trans people being used as a political football.

“I’m fed up with them being at the centre of a cruel cultural war. And that’s why it’s really important that the Equality and Human Rights Commission comes up with proper guidance because what I don’t want is us to regress the rights that have been hard-fought and won been rowed back.”

https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/mayor-of-london-speaks-out-about-supreme-courts-definition-of-sex-487186/

I was going to add this to the tread about Labour letting down the trans community but that has been deleted for infringing copyright.

This needs to be put to him, directly, in an interview on camera.

Why do you not mention women?
What about the 'roll back' of women's rights - that you want kept rolled back at the benefit of men?
Where exactly is this purported right of men to control women's bodies and that women's consent should be rendered irrelevant? On what document? Tested in what court case? In what century?
Do you believe that women must learn to submit and expose their bodies, whatever distress this causes them, so that a man can express his inner gender freely? Why do you believe that women have so little value compared to the importance of men? Doesn't this make an absolute farce of pretending that you believe these men are women as opposed to specially privileged men with specific rights of coercive control and use of women?
Should forced exposure to and provision of access to body be the conditions for women to be able to access the public resources and services they pay taxes for? Do men have an equal responsibility here or is this a birth duty of women only?
Do you believe that a man should be able to identify into strip searching a woman and how is this not assault?
Do you think a man with this degree of sexism and bias should be working in a taxpayer funded public servant role? Have you noticed the sex of half your voters?

Yes. There needs to be serious questions asked about the agendas of such men, because destroying women's equalities and rights seems to be so very attractive to them.

I am still stunned that apparently serious politicians and the civil service have no respect at all for the Supreme Court or law, the moment it involves women's rights and equalities. I cannot believe what I am seeing them throw away here.

yes maybe she did.

It's just the transcript makes her look very frustrated with his lack of answer.

It's quite extraordinary really, how paralysed people are in case they be accused of something else entirely. Meanwhile, children are being raped.

I’d love to know what Louise Casey would think of this exchange and how seriously (or not) our mayor is taking this issue.

I couldn't do her job. I'd end up shouting JUST ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!!!

Timely video by Charlotte Gill!

How Sadiq Khan controls his media image
6 July 2025
Does the Mayor of London use Global, and its presenter James O'Brien, to protect himself from criticism?

Very interesting

Pass through smelling salts, I've gone all woozy!

Anyway, as to a cruel culture war, if you don't like it, don't start it. It's turned out to be somewhat akin to invading Russia.

Khan is fundamentally dishonest, he can't fail to be aware of who the aggressors are in all this. It's all out there in the open, from the illegal bullying and harassment of women in workplaces, to the vile threats, imagery and videos online, to men in frocks assaulting small, middle aged and elderly women in public.

Often with the Police watching and doing nothing, if they're not threatening to arrest the women victims.

@fromorbit Khan is a massive hypocrite. As a practising muslim he attends a mosque which is divided by biological sex and which is going to see being gay as wrong. Like all "liberal" muslims he has to deal with the fact the mosque he attends doesn't believe in stuff which he feels is right. Yet he doesn't want to face the conflict or call anyone out.

Exactly. The only way a trans person is stepping into a mosque is if they are covered in full burkha and niqab. And then, if they did get caught in the women's section they would be rapidly escorted out.
I wonder if any trans identifying men have attempted to enter mosques. The TRA and LGBT for Palestine frequently march together with Muslims . And they've demanded access to every other women's space going . I'd be interested to know if they have accused any islamic organisations of transphobia

They couldn't be that stupid, could they?

I am so taken aback by this...

Not all mosques segregate by sex or gender (although most do).
Being a member of a major religion doesn't always mean every tenet aligns with someone's world view. Is every Catholic a misogynist because women cant be priests??

I have no skin in the game with the london mayor, and i dont know enough to judge his performance in this role. i'm just highlighting the (i'm sure unintentional) islamophobia in this post.

Sadiq Khan has consistently, even before his current role, championed LGBTQ+ people and has always been trans inclusive. Its not like its a new thing? So where is the hypocrisy in his consistency?

Actually in some Muslim countries being transgender is seen as a lot more acceptable than homosexuality. Trans away the gay and all that.

The fact he is of a religion which supports women being treated as second class citizens to men? How many Muslim women do you think would be accepted as men and allowed to be Imams if they wished? He is of the same religion as the Taliban. The fact he believes people can identify as the other gender if they wished is a complete insult to Afghanistani women, as well as those from other countries where women are treated badly because of men following a certain religion. He is basically accusing those women of being complicit in their own oppression no? Otherwise they’d just “identify as” men and be free wouldn’t they?

he seems very keen to support the rights of trans people, where is his support for women? Maybe he sees all women as complicit in their own oppression as well? Or maybe he doesn’t see them as people at all?

People of all backgrounds, cultures and religions (or no religion) differ in their views about gender expression, I am an atheist and very much a trans ally
There is no reason to attack sadiq khan for his religion in this argument, it hasnt been a barrier to him being an ally to gay couples, trans people or anyone else

seriously? wtf?

I’m also sick of the repeated narrative that trans rights are or have been lost. It’s everywhere including workplaces with their stuff about how now is a particularly difficult time for trans (and stuff women).

My small bit is to do what I do if anyone mentions JKR and being transphobic- act a bit ignorant and ask them for specifics. They never can. Same as loss of trans rights - please be very specific, what exactly are these rights - actual rights- removed or threatened. I need to know detail! No? Let me help then - They are or were demands and assumptions, not hard won rights.

I disagree, it is well known that his religion does not approve of homosexuality and segregates severely between men and women based on sex (in example mosques), so no surprise he supports men identifying as women over women having sex based rights. Most old school transsexuals were gay men, that are then 'straight' after 'changing sex'. And if you see women as less than men, who cares about their feelings. Plus you get to segregate the transsexuals that make you uncomfortable away from you.

So it all fits together and it is pretty safe to assume his religion is the foundation of his way of thinking.

everything you have said is also true of Catholicism...and many iterations of lots of other religions
honestly, just take a beat and think about it...

So? Why is that relevant?

Do you think most women on FWR are supportive of homophobia in Catholicism? Also, which churches segregate men from women during worship?

If there was a strict catholic figure, who agreed with the churches stance on homosexuality, making out that they were supportive of the 'transgender community' then of course people would be calling that out too.

That is in fact inaccurate. There are one or two liberal mosques in all of the UK which allows mixed sex worship.

28% of UK mosques don't allow women in. That is why there is a longstanding UK campaign called Open My Mosque for women to actually to be able to get in a mosque.

In most of the rest of the mosques women have far smaller and substandard facilities which are always segregated.

There are a small number of modern mosques which there are equal facilities, but still segregated and women are allowed positions in management. I don't like this segregation, but separate but equal is the bare minimum, but it still contradicts the basis of their religion and I am going to always point that out.

Take a look at this pitiful list of UK mosques with separate areas for women remembering there are around 1700 mosques in the UK:
https://www.amaliah.com/post/68657/uk-mosques-taraweeh-spaces-women

Bear in mind this is in the UK the situation in many Muslim countries is worse. Of course some Muslim communities the situation is better. It is clear from basic scholarship that in the days of the Mohamad there was not sex segregation in worship and women had a higher status. This is still seen in the pilgrimage to Mecca where there is no sex segregation.

The first mosques in the UK in Victorian times had no sex segregation and had women in leadership.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/2/62

This should be basis for any Muslim worship in the UK in my opinion. Denouncing sexism in Islam when it contradicts their own religion is best practice. There is no reason to not point out racist Muslims either which is also contradictory to their own teachings.

Most so called "Muslims" today are unislamic in their sexism. Not calling out Muslims for unislamic sexism and putting sexist customs above their actual religion does no-one any favours. I am not telling Muslims to treat the sexes identically. I am just expecting them to manage to hold to the same standards they managed in 600 AD or they did in Victorian Britain. I hold the same opinion about sexist nonsense in Christianity when it is clear that early Christians let women be priests. The Catholic Church is a sexist institution and so are virtually all mosques in the UK. Obviously they are free to continue to be sexist in their religion and I am free to call them out for it. The Goddesses will sort them out and punish them either here or in after/future lives anyway.

This us exactly why Khan is particularly messy. Chances are his mosque has a separate section for men and women, and will contain many women wearing special dress yet his position supporting the TQ+ implies that nonbinary/ genderfluid people are a thing as well as "trans" types. Where do they go? What do they wear? As some one pointed out yes in some Muslim countries like Iran being trans is seen as a cure for being gay and people are forced to do it. However these countries don't believe in the Q+. Your options are having hormones/surgery or you are potentially executed for being gay.

It is clear Khan does not believe this. He did champion gay marriage for a start. He has spoken out against full face veils. I think he is a Muslim liberal, which is a very difficult thing to manage and often drifts into hypocrisy. If he attended one of the few ultraliberal Muslim prayer spaces we would hear about it. Most Muslims who attend mosques end up tolerating bad practices implicitly because physically their spaces treat women badly. I think it is utterly absurd to say you are Muslim and say there are not two sexes when everything in your contemporary religion says they exist and there is increasing pressure for women to wear special head coverings. The way he has acted over this debate is awful.

Contrast to Anas Sarwar the Muslim leader of Scottish Labour who also has been terrible and still refuses to admit fully he screwed it up in the votes in Holyrood which denied women exist and are equal. Sarwar however has actually switched positions ungraciously in the face of women winning their rights back and is now saying women are real. When women in his own family were wearing head coverings all the time!

Khan still can't even manage even that. As I said earlier what he is going to do at Pride in 2026 is going to be interesting to see especially when his administration as Mayor will soon be having to enforce the law saying women are real.

So is it islamophobia to talk about a man who does follow all tenets of faith or talk about a man that doesn't?

Or just talk about a muslim at all?

It's not very clear at all from your post.

We are judging his performance in the role. His choosy choice equality performance where he manages to publicly support the legal requirements when it's a male advantage, one that actively damages lesbians, and only because his job would be untenable if he didn't, but behaves appallingly over a terrible blight on children because of the ongoing protection his religion attracts via the use of the words islamophobic and racism.

Something you are here joining in with.

You do Islam no favours if you suggest any attempt at accountability for Khan is Islamophobia. I voted for the man (yes I knew he was a Muslim, I don’t care about that!). Now I want to hold him to account for his shocking attitude to women on both the trans and grooming gangs issue. That is how our democracy works. Will I vote for him again? Not on the present showing, no.

Has also made London a dreadful place to live.

I lost all respect for him when I saw the video of him refusing to give Susan Hall a straight answer when she asked him to give her a straight answer to her question as to whether there is a problem with grooming gangs in London.