Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader, declared on Friday that he is a staunch believer that “trans women are women”.
Sir Keir, who has headed Britain’s socialist Labour Party since 2020, clarified Labour’s position on transgender policy after Labour’s Chair and Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Anneliese Dodds, was unable to give a substantial definition on what a woman actually is on International Women’s Day.
“Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is. I mean you look at the definition within the Equality Act and I think it just says someone who is adult and female but doesn’t say how you define either of those things. I mean obviously, that’s when you’ve got the biological definition, legal definition, all kinds of things” Dodds said during a national radio interview on Tuesday.
Dodds succumbing to the radical transgender lobby prompted Harry Potter author JK Rowling to tweet that Dodds needed “a dictionary and a backbone”, adding shortly afterwards that “apparently, under a Labour government, today [International Women’s Day] will become We Who Must Not Be Named Day” — a tongue in cheek reference to Lord Voldermort, the villain in the Harry Potter series, who is often referred to as ‘He Who Must Not Be Named’ by other characters.
Sir Keir, a lawyer turned politician, has now given a more concise and conclusively woke definition than Dodds, however, asserting that “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law. It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act. So that’s my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom.”
The Labour leader went on to suggest that he believes the Gender Recognition Act should be “reformed” to allow for individuals to self-declare their gender identity rather than be officially diagnosed by medical staff — in line with Scottish National Party (SNP) plans for Scotland, where they head a devolved government, through their upcoming Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
Scottish authorities have also implemented mechanisms by which criminals can self-identify after being incarcerated, for which they received widespread criticism after it was revealed this allows biologically male rapists with intact penises to be sent to a women’s prison.
Currently, the Gender Recognition Act of 2004, brought in by former Labour prime minister Sir Tony Blair, requires that those suffering from the former mental health condition gender dysphoria must have identified and lived as their new gender for at least two years before they can legally transition.
However, even Sir Tony has previously refused to sign Labour’s transgender rights pledge — which included calls for supposedly ‘transphobic’ members to be expelled from the party — instead advising leadership candidates in 2020 not to get sucked into a “culture war” over transgender issues.
Sir Keir has claimed he believes in “safe spaces for women”, but as he believes ‘trans women are women’ it seems unlikely that this extends to safe spaces for biological women.
The former head of the Crown Prosecution Service has previously reprimanded Labour’s MP for Canterbury, Rosie Duffield, for tweeting, “I’m a ‘transphobe’ for knowing that only women have a cervix…?!”
Sir Keir did not go as far as to say that Duffield was transphobic, but he did insist that what she said was “something that shouldn’t be said”, and “not right”, claiming that transgender people are “amongst the most marginalised and abused communities”.
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