Mick Hartley

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner adds to the pile of ordure coming from the party's top brass:

Labour’s deputy leader has said it is not acceptable to ask a woman whether she has a penis, but insisted there were circumstances under which a man could be asked whether he was pregnant….

During an interview with Sky News today Rayner, 42, was asked whether it was reasonable to ask a man if he is pregnant. Male cancer patients and those having X-rays and MRI scans are being asked by an NHS trust in Liverpool if they might be expecting a baby.

Rayner said: “If a man was born with the reproductive [organs] because they were born as a female and they’ve transitioned to a male, then if they’re getting medical support because they could be pregnant, then that might be a question that is asked as part of that.

“But it wouldn’t be a reasonable question for me to say, ‘Have you got a penis or not?’ because that’s not acceptable.”

It's a bit rude, no doubt, but the question of whether someone has a penis or not becomes very much to the point in certain situations. "No penises allowed past this point" might be just the sign needed outside women's safe spaces, to cut through the gender crap.

Rayner called for the discussion of gender identity to be taken off social media, where it was being debased by comments about genitalia. She said she was worried about the impact the often fraught exchanges had on young people struggling with how they identified.

Rayner added: “When we debase it to . . . what genitalia you’ve got, I think all that does is damage people and it doesn’t help us go forward on some of the real issues that people are facing.

“I think we should be protecting women’s spaces — of course we should — and we should be supporting people who are going through transition.”

She said the issue was not about “men coming into women-only spaces”, but about “supporting people in their lives”.

So she doesn't think we should be talking about anything specific, but should stick to feel-good but meaningless generalisations about "supporting people in their lives". Very impressive. This is what people sound like when they sense they're talking insupportable nonsense, but are too in thrall to an absurd ideology to back down.