Let’s do a quick recap on the swill of anti-trans posturing that has stunk out the Conservative leadership contest. Yes, it will be depressing, but I’ve just had it with being sprayed with this poison and expected to brush it off and go about my business.
Kemi Badenoch launched her campaign at a venue with gender-neutral toilets, but by the time her team arrived, handmade paper signs saying “men” and “ladies” had been stuck on the doors – underlining the point that, with her in charge, no one would ever have to suffer the indignity of the unisex toilet again, so God help them if they ever got on a train. Penny Mordaunt referenced Thatcher’s “every prime minister needs a Willie” remark, giving it a new twist: “A woman like me doesn’t have one.” Her supporters found this clever, even while, back against a wall, could anyone explain what it means? Was she reassuring conservative members that she is not trans, which nobody thought she was? Or soothing them with memories of Margaret? It’s the kind of baffling half-message you might whisper to someone while they are asleep, just to mess with their dreams. Liz Truss wowed an audience of Leeds Tories by telling them “a woman is a woman”, while Rishi Sunak pledged in the Mail on Sunday that he would reverse the “recent trends to erase women via the use of clumsy, gender-neutral language”.
