March 11, 2024 - 1:00pm
What role will biological sex play in the next general election? Labour is so far ahead in the opinion polls that most people don’t think it will affect the outcome. But Liz Truss’s private member’s bill seeking to ban trans-identified men from women’s spaces has highlighted a paradoxical situation for many female voters.
Labour was traditionally the party that advanced women’s rights. Not anymore. Now it’s seen, even by loyal supporters, as in thrall to authoritarian zealots who promote gender ideology. The Labour front bench is promising frankly alarming “reforms”, including making it easier to change legal gender, when the party comes to power.
Few of us on the Left want the former prime minister as an ally. Yet Truss’s proposals, which include a change in the law to make it clear that “sex” means biological sex, are welcome at a moment when language in long-established legislation is being manipulated to mean something that was never intended.
No one believed, when the Equality Act was passed in 2010, that sex referred to anything other than observable physical characteristics. But trans activists have deliberately confused sex and gender, pushing the idea that women have to give up essential protections to placate men who think they were “born in the wrong body”. And leading Labour figures have gone along with it.
We now live in a world where traditional dividing lines between the two main parties, such as levels of tax and public spending, have been blurred. Where there is a clear distinction, however, is on the question of biology. Shadow ministers, Labour MPs and an alarming number of parliamentary candidates spout gibberish about sex being “assigned” at birth.
If a prominent Labour figure proposed similar legislation to Truss, thousands of women would be cheering. And it’s a measure of how the Labour Party has let us down, remaining silent as MPs like Rosie Duffield are smeared with accusations of transphobia, that even sensible proposals are dismissed as “Right-wing”.
Truss’s bill may be inspired by opportunism, and has little chance of success when it returns to the House of Commons on Friday. But this is one of the few policy areas where the Conservatives have public opinion on their side. In 2022, a YouGov poll showed that Britons oppose proposals to make it easier to change legal gender at a rate of almost two to one (50% vs 26%).
Labour’s assumption is that voters are so fed up with failing public services that the party can afford to indulge activists’ nonsense. For now, it is probably correct. At the weekend, however, Irish politicians found out what happens when women organise to defend their rights.
The government lost two referendums which feminists argued were a veiled attack on women’s rights, using claims about “modernisation” to remove the word “mother” from the Irish constitution. The Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has thus become the second politician in the British Isles to discover what the public really thinks about gender ideology. Scotland’s former first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was of course the first.
Truss may well be freelancing, seeking to retrieve her reputation, but this is Sir Keir Starmer’s weak spot. Voters say they don’t know what he stands for, but we know exactly what he thinks on this issue. And for many women on the Left, he’s firmly on the wrong side.
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.
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SubscribeIf the issue has got Mad Liz as a chief advocate it’s already half-sunk. She is the chief opportunist par excellence, including the acquisition of towels and bathrobes.
Mad, bad and dangerous to know. But not in a cool way.
Obviously yet another cause she is attaching herself to for political purposes only. Is Lib Dem Liz in any place to criticise those wanting to change their identity?
It’s so decadent for people like Truss and you, dear reader, to be worrying about this stuff when people in the real world have real problems.
It is an awkward area for Labour but is very easily batted away with “yeah but what about the economy and public services?” e.g. “why are you worrying about gender neutral public toilets when we have seen public toilets all but disappear under the Tories’ austerity rule?”
It’s a real problem for a woman in a gym, swimming pool, night club, clothes shop or indeed prison cell if she has to share changing or toilet facilities with biological males. Very few believe that whether Starmer’s Labour or Sunak’s Conservatives are in government will make a whole lot of difference to GDP or public service reform. But legislating to reduce the protections of women from biological males entering female only places could make a real difference.
There’s a mother and longtime member of David Lloyd sports clubs taking them to court at the moment as they won’t guarantee that she can let her teenage daughter use the women’s changing rooms without the threat of some bloke waving his tackle at them.
sexual violence against women takes place all the time far more often outside of all of those places and, indeed, inside of all of those places by biological males who very much present as such.
That’s all #MeToo wokery though. The real problem are the transies.
You are completely missing the point.
If there was a party committed to cutting immigration and dismantling net zero, yet supportive of gender neutral toilets, I think it would win overwhelming support.
I have never understood the obsession with toilets which are in private cubicles anyway, I think people use toilets as a way of distracting attention from the spaces where women really would be at most risk.
I guess the point I tried to make in a clumsy way is that gender ideology is just another luxury belief driven by activists and supported by people who don’t actually live with the consequences, like women sharing change rooms or toilets with trans men. Net zero, open borders and gender ideology are basically different sides of the same coin. If there was a political party willing to reverse one or two or all of these, it would be strongly supported by the general public. Unfortunately, the two dominant parties in Britain basically support all of these beliefs, or are unwilling to confront them. Ideally, I want a political party opposed to all the luxury beliefs – I didn’t mention things like crime or safe supply for drug addicts – but I would wait 12 hours in the rain to vote for a party opposed to net zero and open borders, but supportive of the trans agenda.
It also makes me highly suspicious of the men whose minds immediately drift to sexual violence when they imagine a private space of vulnerability with a woman.
Unfortunately it creates another space for men like this to do their stuff. You are really naive.
I would be uncomfortable peeing while a strange man in the next cubicle is listening.. I don’t have a problem with a trans woman using the ladies, they have to go somewhere and they need to feel safe too, but gender neutral loos, no thanks.
Looks like I’m the only one to give you an upvote. It really is time to focus on the big stuff that really matters!
I didn’t upvote or downvote him for this reason. The trans ideology agenda, in the big picture, does not motivate me like some other more substantive issues. I think you will find, however, that progressives support virtually all these luxury beliefs. Labour seems to be more vocal in its support for luxury beliefs, but the Tories are not much different. And while they may voice opposition to some luxury beliefs, their legislative record does not reflect that.
You don’t have to share a toilet or changing room with a bloke. You are not a woman who is vulnerable in this situation and others. You are not a woman who has to compete in sport against men.
Education system failing, health service in collapse, housing market pretty much wrecked, large numbers of young women reaching the end of their most fertile years childless, massive debt, all sorts of actual or potential world conflict. Just from the top of my head.
I’m not saying your issues are non-issues. But we need some focus.
Since when do we deal with only what your issues are? The trans issues are fundamental to way more than 50% of society. Women, children and gays….
LOL – my issues! I’m guessing you’re just a troll. But if not, your post reeks of narcissism. Doubtless you’ll be expecting the government to focus on the relative price of mens and women’s underwear as world war 3 erupts. Honestly – get some perspective.
I get it and I fully support women and oppose trans men invading female spaces, but there are other issues that threaten the wealth and prosperity all of us today.
And the other issues are addressed in multiple essays and articles.
Totally agree. Frankly it looks like a tactic to distract voters from key issues.
I don’t think we agree at all. I think the trans ideology is a big problem and should be confronted. I just think there are other, more substantive issues at the moment. However, fully functioning humans should be able to address multiple issues at the same time.
The bill was first promised back in Dec, so this is not news. It is clearly an attempt to smoke Starmer out and force him to clarify what his and therefore the Labour party’s position is on the issue and thereby expose yet another gaping division in the ranks of labour (there are a few Tories who will wail too). Having Truss back it as the has been, rather than Kemi do it as the potential next leader post disastrous election result, also makes a lot of sense.
Having said all that my main response is hooray, about bloody time too, the Tories have been cowardly / asleep at the wheel for too long on this issue. However it may well be too little too late. The protection of children from “gender affirming” medical interventions is already well under way regardless of the outcome of this bill.
I do wish Unherd authors would find links to back their stories that are not behind paywalls
As Joan Smith says, this issue probably won’t make any difference to the result of the next general election because just about everyone in the UK has a reason to kick the Tories.
But I don’t get why she is so surprised by how this is playing out. The political left has always had a misogynistic tendency a mile wide and a fathom deep. Its absolutely no coincidence that some of the most appalling abuse of women is coming from bearded bros of the left for whom “trans allyship” is really just a smokescreen for indulging in some good old fashioned putting women in their place.
It will be interesting to see which way the left wing feminist unherd writers go when the election comes around. Could any of them bring themselves to vote Tory, even though the Tories have had 3 women PMs and now a non white PM and a good chance the next leader will be a black woman?
I’m a left-wing feminist, and if I was British, I’d vote Tory if they would stand up for real women. This issue is too important for women. Trans identified men are free to live their lives pretending to be women, but they aren’t, and they know it. Enough.
Good for Liz for speaking out. She may not be popular with many people, but on this issue she’s on the money.
Best not to mention “money”.
When Liz Truss is leading the charge then you know that you’re in deep trouble!
The Unherd transphobia is really off the charts.
What a ludicrous final sentence!
What part don’t you understand, Johnny?
That’s a rather idiosyncratic take on the Irish referenda!
Has been for decades. Only the trans angle is new.
Has the photo accompanying this article been modified to made Liz Truss look even more smug?
Keeping biological men out of women’s sports is a no-brainer and should be a winning political issue. Good for Truss for bringing this up.
Liz Truss has been pretty good, fair play to her here.
….apart from tanking the economy while she was PM.