Sir Keir Starmer: ‘Trans women are women’

The leader of the Labour Party has been criticised for claiming that the legal definition of ‘woman’ includes men who identify as members of the opposite sex.

Following Starmer’s controversial remarks, prominent critics of gender ideology, Joanna Cherry QC and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, accused him of misrepresenting equalities law.

Last week, Labour frontbenchers Anneliese Dodds and Yvette Cooper failed to explain what the word ‘woman’ meant during separate media interviews.

Challenge

Starmer told The Times: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view – that is actually the law. It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act.”

In response, Joanna Cherry QC tweeted: “It is simply unacceptable for a senior lawyer such as @Keir_Starmer to so misstate the law on #WomensRights.”

It is simply unacceptable for a senior lawyer such as ⁦@Keir_Starmer⁩ to so misstate the law on #WomensRights. He needs to take a look at threads from ⁦@BluskyeAllison⁩ & ⁦@legalfeminist⁩ & set the record straight. https://t.co/qHPl1mbDac

— Joanna Cherry QC (@joannaccherry) March 12, 2022

And again on Twitter, JK Rowling said: “Now @Keir_Starmer publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights.”

Now @Keir_Starmer publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights. But I repeat: women are organising across party lines, and their resolve and their anger are growing. 3/3

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 12, 2022

Reform

During the interview, Starmer also said: “The Gender Recognition Act needs to be reformed.”

Labour has pledged to remove safeguards in the Gender Recognition Act and enable people to ‘change sex’ by self-declaration.

The Party would remove the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and to have lived as though a member of the opposite sex for at least two years.

MP Rosie Duffield, head of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, was branded ‘transphobic’ by other Party members for affirming that only women have cervixes and for her concerns that removing single-sex spaces puts women at risk.