The GutterView Transcripts

JANICE TURNER Is it safe for women to trust Labour again? Party’s self-destructive stance on gender has been shelved but there will be no apology for the damage done to many Janice Turner Friday July 28 2023, 9.00pm BST, The Times Share ‘Firstly,” said Sir Keir Starmer, “a woman is an adult female, so let’s clear that one up.” And in uttering this dictionary definition on LBC he revealed a monumental policy shift. For years women have been vilified, silenced, branded bigots, suffered internal party investigations and death threats for holding this very view. Now the Labour leader was not just declaring that the witch-hunts, most notably of JK Rowling, were over, but the witches were right all along. Why did this cautious, conflict-averse man finally get off the fence? Mainly to neutralise a rare Tory attack line, that Labour can’t define a woman. Starmer, who’d squirmed on TV muttering about cervixes and what percentage of women have penises, knew that until Labour had a coherent a...

As experienced professionals involved in direct care for the rapidly growing numbers of gender-diverse youth, the evaluation of medical evidence or both, we were surprised by the Endocrine Society’s claims about the state of evidence for gender-affirming care for youth (Letters, July 5). Stephen Hammes, president of the Endocrine Society, writes, “More than 2,000 studies published since 1975 form a clear picture: Gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse people and reduces the risk of suicide.” This claim is not supported by the best available evidence. Every systematic review of evidence to date, including one published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, has found the evidence for mental-health benefits of hormonal interventions for minors to be of low or very low certainty. By contrast, the risks are significant and include sterility, lifelong dependence on medication and the anguish of regret. For this reason, more and more Eur...