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Every morning this week I have woken up with an overwhelming dread in the pit of my stomach.
As a mother and a doctor, I’m horrified at the prospect of what a Labour supermajority could do to women’s rights.
All of the hard-won progress on imposing some sort of sanity on the gender debate looks set to be thrown away under Labour, with victory handed to trans extremists who claim anyone with a penis, man or boy, can ‘become’ a woman simply by wishing it.
Sir Keir Starmer has floundered hopelessly in his attempts to define ‘what a woman is’. Last year, the Labour leader said ‘99.9 per cent of women’ do not have a penis, and in 2021 stated it was ‘not right’ to say that ‘only women have a cervix’.
Yet, last week, he said he agreed with Sir Tony Blair’s position on the issue, after the former Labour Prime Minister said ‘biologically, a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis’.
Practising GP Renée Hoenderkamp says she’s had to explain to her five-year-old daughter that that men and women have different bodies much sooner than she might have wished
Who knows what he really thinks. But his flip-flopping on the issue hardly gives one confidence. What is clear is that Labour under Starmer plans to make it easier to change gender. On Monday, the Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he intends to ‘simplify’ the process.
That means removing crucial safeguards that women’s rights campaigners have fought so hard for.
Under Labour plans, to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) — the mechanism that allows transgender people to have their new gender confirmed in law — applicants will no longer have to produce utility bills or other evidence to show they have been living under their acquired gender for at least two years, as is the case now.
And instead of requiring the backing of two doctors, trans people will require only the say-so of a single doctor willing to provide a diagnosis of ‘gender dysphoria’.
It’s clear to me that this is self-identification, which Starmer has previously supported, in all but name. Of course, gender dysphoria — a deep sense of unease about the sex one has been born in — is a genuine condition for a tiny proportion of the population. But this change of emphasis will mean every confused child and troubled adult will find it so much easier to choose their gender.
Worse still, Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is suggesting that Labour will ditch Conservative draft guidance which says the concept of gender identity should not be taught in schools.
But that’s not all. Labour also announced yesterday that the Party plans to introduce a full ban on ‘conversion therapy’ if it wins the election, which means that parents and therapists who question or challenge children on gender-identity matters run the risk of prosecution.
In other words, those who advise their son or daughter against changing gender could face allegations of child abuse. It’s quite simply terrifying.
What is so bewildering is that Labour’s obsession with trans dogma comes at a time when the country is moving away from it. It is not just the medical fraternity which, as a doctor, I am delighted to say has seen sense with the closure of the notorious Tavistock gender identity clinic after it was rated ‘inadequate’ by inspectors.
But voters, too, are increasingly concerned about trans policy: the 2024 British Social Attitudes survey reveals that, compared to 2019, twice as many Britons say those who claim to be the opposite sex should not be allowed to change their gender on their birth certificate. There has also been a 14 percentage point rise since 2021 in those who say trans rights have ‘gone too far’.
So why can’t Labour take note of what the voting public wants? It amazes me that so many intelligent women in the Party can support a policy which so clearly erodes women’s rights by making it easier for biological men to access women’s spaces: sports competitions, changing rooms — and even safe houses. Although Starmer appears to have changed his mind, Labour’s senior women seem incapable of answering the question: ‘What is a woman?’
Anneliese Dodds, Shadow Secretary for Women and Equalities, thinks it ‘depends’, while MP Stella Creasy thinks some women are born with penises, as does Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry.
Last year, MP Kate Osborne tweeted: ‘Yes, some women have a penis.’ Her fellow MP Lisa Nandy has previously argued that male child sex offenders posing as women should be allowed in women’s prisons.
As the mother of a five-year-old daughter, I find the prospect of Labour being in control of trans policy so troubling that my partner and I have even discussed emigrating. Australia is one possibility, Costa Rica another: both countries have excellent school facilities.
If my family stays in Britain, I may be compelled to take our daughter out of school and educate her at home.
Every child must understand the basic biological reality that there are two genders.
Those individuals who really do suffer from gender dysphoria must get all the support available to them. But the trivialisation of this condition, by activists who argue you can hop from one gender to another, is very dangerous.
Much sooner than I might have wished, I’ve had to explain to my daughter that men and women have different bodies. And I’ve also had to warn her that she might hear different things from teachers or friends, including the idea that a boy can become a girl; a girl can become a boy; and that there are more than 100 genders.
These ideas have been allowed to spread because so many teachers are afraid to address the topic, for fear of being dragged into a row that could end their careers.
Many schools have also outsourced their education on these issues to activist LGBT groups such as Mermaids and Stonewall, which push the trans agenda. The result has been wholesale indoctrination in many schools and universities.
The danger of this ideology cannot be understated. It puts schoolgirls at risk of sexual assault, particularly in spaces that ought to be the safest — school changing rooms and bathrooms.
‘The Party’s attitude is partly a hangover from its trenchant support for the campaign for gay rights, which was rightfully successful in sweeping away bigotry,’ writes Dr Hoenderkamp
Indeed, this week, Women and Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said that these proposals would ‘unravel’ protections for women and girls. ‘This change creates more loopholes for predators and bad-faith actors to infiltrate women-only spaces,’ she added.
Labour’s approach is all the more astonishing because it flies in the face of expert evidence such as Dr Hilary Cass’s landmark review of gender identity services earlier this year, which recommended a ‘holistic approach’ to treating young people questioning their gender, focused on mental health rather than physical and medical interventions.
The Party’s attitude is partly a hangover from its trenchant support for the campaign for gay rights, which was rightfully successful in sweeping away bigotry. Trans activism has been packaged as the continuation of that battle. It was wholeheartedly adopted by Stonewall, which was set up to fight for gay equality.
But the awful irony is that transgender propaganda can be deeply homophobic. Many activists want to persuade gay men and lesbians that they are really heterosexuals ‘trapped in the wrong body’.
I’m well aware of teenagers who are clearly gay but have become convinced of this as they are dragged down the trans route by social media algorithms and persuaded they need irreversible surgery. It’s heartbreaking.
We have no idea how many lives are being destroyed by this pernicious ideology — and I’m sure we haven’t seen half of its awful impact on young people yet.
The general public has woken up to the scale of the problem. It is high time Labour did, too.
- Dr Renée Hoenderkamp is a practising GP
