Labour Left confronts Streeting over backing for Cass report
LABOUR is embroiled in another trans row after Wes Streeting welcomed the Cass review into NHS gender services and pledged to implement it in full.
The shadow health secretary said the report raised “some serious concerns that are pretty scandalous”.
But Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP placed under investigation by the party last year for campaigning against gender ideology, pointed out that women who had exposed the scandal had been “blanked, sidelined and dismissed” by male leaders simply for speaking up.
Julie Bindel, the feminist, demanded an apology from Mr Streeting for failing to support her gender-critical views when he was president at the National Union of Students.
Mr Streeting’s comments angered the Labour Left with Momentum, the Cor- bynite group, tweeting: “The Cass Review ignored dozens of scientific studies, coming to a harmful conclusion of limiting access to gender-affirming care for trans youth.
“Anti-trans campaigners have celebrated it. So it’s highly disappointing that Labour’s leadership is welcoming it unreservedly.”
Labour has long been divided on the trans issue, and has been accused of flip-flopping on its stance.
The party no longer plans to bring in self-id for transgender people, and Sir Keir Starmer has rowed back from saying “trans women are women”, to state a woman is an “adult female” and that 99.9 per cent “haven’t got a penis”.
Earlier this year the party dropped a year-long investigation into a complaint that Ms Duffield had been transphobic for liking a tweet by Graham Linehan, the Father Ted creator, who is now a gender-critical campaigner.
However, despite the changes, critics of the Labour leadership say gender-critical women in the party continue to be sidelined or not selected.
The Cass review, published yesterday, said much of the evidence for gender medicine was flimsy and that puberty blockers should be used with caution as children who think they are trans may have mental health issues.
Dr Hilary Cass, the paediatrician behind the report, said some NHS gender clinics refused to comment with requests for information.
Speaking on The Sun’s Never Mind the Ballots programme, Mr Streeting said the report raised some “some serious concerns that are pretty scandalous”.
He said: “I think we’ve got to ask ourselves why is it that we’ve seen medical interventions that have been given on the basis of very weak evidence?
“The government must now immediately act, but if they do not, the next Labour government will work to implement the expert recommendations of the Cass review.”
This prompted Ms Duffield to retweet the statement, with the message: “To the many women blanked, sidelined, dismissed by male leaders when speaking up and exposing this for years.”
And Ms Bindel wrote: “In 2008, when you were NUS president, I was no-platformed alongside five fascist groups for ‘transphobia’. “I contacted you and asked for your help. You gave none.”
In reply to Ms Bindel, Mr Streeting wrote: “From memory 16 years on… you weren’t on NUS’ no platform policy and as this was in relation to a motion passed by the autonomous women’s campaign I was not empowered to overturn it (not least as a male president!).”