Over the weekend, JK Rowling published an article accusing Labour of “abandoning women” over its support for trans rights. Instead of taking the obvious lesson – that there is no point in trying to appease these people because nothing, short of the wholesale exclusion of trans people from public, will be enough – Keir Starmer seems to be trying his hardest to get them back on side.

During a visit to a school in Kettering morning, Starmer was asked if he would reverse a proposed ban on teaching young people about the concept of gender identity. He replied, “No, I’m not in favour of ideology being taught in our schools on gender. I think we need to complete the consultation process and make sure that there is guidance that is age-appropriate.”

Insisting that educational materials should be age-appropriate is not, in and of itself, controversial – no one is arguing we should force five-year-olds to read the complete works of Judith Butler. The problem is that “gender ideology” is an amorphous and essentially meaningless term, a far-right talking point which is used to oppose teaching young people about the existence of trans people in any way, shape or form.

It might sound like a trite, affirmative slogan to say that trans people exist, but it’s a fact which has important implications. Whatever happens at the level of government policy or what gets taught in schools, there will be people who transition, people who live at odds with the sex they were assigned at birth – just as there always have been. “Gender identity” becomes real the second it’s acted upon. As long as medical transition is even remotely possible, it’s a choice that some people will make, because they want to, no matter how difficult or inaccessible it becomes. Trans people are a (more or less) cohesive demographic, with civil society organisations, public representatives and political demands. These are not “contested facts” as the Tory government’s recent guidance – endorsed now by Starmer – claims, but undeniable and concrete realities.

The question is: what do we tell young children about this aspect of the society which they will one day enter? Do we teach them that the trans community, like any other group of people, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect? Do we tell them that it’s OK for them to grow up to be trans, that it’s OK if they already are? Or do we lie to them and tell them that transitioning is not an option (which it is)? It is of course “ideological” to tell young people that they have autonomy over their bodies, that they can choose to lead the life that they want. But the alternative is just as ideological, as well as being more limiting, dogmatic and cruel. What’s really at stake is how hellish we want to make life for people who will grow up to be trans regardless of what the government says or what they learned in Sex Ed. Plenty of people who went to school during the Section 28 era – when the “promotion of homosexuality” was against the law, and there was a strikingly similar moral panic about gay rights – still ended up being gay. Sorry, Mx Thatcher! 

In its new manifesto, Labour tried to have it both ways: pledging to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender on one hand and promising to uphold the Cass Review’s effective ban on gender-affirming care for young people on the other. At the level of rhetoric, Starmer has been moving steadily to the right on trans issues. Last week, for example, he agreed with Tony Blair that “a woman is with a vagina and a man is with a penis”, where he had previously allowed that only 99.9 per cent of women do. But on this issue, more than most, you can’t play both sides without pissing everyone off. There is no compromise position between people who think being trans is legitimate and those who disagree. Whatever he does when becomes Prime Minister, Keir Starmer bears responsibility for contributing to the poisonous, puerile stupidity of British politics.