Why the Starmer government worries me as a trans woman

The Tories are out of government for the first time in 14 years in the UK. For a lot of people, this is cause for celebration, there’s a sense that even if a Labour government won’t fix all of our problems, they might at least do less harm than the Tories or even be an easier opponent to fight from the left. Against that background, it might seem a little churlish that a lot of people on the left aren’t too excited, a lot of people are happy and we’re raining on their parade by being negative about little things like Labour’s last minute panicked promises that they’d be transphobic enough to please hasbeen 90s celebrities who’ve made hating trans people their whole personality. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve never been optimistic about the prospect of Keir Starmer in government, but here I’d like to elaborate on why.

Labour’s election manifesto was, in my view, something of a mixed bag for trans people. Amidst some equivocal promises on things like GRA reform (they’ll make it a little better, but not in a way that matters), hate crime legislation (they’ll make transphobic hate crime an aggravated offence, something that won’t make us any safer) and the Cass Review (they’ll implement its harmful and cis supremacist recommendations) is the following on single sex spaces:

Labour is proud of our Equality Act and the…