Rishi Sunak has said he believes that 100 per cent of women do not have penises.
The prime minister has put himself at odds with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer by declaring that 100 per cent of women do not have male genitals.
By contrast, Mr Starmer earlier this month suggested that as many as one in a thousand women have penises.
Asked whether 100 per cent of women do not have penises in an interview with Tory-supporting website Conservative Home, Mr Sunak said: “Yes, of course.”
He added: “We should always have compassion and understanding and tolerance for those who are thinking about changing their gender. Of course, we should.
“But when it comes to these issues of protecting women’s rights, women’s spaces, I think the issue of biological sex is fundamentally important when we think about those questions.
“As a general operating principle for me, biological sex is vitally fundamentally important in these questions. We can’t forget that.”
When Mr Starmer was asked by The Sunday Times whether women can have male genitals, he said: “For 99.9 per cent of women, it is completely biological … and of course, they haven’t got a penis.”
Mr Sunak is hoping to exploit Labour’s division over transgender rights in the run-up to a general election, which is expected next year. He is pressing ahead with a pledge made during last year’s Conservative party leadership election to reform the legal definition of sex.
A review by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission concluded that amending the Equality Act 2010 to specifically refer to “biological sex” merits further consideration. The government had asked the watchdog to consider the pros and cons of such a change.
The change would mean, for example, that organisers of sporting events could exclude trans women without having to show the move was necessary because of fairness or safety.
Outspoken Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson has suggested the party fights the next general election on “a mix of culture wars and trans debate”.
Labour has been split over trans rights, with backbench opposition to Mr Starmer’s suggestion that some women have penises. Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield said the assertion left many “livid”, with women “frightened and furious” about the potential erosion of women’s rights.
Ms Duffield previously said it was “dystopian” that the leader of her party was reluctant to say whether women could have penises.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said on Thursday that considering gender recognition reforms was not at odds with women’s rights.
She argued that protecting women-only spaces does not need to come at the expense of supporting transgender people.
Speaking to broadcasters during a visit to a food store in Derby on Thursday, Ms Rayner said: “I understand people’s concerns on both sides of the argument but I think we were the party of equality. We brought in the equality legislation. We are the best party for LGBT rights – we’ve got a history of doing that.
