When it comes to trans, Labour has learned nothing

UK culture secretary Lisa Nandy is coming under fire for wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘Protect the Dolls’ at Wigan Pride on Sunday.

If you keep up with trans-activist trends, the ‘Protect the Dolls’ slogan might sound familiar. Celebrities such as Pedro Pascal, Tilda Swinton, Alan Cumming and Madonna have all worn t-shirts bearing the phrase. According to the t-shirt’s creator, a New York-born fashion-school grad now living in London, ‘the dolls’ supposedly in need of protection are transwomen. In other words, blokes.

‘In queer communities, “doll” is a term of affection, pride and belonging – a coded word that speaks volumes without explanation’, claimed a piece in Forbes when the t-shirt first appeared at London Fashion Week earlier this year. Apparently, the term is ’emotional, not clinical, protective, not patronising’. It seems this Forbes writer is oblivious to the patronising implications of likening women to ‘dolls’ – not to mention the threat posed to actual women and girls if they open their spaces to any man who decides to shove chicken cutlets down his shirt that day.

It is not surprising that Nandy is keen to protect the dolls. Ever on the ‘right-thinking’ side of history, she has consistently denied biological reality. ‘I think transwomen are women… so I think they should be accommodated in a prison of their choosing’, she once said of a man jailed for five counts of child rape, who later claimed to be a woman. She has also been happy for men to compete in women’s sport, claiming last year that it should be up to each individual sporting body whether to allow male-bodied athletes to compete in the female category.

Nandy’s fashion statement is merely the latest proof that when it comes to trans ideology, Labour really hasn’t learned a thing. Last year, Jess Phillips, ironically the women’s safeguarding minister, said that she would be ‘happy to refer to transwomen as women’. Work and pensions minister Andrew Western responded to the UK Supreme Court ruling on gender by raising ‘the fear and distress’ that men might suffer if they are barred from using women’s loos.

The fish, of course, rots from the head – and what a confused head it is. Indeed, prime minister Keir Starmer has tended to change his mind on whether men can be women every year or so. With leadership like this, there is little hope of Labour escaping the ideological pickle in which it now finds itself.

If Labour’s leading figures expanded their horizons a little, they might realise just how unpopular their self-congratulating preoccupation with trans actually is. Besides, any t-shirt that costs £75 really is for the few, not the many.

Transwomen – traditionally known as men – are not in need of protection. Nandy’s willingness to sport an expensive t-shirt suggesting they are is performative activism at its most nauseating. It’s high time Labour woke up to the reality of biological sex and started taking women’s rights seriously.

Georgina Mumford is a spiked intern.