If you’re going to make reforms

Starmer is perhaps reconsidering.

Sir Keir Starmer signalled a climbdown on Labour’s transgender stance on Thursday as he said lessons have to be learned from Scotland.

Sir Keir had previously vowed to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow trans people to self-identify, but appeared to back away from the pledge during a press conference in Stoke-on-Trent.

Sir Keir told reporters: “I think that if we reflect on what’s happened in Scotland, the lesson I take from that is that if you’re going to make reforms, you have to carry the public with you.”

But who says they are reforms? Changes aren’t automatically reforms. If you’re going to make “reforms” that trash women’s rights, you don’t have to “carry the public with you,” you have to stop what you’re doing and listen to women.

It’s cheating to stack the deck in your favor by assuming your proposed changes are reforms.

In a message to the LGBT website Pink News for Pride in 2021, Sir Keir said his priority was “forming the next government so we can introduce legislation and change society so that, whoever you are, you can live a happy and fulfilled life”. 

What about people who identify as Keir Starmer, or Charles Windsor, or Elon Musk, or Ivanka Trump? Should we change society so that they can live happy fulfilled lives as their assumed identities?

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