Senior politicians row back on using slogan ‘trans women are women’

Senior politicians across parties have admitted they were wrong to parrot the pro-trans slogan ‘trans women are women’.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting claimed a failure to grasp the complexities of the issue had caused them to previously deny the reality of biological sex.

But columnist Julie Bindel said those in power guilty of swallowing “the Stonewall handbook” must do more than “simply change their minds” – they must now purge its “reckless ideology” from the nation’s institutions.

U-turn

Keegan told The Daily Telegraph that she would no longer use the phrase “trans women are women” after having “learnt a huge amount more about this complex and challenging subject”.

And speaking on The Sun’s weekly politics show, Streeting said that, on reflection, he no longer stood by Stonewall’s claim that “trans women are women, get over it”.

Last year, Sir Keir Starmer declared that a “woman is an adult female”, having previously claimed that “99.9% of women do not have a penis”.

Science not ideology

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Bindel accused senior politicians of capitulating to “transgender ideology out of a cowardly fear”. But now, she argued, “the difference between the two sides of this debate cannot be fudged.

“You are either with the ideologues, like those in the Green Party who describe women as ‘non-men’, or you can read the science and understand the damage this is doing to women and girls.

“And those who we elect have a particular responsibility to stand up.”