If Keir Starmer wants to succeed, he must face them down
If Labour wants to form a new government, then the party needs a new policy on trans rights. If anyone is still in doubt about that, they need only look north of the border. Three months after Nicola Sturgeon forced her doomed Gender Recognition Reform Bill through Holyrood she is now packing her bags, and the once invincible Scottish National Party is in a tailspin.
Keir Starmer, however, has a problem. He has already sold himself to the activist lobby that thinks the law can be changed to allow anybody to change their legal sex and that nobody will take advantage. That is why senior figures are now warning him to change his trans policy to be more in line with the public’s views on the matter.
When the UK Government finally saw sense and dropped the idea of gender self-ID, the Labour Party reaffirmed its commitment to “introduce self-declaration for trans people”. That was 2020. The following year, Starmer repeated that promise personally in a recorded message for Pride Month. It all seemed so simple when dissenters could be dismissed as transphobic bigots. But the spectacle of double rapist Isla Bryson being sent to a women’s prison put an end to the pretence in Scotland.
Over the water, self-ID was introduced back in 2016. Indeed, Ireland has often been held up as an exemplar. However, even there the illusion is fading. Barbie Kardashian – a violent male convict – is currently incarcerated in Limerick Women’s Prison following threats to torture, rape and murder.
Now, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has seen which way the wind is blowing. Speaking to journalists yesterday*, Varadkar admitted that he “only heard of this case for the first time in the Sunday papers” even though it is years old. But, crucially, he did not think that biological males should be put into women’s prisons if they are found to have broken the law. I would agree with him, but Varadkar’s problem is that Kardashian has self-identified into the female sex, so what happens then?
This is why the Labour Party needs to change tack. In 2016, Irish self-ID law was implemented with little in the way of scrutiny. That’s unlikely to be the case if Labour brings self-ID to Westminster. The inevitable furore may well overshadow everything else the Party is trying to do.
The Daily Telegraph indicated that individuals within the party worry that “in trying to do good for a very small minority group, you inadvertently offend an awful lot of women.” But this is not about balancing needs: it is about doing the right thing. Good policy should be good policy for all, but self-ID is bad policy all round. Women are right to protest the impact on their sex-based rights. Meanwhile, I worry that it has had a deleterious impact on the trust and confidence that transsexuals used to take for granted.
The activist lobby is unlikely to give way easily, and no doubt there will be howls and shrieks, but this is a crisis for Labour. Is it the party of working people, or a vehicle for ludicrous ideas? Starmer needs to choose. In 1985, his predecessor Neil Kinnock faced down the Militant Tendency; if Starmer wants to be taken seriously by the electorate, he needs to find the courage and resolve to follow Kinnock’s example.
Debbie Hayton
* This article was first published by Unherd on 22 March 2023: Trans activists are today’s Militant Tendency.
Debbie Hayton 
11 replies on “Trans activists are today’s Militant Tendency”
Why is there so little reported about trans men? Basically because they pose no threat to men and are maybe more concerned with fitting in to the male world and being accepted in it. Activists for trans women however seem to have no intention of fitting into the female world but appear to want to dominate it and change it to suit their agenda. Some men like Keir Starmer clearly cannot imagine how much this matters to women who feel their identity is being sidelined. He’s had several chances and has repeatedly failed to understand what’s happening. He will lose many votes mine included because of this and deservedly so. You are a rare voice of reason Debbie.
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Spot on, Pauline. It is straight women who are the greatest threat to men, and always have been – at least, as many men see it. Women are always bewildered by this. Few women, other than those who have been harmed at the hands of men wish them any ill. It is all in their imagination. ‘Trans men’ pose no risk to men other than that they are a nuisance in male spaces, and I do not blame men for not wanting them there.
Keir Starmer does not care about women or children, Pauline, any more than the SNP does. It hurts to discover this; it hurts to discover just how many men you though were allies would happily take away all your rights and sacrifice you to their own selfish interests – and, often, those interests bear no relation to reality because all parties play the game of conning their members.
You are right in that men will always want to dominate women – at least, many of them – and it is time that we all recognised that this lies at the very heart of the ‘trans’ movement as it is today. Most of the transsexuals of DH’s generation have never posed any physical threat to women, but they did open the door to entry for this latest lot, and that is why all female spaces and rights and sports, opportunities, etc. must be protected in law, even if that means that ‘trans’ people will have to opt for third spaces.
That is the only fair solution. Anything else now is an imposition on females that can no longer even be justified, and is a gross imposition on our rights to privacy, etc. That this has even to be argued is an outrage. I am sorry for those earlier transsexuals who went through surgery, etc., but this will only happen again if the door is left open or even slightly ajar, as we now know to our great cost.
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It’s very sad that a woman’s ability to produce the next generation, which is a wonderful thing, has never been appreciated by the ruling males but has often been a target for control and derision. Even now the Tories are encouraging women to put their one year old children in nursery in order to pursue a job which is often low paid and not nearly as important as bringing up the next generation. It seems that women are being attacked from all sides including from members of their own sex. Ok maybe times are changing but I find it curious that no one seems to want to question the escalating numbers of young people who are suddenly struggling with their identities. If genuine trans people deserve respect which I agree they do then biological women also deserve respect for their unique contribution to the world.
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I think we’ll be seeing more about trans men (FTM trans people) in the future. Some of them, like Chase Strangio, are more dogmatic than the MTF trans people are. This is apparently because they see being dogmatic as a male quality. The 28-year-old woman who shot up the school in the U.S. about a week ago (she fancied herself to be a trans man), was probably doing it because exhibiting male behavior made her more male. Thus, acting violent confirms a trans man’s self-image as a man. And since they are usually taking testosterone, that helps to increase their hostile feelings.
So … we have MTF trans people being hostile towards women because they really are males (all of whom seem to feel superior to women), and we have FTM trans people being increasingly hostile (in general) in order to prove they are really male. Sick, eh? In the U.S., it is the trans men who have started spouting revolutionary stuff about how they won’t be victims of “genocide”. I think we can expect to see more violent acts coming from trans men in the future.
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Caleb, pumping females full of male testosterone was always going to lead to this. I have read reports from many detransitioners who have described how they felt aggressive and angry and sexually potent after some time on the hormone. I was shocked but not at all surprised that a young woman carried out the shooting. That girl is now dead, but not before she murdered innocents.
I really do not believe it is about aping males, but, rather, about escaping the confines of femininity. It is quite literally a crock of shit to be female today – or at any time in history, come to mention it – and these girls are trying to escape the reality of their constrained lives. I think the boys and men are coming from a different place, although there are overlaps.
Left alone, or given psychological care, they would grow out of their despair naturally, but they are encouraged to believe that ‘transing’ is their only option. What is being done to young women (and young men) is a vile crime. I’m not saying that ‘transing’ young men is not equally vile, but females are already so weighed down and burdened with societal expectations, sexual expectations by males that it is no surprise that they should feel they have to escape. ‘Transing’ is just one more unnecessary burden placed on them or they place on themselves.
This whole ‘trans’ stuff has brought home to me very forcefully just how badly females are treated, because of their sex, and for no other definable reason, in every country in the world. I am not saying that this young woman should not have had responsibility for what she did thrust on her, but I am saying that the whole ‘trans’ phenomenon is almost wholly a male contrivance that is grounded in sexual kicks rather than in any wish to escape the constraints of life, albeit many young men are also victims of it.
I really do think that, in the end, we all need to be brought to book and face the consequences of our cowardice in the face of this vicious movement. Had we just said, NO, very loudly, we would not now be in this mess, and our young people would not be destroying themselves in pursuit of an impossible goal. Sometimes, people are just so vile, we have difficulty in accepting that they are so malevolent. Yet, that is the truth of it. Usually, the really malevolent are behind the scenes, as in this case with the ‘trans’ phenomenon.
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Lorncal, I can’t say that I disagree with anything you said. I agree with you that it’s difficult not to see trans people as being evil. Some of them are doing all of these things:
— They have devised a theory (gender identity) that makes them out to be normal, though they clearly aren’t.
— They shame people who don’t adopt their nonsensical ideas, and even try to push those people out of their jobs.
— They have the nerve to believe that they are experts on everything related to gender.
— They encourage society to accept gender role-playing, though society would be better off without it.
— They shame people who don’t use their special vocabulary.
— They are trying their best to censor the discussion about them that they initiated.
— They invade women’s sports and enjoy dominating women.
— They invade women’s private spaces and take pleasure in the discomfort of women.
— They pressure children to be trans, and then turn their backs on the kids for whom transitioning did not work out. They clearly have to love of children.
They are the most selfish and damaging minority group I’ve ever encountered, and yet they are the most self-righteous — and here they are, 1/2 percent of the population which is doing all this! One thing for sure is that they figured out how to manipulate the guilt feelings of liberals. Thank goodness I’m a liberal who thinks for myself.
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Typo:
They clearly have to love of children = They clearly have NO love of children.
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“… The Daily Telegraph indicated that individuals within the party worry that “in trying to do good for a very small minority group, you inadvertently offend an awful lot of women.” But this is not about balancing needs: it is about doing the right thing… ”
Offend women, DH? Nah, it outrages females who have had to fight every step of the way for even the smallest concession, a fight that has lasted millennia, and that is far from finished, and no lobby financed them or stood up for them – and some men are always on the lookout for ways to take back those few concessions. Women are the most put-upon, ill-treated and despised for their sex group that the human species has ever contrived to harm. Only a completely biased and ill-intended person would argue the toss on that truth.
The right thing is to balance the needs of both groups and weigh them in the scales of justice. If you do that, no impartial, reasonable person could possibly come down on the side of self_ID. Ergo, those who demand it are extremely partial and very unreasonable.
If men want to be women, against all the laws of nature, that is for them to come to terms with; it has zilch, nada, nichts, rien to do with females. We will not give up our rights so that they can extend theirs. Without self-ID, the ‘trans’ movement would dissipate because it is reliant on the males who are its focus and the centre of its attention. The deluded young girls and women and the children are a smokescreen to make it appear real and all about human rights.
“Trans’ people have their human rights like the rest of us, and their civil rights, like the rest of us, and I have yet to hear any GC female say that they should not have them. What they want is a massive extension to their already existing rights, and, if they are not careful, the demand for the repeal of the 2004 GRA will become a deafening siren call. Some of them want the right to be buried as females, seemingly so out of touch with both reality and science, that they have not twigged that no one will care in fifty years, and their skeleton will automatically be logged as male, if they decide to dig it up and move it elsewhere, as municipal authorities often do.
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It’s very sad that a woman’s ability to produce the next generation, which is a wonderful thing, has never been appreciated by the ruling males but has often been a target for control and derision. Even now the Tories are encouraging women to put their one year old children in nursery in order to pursue a job which is often low paid and not nearly as important as bringing up the next generation. It seems that women are being attacked from all sides including from members of their own sex. Ok maybe times are changing but I find it curious that no one seems to want to question the escalating numbers of young people who are suddenly struggling with their identities. If genuine trans people deserve respect which I agree they do then biological women also deserve respect for their unique contribution to the world.
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A couple of points:
“Is it the party of working people, or a vehicle for ludicrous ideas?”
Well, it’s New Labour again, bought by the establishment, and thus trying to navigate a route that achieves the goals of its neoliberal elite masters while pandering to whatever winds of popularity blow across the nation. It would be better, therefore, if Starmer sticks to his guns and they backfire. There’s little hope for us without a Corbynite revolution. They stuck it to JC good and proper last time with the anti-semitic BS, because the establishment can’t put up with peace and social justice (specifically, without all the riches flowing from tax dodging, green-washing, oligarch-pandering, and arms sales.
“But, crucially, he did not think that biological males should be put into women’s prisons if they are found to have broken the law.”
That has an odd bit of tautology. Does it just mean, “biological males should not be put into women’s prisons”? Presumably the question only arises if they are found to have broken the law. Anyway, this reminds me of Humza Yousaf’s determination that a trans woman isn’t real, just “at it,” because she committed a serious crime (or is it only because she raped women?). There’s a deep misandry in this idea. Was it a very bad crime? Oh, that must be a man.
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I suspect most political leaders are going to struggle with this situation which we have apparently allowed groups like Stonewall to create. Even Corbyn might have had a problem with it! The Tories are the only group who seem to be side stepping it at the moment but just saying ‘women are adult human females move on’ is not going to solve the mess we appear to be in. I think schools have a big responsibility here and should stop caving in to pressure. When I was at school the prospect of sharing toilets with boys would have been horrifying. The problem with the gender recognition bill is that if passed it’s going to cause even more confusion in schools and other communities where people are already afraid of being sued for discrimination so in order to protect themselves they may go to more extreme measures rather than worry about how women and girls are affected. It’s a difficult job but we are really in need of proper leadership at the moment and I just don’t see it happening
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