TWIBS: Labour Landslide Leaves Trans Folks Losing
Keir Starmer and Labour have won in the UK’s first general election since 2020, hooray! The good guys are in power again! Oh wait… I’m being told Keir Starmer and Labour may not be the good guys, and don’t actually care about trans people at all!
Humor, by Alyssa Steinsiek
Pip pip cheerio guv! Init! Yesterday was election day in the UK, and Keir Starmer won in a landslide! [CHANGE THIS IF KEIR STARMER DID NOT WIN IN A LANDSLIDE] Starmer has served as the leader of the Labour Party, the UK’s sorta kinda left-wing party, since 2020. He and his colleagues stand in sorta kinda opposition to the Conservative Party, commonly known as the Tories, who are sort of the UK’s Republicans, if you’re an American reader. Like in America, boiling these people and parties down to left and right, or good and bad, leaves a lot of complex context off the table.
Context that will be important for transgender Britons in the weeks, months and years to come.
If you’re even a quasi-semi-occasional Assigned reader, you should know that the UK—colloquially known as TERF Island for years now—is in dire straits where trans people’s health and livelihood is concerned. Between the unbearable tragedy that is the murder of Brianna Ghey (hardly the only instance of violence against trans people in the UK of late) and the politically motivated, highly biased Cass Report, whose author won’t stop saying stupid shit, it’s fair to say that nobody with any authority in the UK is at all concerned for its transgender citizens.
And though the UK has not had a good prime minister in living memory, it’s important to note that for our overseas community, Keir Starmer may just be the most dangerous yet.
On Monday, not quite prime minister yet Keir Starmer unequivocally stated that transgender women with a Gender Recognition Certificate (so-called self-identification) should not be allowed in “women-only spaces.” During an interview with The Times, Starmer was presented with a question posed by vile partial Holocaust denier and no good talentless hack writer JK Rowling about whether or not “biological males” should be allowed to enter “women-only spaces,” to which Starmer replied: “No. They don’t have that right. They shouldn’t. That’s why I’ve always said biological women’s spaces need to be protected.”
Okay! Pump the brakes a sec Keir, because you haven’t always said fucking anything, actually. Keir Starmer’s whole identity is, well, not having an identity. He is the UK’s waffliest politico, and his victory over Rishi Sunak and the Tories speaks more to their waning relevance than to Starmer’s popularity.
Never mind that Starmer’s latest change of heart directly undermines Labour’s expressed desire to reform the GRC process, which they describe as “degrading and torturous.” Currently receiving a GRC requires two years’ evidence of what is often described as “real life experience,” the exact definition of which is extremely unclear, and approval by a whole panel of doctors. A medical diagnosis would still be required, should Labour follow through on their plans to simplify the process, but that diagnosis could be received from a single physician as opposed to a whole team of dickheads.
The process is uncannily similar to the hoops trans folks had to jump through in America in the past, presenting themselves in one very specific way to win the approval of transphobic medical professionals if they wanted the medicine that would improve their lives. The proliferation of informed consent clinics in the US has made access to transitional medicine simpler and broader, but in the UK, NHS clinics that provide gender-affirming care for youth don’t really even exist anymore, and braindead evil demon woman Hilary Cass has ensured that trans kids can’t get the medicine they need even if they could access a clinic. For adults, care through the NHS is “available,” except the waiting times are currently counted in decades.
Starmer insists that he and his people intend to move the UK in the right direction.
“If we get the opportunity, we will govern as we have changed Labour, which is to take the country from the pretty poor place that it’s in at the moment and to seriously change it,” he said in his interview with The Times. But who, exactly, are Starmer and Labour trying to help? Mixed signals from Labour and a new prime minister whose stance seems to be based on who he spoke to last don’t inspire confidence.
We may be separated by an ocean, but it kills me to see the overseas trans community suffer at the whims of these buffoons whose only concern is ensuring they have the right optics to win the next election. I hope, for the sake of every trans person in the UK, that Starmer and Labour get their shit together and move in the right direction for our community.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer who spends too much time playing video games!
