 Sexual organs and who has them is now an obsession of much of our political class. That means it's perhaps no surprise that the top news line which came out of Keir Starmer's set-piece Marr interview on Sunday concerned, Geniteia. The discussion was in reference to Labour MP Rosie Duffield who has been accused of transphobia including the tweeting that only women can have a cervix. Does someone who thinks only women have a cervix is welcome in the Labour Party? Andrew, we need to have a mature, respectful debate about trans rights and we need to, I think, bear in mind that the trans community are amongst, you know, the most marginalised and abused communities and wherever we've got to on the law we need to go further and we want to go further on that but whatever the debate is it needs to be a tolerant debate and I am absolutely sure that our conference will be a place which is safe for that debate to take place and it is. Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix? Well it is something that shouldn't be said, it is not right but Andrew, I don't think that- So Rosie Duffield should not have said that, can you explain to people watching why she should not have said that? Well Andrew, I don't think that we can just go through various things that people have said. Rosie Duffield, I spoke to Rosie earlier this week and told her that Conference was a safe place for her to come and it is a safe place for her to come and I spoke to others to make exactly the same principle. We do everybody a disservice when we reduce what is a really important issue to these exchanges on particular things that are said. The trans community are, as I say, the most marginalised and abused of many, many communities and we need to make progress on the gender recognition aspect. You could say that exchanges is how humans communicate and resolve these things. Yeah but Andrew, this debate is, I am very concerned that this debate needs to be conducted in a proper way in which proper views are expressed in a way that is respectful. In terms of the concrete positions that Starmer took in that interview, it was a tough interview and I don't think he said anything particularly objectionable. I think actually I'd probably support most of what he said there. What did seem like a missed opportunity was that he completely failed to explain why it's offensive to tweet that only women have services. He was given that opportunity. Can you explain why? And he swerved the question. And why I think that's a missed opportunity is because it's quite easy to explain. Lots of people watching that will be completely confused. What is the issue here? What are people debating? If he just says there are some trans men, people who live as men and are legally recognized as men who also have services. That's why it's offensive to some people to say that only women have services and that's why to constantly tweet that kind of thing is antagonistic. I think he could explain that quite simply and instead he just doesn't have the vocabulary to do it. He would have done well to just explain that as opposed to just looking awkward and shifty. But awkward and shifty is better than outright sinister. This was Sajid Javid's response to the interview. He tweeted total denial of scientific fact and he wants to run the NHS. Sajid Javid is the health secretary and he is saying that anyone who has a problem with saying only women have services is denying scientific fact. He is quite simply and unavoidably denying that trans men exist. He's also suggesting that Keir Starmer's correct position would undermine his ability to run the NHS. But it is in fact Javid who is going against NHS policy. This is from the NHS website. Should trans men have cervical screening tests? Trans men who have had a total hysterectomy to remove their cervix do not need cervical screening. Trans men who still have a cervix should have cervical screening to help prevent cervical cancer. Now I'm not using this as evidence that trans men can have cervix because we don't need the NHS website to tell us that. Why that is relevant is because Sajid Javid is trying to make out what Keir Starmer has said is extreme when in fact it's NHS policy. It's what's on the NHS website. It's the most normal thing in the world. Keir Starmer there is not trying to change policy. He's not trying to change how people speak the language we use. He is just stating what is already the accepted position of experts and indeed our NHS. Ash, I want your take. We know Tories see trans rights as a culture war issue but hearing that from that they can exploit essentially but hearing that from the health secretary is particularly disturbing I think. It is really chilling to see a health secretary exploiting a cultural moment like this particularly because we know that referrals for transgender people on the NHS to have gender confirmation surgery have ground to a halt. There has been real problems as well in terms of speeding up the numbers of transgender people who are able to obtain their gender recognition certificate and there are more and more trans people who are forced to go for private healthcare because quite simply they can't rely on the NHS to provide them with the healthcare that they very urgently need. So it's not simply about Sajid Javid being on the wrong side of a culture war. This I think goes right to the heart of what his job is. Can he be trusted to make sure that the NHS is delivering for transgender people as it has a legal obligation to do? I don't think that we can necessarily say that we can trust him to do that at all. I just want to add something to this and it's about the reason why all this stuff about cervixes is so often mobilized by people who describe themselves as gender critical really they're just people who are skeptical and hostile towards the idea of transgender people being able to live in safety and dignity. The reason why we so often see the debate fashioned on these terms is because it is designed to try and make us as cisgender people as people who identify with the gender that we were assigned at birth feel that transgender people their ability to live as who they are to have the support in order to do so that is somehow an attack on how we relate to ourselves. So obviously my experience as a woman is a combination of my social experiences and also how society relates to my body and certain biological processes but there is a huge amount of diversity within the experiences of women and that's before we even get into you know people who are transgender people who transition into and out of womanhood and it's also on the basis of race it's also on the basis of disability it's also on the basis of sexuality you know women's bodies and how society responds to them you know it's not all in one single way. So the minute you start thinking about how expansive that category of woman is well of course there's space for transgender women and of course conversely there's space for transgender men to exist in the category of man you know whether or not they've had a total hysterectomy whether or not they have a cervix now that's not that scary when you put it that way because fundamentally nothing is being taken away from me as a cisgender person all that's happening is that health care services are better able to reach out and speak to a marginalized community who very often aren't getting the care they need but all of that is obscured when we are in this conversation about you know who has a cervix only women have a cervix oh what about this what about that and fundamentally it's not about trans people at all it's an exploitation of cisgender anxieties and it needs to stop. As a counter to that I want to show a Labour politician a Labour frontbencher who I think today handled the question very well this is Emily Forbury. That was Keir Starmer Emily do you agree with Keir Starmer it's something that shouldn't be said it isn't right well it's factually inaccurate there are men who have cervixes there are men who are trans and they're men and so it's not I mean it's just factually wrong. It's not hard it should not be hard to say that but Emily Forbury they're incredibly effective Ash very quickly from you I've been starting to think that Emily Forbury would have been the better choice she has the same you know I didn't vote for Keir Starmer anyway but I voted for Rebecca Longbelli I would have done even if it was you know Emily Forbury was on the ballot but Emily Forbury same politics as Keir Starmer she was the one who could have been there you know I'm the sort of credible but I'll have some of the lefty policies person and she's not you don't want to fall asleep the moment she speaks. No I think that one of the reasons why Keir Starmer obscured her in that Labour leadership race was sexism pure and simple both lawyers both represent you know central London constituencies both very heavily remain they've really got same qualifications and speak to or did at one time the same kind of political tendency but the reason why I think Keir Starmer was seen as more credible candidate was sexism pure and simple it's just that he was a man so he was seen as more authoritative but you see when you compare and contrast that Keir Starmer's weaknesses are Emily Forbury's strengths she's direct she's to the point she's a skillful communicator so I think that she would have been the better leader.