A return to reason in the gender debate

A return to reason in the gender debate

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A return to reason in the gender debate

What’s changed? Most obviously, the fate of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP for backing an extension of trans recognition rights

Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon

Has the tide turned in the so-called gender wars? Parents are beginning to demand that they are more closely involved in how their offspring are taught at school about biological sex and politicians are having to respond.

For too long a group of activists representing a tiny minority have dictated how the issue of gender identification should be handled in schools, in the workplace and in other walks of life. Our political leaders have been reluctant to call them out or have actively encouraged them. The Government is reviewing the guidance and needs to introduce much more specific rules governing the teaching of this subject, which schools will be required to follow.

Labour is also moving. Last year, Sir Keir Starmer found himself unable to answer a question that until recently simply would not have been asked: does a woman have a penis? Now, the Labour leader finds himself in a position to say “of course they haven’t”, though even then he limited it to 99.9 per cent. In an interview at the weekend Sir Keir said turning the gender issue into “a toxic divide advances the cause of no one” and particularly not of women. Suddenly, the Labour leader appears to be siding with the feminists in his own party, like Rosie Duffield MP, who have been ostracised by colleagues for wanting to defend safe spaces for women.

So what’s changed? Most obviously, the fate of Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP for backing an extension of trans recognition rights, which blew up in their faces, forced her resignation and almost certainly dished their push for independence.

Sir Keir acknowledged this in his interview: “The lesson from Scotland is that if you can’t take the public with you on a journey of reform then you’re probably not on the right journey.” Does that mean he wants to persuade the public that the demands of trans activists should be met or that he now recognises them to be unacceptable and divisive? If the latter, why did he not see this until it became apparent there are serious political downsides to following an extreme trans agenda? Surely Sir Keir, now in his seventh decade, was capable of differentiating the biology of men and women.

Nonetheless, the fiasco in Scotland over this issue has shifted the dynamic. Sir Keir now accepts that women’s rights cannot be trumped by trans rights – which is precisely what Ms Duffield, J K Rowling and millions of others have been saying for years.