James Kirkup James Kirkup

The Catch 22 of Labour’s gender policy

Earlier this week, I wrote about David Lewis, a Labour member who was allowed to stand for election as a constituency women’s officer on the basis that he identifies as a woman under some circumstances. That report seems to have drawn some attention, not least from Labour HQ. David Lewis was told on Tuesday night that he has been suspended from the party and cannot therefore stand for election as Basingstoke CLP women’s officer. I’ll try to unravel the implications of that in a moment, but first I want to say something about David Lewis and the general debate around this case.

As is usual with debates around gender, a lot of people have strong feelings about this case, and have expressed them bluntly. On social media, David Lewis has been called all sorts of unpleasant things, accused of bigotry and other nastiness. That does not accord with my impression of him. On the basis of a couple of conversations and some exchanges via email, I do not believe David is a bad person or acting with any bad intent. He strikes me as a thoughtful, earnest person committed to polite and orderly debate about matters of public interest.

The same can be said of many of the other people involved in this. Some of the people who have commented on David and his case are committed advocates of trans-rights and believe firmly that policies, including self-identification, are fair and right. The vast majority of those people do not engage in nasty name-calling online or other unpleasant conduct: they just advocate policies they think will make life better for people.

In short, I hope (probably in vain) that this conversation can be had without allegation of bad faith, that this can be an exchange of views between people who are all, in their own ways, trying to do the right thing and who accept that this is true of others too.

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