The United Kingdom’s Labour Party won a landslide victory in Thursday’s general election, propelling party leader Keir Starmer to the office of Prime Minister and establishing a majority Labour government for the first time in 19 years. But despite general support for LGBTQ+ rights, Starmer’s recent comments about transgender issues raise serious questions about what might come next for trans people in the U.K.

In order to ensure Labour’s majority in elections to come, Starmer, a noted centrist, may push Labour further to the right — especially on trans issues, as evidenced by several statements in the lead-up to the election. Starmer’s Labour manifesto includes popular positions like passing a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban and reforms to the Gender Recognition Certificate process, a requirement for legal transition in the U.K. But when pressed on trans issues like equal access to public facilities, Starmer has taken a much more conservative tone. In late June, Starmer publicly broke with his party’s education spokesperson Bridget Phillipson, telling reporters he would not reverse a Conservative rule banning “gender ideology” from schools, including support for a minor’s social transition. “I’m not in favor of ideology being taught in our schools on gender,” Starmer said.

One week later, in an interview with the Sunday Times, Starmer responded to a question from author and anti-trans campaigner J.K. Rowling, who asked on social media whether he believed trans women with gender recognition certificates had the right to use women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and other gender-separated facilities. “No. They don’t have that right. They shouldn’t,” Starmer replied. “That’s why I’ve always said biological women’s spaces need to be protected.” Asked if he would meet with Rowling as Prime Minister, Starmer replied, “[h]opefully we can get that organized.”

Following the July 4 elections, Labour now hold 411 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons, one half of the U.K.’s bicameral parliament. But although the party now wields a sizeable majority on paper, Labour candidates became members of parliament (MPs) by thin margins, in part due to the lowest U.K. voter turnout since 2001 as well as widespread antipathy for the Conservatives and former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Thursday’s elections did not deliver a visible mandate from voters on the topic of trans rights. While the far right Reform UK Party won only four seats, party leader Nigel Farage has denounced what he calls “transgender indoctrination” of children, and vowed to “change politics forever” this week after Reform received a total of four million votes. Dr. Hilary Cass, lead author of the Cass Review, which has been heavily criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates, has been nominated for a cross-bench position (those granted cross-bench positions are independent members of parliament who are not elected but are nominated to the House of Lords for lifetime appointments) in the House of Lords. But anti-trans candidates for other seats weren’t so fortunate: Joanna Cherry, an MP who famously denounced a “shut the fuck up, TERF” meme as a misogynist death threat last year, lost her seat for the first time since being elected in 2015. Kelly-Jay Keen, a prominent anti-trans activist who goes by the pseudonym “Posie Parker,” only managed to scrounge up 196 votes for her campaign — not enough to recover her deposit to stand for election, as PinkNews noted.

Despite major setbacks for the Conservatives, who presided over a period of rapidly escalating transphobia across the U.K., LGBTQ+ voters have been reticent to embrace Starmer’s Labour government on its first day.

“Awkwardly explaining to cis friends that Labour said they want to ban me from hospital wards and toilets and require a doctor’s permission before I can marry the same way they can,” wrote trans actor and YouTuber Abigail Thorn on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday.