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But in reality, there is nothing even remotely progressive about its campaign for revolutionary social change. On the contrary. Too many of its activists resort to intimidation, aggression, and bigotry as they trumpet their demands for the advancement of trans rights.
That kind of ugly bullying has been on full display in the wake of the explosive political controversy sparked by the Scottish Parliament’s decision to pass its far-reaching Gender Recognition Act, which would make it much easier for residents north of the Border to change their gender identities.
Professing concern at the lack of safeguards against abuses and the potential impact on women’s rights across the rest of the United Kingdom, the Tory Government in London has blocked this legislation, the first time this has happened since devolution.
Inevitably, the move has provoked fury both from the Scottish Nationalists and from trans zealots. During a Commons debate last week, the independently-minded Labour MP Rosie Duffield, who represents Canterbury, was loudly jeered by her own side for daring to express her support for the Government.
Even worse was the snarling conduct of Left-wing Brighton MP Lloyd Russell Moyle. He not only jabbed his finger at one female Conservative while accusing her of “disgusting” transphobia but also moved his seat so he could glare at her more closely and menacingly. Outside Parliament, the trans radicals fomented their usual climate of misogyny.
At one rally, banners could be seen calling for feminists to be “decapitated”. At another, hard-Left MPs stood alongside notorious trans campaigner Sarah Jane Baker, who spent 30 years in prison for torture, kidnapping and attempted murder.
Indeed the trans cause is now laced with violence, as reflected in death threats against bestselling author J.K. Rowling or the systematic campaign against philosophy professor Kathleen Stock that drove her out of her post at Sussex University.
Hatred towards women is accompanied by contempt for science and the innocence of childhood. Senior Labour MP Dawn Butler recently said babies are “born without sex”. Only last week, the frontbencher Lisa Nandy argued that children as young as 13 should be “taken seriously” if they want to change their gender.
Claims like hers show how deeply the madness of the trans ideology has penetrated the Left, making a mockery of the protection of the vulnerable.
It is richly ironic that the primary weapon the Tories have deployed against the SNP’s legislation is Labour’s own 2010 Equality Act.
This established the legal principle of single-sex spaces and associations to uphold the rights of women, which are now under grave threat from the SNP’s juggernaut of trans dogma.
The Scottish controversy has reduced Sir Keir Starmer and the Labour front bench to a shambles.
Just when they want to exude the authority of a government-in-waiting, they have slid into incoherence.
It is all too reminiscent of the scenes last year when several senior MPs – among them the Shadow Equalities Minister Annaliese Dodds – were unwilling in public to answer the simple question, “What is a woman?”
This prompted J.K. Rowling to tweet ruefully that someone should get Dodds “a dictionary and a backbone”.
Once again, Labour are being pulled in opposite directions. On the one hand, they know that trans extremism is unpopular with voters, particularly in their traditional working-class heartlands.
On the other hand, the transgender doctrine is a key facet of Labour’s obsession with identity politics.
As the widespread hostility towards Rosie Duffield shows, much of the party deludedly views gender reform as part of the struggle against oppression.
It should be remembered that the SNP would never have been able to pass its Act without the support of Labour MSPs.
There should be no surprise that Labour has a “woman problem”. That has always been the case, stretching back to chauvinist union domination in the 1970s.
Tellingly, the party has never had a female leader, the Tories have had three. Labour councils in the North and Midlands covered up the abuse of girls by Asian gangs in order not to tarnish the Left’s creed of cultural diversity.
Labour’s refusal to stand up for women’s and children’s rights against the ideologues will do it real damage – and lets down the rest of the country.
