February 1, 2024 - 7:00am
How will a Labour government handle the conflict between women’s rights and the demands of trans activists? Optimists believe that the party has rowed back from an extreme position on gender ideology, but gender-critical women’s organisations and even some of his own MPs struggle to get a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer.
Not so trans activists, for whom Starmer apparently has all the time in the world. This week he welcomed members of the lobby group LGBT+ Labour to a reception at Westminster and offered them everything the most dedicated trans activist could want, short of self-ID. Starmer was accompanied by a raft of frontbenchers including his deputy, Angela Rayner, and the Shadow Women and Equalities Minister, Anneliese Dodds.
“Together we’ll ban conversion therapy, strengthen hate crime laws and tackle health inequalities,” Dodds posted excitedly on X. Banning “trans conversion therapy” has become an article of faith for leading Labour figures, even though they are strangely reluctant to tell us what exactly it is and how often it is happening. They have been warned repeatedly that a ban risks criminalising parents and counsellors who take a cautious approach to children expressing unhappiness with their sex, but they don’t listen.
Starmer also promised to make every category of hate crime an aggravated offence, cut NHS waiting lists for LGBT+ people who need “urgent mental and physical healthcare”, and “modernise” the Gender Recognition Act. As always, what he means by all this remains opaque. Is he seriously suggesting that sex-change operations should be fast-tracked when other patients are waiting in agony for hip replacements?
As for “hate crime”, a vague concept that troubles many supporters of free speech, there is no firm evidence of an increased incidence against trans people, as opposed to an increase in reporting. And while the GRA is certainly a flawed piece of legislation, this is because it offers a legal avenue for individuals to lie about their sex, rather than because it requires them to meet not very onerous conditions to do so.
It must be galling for Labour MPs such as Rosie Duffield, who has been relentlessly targeted by LGBT+ Labour, to see the party’s leading figures palling up to its members. Starmer has not spoken to Duffield for more than two years, leaving her to cope unsupported with endless smears and demands that she should lose the Labour whip. He is evidently more comfortable with the widely-ridiculed MP for Jarrow, Kate Osborne, who was at the reception despite having boasted on X about her delusion that some women have a penis.
It speaks volumes about the state of Labour that these are the people — reality-deniers and lobby groups who try to silence gender-critical MPs — that leading figures want to impress. It’s not unheard of for politicians to tailor their policies to their audience, but the pattern is clear. Each apparent lurch towards reality by Labour frontbenchers is followed by a capitulation to trans activism.
That’s bad enough, but the general election is going to bring about an influx of Labour MPs who are signed up to all the nonsense about pronouns and gender identity. Labour’s woman problem hasn’t gone away, and the party’s leading figures don’t even bother to hide it.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists was published in 2019.
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SubscribeSturgeon is being shown to be the stupid, spiteful, tartan shroud-waving, lying, duplicitous monster able to fake actual tears and willing to use people’s lives for political gain on the stand that few were willing to accept during the covid years. Here we are again and I can only look sadly onto the prospect of a year’s time when we are discussing; the shallow, virtue-signalling, cone-voiced, charisma bypass, weather vane of a Labour PM; the failed, droning, say-literally-anything-to-anyone chancellor; and the vile, potty-mouthed, hate-speaking, half-wit deputy PM that definitely will vote for any and every metastasising progressive plot against this country and any semblance of normal life. Think Milei – doing the right thing in Argentina – but in reverse.
Thinking about Sturgeon this morning, I was struck not by the way the media gave her a free pass until about a year ago (and many continue to do so), but rather the realisation that they knew all along just how awful she was. It all suddenly seemed so reminscent of Jimmy Savile (perhaps one day he’ll be known as ‘Teflon Jimmy’).
Back on topic, the same sort of thing is happening with all this alphabet soup gender nonsense. How easily people abandon common sense and refuse to acknowledge what they see.
But history tells us such aberrations never last.
The Guardian could barely comment on yesterday’s news. They were the main cheerleaders for this awful person with loads of hagiographic articles about it. When will that bluddy Scott Trust money run out???
He’ll be known as Jimmy SoVile.
Labour is going to be catastrophic, and saying the Tories are appalling (as they are) doesn’t help. In fairness I think Blair realises this and is highly alarmed, which is why he is trying to run things from behind the scenes.
I am always very reluctant to say that “women should do this or that” in the fight to defend their sex-based rights. They have my support, of course, but they probably don’t need me shouting instructions from the sidelines.
But I do wonder whether we will quickly reach a point under the incoming Labour government where they have no choice but to “down tools”, as it were. It certainly shouldn’t be just on women to, for example, refuse to participate in women’s sporting events that are not protected on the basis of sex. But I fear it will turn out like that.
I wonder why women don’t simply create their own sporting authorities instead of allowing the creeps currently in charge to impose this nonsense on them.
Women of course did create their own sporting bodies. Unfortunately they are subject to the same possibility of ideological capture as any other. In addition, unfortunately, some women themselves have been very prominent in the trans activist ideology, in particular the execrable Judith Butler.
Hate crime. It wasn’t enough to give away our country we weren’t polite enough whilst doing it.
Let’s be fair, the current government, in charge since Noah, has overseen the biggest erosion in women’s rights in recent times. They have facilitated the civil service and universities being captured. The list continues…
Nobody in they right mind believes that TWAW, but they just pretend – maybe in different ways, but they still pretend.
Can you trust someone who says that people can change sex?
What I think it will happen is that Starmer, in true Tory fashion, will only pay lip service to whoever, and things will keep being run in an underhand fashion by the civil service.
I wonder if Keir Starmer suffers from activist envy. He is so keen to gain some charisma and authority that he panders to the views of activists – at least the last set he spoke to.
It could also explain why he is so reluctant to speak to people accused by activists of wrong-speak. He might accidentally agree with a view that he would have to reverse sooner than later.
You might be right, but I think an examination of his career as DPP and then successively as enabler and then assassin of Jeremy Corbyn suggests that it’s more a combination of abject cowardice and ruthless careerism.
I suspect Starmer is by nature fair-minded but I think the whole Labour leadership has been in too deep with the trans lobby for a long time, even since before Starmer’s time. His wiggle room with them is v small IMO. Labour are hostage to trans activists, much as SNP are. We will discover this in due course and it won’t be good for Starmer. He just has to hope he does enough sensible things e.g. on the economy for us to put up with the trans lobby’s influence over Labour.
I am constantly reminded of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” where everyone submits to the illusion, and only a child has the courage and wisdom to state the obvious.
We live in a time of insanity!
The problem is that everyone likes to see themselves as the clear-sighted child free of all intellectual pretensions and corruption rather than a member of the misled masses.
Very true.
To paraphrase the title of a famous song by the (lately disgraced) folk singer and activist Buffy St Marie:
It includes the line:
Originally referring to American indians the line could now apply to the indoctrination of white kids who are being taught to despise more than just their traditions. Anyone think the situation will improve when the socialists have an even tighter grip on education?
Well I downvoted ye and it hasnae registered. Why the downvote? Ít ws yer”the socialists have an even tighter grip”
Whaur are they these so called “socialists” then?
This reminds be of yin of ma visits tae the US. There, on yin.occasion I was called a “pinko commie pervert” for havin the audacity tae speak about health care accessible for all at point of need.
These ignoramuses had no Idea about communists jis as you appear tae have nae idea about socialists.
I can usually depend on a lecturing socialist windbag for a response. Whenever I make an unflattering remark about socialism I can guarantee that some Lefty bore will be provoked into a tedious explanation of why the world will only be put to rights when the Left rule all. Predictable as clockwork. The patronising moral lecture is the Lefty’s default mode of communication. Small wonder then that they take up so much space in higher education.
By the way, are you trying to pass yourself off as some sort of comic caricature of a “true” Scotsman?
That Yank should have been more polite and described you as a naive or stupid socialist who thinks it is fine to take the fruits of their labour from some people to give to others.
But ‘pinko commie pervert’ is more succinct and memorable.
My friend. Socialism isn’t what is going on here (though taxation is at a 70 year high). However socialism has nonetheless never worked anywhere it has been tried. China hasn’t become vastly richer by becoming more “socialist” or “communist”.but by becoming more capitalist. This ought to be self evident but socialism is unfortunately the (very) bad idea that never dies. Yes capitalist states produce inequality, but inequality is a feature of every complex society that has ever existed, including the Communist ones (which however also added extreme terror and repression). Venezuela – socialist. South Korea – capitalist. Nuff said (or ought to be).
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”. None of us actually behave like that when our own money is at stake. If only the world – and human nature – were like that …. It isn’t – we put our own interests first, then our families perhaps, people close to us, our “tribe” etc.
Well, of course, Starmer bows. By all means, cater to a fringe minority of society whose ideology is based on a lie and pretend that something worthwhile is being accomplished. And in the name of all things holy, stop lumping the Ts alongside anyone else in the alphabet soup. The Gs and Ls, in particular, know exactly who and what they are, and neither pretends it’s a matter of “identity.” Just ask the lesbians who want nothing to do with men pretending to be women.
“The Gs and Ls, in particular, know exactly who and what they are, and neither pretends it’s a matter of “identity.”” <– No one is pretending it is a matter of identity — but it is a matter of identity. it is who they are.
At least until your sort makes them scared enough to deny it.
At least until your sort makes them scared enough to deny it. — My ‘sort’ doesn’t care about their sexual preferences, having known gays for decades. They’re not new or exotic zoo animals. But, please; grab another bail of straw and build another claim disguised as argument.
No one is pretending it is a matter of identity — the entirety of the T movement is based on that, along with the insistence that everyone play along.
“My ‘sort’ doesn’t care about their sexual preferences, having known gays for decades. They’re not new or exotic zoo animals. But, please; grab another bail of straw and build another claim disguised as argument.” <– Nonsense. If you succeed in your pogrom against transgender people you won’t stop there. Transgender people are also not “new”, they occur naturally in every human population throughout history — the same as do gay people.
“the entirety of the T movement is based on that,” <– Not any more than do gay people, or cis people, or hetero people.
“along with the insistence that everyone play along.” <– There is no such thing, it is merely a fact you have no right to abuse people because they are not like you.
That’s all there is to it.
That you are a bigoted liar is all there is to you here.
There’s no such thing as ‘transgender’. Or maybe you’re trying to say ‘transsexual’ but you can’t because everyone knows human can’t change sex.
Which leaves us with people who like to play around with gender stereotypes. Well of course there have always been those. (When women started wearing trousers they were doing just that – smashing the stereotype of what was considered ‘men’s clothing’).
But up until now no one’s been so self-obsessed and/or deluded as the men who think that taking cross sex hormones and sticking on fake tits turns a man into an actual woman or gives them permission to abuse, bully, deceive and intimidate women. And the women who mutilate themselves are falling into an even worse trap.
David Bowie was an example of a man who knew how to get it right. He messed with ‘gender’ throughout his life. But he always knew exactly what sex he was.
Transsexual and transgender are the identical thing, liar — a person whose gender has developed while in utero noticeably to them at variance to their sex.
David Bowie was not transgender. So what?
“But they’ve never … deceive & intimidate women.” <– Which has nothing to do with it, liar.
Oh my! you are seriously deranged, aren’t you?
Your gender doesn’t “develop in utero”. Your sex does, as XX or XY. And it remains your sex throughout your life. Gender is a mental perception. Mental perceptions about sex do not & cannot bring about physical chromosomal changes.
Gay people don’t need to ‘identify’ as gay – same sex orientation isn’t an ideology, it’s preference, choice. Every other initial added to LGB is bogus. Ideological posturing. I could ‘identify’ as a bird but it won’t mean I can fly. Same with changing sex. Ok?
(How can it be that in the 21st Century this needs to be pointed out?)
FFS.
There is no gender question — only gender fraud by social conservatives. Fraud is what conversion therapy is — it does not exist, it has never worked. No one’s gender has ever been changed by electroshock, insulin coma, non-lethal beatings, lethal beatings, fear of God as asserted by a preacher, or by being talked at by a psychiatrist.
Conversion therapy is fraud. The public should never pay for it.
The only ‘conversion’ therapy going on is by adults with nefarious intent who are using the state apparatus to undermine parental authority in order to psychosexually confuse children. It has all the hallmarks of a cult starting off with all the rainbow love-bombing.
“The only ‘conversion’ … rainbow love-bombing.” <– No such thing exists, you are making it up. Parents have no authority to abuse children by refusing proper medical care, and should have none. There is no such love bombing to any gender affirming care protocol, you are making that up as well. There is no evidence you can show “the children” involved are confused, you are also making that up.
All you have here is lies, you can back up none of it.
We don’t let children drink alcohol, drive, vote, operate heavy machinery, perform heart surgery, fly planes or have sex. Because they are immature, unworldly & their frontal lobes haven’t fully developed.
But you’re happy to let them make life-changing medical decisions with unknown future outcomes or consequences?
That’s the most horrific abdication of parental responsibility I’ve ever heard. Mengele would be proud.
As the left always does, you’ve simply renamed something rather than engage with it.
All that is suggested is a cooling off period, some reasonable period of support and psychological exploration before embarking on serious life changing surgery.
In no sensible debate could that be conflated with electroshock therapy, lethal beatings or any of the other nonsense you’ve just spouted.
Leftism has nothing to do with it, that is only the strawman you prefer to fight. It is social conservatives renaming anything, calling it “gender ideology”.
There is no evidence any cooling off period is needed or benefical, only that it will do harm — the actual process already existing requires years in any case.
“In no sensible debate could that be conflated with electroshock therapy, lethal beatings or any of the other nonsense you’ve just spouted.” <- That is what conversion therapy is, what is always was and has been. Nothing new has been developed to be called that.
You’re blithely ignoring the fact that a large percentage of children and young adults identifying as ‘trans’ have other issues such as autism influencing their gender discomfort. Literally no-one is advocating the kind of crazy ‘conversion therapy’ that you’re having faux hysterics over. The sensible process involves identifying the causes of their dysphoria via therapists talking about and identifying comorbidities rather than condemning them to horrendous, experimental surgery and hormones that aren’t in any way guaranteed to bring the poor buggers peace.
You are pretending you have a relevant fact — you have no such evidence. Autism can not cause gender dysphoria, and it is not mistaken for it either.
“Literally no-one is advocating the kind of crazy ‘conversion therapy’ that you’re having faux hysterics over.” <– Yes, literally people just like you are. There are only real hysteresis, and only for people like you.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/west-virginia-bill-would-mandate
There is nothing “new” now called conversion therapy, only what I have already mentioned, which are historical facts.
The sensible process is what is done now — gender affirming care — which does not pretend any comorbidity creates gender dysphoria. That is because there is no evidence any comorbidity creates any gender dypshoria. That’s why you won’t be able to find any.
There is nothing horrendous or experimental about medical transition, because of the great accuracy of the diagnosis is prior to it’s use. Regret rate is below 1%, precisely because it is so effective and appreciated.
You be unable to cite any evidence to the contrary, because only proven frauds claim other wise.
Yet again you are not engaging. No one is suggesting that autism ‘causes gender dyphoria’. It’s well known that people on the autism spectrum are much susceptible to ideologies that they can cleave to. And this one is really clever. They talk about ‘joy’ as if they invented it..and here’s a group of people who are already feeling different & are looking for certainties. The ‘trans’ movement uses them to swell their numbers. They’re an easy target. It’s cruel.
Completely false. You must be either very young or utterly amnesiac about the history of gay rights.
You are, of course, mostly talking rubbish but I can at least agree with your ‘the Public should never pay for it.’
You can name no “rubbish” to anything I’ve said.
How about this? “No-one’s gender can be changed after birth, only their sex can be…” Jan Morris, in her book ‘Conundrum’ (ch. 12) about her own transition, has stated categorically that no-one in the history of humankind has changed sex, and admits that talk of a ‘sex change’ is just a convenient shorthand for a process that simply changes a person’s outward appearance to conform more to their view of themselves. Every cell on their body remains stubbornly XY or XX, and clothes, potions, and surgery can’t change that. Sorry!
You misname it. ‘Conversion therapy, as a treatment, clearly can only refer to the quack idea that telling a child they can’ convert’ from 1 sex to another will resolve their issues.
What you are actually complaining about is therapy – the attempt to help someone to deal with things as they are not as they might like them to be.
“You misname it.” <– No I do not.
“electroshock, insulin coma, non-lethal beatings, lethal beatings, fear of God as asserted by a preacher, or by being talked at by a psychiatrist” <– That is what conversion therapy is, and it is all of it fraud. None of it has ever changed anyone’s gender, only the body can be changed, and medically.
“the attempt to help someone to deal with things as they are” <– That is not what conversion is, it is the attempt to change the unchangeable.
“not as they might like them to be.” <– How they would prefer their body is, is what is achievable — exactly as described.
What you are calling “therapy” is fraud, an impossibility — and for the sake of it you want to abuse children. You want to force some girls to have beards and deep voices and to force some boys to have breasts and periods.
There is no more, other, or better to you.
I can no longer take you seriously – if I ever actually did. You call ‘therapy’ impossible? Talking about things when a person is either in denial of or deluded about is the best way for human to help each other to better mental health. You believe that ‘gender’ is some magical entity separate from the body, you believe it’s ok for adults to lie to children about fundamental truths? And you believe that humans adding bits & taking bits off will make them into the actual opposite sex?
If a young woman suffering from dysphoria is put on male hormones, yes her voice will drop & yes she will grow facial hair. She may be temporarily ’euphoric’. But it’s an illusion. If she regrets it & wants to retrieve her natural sex, she will never get her voice back & many complications can ensue. It’s a terrible trick to play on anyone.
You’re obviously the kind of person who would say to an anorexic – you know, someone who is convinced that they are fat even when they’re skeletal – that yes, they’re right & they should starve themselves more. Because even if they’re thin, if they BELIEVE they’re fat they MUST BE fat. It’s ghoulish. Your sense of reality is utterly screwed. I’m out.
You have sex & gender confused. Gender is just stereotypes. People may dress how they like. You don’t lose rights if you want to dress in a stereotypically ‘opposite’ way. But if a man puts on a dress & declares he’s a woman, he’s either deluded or he’s a fetishist transvestite. Because sex is immutable. And he doesn’t get to intrude & bully women just because he ‘feels’ like it.
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Trans groups show their power over Starmer and Labour by not allowing him to talk to gender-critical groups, even within Labour.
Once in power, Starmer will have to do things for the trans lobby that he may not be happy with. That lobby will threaten to wreck his whole programme if he doesn’t toe their line. He’s a hostage to trans-activism.
They’ve rowed back on nothing. They’re simply electioneering and employing the party political version of the infamous Denton’s document (and not even that well disguised most of the time).
The “conversion therapy” bill basically acts to criminalise differential diagnosis by doctors. I don’t see how it’s lawful.
This is a complete DARVO on ‘conversion therapy’. This was phrase used decades ago to refer to barbaric practises to try to ‘stop’ people being gay – because some bible-bashers couldn’t bear the idea of same sex attraction or gay sex. To use the phrase in the context of helping people (especially susceptible, unworldly young ones) manage the sometimes difficult years of puberty is not just disingenuous – it utterly wrong. And they know it. Automatically affirming a very young person who says they think they are ‘in the wrong body’ is irresponsible & cruel. That’s basically gay ‘conversion therapy’ all over again in a different guise. Where are the grown-ups in the room here? Young people need time & care to come through their natural ‘transition’ from child to adult without being told lies & led down medical pathways by deluded adults.
Once they’re of age they can do what they like to their bodies – although it’s still really their mental health that actually needs the care & attention.
“This was phrase used decades ago to refer to barbaric practises to try to ‘stop’ people being gay” <– And to stop people from being transgender — they were not seen as being different things for decades.
“Automatically affirming a very young person who says they think they are ‘in the wrong body’ is irresponsible & cruel” <– Except it is not, trying to convert them as you prefer is cruel.
“That’s basically gay ‘conversion therapy’ all over again in a different guise.” <– A lie for you to claim it, because gay and transgender are two different things.
“Where are the grown-ups in the room here?” <– I represent them. So far I am the only one here not lying.
“Young people need time & care to come through their natural ‘transition’ from child to adult without being told lies & led down medical pathways by deluded adults.” <– Which has nothing to do with it other than that you should stop lying to them.
“Once they’re of age they can do what they like to their bodies – although it’s still really their mental health that actually needs the care & attention.” <– Which has nothing to do with it because being transgender is not a mental illness.
Children are the responsibility of their parents. It isn’t up to you to make decisions on their behalf, much less criminalise them for doing what they believe is best for their kids. This isn’t Germany in 1935.
‘Conversion therapy’ is such a misnomer. I’m surprised the writer is happy with the headline, which embraces this false framing.
Nothing false about it.
This is what conversion therapy is — electrochock, insulin coma, nonlethal beatings, lethal beatings, being preached at by clergy, being talked at by psychiatrists — and all of it in any attempt to change the unchangeable.
There is nothing new or better called conversion therapy, it is only what it historically was — an attempt to abuse someone into adopting the gendered roles and behaviors it was falsely thought their sex mandated.
So, who in Western Europe are proposing something like what you described for anyone, either gay or trans?
It’s strange to hear this activists talking about banning conversion therapy. So called “gender affirming care” feels a lot like an updated and more insidious form of conversion therapy to me. Telling gender non-conforming kids they are in the wrong bodies and then sterilizing them and taking away their ability to experience orgasm, all so they can live a life that mimics heterosexual norms? It’s a false promise based on a false premise. Gender ideology is nonsense.
“So called “gender affirming care” feels a lot like an updated and more insidious form of conversion therapy to me.” <– That is because you are desperately and probably deliberate ignorant of it.
“Telling gender non-conforming kids they are in the wrong bodies and then sterilizing them and taking away their ability to experience orgasm,” <– Does not happen.
“all so they can live a life that mimics heterosexual norms?” <– Also does not happen, heterosexual norms have nothing to do with it.
“It’s a false promise based on a false premise.” <– All you have here are false premises.
You brought the nonsense gender ideology.
Nothing you think you know about it is real.
What are your qualifications?
Conversion therapy should be banned, because it is all of it only fraud. No one’s gender can be changed after birth, only their sex can be, just as described.
This is what conversion therapy is — electrochock, insulin coma, nonlethal beatings, lethal beatings, being preached at by clergy, being talked at by psychiatrists — and all of it in any attempt to change the unchangeable.
There is nothing new or better called conversion therapy, it is only what it historically was — an attempt to abuse someone into adopting the gendered roles and behaviors it was falsely thought their sex mandated.
Human beings can’t change their sex.This is magical thinking nonsense.
Exactly. It was historically used against gays and it was banned decades ago. People who like to call themselves ’trans’ are ‘converting’ themselves – with hormones. No one’s doing it to them. It just looks as they’re afraid to be gay.
‘Gender-affirming care’ *is* gay conversion therapy. Homophobia is an inherent feature of trans ideology. There is no such thing as the LGBTQ+ ‘community’. The TQ+ exploits the LGB as a Trojan horse in order to undermine both women’s rights and gay rights.
Great article, thanks. Bloody Keir Starmer.