Mick Hartley

Suzanne Moore at the Labour conference is left doubtful that the government can be trusted to protect women's rights:

This is the first year that the Labour Women’s Declaration (LWD) movement has been allowed into conference and it has a stall and some terrific events. The LWD believe that women and girls are subject to discrimination and oppression on the basis of their sex, have the right to single-sex spaces and are not to be intimidated for discussing this.

But The LGB Alliance, which was founded in opposition to Stonewall’s policies on transgender issues, is still verboten. When I asked their spokeswoman why, she said they are never given any explanation. Why lesbian, gay and bisexual people cannot organise without including the many diverse groups now under the cover of the trans umbrella, many of whom aren’t same sex-attracted, is simply ridiculous.

Debate on this issue within Labour is stuttering. Yvette Cooper may want to halve violence against women and girls but the party still can not define a woman. Are those who think that men can grow cervixes and women can have penises to be taken seriously? […]

Tonia Antoniazzi, MP for Gower, is a bundle of positivity and strategy, and makes it clear how gender is still tearing Labour apart.

She reckons half the cabinet are on the side of women’s rights, but still don’t want to take the risk of saying so for fear of being called transphobic. At least Wes Streeting is an ally. As is MP Jess Phillips, who I note will appear at a LWD event.

It’s fine for women with status to stick their necks out – which these days simply means insisting that biological sex exists – but others in the room told us that if they speak up at their local Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meetings they are met with hostility.

The institutional capture of radical trans ideology may slowly be beginning to crumble top down but it is still deeply embedded in our schools, the NHS and universities. And that’s a challenge.

Most Labour people will say this is not a priority. There is too much other stuff to sort out. But at some point even the dimmest of them could join the dots between this dismantling of women’s rights and the fact that male violence is rising and that most of those who present with gender dysphoria are teenage girls who reject the burgeoning signs that they are turning into women.

As I walk back in the rain, I wonder when 51 per cent of the population will ever become a priority. Do I trust Labour not to further dismantle women’s rights? Not really.