Let’s hope it’s a lifetime of shame
You have got to be kidding.
It shouldn’t be said. It’s not right.
So I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that women are the ones who gestate and give birth to all human beings without exception. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men can’t do either of those things. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men have always sought to harness and control that ability women have. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men are also bigger and stronger than women, and that those two facts combined are why women still have to fight to get rights and freedom and equality and basic respect.
We might as well be hat stands for all men like Keir Starmer care.
What a contemptable, cowardly thing to say. It shouldn’t have been said. It’s not right.
I hope he is pressed to explain WHY it shouldn’t be said, and HOW it’s not right. We know why and how, but I want to hear the excuses come out of his own mouth, to own the cowardice and contempt.
It’s infuriating that he doesn’t care about the apalling asymmetry of the situation. Would he support a campaign that vilified the uttering of things like “only men have prostates” in the context of clarifying health advisories made unintelligible because of the dangerously misguided insistance on “inclusive” language? Health authorities have not been erasing men, only women. I don’t think they would dare pull that bullshit with men, but Starmer, at a party leadership level, is fine that women’s health, safety, and wellbeing are sacrificed for the feelings of a tiny minority of TiMs, TiFs, and their misogynist supporters.
He can’t even say why it shouldn’t be said. There’s no conviction save what he considers politically expedient. How is it unspeakable, Keir? What is the travesty?
Um. Um. The Labour youngsters have decreed that it isn’t inclusive
But it’s factually true. It SHOULD be said. It IS right. How can he have the gall to say otherwise?
That’s the question. I keep returning to it. How can he have the gall to say we have to lie about it?
“But why is it not right?
Answer 1: “Because defining women by sex is too fuzzy and useless but the neurological, scientific evidence for a robust and definitive Gender Identity is so overwhelming that I’m going to talk circles around how definitive it is without ever coherently defining it — thus, some men have cervixes.”
Answer 2: “Because if you say it you cause grievous pain to the most vulnerable, endangered, exposed, unguarded, frail, fragile, delicate, debilitated, deluded, incapacitated, feeble, powerless, sickly, suicidal, weak-minded, mentally-unbalanced basket cases of the most marginalized people ever — and that’s mean.”
Answer 3: “Because it’s a goddam political hot wire, that’s why.”
Ha! #2 is especially compelling.
I took his “It’s not right” to be less along the lines of “That’s not accurate” (Sastra’s #1) and more like “You mustn’t say that!” (Sastra’s #2), all the while thinking OH SHIT WHAT DO I SAY? (Sastra’s #3).
Unfortunately it won’t make nearly as nice a GIF as The Butterworth Gasp.
I was very pleased with Starmer at first, but he has sunk greatly in my estimation – as has the Labour Party as a whole (not that I would vote, were I able to, for any other party); there really are some things you shouldn’t say in an effort to keep the fractious and silly extremes of your party happy. It weakens everything, including your own position.
It IS true, and most people AGREE it is true. If it were NOT true, though, the way to address the situation is to explain and convince using logic and reason and evidence, not demand under penalty of imprisonment or loss of employment, or under threat of death or rape or physical assault, that people not make this statement.
I read that the health secretary, Sajid Javid, said Starmer’s remark was a “total denial of scientific fact”. Good.
This is blasphemy by another name.