Labour's Tin Ear On Women's Rights

Excellent Times article which explains why JK Rowling and so many others are finding it hard to support Labour while  the party refuses to stand up for reality, science, freedom of speech and women's rights. 

"This is about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries. It’s about freedom of speech and observable truth. It’s about waiting, with dwindling hope, for the left to wake up to the fact that its lazy embrace of a quasi- religious ideology is having calamitous consequences."

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/jk-rowling-labour-has-turned-its-back-on-women-5n60z80wl

JK Rowling: Labour has turned its back on women

Author says she does not trust Sir Keir Starmer’s judgment and would struggle to vote for the party of which she was once a member

JK Rowling says that her campaign is not about denying trans women’s rights but the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries - Photo JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By Steven Swinford, Oliver Wright, Geraldine Scott - The Times

JK Rowling has accused Sir Keir Starmer of “abandoning women” who are concerned about transgender rights.

In an article for The Times, the Harry Potter author criticises the Labour leader for a “dismissive and often offensive” approach to feminist concerns.

She says she would struggle to vote for a party of which she was once a member because she does not trust Starmer’s judgment and has a “poor opinion” of his character.

• JK Rowling: Labour has dismissed women like me. I’ll struggle to vote for it

“As long as Labour remains dismissive and often offensive towards women fighting to retain the rights their foremothers thought were won for all time, I’ll struggle to support them,” she says. “The women who wouldn’t wheesht [be quiet] didn’t leave Labour. Labour abandoned them.”

Rowling’s intervention comes after Starmer used a televised interview to signal a shift in his position on transgender rights, an issue that has split ­Labour and caused him significant political discomfort. He had previously criticised Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP who campaigns on women rights, for saying that only women have a cervix. In 2021 he said her comments were “something that shouldn’t be said and were not right”.

On Thursday Starmer said he now agreed with Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour leader, that “biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis”. Asked about his previous comments on Duffield, he said that the debate at the time had become “very toxic, very divided, very hard line”.

Starmer has failed to defend Rosie Duffield, who is running for re-election in Canterbury, against a long-running campaign of threats and abuse - Photo TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

Rowling, 58, says that Starmer has done nothing to allay her concerns about his position, attacking him in particular for failing to defend Duffield, who has suffered death threats.

“Rosie has received literally no support from Starmer over the threats and abuse, some of which has originated from within the Labour Party itself, and has had a severe, measurable impact on her life,” she says.

“The impression given by Starmer at Thursday’s debate was that there had been something unkind, something toxic, something hard line, in Rosie’s words, even though almost identical words had sounded perfectly reasonable when spoken by Tony Blair.”

Rowling says that her campaign is not about denying trans women’s rights but ensuring that these are not at the expense of women and girls.

“For left-leaning women like us, this isn’t, and never has been, about trans people enjoying the rights of every other citizen, and being free to present and identify however they wish,” she says. “This is about the right of women and girls to assert their boundaries. It’s about freedom of speech and observable truth. It’s about waiting, with dwindling hope, for the left to wake up to the fact that its lazy embrace of a quasi- religious ideology is having calamitous consequences.”

She highlights a book, to which she contributed, that included a piece by a mother “smeared as a bigot and a transphobe” for wanting female-only intimate care for her disabled daughter.

Rowling says: “If you choose to prevaricate and patronise rather than ­address her concerns, if you continue to insist that the most vulnerable must embrace your luxury beliefs, no matter the cost to themselves, I don’t trust your judgment and I have a poor opinion of your character.”