(FORTUNE Magazine) – Labour Party officials have made an impromptu ruling on whether a man who has a sex change operation is a "woman". . . Last week's confirmation that up to 50 Labour parliamentary candidates in winnable seats are to be chosen from all-women short-lists opens up the vista of a legal challenge over whether a candidate is. . . a woman . . . Yesterday's Sun claimed that Trimdon Labour Club in. . . Sedgefield . . . is run by a woman who had a sex change. . . Outgoing general secretary Larry Whitty had ((stated)): "In the new culture of the Labour Party, we have to define a 'woman' as anyone who has been living as a woman, regardless of what chromosomes they had at birth. . . However, there is a rule that any prospective parliamentary candidate has to have been a member of the party for two years. In the case of all-women short-lists, that will have to mean they have also been the same sex for at least two years." -- From the Observer ((of London)).