Debbie Hayton Debbie Hayton

Keir Starmer’s gender identity muddle

STEFAN ROUSSEAU/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

If you needed any sign that the Labour party is still deeply confused about gender identity and sex, look no further than the Labour leader Keir Starmer’s comments this week. Asked by the Times to define a woman, Starmer replied that:

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. So that’s my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom.

If Keir Starmer thinks that I am a woman, I am delighted to tell him the truth. Transwomen (like me) are male, while women (like my wife) are female. Biology does not lie, male is not female, and therefore transwomen are not women. Shocking that might sound to some ears, the logic is inescapable and the sky does not fall in when you admit it.

He’s wrong about the law too. The Equality Act does not change anyone’s sex – legal or otherwise. The Equality and Human Rights Commission was clear about that back in 2018:

In UK law, ‘sex’ is understood as binary, with a person’s legal sex being determined by what is recorded on their birth certificate.

And the Gender Recognition Act draws a very clear line between the sexes. Specifically, with regard to peerages. According to Section 16, ‘The fact that a person’s gender has become the acquired gender under this Act does not affect the descent of any peerage or dignity or title of honour.’

In a nutshell, this means that a man will not be disinherited should his older sister transition from female to male. And he keeps his inheritance if he transitions the other way. The law does not mess about when men’s sex-based rights are at stake.

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