Emily Thornberry's Statement About Hate Groups/Trans Rights/Labour Pledge

[ArranUpsideDown]

It hasn't clarified matters for me, I don't know about anyone else.

I have signed the pledge by Labour Campaign for Trans Rights. Here's my full statement:
#TransRightsAreHumanRights #Newsnight

twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1227733218494906369

[SadlyMissTaken]

I think it clarifies that she's not fit for leadership. She signed the pledge.

[ArranUpsideDown]

Transcription of the Emily Thornberry statement:

I have signed the pledge by Labour Campaign for Trans Rights.

I have stood up for trans rights for many years, and will continue to be an ally to the whole LBQT+ community.

However, tonight I have voiced concern over use of the term 'hate group'.

We need to keep in mind that at the heart of the debates, twitter hashtags, and groups forming to give their views on trans rights, at the heart of all this are human beings - human beings that are often more vulnerable to attacks and abuse, and who often face a difficult journey with many challenges.

What they need is our support and not a debate about their existence.

But to ensure that everybody understands this, and offers their support to the trans community, we mustn't shout people down, and we mustn't call people 'hate groups'. We must have a respectful discussion with education on trans rights, on the facts around violence against women and girls, and on safeguarding.

The fight to protect women and girls, and the fight to support trans people are not opposed - they are the same fights and we must do it together.

[NYnachos]

She said on newsnight that she hadn't, then this tweet comes out.

They've all shown themselves to be unfit to represent the interests of women & children.

[AutumnRose1]

I think the lack of clarity is deliberate.

[ArranUpsideDown]

Am I the only person who reads this as Emily Thornberry thinks that the people who differ in perception or opinion from her are, by definition, the people who are in an educational deficit?

That she judges herself as having absolutely nothing to learn by dialogue? That her understanding is the only true one and dissenters must catch up to her?

[Poota]

But to ensure that everybody understands this, and offers their support to the trans community, we mustn't shout people down, and we mustn't call people 'hate groups'. We must have a respectful discussion with education on trans rights, on the facts around violence against women and girls, and on safeguarding.

I read this particular paragraph as Thornberry telling us, in her supercillious manner, that trans people are more in need of support than women and girls, and that once we have all been calmly educated about that, and the rights of women and girls and the importance of safeguarding is put in the proper place, below trans rights, then we can all work together for our glorious socialist paradise or whatever.

[OnABeachSomewhere]

Yes, supercilious is exactly the right word for Lady Nugee.

[CharlieParley]

She says we mustn't call people hate groups.

Then signs the very pledge that not only calls people just that but obliges all signatories to organise and fight against those people because they are hate groups.

Is anyone in the Labour leadership capable of critical thinking on this issue? This is one of the most idiotic statements I've seen recently. And we've really been spoiled on that front.

And yes, I agree Poota, I read it the same way - we are just ignorant little women who all just need to be educated. Maybe in a gulag, like those Goldsmiths students suggested...

[Maduixa]

Sooooo ... you say "nice pledge, but I'm not going to sign it as I disagree with the lying, slandery bits and consider them counterproductive and maybe even dangerous." You KNOW they're not going to take those parts out, so you're off the hook, probably for long enough to get through the leadership contest.

What you DON'T do is SIGN the pledge you've just said you have serious concerns about, FFS! If there's some treaty or trade deal that you're negotiating when you're PM, are you going to sign that even if at least 20% of it is deal-breakingly unacceptable, cos some of the other bits are OK and the other world leaders seemed to like it?

[ThePurported]

"What they need is our support and not a debate about their existence."

Oh please. Who's 'they'? Women, who no longer have the right to self-organise?

You signed it, Emily. Own it.

[TheBewildernessisWeetabix]

Helen Saxby: Women are not just expected to be nice whilst fighting for our rights, we're expected to be nice instead of fighting for our rights.

[tobee]

Having your cake and eating it is what that says to me.

[tobee]

Or attempting to.

[Poota]

I'm having trouble sleeping, and that bit about education is really bugging me. The way it's put, leaving aside the excreble notion of being educated on trans rights, she seems to be saying we need to be educated about violence against women and girls and about safeguarding.

In context, her stated aim of all this 'education' is so that everybody 'offers support to the trans community', and the only way LGB Alliance and WPUK and many others have been 'unsupportive' of transactivist demands has been to talk about stats about VAWG and the importance of safeguarding, I cannot escape the reading here that she absolutely intends to play down VAWG and weaken safeguarding.

The thrust here is that the silly women have overblown this 'risk factor' nonsense, and that once it's explained that there is nothing to worry about, it won't be an issue.

In essence, she is delighted to sign this pledge, because the demand to 'accept there is no conflict between women's rights and trans rights' is a demand she thinks is reasonable, she just thinks it's not very nice to call people hate groups.

Pure privilege mixed with female socialization. Toxic, and frankly, even worse than the other two women, one of whom is clearly viciously dim witted and in the pay of the momentum ideologues and one who has a lovely trans constituent and thinks politics is like making pinky promises to your bestest friend in primary school.

[BovaryX]

The fight to protect women and girls and the fight to protect trans people are not opposed, they are the same fight

Emily Thornberry represents much of what is wrong with the current Labour party. She has a grotesque sense of entitlement to votes and she is incapable of learning anything from Labour's obliteration North of Islington and South of Victoria. The quote above is indicative of either stupidity or mendacity. This is where identity politics ends up; opposing rights whose fanatical proponents refuse to acknowledge the conflict.

[AnyOldSpartabix]

So signs the pledge, but then tries to suggest she didn’t really agree with all of it. Possibly the most ludicrous situation so far.

If she didn’t agree with some of the contentious statements on that appalling pledge, she should have said so loud and clear and then NOT SIGNED IT.

This is truly pathetic and I am disappointed as I hoped she was not going to give in.

[SophocIestheFox]

oh for goodness SAKE, Emily.

You don’t mention women and girls until the end of the sixth paragraph, which is just how important you think our voices are in this.

And you still signed that piece of woman hating nonsense.

Urgh, I thought Emily wasn’t afraid to stand up to bullies. Disappointed again.

[ThinEndoftheWedge]

Can anyone please remind me which of the candidates bothered to sign the women’s pledge?

Thanks.

[Muststopfaffing]

I read this as saying that trans people win the oppression Olympic s, most vulnerable, stunning and brave blah blah blab but to help those uppity women understand this TRAs should be nice and stop calling people hate groups.
TL;DR to TRAs: shouting won’t get you what you want, being nicer will.

[ArranUpsideDown]

@LadyPrincesexual aka Jane Clare Jones is putting up an excellent response on Twitter (thread):

I am so done with people who have not put 1/100th of the time and attention that we have into understanding this issue telling us that we need to 'educate ourselves.'

We have educated ourselves Emily. We have spent the last 5 odd years understanding the nonsense 'arguments' made by the current ideology of the trans rights movement, into dealing with all the rubbish used to try and erase the material reality of sex, into studying how that idea interacts with our current equality laws, into the history of these ideas, into thinking about how trans people can be protected in law without erasing women's protected characteristics, into how civic society has been ideologically captured, into deconstructing all the demonising rhetoric that has been aimed at us for expressing the belief that we exist as a sex class (continues)

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1227866099129167872

[Lordamighty]

If you start from the position of TWAW then talking about protecting women & girls is meaningless.

[FleecyMoo]

Whose existence is in doubt Emily? Natal born women know that they exist as a sex class. Do you acknowledge that fact or it is only people that are not women whose existence must be validated, nay lauded?

What a load of utter bilge you spout.

[Babdoc]

OK, I confess. She’s a Tory double agent. We infiltrated her into the party to make Labour unelectable for another ten years....

[Barracker]

I hope WPUK and LGB Alliance sue each leadership candidate that has signed a pledge explicitly calling them a hate group.

It is extraordinary that they have done this.
If any harm comes to any woman associated in any way with WPUK or LGB Alliance those leaders are culpable.

You simply cannot formally declare an innocent group of feminists or an LGB group to be a "hate group", let alone SIGN YOUR NAME to it in a 'pledge' as a political leader.

Imagine any of these dangerous idiots in a future government negotiation? "Oh, well, I mostly agreed with the terrorists after they explained to me how hard their lives were. I wasn't quite as comfortable with the line they put in the agreement about executing all puppies but mostly it was on the right tracks so I've signed it now"

Has Starmer signed it? He's a bloody lawyer. Surely he hasn't put his name to a document declaring them a 'hate group'?
He's craven and bereft of integrity but he cannot be that stupid, can he?

[Waiohwai]

Has Starmer signed it? He's a bloody lawyer. Surely he hasn't put his name to a document declaring them a 'hate group'?
Yes. Just seen it on Twitter.