The only person benefiting from this ‘debate’ is Boris Johnson, who is using the issue as a wedge to divide the opposition
It’s an extremely peculiar situation, if you come at it cold: neither the Labour leader, nor any of his shadow cabinet, can get through a broadcast interview without being asked who has a penis and who has a vagina. Why, at this moment of both national and international crisis, has the media decided that the most important question for a party that hasn’t been in government for 12 years, is a hypothetical one about genitals?
It’s not really about vaginas, it’s a quest for the “gotcha” moment, the inescapable trap of deliberately twisted logic which merits unpicking. The question stems from the debate around the 2018 government consultation on whether the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) should have been reformed.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
