JK Rowling attacks Starmer’s trans claims
Author says Labour cannot be counted on to defend women’s rights after leader’s claims about law
JK ROWLING has accused Sir Keir Starmer of “misrepresenting equalities law” in statements he made on the transgender debate.
The Harry Potter author, who has raised concerns about the impact of gender self-indication on female safety, has now claimed that the Labour party “cannot be counted on to defend women’s rights” amid the ongoing debate over transgender issues.
Rowling accused former lawyer Sir Keir of misrepresenting legislation after the Labour leader weighed into the transgender debate with claims that “trans women are women”.
Senior party members including Yvette Cooper have been asked on radio programmes to provide a definition of “woman”, with Ms Cooper herself refusing to go down that “rabbit hole”.
Sir Keir offered has offered his definition as “female adult”, but he qualified this by stating: “Trans women are women, and that is not just my view that is actually the law.”
Rowling – who has been branded a “transphobe” by her critics – criticised Sir Keir’s answer, writing on Twitter that he “publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights”.
In comments defending Lisa Townsend, the Surrey police and crime commissioner, after she faced complaints for criticising gender self-identification, Rowling wrote: “I don’t think our politicians have the slightest idea how much anger is building among women from all walks of life at the attempts to threaten and intimidate them out of speaking publicly about their own rights, their own bodies and their own lives.”
Sir Keir said his claims on the definition of “woman” were based on the “combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act”, but campaigners have argued in the past that these laws do not support the claim that “trans women are women”. It has been argued that the Gender Recognition Act does not allow transgender people to self-identify as women, but offers those with gender dysphoria the opportunity to gain legal recognition as the gender they prefer.
The 2010 Act, it has been argued, simply guards those undergoing any form of gender reassignment from discrimination. But it has also been argued that this does not mean such people are legally treated as “women” when it comes to single-sex services, and that the current legal position is they can be barred from women-only services on the grounds of their biological sex.
Rowling has received both criticism and praise for her views as she has become an increasingly prominent contributor to the debate over trans issues.
She first became linked to this debate in 2020 when she commented on the use of “people who menstruate” in place of “woman” in online health information. She then posted on Twitter: “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.” Her comments provoked a backlash from campaigners who branded her a “transphobe”.