Will divisions over trans issue derail Keir Starmer's government?

Politicians who have campaigned in support of trans rights point towards commitments in Labour's general election manifesto on trans issues.

(Image credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz / Future Publishing / Getty Images)

"A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear." Those were the words of Keir Starmer on Parliament's first day back after Easter, following the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex under equality law.

The "casual observer" may remember that as recently as 2022 the prime minister insisted "trans women are women", said The Times.

But with the law "now clarified" by the Supreme Court, Starmer "has set out the position he and his party slowly moved towards as last year's election came into view – that biological sex is what matters".

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What did the commentators say?

It is an "embarrassing" attempt to "rewrite history", said Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman. It was Starmer who dismissed the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield's statement that "only women have a cervix" as "something that shouldn't be said".

"What a difference three years make," said Tom Slater in The Telegraph. While I welcome Starmer's realisation that "you cannot have sex-based rights if you don't believe in sex", his "volte-face" on this issue only reveals that he is an "anti-conviction politician". He is "an empty, slabheaded receptacle into which any mad idea can be poured, only to be jettisoned when it is politically expedient".

Many Labour MPs will be "uneasy" with this new position, said Henry Zeffman on the BBC. They "believe that trans women are women, and that to be treated with dignity and respect they ought to be able to use the toilets they believe match their gender identity". A "backlash" may now be "brewing".

That may have already begun with WhatsApp messages leaked to the Mail on Sunday allegedly including the Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle writing "the ruling is not as catastrophic as it seems but the EHRC [Equality and Human Rights Commission] guidance might be & there are already signs that some public bodies are overreacting".

Government sources told Sky News "these messages are hardly evidence of any kind of plot or mass revolt against the Supreme Court's ruling". But the broadcaster added it still raises "uncomfortable questions".

What next?

Politicians who have campaigned in support of trans rights point towards commitments in Labour's general election manifesto to introduce a "trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices" and to "modernise, simplify, and reform" gender recognition law. Those are "still Labour Party policies", added the BBC's Zeffman and "any sign of backsliding on that, and this debate may again become a tense one within Labour's ranks".

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Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.