Sir Keir Starmer should be held “personally responsible” if trans women are assaulted after he said they should use men’s bathrooms, a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) has said.
The prime minister is either going to “put trans people in dangerous situations where they are vulnerable or force them out of society”, Jess Barnard told The Independent.
“Both of which are an appalling state for us to be in,” she added.
Ms Barnard’s warning comes a day after Sir Keir said he no longer believes trans women are women in the wake of last week’s landmark Supreme Court ruling.
The PM had previously said “trans women are women”, but when asked whether he still agreed with the statement on Tuesday, Sir Keir said a woman is an adult female, pointing to the ruling.
The PM’s official spokesman went further. Asked if the PM still believed that a transgender woman was a woman, he said: “No.” The prime minister’s spokesman went on to clarify that Sir Keir believes trans women should use male toilets, while trans men should use female bathrooms.
Speaking to The Independent, Ms Barnard, a left-wing member of Labour’s NEC and former chair of Youth Labour, said “any politician saying trans women have to use male toilets should be held responsible for anything that happens, particularly to trans women”.
She said: “We already know trans women face extreme levels of violence in society and are likely to be targeted with hate crime and abuse for being trans.
“So we should not be in a situation where the prime minister of the UK is telling trans women to use men’s bathrooms.
“We have a hysterical situation where you have a court ruling that talked about the legitimate protection of sex-based spaces, it didn’t say trans women can now only use men’s toilets… and now you have ministers telling trans women to put themselves in harm’s way.”
Sir Keir’s comments came after equalities minister Bridget Phillipson also said trans women should use men’s toilets, arguing “services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.
But Ms Barnard added that the PM and Ms Phillipson’s comments will not just affect trans people.
She said: “Any other woman who does not conform to societal standards of what femininity is, if you’ve got short hair or you are a butch lesbian, it opens the floodgates to a situation where we could have women being demanded to prove they have a vagina because they don’t fit this kind of narrow perception of what a woman should be.”
Ms Barnard warned: “If people hear the prime minister of the UK saying trans women need to put themselves in harm’s way, it will either put them in dangerous situations where they are targeted by men who want to harm them, or it is going to force trans people out of society.”
Former Supreme Court judge Jonathan Sumption has warned that the landmark ruling is being misinterpreted, arguing it did not create an obligation to provide single sex spaces.
He said: “That’s the main point, which I think has been misunderstood about this judgment. I think it’s quite important to note that you are allowed to exclude trans women from these facilities. But you are not obliged to do it.”
Meanwhile a transgender campaigner warned that single-sex spaces for women will become more dangerous, not safer, as a result of the ruling.
The judgment, which states that the definition of a woman in equality law is based on biological sex, means trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces and has been billed as a victory for biological women.
But, speaking to The Independent, campaigner Jaxon Feeley warned that the emphasis on biological sex opens up a whole host of other issues for single-sex spaces, including that trans men could now be forced to use women’s spaces.
Outlining the difficulties in enforcing the policy, Mr Feeley – who transitioned from female to male while serving as a prison officer – said: “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.”
Addressing the ruling in the Commons on Tuesday, Ms Phillipson said: “I know that many trans people will be worried in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, so I want to provide reassurance here and now that trans people will continue to be protected. We will deliver a full trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices. We will work to equalise all existing strands of hate crime, and we will review adult gender identity services, so that all trans people get the high-quality care they deserve.
“The laws to protect trans people from discrimination and harassment will remain in place, and trans people will still be protected on the basis of gender reassignment—a protected characteristic written into Labour’s Equality Act.”
