Following today’s explosive Supreme Court ruling that the definition of ‘women’ relates to biological sex, Kemi Badenoch went on the attack against Labour’s past madness. In a jubilant comment on the news, the Tory leader declared that “the era of Keir Starmer telling us women can have penises has come to an end.”

She added: “Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never true in fact, and now isn’t true in law either. This is a victory for all of the women who faced personal abuse or lost their jobs for stating the obvious. Women are women and men are men: you cannot change your biological sex.” For the past five years or more, the Labour Party has tied itself in knots over whether a woman can have a penis, whether trans women are women, and whether trans women should be able to use women’s spaces such as toilets, rape centres or prisons.

The party spent years arguing the radical trans case, and opposing biological reality. In the light of today’s defining Supreme Court ruling, we take a look back at the previous positions of today’s top politicians.

Keir Starmer

The Labour leader got into hot water in 2023 when saying some women have got penises. He previously supported so-called ‘self ID’, which would allow men to immediately access women-only spaces without the need for a legal gender certificate. He argued that 99.9% of women “of course haven’t got a penis”, implying some do.

He also said: “Trans women are women, and that is not just my view – that is actually the law”.

Rachel Reeves

When asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari whether it is wrong to say that “only women have a cervix”, the then-Shadow Chancellor failed to provide an answer, pivoting to accusing the entire debate around women’s rights of being “unproductive”.

She added: “The vast majority of women share biological attributes”, again implying that some women can have penises

Angela Rayner

Angela Rayner said it is “not acceptable” for a trans women to be asked whether they have a penis or not.

The deputy Labour leader argued that the whole debate about whether women can have a penis causes “real damage” to trans people and is “debasing” the debate.

In 2024 Ms Rayner stood by her endorsement of a charter which described anti-trans women’s groups as “hate groups”.

Pat McFadden

When asked in 2024 whether trans women can use a woman’s bathroom, Mr McFadden reacted exasperatedly to Nick Ferrari, hitting back: “You’ve enjoyed asking this question I think in recent days, Nick”

He merely said: “Let’s act with a bit of kindness to people uh rather than using them as some kind of gotcha question in an interview.“

David Lammy

When asked whether it’s transphobic to say only women can have a cervix, the shadow foreign secretary replied: “I don’t know if it’s transphobic, but it it’s not, accurate, Nick. I mean, obviously, it’s probably the case that only, that trans women don’t have ovaries. But a cervix, I understand, is something that you can have, following various procedures and hormone treatment and all the rest of it.”

It was pointed out that no man can grow a cervix.

When debating trans rights at Labour conference in 2021, Mr Lammy accused opponents of being “dinosaurs”.

Yvette Cooper

In 2022 the shadow home secretary refused to define what a woman is, saying she would not be dragged “down rabbit holes”.

She refused three times to define what a woman was in the same Times Radio interview

John Healey

In June last year shadow defence secretary John Healey refused to back the Tories’ election pledge to protect single-sex spaces by changing the Equality Act.

Mr Healey insisted that the legislation already exists to provide necessary safeguards for biological women – something today’s Supreme Court ruling proved incorrect.

He described the Tories’ policy as a “distraction” and something that was “not needed”.

Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting admitted last year that he was wrong to parrot Stonewall’s claim that “trans women are women, get over it.”

He told The Sun: “I say this with some self-criticism and reflection – if you’d asked me a few years ago, on this topic, I would have said trans men are men, trans women are women. Some people are trans, get over it. Let’s move on. This is all blown out of proportion.

“And now I sort of sit and reflect and think actually, there are lots of complexities.”

“I take the criticism on the chin. And at the same time, I also think that there’s been some absolutely ugly rhetoric directed towards trans people who are at the wrong end of all of statistics on hate crime, on self harm, suicide, mental health

Bridget Phillipson

In 2024 the then-shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that trans women with penises would be able to use women-only bathrooms under Labour’s plan to make gender changing easier.

Lisa Nandy

The culture secretary entered a war of words with JK Rowling after she said it is shameful to reduce the transgender debate to one of body parts.

The author accused Ms Nandy of arguing in favour of putting male rapists in women’s prisons if they self-identify as women.

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Ms Nandy said: “When we look at the way we reduce the debate to things like bodily parts, I think when we look back in history we will be utterly ashamed of ourselves.”

Ian Murray

The Scottish secretary said that trans-exclusionary feminists, such as those who brought today’s supreme court ruling, should be expelled from the Labour Party.

Speaking to Diva Magazine in 2020, Mr Murray said that the arguments from those opposing trans people in women-only spaces “make me very uncomfortable… We have to make sure that anybody who’s having any sort of hate or discriminatory views is stopped from being in the party”

He said there is “no place” for their views in the Labour Party.