Lib Dem leader Ed Davey claims a woman can ‘quite clearly’ have a penis

A woman can “quite clearly” have a penis, Sir Ed Davey has said as he suggested the debate around transgender issues had been settled.

The Liberal Democrat leader insisted discussions around single-sex spaces were not new and that more compassion towards trans people was needed.

During a phone-in with LBC’s Nick Ferrari, Sir Ed was asked a question by a caller named Mary from Cambridge, who said she was speaking “on behalf of 51 per cent of the population [women]”.

She told him: “I’m a tactical voter and I would like to support the Lib Dems. But can you answer the question ‘what is a woman?’, please?”

Sir Ed said: “The truth is, Mary, the vast majority of people whose biological sex is a woman at birth, they feel they’re women. They feel their gender [is] the same at birth. But there’s this very small number of people who don’t feel like that, and the law has recognised them for over 20 years now.”

‘This is not a new issue’

He added: “This is not a new issue… The law has dealt with this in the right way. The Equality Act is there to allow there to be single-sex spaces, so people can have those single-sex spaces according to the law, under the Equality Act.”

Arguing that there was a need to “take the heat out of” the gender discourse, he added: “There is a small number of people who… They have a tough time, they’re harassed, discriminated against. And I think we need to manage this and think about it and debate it with a bit more maturity and a bit more compassion.”

Asked by Mr Ferrari if a woman could have a penis, Sir Ed said: “Well, I’ve just answered that question. I’ve made it really clear that if people… The vast majority of people will have the same gender as their biological sex, but a small number won’t.”

When the presenter interjected “so, a woman can have a penis?”, he replied: “Well, quite clearly.”

Mary went on to tell Mr Ferrari: “Oh, that’s just rubbish. Women are 51 per cent of the population.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said last month that “99.9 per cent of women… haven’t got a penis” as he promised his offering to trans people would not override women’s rights.

It came amid months of confusion on the opposition front bench over the definition of a woman, with Sir Keir having refused to answer the same question just days earlier.

‘Men have penises, women have vaginas’

Senior Labour shadow ministers including Wes Streeting and Emily Thornberry have also appeared split on the issue, with Ms Thornberry saying “some women” would have penises while Mr Streeting declared: “Men have penises, women have vaginas.”

Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, dismissed political sensitivities around the issue in a keynote speech last week, saying “the fact that 100 per cent of women do not have a penis” had become “unfashionable in some quarters”.

Rishi Sunak blocked Nicola Sturgeon’s controversial gender reforms earlier this year after concluding they would have “chilling effects” on the safety of women-only spaces across the UK.

Mr Sunak made the unprecedented decision in order to veto legislation allowing 16 and 17-year-olds to change their legal gender.

Single-sex schools will no longer be forced to accommodate transgender pupils under new guidelines set to be issued in the coming weeks, while education leaders will also be told they can refuse to use different pronouns demanded by a pupil.