Starmer refuses to apologise to Rosie Duffield over transphobia row | EUROtoday

Sir Keir Starmer has refused to apologise to MP Rosie Duffield over historic disagreements on trans points, as an alternative accusing Kemi Badenoch of utilizing the subject as a “political football”.

Ms Duffield, who now sits as an unbiased after quitting the Labour Party, has been accused of transphobia for her push to guard single-sex areas and has beforehand claimed the prime minister has “a problem with women”.

At Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), the Tory chief and the prime minister took swipes at one another over final week’s Supreme Court judgement on organic intercourse, with Mrs Badenoch accusing Sir Keir of “hounding [Ms Duffield] out of the Labour Party”.

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The judgment, which states that the definition of a lady in equality legislation relies on organic intercourse, means trans ladies with a gender recognition certificates (GRC) may be excluded from single-sex areas.

Asked by the Tory chief whether or not he would apologise to the MP for Canterbury, Sir Keir stated: “I always approach this on the basis that we should treat everyone with dignity and respect, whatever their different views, and I will continue to do so”.

He added: “When we lose sight of that approach and make it a political football, as happened in the past, we end up with the spectacle of a decent man – and he was a decent man – the previous prime minister diminishing himself at this dispatch box by making trans jokes whilst the mother of murdered trans teenager watched from the public gallery just up there.

“That will never be my approach. My approach will be to support the ruling to protect single-sex spaces and treat everybody with dignity and respect, and I believe there’s a consensus in this house and the country for that approach.”

Rishi Sunak confronted criticism final yr for making a joke about Sir Keir’s place on trans points at PMQs whereas the mom of murdered trans teenager Brianna Ghey was watching from the House of Commons gallery.

Mrs Badenoch has launched a sequence of political assaults on the prime minister within the days for the reason that ruling, accusing Sir Keir of “hiding behind” the judgement.

Wednesday’s heated PMQs forwards and backwards got here a day after Sir Keir stated he now not believes trans ladies are ladies within the wake of the ruling.

The prime minister has since stated the federal government’s strategy is to “protect single sex spaces based on biological sex” and “ensure that trans people are treated with respect and… dignity in their everyday lives”.

“I do think this is the time now to lower the temperature, to move forward and to conduct this debate with the care and compassion that it deserves”, he added.

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However, Sir Keir has been accused of placing trans folks in danger after his spokesperson confirmed the PM believes trans ladies ought to use male bathrooms, whereas trans males ought to use feminine loos.

Jess Barnard, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) informed The Independent on Wednesday that Sir Keir ought to be held “personally responsible” if trans ladies are assaulted in male loos.

The prime minister is both going to “put trans people in dangerous situations where they are vulnerable or force them out of society”, she warned. “Both of which are an appalling state for us to be in.”

And final week, transgender campaigner Jaxon Feeley warned that single-sex areas for ladies will develop into extra harmful, not safer, after the Supreme Court ruling.

The campaigner, who transitioned from feminine to male whereas serving as a jail officer within the UK, stated: “If I walk into a [women’s] toilet now and say: ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth’, people are not going to be happy about that. I feel like people are going to be quite intimidated by that.

“It not only obviously puts [biological women] in a difficult situation, but it also allows any [cisgender] man to walk into any so-called official single-sex space now and say, ‘Well, I was assigned female at birth.’ How are you policing that? You can’t police that.”