I'm not completely convinced that Keir Starmer genuinely holds transphobic beliefs. His anger at Sunak's mocking of trans people when Brianna Ghey's mother was in the Commons gallery was not faked. He was literally shaking with rage, and not for his own sake, but for hers. I've been following PMQs for a couple of years now, don't think I've ever seen him get that angry before. So there's that.

My suspicion is he's saying what he thinks he needs to say in order to get elected, which... is a strategy. Not one that is particularly inspiring or admirable. One that comes with the very real risk of leading to LGBTQ and young voters staying home or voting Green or Lib Dem in protest. When I see reporting of Starmer making comments like this, it's always when he's talking to the Torygraph or Daily Heil, which says to me he's playing to his audience.

Still sucks, though. Knowing why he's doing it doesn't make it any less repulsive and hurtful. Still leaves me with a very real temptation to vote for some other party just out of spite, even though it would ultimately be self-defeating because then we'd be stuck with the Tories, who are definitely worse. It's kind of depressing that there's an awful lot of politicians that need to be punished at the ballot box, and we lack viable options to make both Labour and the Tories hurt.