Suzanne Moore, Telegraph

[impossibletoday]

The women’s vote counts – so why don’t women?
There is now a huge number of floating voters who are not anti-trans, but simply want to keep our sex-based rights and protections

Women are the majority of the population, so our votes count. Obviously we are not a homogenous group. Yet increasingly I hear women voice their political homelessness. Many such women are Left-leaning and have previously voted Labour, Lib Dem or Green, but now they feel unwanted. They feel alienated – dumped by the political parties they once supported, for their refusal to discuss women’s rights under the guise that these discussions are now ‘transphobic’. The Stonewall tactic of ‘no debate’ has been highly successful.

We saw it recently when Sadiq Kahn was asked by a member of the London Assembly about the definition of women he’d once put in a tweet: “You’ve said trans women are women – so do you think some women have male reproductive organs?”. Six other members of the Assembly jumped in to shut down debate and supported a subsequent motion to prevent him from having such a discussion with the mayor. His speech was deemed discriminatory.

Whether this member of the Assembly was genuinely interested in women’s rights, or just wanted to pick a fight with Khan isn’t the issue. For me, it is that respectable politicians aren’t willing to define what a woman is. And they are certainly not shy about putting definitions to other people and causes.

[impossibletoday]

In the latest report by the Labour Party, “Defining Transphobia in the Labour Party: A Consultation” the aim is laudable: to increase representation of trans people in the party and make sure they can take part in all activities safely and “without fear”. It’s a shame no such consultation was ever held about protecting its female Jewish MPs, but there you go.

Much of the defining of transphobia is as you would expect until you get to this: “claiming there is a ‘conflict’ between trans people’s rights and women’s or other communities is transphobic.” Herein madness lies.

To ask a question or have a disagreement about single sex spaces is transphobic? The word not only becomes meaningless, it loses all contact with the real world. Ask most of us if we support trans rights and we’ll say yes, but when asked if those who have not transitioned in any meaningful way can enter single sex spaces, then the majority are unhappy or just have some questions about it.

To not even have this discussion is now considered a win for lobby groups, but it is a loss to many politically active women. Lifelong activists have been threatened with expulsion from the Labour Party and told they must be “re-educated”. These are women who have set up refuges and run trade unions.

[impossibletoday]

Is all this a vote-winning exercise? I have heard of canvassers shouting TERF (Trans exclusionary radical feminists) at women on the doorstep when they simply asked about women’s rights. Way to go! The Lib Dems are also fully subscribed to this groovy gender ideology. The likes of Layla Moran spout stuff about not caring about bodies, but seeing into people’s souls. This is the equivalent of those well-meaning liberals who “don’t see colour” and is frankly, insulting.

Many Lib Dem women are unhappy, and the news that one of their big donors is a company that makes puberty blockers (Ferring Pharmaceuticals ) is more than uncomfortable.

The Greens, who don’t like GM crops, suddenly seem to be embracing the case for puberty-blocking hormones and are so fully gender fluid that women exist simply now as “non-men”. The Greens have also embraced Aimee Knight, née Challenor, who is trans, as a Green Candidate for Coventry City Council. When she stood in the 2018 deputy leadership contest, her agent was her father, David who was sentenced to prison for 22 years for the rape and torture of a 10-year-old-girl in the family home.

Aimee then joined the Lib Dems but was suspended in 2019 after tweets appeared on her partner’s account about fantasising about sex with children. She has since said the account appeared to have been hacked and the comments were not posted by her fiancé. The key point is, that in order to embrace fashionable diversity, key checks seem to have been overlooked.

[impossibletoday]

In Scotland, women have been thrown under every available bus. The women who accused Salmond of inappropriate behaviour at the recent inquiry are now simply irrelevant. Its new Hate Crime Bill does little to actually make the lives of trans people better, but is an attempt to appear more progressive than England .

Bit by bit, women’s sex-based rights are being eroded. Parties formed to protect the environment or to achieve independence have fallen over themselves to get in with the trans rights movement .

So there is now a huge number of floating voters who are not anti-trans, but simply want to keep our sex- based rights and protections. Many of us are not Tories.

So which savvy political party might speak for us or even recognise that we exist? We are met only with fear, abuse and silence. Do our votes not matter?

www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/womens-vote-counts-dont-women/

[stumbledin]

The bit about Scotland needs to be updated. As posted on mumsnet yesterday, Alba is positively recruiting women, and has had GC ex SNP joining them, and a women only conference!

[Beamur]

I was chatting with my DSD recently. She's mid 20's and was asking how I decided who to vote for. She should be a Labour voter, but says that they don't represent her interests and values. She really doesn't know who to vote for as none of the parties seem 'right' for her.
My answer, sadly, was to go with the least worst..and/or spoil your paper.

[persistentwoman]

Good for Suzanne. And it's telling to know that the Guardian would never publish that article - being the policy captured news organisation that they are.

[ChickenonaMug]

That is an excellent article.

These questions from Safe Schools Alliance are some great questions that I would love to see answered by the mayoral candidates.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2021/03/26/london-mayoral-elections-2021-our-5-questions/

[gardenbird48]

that is an interesting article, thanks OP.

I found out a new fact today - the Jo Cox Women in Leadership programme has now trained two transwomen candidates, one of which introduced mixed sex toilets in a student nightclub in the same year that there were two sexual assaults (on women).

They are now standing for election as a Labour candidate. If they get elected will that mean the end for single sex toilets in that area?

[zanahoria]

The Greens, who don’t like GM crops, suddenly seem to be embracing the case for puberty-blocking hormones

superb line, absolutely top class

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Absolutely inevitable, I'd say, @gardenbird48. After all, only bigots object to unisex toilets. Oddly, this means that bigots are mostly female, which is not what most of us would have predicted a few years ago.

[PutItInNeutral]

Thanks for posting this, OP.

[Hibari]

Oh look, another terfy piece in a British paper.

[CatNamedEaster]

Can't we create a new acronym, how about Women Exclusionary Radical Misogynist or WERM for short??

[CatNamedEaster]

I meant in response to the fantastic science-based counter-arguments from Hibari?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Guardian's loss.

That is an excellent article - and if the political parties don't read it and reflect then my vote will be their loss too.

If I am to lose my rights then the very least I expect is a debate.

[CatNamedEaster]

Doesn't anyone just feel like It's becoming so big, so wide-ranging, that political parties won't actually care that they won't get our vote? When it gets to the point that policies in NHS, police, politics, news organisations, employers are all lapping this up then who'se going to care about women protesting against it? It's not even ALL women, large numbers are literally opening the door and inviting the vampire in.
I am in awe of what some women are having the bravery and intellect to do to fight this, but I feel totally despondent about it. It's gone so far and in my real life I just have to watch silently while It's momentum grows and grows .

[NancyDrawed]

@CatNamedEaster

Can't we create a new acronym, how about Women Exclusionary Radical Misogynist or WERM for short??

Made me think of this, Cat

(from 5.44 to 7.49 although she mentions Suzanne Moore a little earlier)



There was a thread about it at the time

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

Yes, Cat, I feel like that.

There are so many women like me, politically engaged, safe, financially secure and with a good support network, who cannot or will not see past the nice friendly kind hearted trans woman in their office who wouldn't hurt anyone or want to do anything other than just get on with their life. Those women think I am a bigot.

I can't get past the women who are not like me - who are marginalised or vulnerable and who need the protections that single sex spaces provide.

And I can't forgive the selfish women who would ignore those other women.

Sisterhood, if it ever existed, is cracking.

[Thecatonthemat]

Despite my correspondence to my Labour MP over the years on this I received an update from his office where he claimed to support women’s rights, despite having informed everyone previously that tw should be allowed in women’s prisons refuges and changing rooms. I still won’t vote for him.

[WeRoarSometimes]

I started another thread about writing to Labour about their appalling interpretation of the Equality Act (2010).
It misses out 'sex' in the list of protected characteristics.
I'm not London based but started chasing the local Labour candidates at local government level.
I've had the same, awful, response from several of them in the last week.
'Transwomen ARE Women, they represent the most marginalised groups of women, public services need to be inclusive to give all the dignity they deserve' etc.
I didn't even mention transwomen, I asked why sex was omitted from the list of protected characteristics despite this being the law.
I'll have to vote Tory for the first time in 20 years. At least some of their candidates can agree on the definition of a woman.

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I think I need to vote Tory too, Roar

However, it is harder to get rights back, so, at this point, if Farage said he'd maintain single sex spaces I'd consider voting for him.

I feel dirty.

[WeRoarSometimes]

So many posters have also mentioned needing to align themselves with politicians who are vocal about protecting rights for women and children in the context of gender ideology.
I find myself agreeing with Farage, a lot of Tory backbenchers and Republican senators in the US on this issue.

[RabbitOfCaerbannog]

@CatNamedEaster

Can't we create a new acronym, how about Women Exclusionary Radical Misogynist or WERM for short??

Yes to WERM

[NiceGerbil]

Farage? I thought he'd vanished. That fucker isn't back is he

[NiceGerbil]

I find myself agreeing with the women chucked out of the labour party over it.