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Does he know what a cervix is? Credit: Rob Pinney/Getty Images
Does Sir Keir Starmer know there’s a war on? Last week the Labour leader visited a country literally on the doorstep of Russia. Speaking to a Times journalist at the biggest military base in Estonia, a Baltic state with every reason to fear the intentions of its aggressive neighbour, he had a very important message. Employing the forensic skills that made him a QC, he homed in on the most significant issue of the day: “Trans women are women”, he declared. “And that is not just my view — that is actually the law”.
It actually isn’t, but let’s leave that fact aside for the moment. Is this man stupid? A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have said so. A couple of years ago, I voted for him in the Labour leadership contest, not because I thought he would be brilliant, but because I imagined he would at least be adequate. My expectations weren’t high, but they’ve still been disappointed. Last week he showed himself to be either stupid, or so committed to an extreme ideology that he has lost sight of its disastrous impact on women.
What did his hosts make of it, I wonder? Earlier in the day, Starmer had a meeting with the Estonian defence minister in Tallinn, around 230 miles from St Petersburg, the hometown of Vladimir Putin. I’m just guessing here, but I suspect Estonia’s top brass have more pressing worries on their minds than the hurdles faced by trans-identified males in North London who want a gender recognition certificate. How they must have applauded when Sir Keir’s trip created headlines about wanting greater “respect and dignity” for transgender people. And in the week of International Women’s Day, too. All this reveals quite starkly where the Labour leader’s priorities lie.
What is really terrible about Starmer’s “intervention” is that it feels deliberate. Two members of his shadow Cabinet had stumbled over the “what is a woman?” question earlier in the week, so it was entirely predictable that journalists would confront him with it. He could have said that it wasn’t the time or the place to talk about domestic politics. He could have responded “adult human female” and left it there. But he didn’t. He had his answer ready — and it could not have been more confrontational.
There can be little doubt that this is Starmer throwing down the gauntlet. In the past he has appeared shifty and uncomfortable when asked questions about biology, spouting nonsense about women’s bodies while looking like someone taking part in a hostage video. No, he told Andrew Marr, it isn’t right to say only women have a cervix. (I once had to have treatment for a pre-cancer of the cervix. I can assure you, and the leader of the Labour party, that all the patients at the clinic were women.)
But last week, Labour couldn’t hide any longer. On Tuesday, the shadow women and equalities minister, Anneliese Dodds, tied herself in knots on Woman’s Hour when asked to give Labour’s definition of a woman. She began by suggesting “there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is”, as though she was a hapless barrister, trying to pacify a prickly judge. Then she said it “depend[s] what the context is”, without explaining the context in which a woman might not be a woman.
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SubscribeI agree that this is a deliberate strategy by the Labour Party. But what they don’t realise is the likely effect of this strategy. Thousands upon thousands of committed Labour Party voters, mostly women but also many men, will not be voting for the Party in future elections. The Party is unelectable while it sticks to this nonsense.
It would be if the Liberal Democrats, SNP, Greens and Conservatives (apart from Liz Truss) weren’t taking exactly the same view.
Exactly. Those people have no where else to go.
Yes it’s quite funny – it doesn’t matter what the tories do when Labour stick to this daft fiction.
A pleasure to read – especially: “By Harman’s logic, the party’s first woman leader could be a man.”
It might even be Keir.
I think you might be right. Perhaps he himself harbors fantasies of transitioning.
Into a leader ?
Entirely possible given that a recent Business Woman of the Year was male.
A particularly well written article. I wonder like many others, why Labour has chosen to go this route.
It would appear that Starmer has gone into battle not knowing what a cervix is.
I don’t think he knows what a battle is.
I don’t think he knows what leadership is.
Indeed. A large part of why Theresa May blew the election in 2017 (a blessing in disguise in the end) – she didn’t sound up for a fight.
At least we know what Labour’s priorities are and can take avoiding action …
I think in part it’s him trying to seem less establishment, less New Labour, and trying to appeal to the party Corbynites.
Trouble is it doesn’t work and he’s winning over nobody
Corbyn wasn’t overly obsessed with woke ideology. Woke is radical, but centrist at the same time.
“Is this man stupid?”
Yes. And weak. He took the knee too.
But frankly I’m more concerned about the risk that trans ideology poses to impressionable children. Legislation recently passed in New Zealand will make it all but impossible to recommend any kind of treatment except “transitioning” for pre-pubescent gender dysphoria. Parents or counsellors who would prefer a watch and wait approach risk prosecution. The legislation is driven by ideology rather than evidence – about 75% of cases of pre-pubescent gender dysphoria resolve by the end of adolescence if a watch and wait approach is adopted. The MPs who voted for the legislation apparently don’t mind that they’re condemning many NZ children to state-sponsored sterilization and mutilation that they will later regret. Only 8 out of 120 MPs opposed the bill – that’s how woke our parliament is.
Some references:
Drummond, K., Bradley, S., Peterson-Badali, M., & Zucker, K.(2008). A follow-up study of girls with gender identity disorder. Developmental Psychology, 44, 34–45. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.44.1.34
Steensma, T., McGuire, J., Kreukels, B., Beekman, A., & Cohen-Kettenis, P. (2013). Factors associated with desistance and persistence of childhood gender dysphoria: Aquantitative follow-up study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 52(6), 582–590. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2013.03.016
Wow. They should be put behind bars for two reasons: reckless cruelty and stupidity.
Some hapless mediocrity from the respective parties will probably have to apologise for Starmer and Sturgeon’s views, which are identical, at some point in the future.
But until then we’ll continue to take more and more confused and impressionable kids and stick drugs in them before the surgery.
Oversight in this area has been woeful and very recent tentative attempts to do something are inadequate.
By contrast the highest medical authority in France has issued a call for caution: https://segm.org/sites/default/files/English%20Translation_22.2.25-Communique-PCRA-19-Medecine-et-transidentite-genre.pdf
There is a growing pushback especially in Europe.
Adults suffering from psychosexual confusion are easier to manage. Transgenderism is a facet of the New Scientific Management being put in place. Complacent Westerners are ripe for these kinds of social experiments.
Starmer and the labour leadership believe that people with penises should be allowed into women cells in prison and women wards in hospitals and women changing rooms in gyms and shops if they claim to be women.
They clearly dont care about actual women at all.
There was an article the other day that Scotland was considering having women only train carriages, for their safety I suppose. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not but either way it’s nonsense if a man can self identify as a woman.
It sounds as though Labour has already gone down the rabbit hole. No wonder the Eastern Bloc countries of the EU are jumpy about this whole gender business if they see intelligent leaders being forced into uttering Shibboleths to keep their jobs.
You have to admit though, the sight of senior left politicians squirming on television, tying themselves up in linguistic knots, is very funny indeed. And Ladies and Gentlemen, I see no end in sight – we are set to be regaled with this divine comedy, getting ever more contrived and ludicrous, for years to come. On a more serious note, the left should charge rather than giving all this stuff away for free – at least the party finances will remain in a healthy state even as the left hemorrhages votes. I propose a £3 subscription model for access to endless comedy on social media – after all it worked pretty well for Corbyn.
Yes, Just finished listening to Andrew Doyle interviewing James Lindsay and at the end they discuss taking the p**s out of ‘woke’ by just such satire.
Some people on the Right, or at least Conservatives, unbelievably share the same position on the ‘trans’ issue.
I don’t find it funny; this woke nonsense has undoubtedly been noted by Putin who holds the West in utter contempt for this and other reasons, not without some reason. It is a cancer in our society.
People arguing for drugs to be administered to children and their castration and mutilation should be in prison, not lauded by large parts of the Establishment.
Someone should ask Keir Starmer if he is a man. If he says “Yes, I am”, he should then be asked, “How do you know?”
When he says “… that is actually the law” isn’t that a bit of a cop out? As if it’s law which defines what a woman is rather than biology so it bypasses any need to argue his case. A bit like saying “Well you might think that it’s biology which defines a woman but unfortunately the law says different and we are stuck with that.”
He’s a QC and former head of the CPS who didn’t learn in law school that the law changes to suit society, not society to meet the standards of the law.
As explained in the article, it ISN’T the law. Starmer is either a fool or a knave, quite possibly both!
One would think a silk would know what the term ‘legal fiction’ means
Agree with this but just a minor point. I feel that saying “woman are being gaslighted” begs the question about where men are in all this (I am referring to men who are not pretending to be women). Are they not being gaslighted? Or are you implying that they are doing the gaslighting?
Yes, it might be more accurate to say that, “People, who are obviously far too stupid, to have their heads up their own backsides” are being taken for a ride by ideologs and activists. And there was us thinking that the emperor had nothing on us, which is odd, because it was us who thought, he had nothing on him.
You are right, everyone is being gaslighted bar the gender ideologists who are atounded by how far their gaslighting has got them.
I think men have been told for a long time that they have no right to an opinion on this issue.
Also we have no dog in the fight
1: Don’t believe everything you’re told, and
2: If you have any women in your life that you care about, you do indeed have a dog in the fight.
The problem is that almost every woman I know agrees with transgender ideology.
Have you asked them why? People are absolutely entitled to their own opinion but I’m curious.
Here’s one who doesn’t
And every woman I know think these people are mentally deranged and exposing women to actual harm.
This is a post form twitter. At least one woman gets it
“Women are finally experiencing in one part of society what men have been experiencing for decades. Being pushed out of their own spaces or being forced to accept the mentally ill. Congratulations on “equality”, ladies. You earned it.
“Perhaps next time men speak about the importance of allowing them to have their own spaces, you’ll listen instead of complaining about inclusivity and declaring you’re “just as competent as them at x hobby or thing so why won’t they include you?” Remember this.
” If you cannot read this without thinking “well I didn’t personally ask for it”, then you are lost. Neither did I. I’m asking people to realize this cycle has been repeated over and over again and the only reason people are finally paying attention is because it’s about women.”
We certainly have a dog in the fight. Gaslighting is about truth and sanity. That was pretty much my point so I couldn’t disagree with your comment more.
We certainly do, if we care about our female children.
Good point, but there does seem to be a hidden unacknowledged misogyny in this ideology. We can note that there is hardly any mention of ‘transmen’; also the great majority of those identifying as the ‘opposite’ gender are girls/women. It seems many also may be attracted to women, so we can add homophobia to the charge sheet.
The idea that someone can be ‘born in the wrong body’ is philosophical and scientific nonsense. A far more liberated position would be to recognise that some men are effeminate and some women are masculine.
Like the lockdown narratives, the mask mandates, and the vaccine-mania, this nonsense will soon enough collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. The public know bulls**t when they smell it, and Keir’s manifest desperation for the approval of a noisy minority of groupthinking wokists is beginning to stink to high heaven.
You don’t have to be a Labour supporter to feel sad watching the party of political giants such as Bevan, Gaitskill, Wilson, Castle and Jenkins that has done so much to defend working people and fight for social justice in this country degenerate under the “leadership” of such a contemptible, hubristic, and intellectually and morally weak man (if that is indeed what he identifies himself as). At least Corbyn knew his mind and was prepared to speak it, even if a lot of it was nonsense.
Pity this unworldly charlatan who can’t see the destruction his lost soul is wreaking on his party and those around him; pity this country if his once great party somehow secures a majority despite its vacuous, confused, and profoundly dangerously deluded leader.
Summarising the articles I’ve read lately, a woman is akin to a blow up doll and man has no b**bs but gives birth, given those descriptions I think many natal women will identify closer with men than women but where does this leave natal men? Why must we dehumanise the vast majority of the worlds population to spare the feels of the trans community, many of which probably don’t even care for all this animosity generating fuss!
Starmer talks of respect and dignity whilst simultaneously explaining womanhood to women. I’d describe it as mansplaining but I’m not wholly sure if Starmer is one, or what it actually means to be one anymore.
So perhaps the song “Why can’t a woman be more like a man” from My Fair Lady was well ahead of its time.
Asked whether the law says that trans women are women, her [Naomi Cunningham] admirably concise answer was: “No.”
Actually, that is not quite correct. The full exchange was as follows: [Questioner] “Can I ask a question about something I’ve seen claimed many times (including by senior politicians) “the law states that transwomen are women.” Does the law actually say this?”
[Cunningham] “The short answer is no: the law doesn’t define the terms “transwoman” or “trans woman” at all.”
But according to Prof Rosa Freedman “The law clearly sets out in that case [Corbett vs Corbett, the April Ashley case] that sex is biological, and that transsexualism (what we would now term transgender) is psychological. As a result, when we use the word ‘sex’ in law, we are referring to biological sex.
I wondered whether under Freedman’s statement, in law, the term ‘transwoman’ is implied to be a psychological term?
It is true that the GRA can change some people’s *legal* sex, but it obviously doesn’t change *biological* sex; it can say they should be *treated* as women for most legal purposes, but allows that a trans woman can be refused access to a female-only space if there’s a good reason.
The GRA creates a Legal Fiction – in which a person with a GRA will be treated in law as something they are not in reality – they will be treated in law as a member of the sex category that is not in reality their biological sex category.
The law becomes a conduit through which the fiction can gain access to reality – in other words, to sex-segregated spaces that exist in the real world. It is the access that is important because, in most cases, it is lawful access. And, as the author states, lawful access can be denied when it is proportionate and legitimate to do so.
Trans women are not women in law, because in law sex is biology. As such the juvenile and adult forms of a human female are girl and woman, respectively. Therefore, in law, if sex is biology, then according to Cunningham, ‘woman’ must ipso facto be a term related to a biological sex category, that is female. So trans women *are* not women in law. Perhaps fictional women in law?
The aim of self identification acts, being pushed now, is to blur that distinction between sex and gender.
Again, this is very well discussed in detail in Kath Stock’s admirable book ‘Material Girls’.
One day there will be a book written about how the modern left let itself become hostage to the inanities of woke ideology. Sometimes I just want to scream, “Stop asking me to believe stupid shit!”, but still I am presented daily with the most astonishing ludicrous nonsense. What started out as compassion for the downtrodden, the marginalized and those members of society who are just having a hard time has somehow morphed into advocacy for the most ridiculous ideas ever conceived. The left is destroying itself before our eyes and that is not a good thing.
Unfortunately, the stupidest thing of all, at least here in the US, is that the only way to fight woke ideology is to vote for people with even dumber ideas, like Donald Trump. The center in politics has been obliterated.
‘Gaslighting’ [verb, transitive] is suddenly our most fashionable word. It used to have a very precise meaning. Now it is just used as a synonym for ‘offensively contradicting’. Such a pity; a powerful word blunted and commandeered into every discussion just because it sounds good.
It’s used because in an age of lies it’s entirely appropriate.
Excellent well argued article. I’d really like to believe in a competent social democratic opposition to an often hapless government. But the Tories would seem to be able to mount an emotive attack, should they choose, that Labour want to allow biological males access to say, ‘your daughters’ changing rooms’. The public, who don’t yet have much awareness of this would be justifiably horrified.
Starmer has made some steps to making Labour electable. However on this issue, which really should be a no-brainer, he is showing himself to be essentialy a lightweight incapable of facing down large (idiotic) elements of his own party.
I wonder how Muslims see this issue as many vote Labour. There does not seem to be much opinion from them on this issue.
Interesting we don’t have this debate around who is a man. I suppose they aren’t winning MMA fights or swimming contests. Is there a man of the year award? Who has been shouted down as transphobic for declaring a man is someone born with a p***s? The whole intensity of the debate sound misogynistic.
Why does this subject keep coming up? Do the trans fanatics really think normal people — that is people who haven’t painted themselves into an ideological corner from which there is no escape–will change their minds? It is not going to happen. Ever. It is past time this tiny fringe element stops trying to make sympathy for their sad plight into controlling law. I would say get a life, but they have to make do with what they have.Time to move on.
The problem is that today’s children are being indoctrinated with this gibberish in schools and will eventually become leaders who enact laws.
I will vote for the Political Party that offers the least harm to women and children. I don’t know that this is seen as a big issue by the British Public but while I am allowed a vote I will use it as best I can.
I do hope that most of the men who say that they don’t know what a woman is, will have worked it out by the time they want children because otherwise they will be in for a sad disappointment. Although adoption is always a positive route.
Brilliantly put!
“Back in the UK, women feel utterly betrayed — and many of us are wondering if we will ever be able to vote Labour again.”
No need to wonder, Ms. Smith! Make the break!
Here in reality, facts are facts, life works the way science dictates, and utopian policies have real-life consequences. Keir Starmer wanting something to be true (like John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’) doesn’t make it true.
The trans movement is a reactionary movement by disenfranchised men who have been overtaken by Feminism. To beat Feminism, weak men simply said, “Why can’t I be a victim class? I can get that by identifying as trans. Make me a woman” And hey presto, the whole concept of ‘women’ just disappeared. Poof!
Except it didn’t.
Meanwhile in the U.S. we’re about to have a Supreme Court Justice who does not know what a woman is.
“By Harman’s logic, the party’s first woman leader could be a man.”
Or an old woman
How funny. The revolution is eating its parents who have turned into neo-conservative feminists.
It looks like Labour-bot went into some kind of system malfunction and no one is able to get it out of it. It probably needs to crash fully and reboot to start functioning like normal again.
“trans women are women” as a legal fiction is expanded on in detail in Kathleen Stock’s great book ‘Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism‘.
“Is this man stupid? A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have said so.”
With that, I can agree. Unfortunately, I’ve come to the same opinion about Boris Johnson, and too many other politicians.
Biology is factual, women have a cervix and genitals should not be intermingled in public spaces.