Following the recent UK Supreme Court ruling, Keir Starmer has reversed his stance on trans rights. The current prime minister of the UK, leader of the nominally liberal Labour Party, and former human rights attorney said in a recent interview that he no longer believes trans women are women.
On Tuesday, Starmer appeared on ITV West Country, per BBC News, to discuss the UK Supreme Court ruling last week. The PM said he was “really pleased” about the outcome, which wrote trans identities out of legal definition of sex.
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“I welcome the decision of the Supreme Court, which has given us much needed clarity, and I think for those now drawing up guidance, it’s a much clearer position,” he said. “I’m really pleased the court has clarified the position. We can move on from there and that’s very helpful. I welcome that.”
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When asked specifically about whether he considers trans women to be women, he answered, “I think the Supreme Court has answered that question. A woman is an adult female, the court has made that absolutely clear.”
In 2022, when the Labour party was out of power, Starmer said that “a woman is a female adult, and in addition to that transwomen are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law.”
The BBC followed up with Starmer’s official spokesperson to further clarify the PM’s views on trans equality. “No, the Supreme Court judgment has made clear that when looking at the Equality Act, a woman is a biological woman,” Starmer’s spokesperson said.
The spokesperson would not commit to answering whether the PM would continue to respect trans people’s pronouns but claimed the PM had “been clear that trans women should be treated with the same dignity and respect as anyone else.”
This contradictory reasoning of denying the identity of trans people while saying they should be treated with dignity closely mirrors the language of the Supreme Court decision. “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman and biological sex,” Judge Patrick Hodge said. At the same time, he claimed that the Equality Act would still protect trans people from “direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender.”
Just as Starmer used the law to back up his former “view,” he is “pleased” to reverse that view now that the law provides an excuse. His flip-flop on trans rights follows other prominent Labour leaders, like Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
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