I feel I can possibly answer this one... so why not give it a go? Both the Labour Party and the Trans Community are a broad church. Some people in the Trans community are pro-Labour, some aren't. The Labour Party leader has a duty to try and move his party to power, that means occasionally holding together the disparate people within the party, some of whom are likely either Transphobic or as I suspect, outside of a metropolitan middle class bubble, trans-indifferent.

Starmer is close to Government and he has done so by moving to the centre ground. He has stepped away from identity politics (which I believe is a good thing) and he cannot afford to get embroiled in a civil war style spat with what is ostensibly a niche interest group. That may sound harsh, and I don't mean it to sound harsh, but that is the reality of politics.

So yes, Starmer has been a little inconsistent on this, but i think he's holding a careful line. Sunak is appealing to the far right of his party. Sunak isn't going to reform anything for Trans people, Starmer might stand a chance - and the election of a centre-left politician is the best chance at social progress since perhaps 2010 - but you have to get the entire Labour broad church over the voting line first. Election, PM, then identity based bun fight. You can't do the latter first and remain electable.

In case you wanted to read more - and I'm happy to debate these issues further (I'm an argumentative Penguin after all) then you can find some of what I think here. https://medium.com/p/1479823395d4