Keir Starmer must take ‘measurable action’ after Rosie Duffield’s ‘exclusionary and unacceptable’ tweets, says LGBT+ Labour
Keir Starmer must take “measurable action” after “exclusionary and unacceptable” tweets by Rosie Duffield MP, say Labour’s official LGBT+ group.
Duffield, 49, has attracted widespread criticism from the LGBT+ community over the past 11 days for her comments about transgender people.
In a statement released last night, LGBT+ Labour said it had repeatedly reached out to Duffield and her team “to attempt to initiate steps towards an apology and reparations”.
“Since we have approached Rosie Duffield, she has continued to like and share tweets from people known by the trans community as hostile to their rights.
“Unfortunately we have not reached a conclusion that our committee sees as an adequate response for her repeated actions.”
LGBT+ Labour concluded: “We are deeply disappointed.”
It is with great sadness that we have decided to put out this Statement on Rosie Duffield.
Solidarity, always, with our trans members, and the trans community. pic.twitter.com/pDZ8DuKl3m
— LGBT+ Labour (@LGBTLabour) August 10, 2020
Keir Starmer must take ‘measurable action’, say LGBT+ Labour.
LGBT+ Labour added that “in order to regain trust” between Labour and the trans community, the leadership must “take measurable action on this situation”.
During the leadership race earlier this year, Keir Starmer signed LGBT+ Labour’s list of pledges, which include a commitment to introducing a “fully independent complaints process” for instances of transphobia within the Labour party.
He has yet to make a public comment about Duffield, although several other Labour MPs have publicly defended her including Jess Phillips, Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves.
Labour’s shadow minister for women and equalities, Marsha de Cordova, also liked a tweet from the Archbishop of Canterbury backing Rosie Duffield.
Other Labour politicians, including Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana, have publicly stated their support for the trans community without referencing Duffield.
Trans women are women, trans men are men, and trans rights are human rights.
The whole labour movement should be clear about this.
Solidarity with the trans community ?— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) August 6, 2020
Rosie Duffield called accusations of transphobia ‘a tedious Communist pile on’.
On 31 July, Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield liked a Piers Morgan tweet asking “Do you mean women?” in response to a CNN tweet about new American Cancer Society guidelines that state: “Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancers screening at 25 and continue through age 65, with HPV testing every five years.”
In response to people pointing out that trans men and some non-binary people have cervixes, too, Duffield later added: “I’m a ‘transphobe’ for knowing that only women have a cervix….?!”
She continued by saying that the allegations of transphobia being levelled against her were “just this week’s tedious ‘Communist’ pile on…”
After a period of silence, Duffield doubled down by sharing an article that included claims about the superiority of “biological reality” over “feelings”, and then insulted transgender campaigners in Labour, calling them “petulant youngsters“.
