Labour have a long way to go

Let's not build that golden bridge too quickly.

IMAGE CREDIT: The brilliant @GrizeldaG

Last week the Labour Party announced its massive u-turn on gender self-ID. In my view, this seems an encouraging development and reason for cautious optimism. But it should not be viewed through rose-tinted spectacles.

Only two years ago, Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, buddied up with online misogyny rag, Pink News, to make a somewhat different announcement.

He stated that Labour Party policy would be to update the Gender Recognition Act and “Introduce self-declaration for trans people”.

As Susan Dalgety wrote at the time, “It almost defies belief that a Labour leader would abandon women so casually, via a video in a field.”

Two years on and there has been a dramatic about-turn on Labour’s policy. Shadow Secretary of State For Women and Equalities, Anneliese Dodds, announced the shiny new plan in The Guardian this week.

In her article, Dodds referred to trans-identified people as “Some of the most vulnerable people in our society” and claimed that, “All too frequently, they suffer violence for being”. Still peddling the hyperbolic rhetoric of trans activism, then.

Dodds explained that Labour proposes to abolish the current system by which a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) is awarded. She said that Labour intends to “Modernise, simplify and reform the gender recognition law to a new process”, adding, “We will remove invasive bureaucracy and simplify the process”.

Currently, a GRC is awarded based on a medical report from a doctor or psychologist specialising in gender dysphoria. Together with any other supporting documentation, this report will be reviewed by a independent panel of legal and/or medical professionals who decide whether the application meets all the legal requirements. The panel members are unknown to the applicant, meaning their decision can be made fairly, objectively and confidentially. Under Labour’s plan a GRC will be signed off by just one doctor. Said doctor will not require any specialism in gender dysphoria and they can be chosen by the applicant.

A properly considered and accurate medical diagnosis is a vital safeguard when a man wants to be legally viewed as female. For those trying to evade a diagnosis, a GRC could be requested from one of the UK’s many private gender clinics which are often operated by self-proclaimed trans activists like Helen Webberley and her ilk. We’ve seen how horrifyingly easy it is for children to be prescribed puberty blockers over the internet, so the procuring of a GRC from a captured or unscrupulous clinician would be simple. A credit card payment could secure a GRC with one phone call.

Furthermore, Labour’s proposal would abolish the requirement that GRC applicants live in their ‘acquired gender’ for at least two years and will replace it with a ‘reflection period’ of an unspecified duration. The two-year living requirement is an important measure of an applicant’s commitment and veracity; to remove it strips away another layer of safeguarding.

Writing in The Daily Mail, James Esses points out that Labour’s scheme “Gives all the power to the person who wants a GRC… Given the granting of a GRC is used to justify biological men entering female-only spaces, the stakes are incredibly high”.

An additional concern is Labour’s apparent intention to scrap the spousal exit clause.

In English and Welsh law a change of status to a marriage contract requires agreement from both parties. Consequently, if one partner transitions, thus altering the contract, the other must consent to that change before a Gender Recognition Certificate can be issued. If consent is not given, an interim GRC is provided and the marriage must be dissolved by divorce or annulment prior to a full GRC being granted.

Anneliese Dodds erroneously referred to this the ‘spousal consent mechanism’ and described it as ‘outdated’.

It is certainly not a ‘spousal consent mechanism’, just an opportunity for a partner to withdraw from a relationship/contract to which they never agreed. It is especially important for women whose husbands transition as they are far more likely to be impacted financially. Furthermore, it is a vital safeguard for women whose faith or culture mean they are not able to easily leave a marriage or marry again after a divorce.

The Labour Party want to withdraw this vital clause, robbing women of the means to exit a marriage they never signed up for.

On the subject of single sex exemptions, Dodds wrote “There will always be places where it is reasonable [my emphasis] for biological women only to have access. Labour will defend those spaces”. This is a welcome statement but Dodds did not specify what will be considered ‘reasonable’ or who gets to decide that.

Following the publication of Dodds’ article, Keir Starmer appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live and talked about Labour’s new gender policy. When asked for a definition, he stated without hesitation that a woman is an ‘adult female’.

In my opinion, the Labour Party’s change in policy - and, indeed, direction - is very welcome but should be met with caution. The proposals are, of course, a great improvement on the party’s dogged adherence to self-ID, but they’re still far from ideal, especially where women’s sex-based rights and spaces are concerned.

Furthermore, the Labour Party has an awful lot of ground to make up. It has spent seven years ignoring, attacking and even expelling women for expressing the very opinions it now espouses as policy. Some of the best and most passionate activists for Labour, brave and talented women such as Helen Steel, Linda Bellos and Julie Bindel, have been denigrated and insulted by a party in total thrall to gender woo. As Jo Bartosch says, “Labour’s betrayal of women will not be forgotten so easily”.

In 2017, for example, long-time Labour Party member and activist, Anne Ruzylo, was forced to resign from her role as women’s officer in Bexhill and Battle following a smear campaign orchestrated by a 19-year-old man who ‘identifies as a woman’. Said man, the now infamous Liam ‘Lily’ Madigan, against whom allegations of sexual harassment have been made, was then allowed to take up a women’s officer role in Rochester and Stroud. Madigan was also responsible for having Venice Allen thrown out of a Labour Party Women's Network event, claiming her presence made him feel ‘unsafe’.

Angela Rayner described Madigan as a ‘powerful role model for all’ and said she’d keep the green benches of the House of Commons warm for him.

In September 2019, feminist campaign group, Woman's Place UK, hosted a meeting in Brighton to coincide with the Labour Party Conference being held there. This meeting was disrupted by a mob of Labour Party members who gathered outside the venue. The protesters, some of them masked, intimidated attendees by crowding them, shouting at them and, in some cases, hurling projectiles. They then hammered on the windows and yelled abuse for the duration of the event.

The day after the WPUK meeting, Tom Barringer of Tottenham CLP strode onto the podium at the Labour conference not, as one might hope, to decry the appalling thuggery, but to condemn the meeting itself. He called WPUK a ‘transphobic hate group’ and shouted “Shame on you!” at those who attended. His words garnered an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience.

More recently, Labour banned gender-critical groups, including Labour Women’s Declaration, LGB Alliance, Lesbian Labour and Filia, from its party conference and has steadfastly refused to meet with them. Meanwhile, for years men like Heather Peto and Sophie Cook have enjoyed the ear of MPs, appeared on women-only party shortlists, taken up places on party schemes intended solely for women and have even been elected to women’s officer roles.

And, of course, the Labour Party’s treatment of Rosie Duffield MP has been an utter disgrace. For years she has been attacked, abused and threatened - to the extent that she was unable to attend her own party conference - for expressing the very views that we’re now hearing from Starmer and Dodds.

Keir Starmer’s continued silence on the matter is nothing short of appalling. He owes Rosie Duffield a full, unequivocal and very public apology.

Conversely, Lloyd Russell-Moyle has been allowed to vent his misogyny with impunity.

Together with his Labour Party colleagues, Olivia Blake and Nadia Whittome, Russell-Moyle shared a platform with Sarah Jane Baker, the trans activist who has served time for kidnap, torture and attempted murder and believes that TERFs should be ‘punched in the fucking face’.

Documented in this excellent thread by Nutmeg, we know that, in recent years, numerous Labour MPs have parroted the rhetoric of trans ideology to the point of lunacy.

Only a couple of months ago, Keir Starmer himself was insisting that women can have a penis. Stella Creasy has also stated her belief that women can have penises, decrying JK Rowling for insisting that they don’t.

Starmer threw Rosie Duffield to the wolves by claiming that she was wrong to say only women have a cervix. Emily Thornberry has expressed her belief in both the female penis and the male cervix.

Nadia Whittome advocated ‘education or expulsion’ for those challenging the party’s position on gender self-ID, David Lammy described gender critical feminists as ‘dinosaurs hoarding rights’, Lisa Nandy was all in favour of housing rapists in women’s prisons, Alex Sobel said that women should not have any sex-segregated spaces at all, not even hospital wards, refuges or prisons, Charlotte Nichols defended Lia Thomas, accusing those who opposed his inclusion in female sport of ‘lazy transphobia’, when asked to define the word ‘woman’, Yvette Cooper replied “I’m not going to get into rabbit holes on this”, Anneliese Dodds similarly floundered on the ‘woman’ question, claiming that “It depends on context”, and Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor, has made his contempt for women’s rights abundantly clear.

Writing in The Critic, Shonagh Dillon states, “Labour’s U Turn is a victory, but it is a victory that is entirely due to the work of grassroots feminist activist groups and individual women… It’ll be a while before I am in any way grateful to the Labour leadership for finally coming to their senses. I’m not ready to gloss over the last seven years.”

Neither am I.

The Cầu Vàng ‘Golden Bridge’ Da Nang, Vietnam

In his ancient treatise, The Art of War, Chinese militarist and philosopher, Sun Tzu, advised, “Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across”. I firmly believe this strategy will serve us well in the winning of the gender wars. But before I can extend the courtesy to Labour, the party has some serious bridge-building of its own to do.