I bowed out of the gender wars long ago. I tried to see both sides of the battle, but I’d either be accused of transphobia, or of not being gender critical enough, and too much fence-sitting left me with splinters in my bum.
So I took the conversation private, with many friends agreeing: there is a difference between trans women and women, and between trans men and men. It doesn’t always matter but sometimes it does. It never means anyone should be treated as lesser, rather that anyone vulnerable should be protected. Oh, and that we should be able to discuss this without beardy men shouting at us.
Anyway, I lead nothing and no one, apart from the dog when she lets me. But the Labour Party made a manifesto pledge to “continue to support the implementation of single-sex exceptions” – which “allows for the provision of separate or single sex services in certain circumstances” – and actually introduced the Equality Act in the first place.
The 2010 act established that differences in our identity can affect the way we’re treated and that a tolerant society should accept these differences. It gave women the protected right to organise independently of men and offered pioneering protections to those undergoing “gender reassignment” i.e. trans people.
It was this law that the Supreme Court ruled on last week. Following the Scottish government’s insistence that trans women could help fill male/female quotas on public boards, the highest court in the land clarified that for the purposes of this sort of scheme, “woman”, at least in the context of the Equality Act 2010, referred to biological sex (what we’re born with), not gender (which is how a person presents).
square ELLIE GOMERSALL
Judges have ripped up trans rights - I'm terrified
Read MoreJudge Lord Hodge said the ruling should not be considered a triumph of one group over another, though the campaigners who brought the case, For Women Scotland, toasted the ruling with champagne. Meanwhile, trans people – who are more likely to be younger and struggle with mental health issues – were left confused and upset.
You’d think after years of journalists asking him what a woman is, and choosing his maiden prime ministerial speech to boast about the number of LGBT MPs in the Labour Party, the Prime Minister might have had a statement prepared, whatever the ruling turned out to be. Instead he remained silent on the matter for six days.
This void was filled with a slew of hate. Supposed trans rights activists threw around misogynistic slurs; at last weekend’s trans rights protests, several placards called for the hanging of JK Rowling, for all “terfs” to die and/or “suck my dick”. A statue of Suffragette Millicent Fawcett was defaced with “fag rights”, which seems both ineffectual and irrelevant to what’s happening right now.
Meanwhile, far-right agitators who are simply anti-other have lauded this ruling, blokes posting “chin up, lad” under online posts of trans women sharing their legitimate worries. And while it’s now completely legal to say that a trans woman is a man, is it really necessary for feminist campaigners – some of them sore winners – to keep on saying it to trans women’s faces?
Starmer eventually spoke up to call for “care and compassion” in the debate. But before that, he said: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear. I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity.” Clarity? While the Equality and Human Rights Commission prepares updated guidance on the law, how is the public meant to make social sense of the ruling’s turgid legalese?
Because I’ve given it a go and it still poses questions.
Is sex segregation just for publicly funded spaces (hospitals, prisons, schools)? Or will toilets at cafés, museums, restaurants and clubs have to follow suit? Must trans men go to female-only spaces now or would they be chucked out by “reasonable objections” to their presence? And how are the objections’ reasonability measured?
What about intersex people who are neither one sex or the other? What about those with a Gender Recognition Certificate, who have spent years and thousands trying to prove they live as the opposite sex? Are those pieces of paper and the efforts to get them worth nothing? Trans friends of mine have updated passports with their acquired gender reflected – can they still travel on them?
What of those who have undergone surgeries to “pass” as the opposite sex? If a trans woman no longer has a penis, is she still a biological man? Surely there’s a tipping point? Surely a person who fits every feminine ideal under the sun, indeed looks more like a cookie-cutter vision of a woman than I do, shouldn’t have to go into the toilet with men who, we all know, have been culturally led to either sexualise or stigmatise trans women? How could biological sex even be checked?
And Starmer once said that the phrase “only women have cervixes” was “something that shouldn’t be said. It isn’t right.” Now he says trans women aren’t women. Where did his own transition in opinion come from?
Under better leadership, the debate didn’t need to become a febrile clash between two at-risk groups. It could have been a diligent commission set up to analyse why spaces or opportunities are segregated – on the basis of sex, or gender? And then a careful update to the guidance around these.
Maybe the same endpoint is in sight, but sadly, Starmer has not just been cowardly on this debate, he’s tried to rise above it entirely. By 2023, after dipping his toe in, he said, exasperatedly: “Almost nobody is talking about trans issues. I do sometimes just wonder why on earth we spend so much of our time discussing something which isn’t a feature of the dinner table or the kitchen table or the café table or the bar.”
With this, the prospective Prime Minister effectively dismissed anyone who felt protective over their hard-won sex-based rights (including one of his own MPs) as well as the minority living in a trans body (and their many allies).
square ZING TSJENG
Defining a woman solely by biological sex is a step backwards
Read MoreHe had the hubris to think he could fly above a petty squabble, as only men can. But ultimately, back down on earth, whatever’s putting trans women off men only spaces (it’s really not just about toilets) is the same thing putting all women off: the threat of male violence. If Starmer wanted to truly soar over the bunfight, that’s what he’d address. Yes, Labour have promised to halve violence against women and girls, but until we all actually feel safer on our streets, in our relationships, at work, the promises are just that.
If I were him, I’d not just try to expedite that commitment, but make sure there is some clarity to the practical conclusions of the Supreme Court judgment.
Ultimately, if this fraught argument has taught us anything, it’s that we desperately need a more tolerant society, where every demographic can peacefully coexist. Where we feel a lot less like we’re fighting over scraps. Where people are safe to be themselves, where no one’s identity is dependent on another person’s beliefs.
As a lesbian, who’s had my rights cemented in law for a while but not reflected in reality, I know that there’s a limit to what laws can actually do if society won’t budge. I don’t suspect that Starmer has fooled himself into thinking he’s an ethical figurehead, guiding and shaping public opinion in line with his. He’s not that popular. But look where we’re all left when he hasn’t even tried to show some leadership on this issue.
Try to calm the debate all you like, Sir Keir, but if this ruling has proven clarity then, well, I identify as a llama with 12 udders and a rainbow tail.
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