Why do politicians keep getting gender politics wrong?
by Debbie Hayton, Spectator:
[…] By 2020, it seemed that the scope of the term ‘trans woman’ had expanded to include any man who decided to claim it, and for purposes known only to himself. As a member of parliament, Keegan should have recognised that and understood the consequences. Other MPs did – Rosie Duffield and Miriam Cates, for example – but they faced opprobrium for speaking the truth.
Much has been said about the toxic nature of the transgender debate, but perhaps it was inevitable when matters of identity were at stake, and everyone worries that words as basic as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are at risk of being redefined, and to their detriment. Two teams emerged – let’s call them team trans and team terf – and there was pressure to pick a side.
As late as 2020, it seemed that team trans was winning. Perhaps that is why so many politicians signed up to the team that spouted nonsense. A man cannot become a woman by wishful thinking, however glossy the brochures churned out by the likes of Stonewall. But now the tide appears to have turned – certainly in England – and team terf is in the ascendency. The cynical view might be that Keegan has changed her allegiance to be on the winning side.
She is not alone. On the other side of the Commons, Wes Streeting has performed a similar U-turn, now admitting that he had been wrong to say, ‘trans women are women, get over it!’ Perhaps the next fully-signed-up convert to team terf will be Penny Mordaunt, whose words from the despatch box, that ‘trans men are men [and] trans women are women’ have not been forgotten.
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