April 14, 2025 - 7:00am
There’s a particular pattern which will be familiar to anyone who’s spent a few years in the trenches of the so-called “terf wars”. From the moment you take your first tentative step into battle — apologetically coming out in support of female-only rape crisis centres, or nervously venturing that you don’t actually like being called a “menstruator” — you will find that the problem is not just that trans extremists consider such positions actual violence.
Plenty of people don’t, but that doesn’t mean they will support you — at least not yet. These “reasonable” people will tell you they’d be happy to at some point, but right now it’s too toxic. They’d like to leave it a few years, if that’s okay with you. Once it’s safe for them to repeat the things you were saying back in 2016, they’ll be straight onto it.
This has essentially been Labour’s approach to the sex and gender debate of the past 15 years. The Government’s announcement at the weekend that it will be considering an overhaul of equality laws, in order to resolve some points of contention regarding sex and gender, might at surface level look promising. Yet it glosses over a history during which Labour politicians have actively ignored the abuse of gender-critical feminists and stubbornly insisted that women can have penises. Meanwhile, the more “voice of reason” types — such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer — have fretted over both sides “throwing bricks at each other”, while promising to bring “more light, less heat” to the discussion.
In practice, this has meant that they will take on board the arguments of feminist groups only after these women have taken all the hits, and clarify laws only after ordinary women have crowdfunded legal cases to show there was a problem to begin with. There’s an argument which says if we get there in the end, that’s the main thing. Even if you’re remembered as a bigot for speaking up first, isn’t it worth it if women-only spaces are protected?
This is true, up to a point. Indeed, this is likely how women’s rights groups may be expected to respond to the Government’s new announcement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has submitted a revised version of its Statutory Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations. Recommendations include compelling organisations to define the difference between sex and gender, and requiring trans people to present Gender Recognition Certificates when seeking access to single-sex spaces. This is, we are encouraged to believe, a move towards protecting women’s rights.
Yet it is hard to feel too celebratory. If all this had been proposed 10 years ago, when Stonewall was poised to start misleading employers by insisting on the primacy of gender identity over biological sex, it could have nipped many issues in the bud. Now, however, things appear less sure.
The trouble with a “wait until it’s safe to say it” approach is that the world moves on while you’re sitting it out. Just a decade or so ago, it might have been possible to think that trans women were a tiny minority with a very serious, mysterious condition called “gender dysphoria”, and that there would be no real impact on the definition of “woman” from indulging a legal fiction. It is not possible to think this now.
The failure of politicians and rights organisations to engage with what women were saying, and act accordingly, has allowed a culture of male entitlement to female spaces to flourish. Women’s rights can only be clawed back now by being absolutely clear that sex, not gender, matters at all times. It is not enough to “differentiate” if we still insist that both things can signify “woman” all the same.
Women cannot count on behind-the-curve politicians for this. It’s still grassroots women’s organisations, such as For Women Scotland in its current case against the Scottish Government, which are focusing on the here and now. It’s better than nothing, but Labour has a lot of catching up to do.
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SubscribeArmenia needs Western training and equipment like Ukraine. The Americans and Europeans might not want to anger Turkey over an unrecognised territory, but any attack on Armenia proper would require a decisive response and clearly Russia can’t be trusted to provide that anymore.
“while Armenians in the breakaway territory fear ethnic cleansing if they are abandoned.”
Karma for the Armenians I feel, after they brutally ethnically cleansed muslims from all the areas of Azerbaijan that they took over. The stories are horrific. The Armenians should have used their superior position when they were backed by the Russians to negotiate with Azerbaijan. But they didn’t – and just sought revenge. The Azerbaijanis are now getting retribution, and taking back their own territory
Thanks for your report about this ancient nation.
I’m sure the Americans wont mind sticking their noses in if Vlad doesnt fancy it!
I think you have it backwards, the Mericans will only engage if they believe Russia might care about it…. if Moscow doesn’t care then neither will the West.
Armenia has always looked to Russia rather than the west, so the west aren’t going to get involved, simple as that
I wonder how Sergei Lavrov feels about Armenia’s plight, seeing as he is himself half Armenian.
Armenia has been held back by this conflict and by their “partnership” with Russia for some 30 years. If Armenia decides that today they are giving up on Karabakh and aiming all of their resources on becoming a prosperous country with a thriving economy then a decade or two from now Armenia will be an economical marvel. Could this be the moment everything changes?
‘‘You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.””
There is NO NEED for either. Negotiate. Come on you Neo-Cons who refused any negotiating in Ukraine (Biden Boris) – do it here. Put out a couple Billion FOR PEACE this time.
No War. I do not even think the Neo-Cons care about this one, no real money in it, so obscure a place……
Ukraine is the covid – the way to make hundreds of Billions by un-necessary and corrupt war, this is monekypox, no money in it, no votes and $$$. So lets have peace.
“September, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan indicated he could be about to secure a deal recognising Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.”
I would 100% say yes. Just do it – NO WAR. If warmongering Biden and Truss (what $70 billion + to Ukraine) would just give a couple Billion to resettle the displaced people – OR to buy their security from the Azeris with the money for them to remain and be protected – it could end without the bad wars that happen in the Caucuses.
Come on War-Monger Biden, this time buy some peace, it will be cheap.
Stop the War.
You are talking about what in the UK is called “Danegeld” where you put down a deposit for “peace” and then pay instalments for the rest of time.