Mick Hartley

The Labour Party has learned nothing – part 72 in a continuing series. An aide is quoted in a Times piece on Labour at war over debate on trans rights:

One senior campaign aide said that the issue was becoming increasingly difficult to navigate and could do long-term damage to the party in an area where it has traditionally been strong.

“I think we are all in a bit of a bind,” the aide said. “We want to be the party of equality but there is a risk that we are seen to be obsessed by this and are tearing ourselves apart. The tone on both sides has been blown out of all proportion.”

The aide added that the argument was, in part, born out of a “generational divide” on the left. “On one side you have women in their forties, fifties and sixties who identify with the feminist movement. They find the idea of self-identification very challenging. On the other you have women in their twenties and thirties who are much more relaxed about this and for whom it is an equalities issue.

“The reality is that this debate impacts very few people but emotions run very, very high. People feel that the way we are defining what it means to be a woman is changing. There is no room for nuance.”

A “generational divide”?? How very condescending….and very wrong. It's not about crusty old feminists not being up-to-date and finding "the idea of self-identification very challenging", while younger women are "much more relaxed about this and for whom it is an equalities issue". It's about throwing women under the bus of a supposedly progressive cause which plays on out-dated gender stereotypes, to advance what is in truth a deeply regressive policy – and one which also happens to be based on biological fairy tales.