No place for women

How does he know any of that?

https://twitter.com/K_F_P/status/1644033751817547787

But as you will all know there are a small number of people who do not identify with the gender that they were born into, and it can be incredibly stressful. And there are young people who are going through real anguish actually in relation to this, and I’m not gunna join those that just want to [arm shoots out] add to the abuse of that small group of people.

How does he know any of what he says? Ignoring the insult at the end for the moment, how does he know there are “people who do not identify with the gender that they were born into”? How does he even know what it means? How does he know it can be incredibly stressful? How does he know there are people going through real anguish about this? How does he know any of it?

The same way we know anything, you could say. How do we know Trump was president? How do we know Clarence Thomas accepts expensive presents and doesn’t report them? How do we know Trump was indicted on Tuesday?

But it isn’t the same way. There are important differences. None of those bits of knowledge are magical or inherently incredible. They don’t require unquestioning belief in other people’s claims about a magical inner identity that nullifies a humdrum external physical reality. They don’t take the form “Ignore what you see in front of you, accept that I am the opposite of what I appear to be, and that I go through real anguish because of it, while people like you are bovinely contented with the gender you were born into.” Starmer is talking about a bizarre belief about a hidden magical self as matter-of-factly as if he were talking about trade or inflation or the NHS. He’s talking about that bizarre belief and he’s treating it as far more important and more deserving of attention and solidarity than boring old women’s complaints about rape and misogynistic cops and not being listened to.

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