Sarah Ditum at UnHerd clarifies where we are now with Labour and women. Yes it's better than it was, but they still don't get it.
Trans issues can be classed as what the writer Helen Lewis has called a “brown M&M” test, after the band Van Halen which included a demand in their rider for “M&Ms with the brown ones removed”. This was once seen as evidence of spoiled rock star indulgence, but the M&Ms themselves were irrelevant: it was a way for Van Halen to check whether venues had read and followed all the band’s instructions, including the safety-critical ones about pyrotechnics. If there were brown M&Ms in the bowl, the band knew everything on stage needed to be double-checked.
In the same way, a politician’s ability to comprehend the detail of the Equality Act and the GRA should be taken as a test of their seriousness as a legislator. With a few honourable exceptions, Labour remains some way from passing. The manifesto, welcome as it was, also pledged to introduce a “trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy” — something that is simply incompatible with the Cass Review’s insistence on preserving exploratory options for youth. This suggested that the Cass Review had perhaps not been fully absorbed by the manifesto’s authors.
Another commitment was to “simplify” the Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) process. Subsequent briefing suggested this meant moving to a model where one doctor’s diagnosis of gender dysphoria was sufficient to change legal sex — more rigorous than self-ID, but barely so. There was also mention of removing the so-called “spousal veto”, which in reality is simply a provision for spouses of transitioners to annul the marriage before the GRC is issued, meaning no one has their sexuality unilaterally changed by state fiat. It’s an elegant solution to a difficult situation, and one that is much valued by the many wives of men who transition in midlife.
The unhappy implication is that Labour has been writing policy without listening to the people affected. This is a step up from the “government by Stonewall” that was the case up until very recently when it came to policy around gender identity, but it still betrays a sloppiness about the detail and a lack of care when it comes to women’s rights — an impression that is only reinforced by Labour representatives’ ongoing commitment to misunderstanding the Equality Act in public….
Gallingly, one of the many Labour spokespeople failing to understand the Equality Act is the same politician who originally piloted that law through parliament. In a 2022 interview, Harriet Harman pledged her allegiance to the belief that trans women are women, and went on to say: “We also need to recognise that in some respects there need to be same-sex services, which can be delivered and you can’t have a blanket exclusion of trans women, but in certain circumstances, in narrow circumstances, you can restrict those services.”
This is, generously, entirely incoherent. Harman seems not to understand that same-sex services are only possible through the “blanket exclusion” of trans women; nor is there any suggestion of how the “certain circumstances” would be determined. Speaking to Woman’s Hour this week, she continued to maintain in the face of all evidence that the Equality Act simply needs “guidance”, even though the legal meaning of sex is contested. Ideally, an inability to understand legislation you helped to draft would be considered disqualifying for high office; instead, in another sign that Labour does not take women’s rights altogether seriously, Harman has been tipped as the next head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Labour’s ongoing discomfort with the woman issue is manifest in the fact that it took three days after the election to appoint a minister for women and equalities. The trans issue has made this a poisoned brief. Whoever was appointed, it was guaranteed to outrage either LGBT Labour or the party’s gender-critical faction. Once again, Starmer appears to have found a third way. It was eventually announced on X that the job had gone to Anneliese Dodds, who shadowed it in unimpressive style, dismissing criticisms of GRA reform as “culture wars”.
Less fanfared is the fact that Dodds will be junior to Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, and someone who has shown a more robust grasp of the issues. This looks like a way to give transactivists a visible win, while holding the actual political power closer to the ideological centre. That’s positive, but Labour needs more than savvy optics here: the implications of gender identity run too deep to be ignored.
The infected blood and post office scandals should be a warning that ethical derelictions by the state only become more grievous with time. The harms done to children who received unevidenced medical care under the guise of treating gender dysphoria, or to female prisoners forced to share accommodation with men for the sake of “inclusion”, will not disappear because the Government prefers not to see them. And, bluntly, many of the groups most afflicted by bad gender policy are relatively young and physically fit. Unlike haemophilia sufferers or retired postmasters, the Government will not be able to evade any eventual financial liability by simply waiting for them to die.
It's an issue that simply isn't going to go away, much as Labour would like it to. This, after all, is TERF island, and JK Rowling and the many disaffected women like her won't be silenced any time soon.
Labour should not have to learn the same lessons over and over again. Women’s rights and interests are not a mere add-on. They are fundamental to a functioning society, and when women are disregarded, deeper problems follow. Starmer may be congratulating himself for now on having equally displeased both sides of the argument about gender. Instead, he should be asking himself how to make law and policy that is actually fit for purpose — for women, and for all. Trans issues did not decide this election. But a failure to reckon with them seriously will be an indictment of Labour’s future fitness to govern.
Mick Hartley 