Lily Madigan has published an article.

I thought it was Buy To Let and was just keeping quiet about the fact that I couldn’t see the connection

To add insult to injury see cases where they ask for the husband's permission before tying tubes (but no permission from the wife is needed for a man to get a vasectomy).

I am 31, have 2 young children and have a disability that came on after the birth of my youngest. Because of my illness my husband had to give up work to care for me. I was told last week at the pain clinic that because I had a lot of operations in a short space of time, my main issue is a lot of scar tissue rubbing on the nerves in my guts, to put it bluntly. As the bulk of the pain is because of this, its something I will have for life. They were honest with me and said they would try other medications but they are unlikely to have much effect. So, this is my life now. In a lot of pain and unable to do much at all, and my husband cannot work so we rely on benefits (that after an assessment part of them have been taken away as miraculously I have been cured by the midwife who saw me hmm I am appealing and will win though)

Despite all of this (and having 2 kids already) the doctor refused to sterylise me incase I changed my mind. I am shitting myself in case I do fall pregnant. The doctor assures me that the implant will be fine, but I know that its not 100% effective.*

This really grinds my gears. So what if you changed your mind? Adults make all kinds of decisions that can't necessarily be undone and if the adult is male it's assumed that they're competent to do so. Even if the adult is female, if the decision is one that makes men's dicks happy then oh well, her decision, we must support her agency! (So very young women in the sex industry is fine) But if the decision is being made by a woman and could in theory interfere with the use that some man in the future might have for her? Nope, sorry, can't have that, and then they pat you on the head just to make sure the fact that they don't view you as a competent adult sinks in.

I still immediately think of sandwiches or landlords when I see BTL.

Adding - my initial comment about lying wasn't meant to refer to BPD, which is why I used careful hedging words rather than "all". NPD is the condition that's massively overrepresented in trans people, with a smattering of others.

(And also often misunderstood, in that there are multiple subsets of narcissists and it's not just "thinks of themselves as brilliant and amazing" in the way the word narcissist tends to be used in pop culture.)

@slightlybefuddledlibrarian

Yep to all of that. There's no question that the BPD diagnosis is applied in sexist way and often to women with complex PTSD, but it's not total nonsense and for people who really do have BPD it makes both their lives and the lives of the people who love them very difficult. There was a woman on tumblr a while back who has BPD who got into a massive fight with dozens of people because she had decided that, since she has severe attachment issues that lead to her romantic relationships often being unhealthy, monogamy is inherently bad for women because of said attachment issues and the associated problems. Which most women don't have, but she couldn't see that. Argument went on and on and was a perfectly example of the ways that BPD can distort a person's thinking.

The "but lots of trans people have BPD because society is cruel to them" thing is a fairly obvious attempt to appropriate feminist analysis of the way the diagnosis is applied to female abuse victims, imo.

Bipolar is a totally different condition.

Madigan’s Rash is brilliant!

AH thanks. Thought it was a new feminist acronym I’d missed.

BTL = Below The Line

Ie comments below an online article

I would say that those comments are outstanding. All Madigan has said is he wrote the article (and had his English gripped by someone) and “please don’t misgendet me” like the whining child he is.

Should push a few people along the gender critical footpath to peak trans

What’s BTL though..?

Mrs. MC
They all appear a little disenfranchised themselves. All over Madigan like a rash.
Henceforth to be known as Madigan's Rash. An irritating and unpleasant reaction similar to urticaria.

Stalin used to recruit the disenfranchised also. He said they were more "loyal". It's a tactic criminal gangs use too. Gives a false sense of belonging and a bit of self importance.

Waves also to Lucy B at the Times.
Pick me pick me pick me Lucy
Don't let Rod Liddle be your only journo who sees this crap for what it is.

Lucy Bannerman (Times journo) seems to keep a close eye on Mumsnet - eg this

Illiterate and unable to shape an argument.

Yeah it’s not healthy is it. No critical thought going on there at all. All over Liam no matter how outrageously misogynistic his behaviour is. They can’t or won’t see it.

Fawning is a good word for them.
They all seem a bit too fan clubby for it to be healthy

Is it something in the local water do you think? I think it is probably a side effect of fracking.

Ugh the fawning handmaidens tweeting him - stomach turning. Solidarity Lily! You are sooo amazing and inspiring! He’s been absolutely ruined by these silly fan girls who creep to him for virtue cookies. Like a monstrous spoilt toddler.

No voices of dissent on his Twitter of course because he’s blocked us all.

Could I politely ask for LMs tweets to be screenshotted as I am blocked and can’t see them.

Open another browser, or a private window (somewhere you are not logged into twitter) and paste the link in there and you will be able to see them. I have this issue too as I was blocked months ago

I can see comments on the independant article. Seems others cannot for some reason?

I wonder how many women have now left the Labour party because of him? I quit when he was given that role.

I thought the below was a good comment BTL to the Angela Rayner MP article in the Indy, by pointing out to the Indy readership that the issues are a teeny bit more complicated for women than AR’s cheerleading of self ID lets on..

‘Dear Angela Rayner, have you realised thousands of women are leaving the Labour Party over this? There are agonised discussions re whether to risk another Tory government rather than support a party that is throwing women under the bus? See #labourlosingwomen for example.

Trans rights are covered under the 2004 and 2010 Equality Acts. Self-identification is a whole other ball game. Those identifying as transgender are now a much wider group than those who have no choice but to get a GRC, 'Trans' now includes many people who have zero intention of proceeding to surgery and hormones, and also includes many mostly young people who are resisting the old gender stereotypes that were challenged in the 70s and 80s, but are now calling themselves genderqueer or nonbinary etc.

It can be really really difficult for a young lesbian to resist the peer pressure to identify as a transman, as doing that brings congratulations and entry to an out-group that has a lot of kudos. So it's onto cross-sex hormones and amputations, and no going back, even if later they decide it's a mistake - a lifetime beard and bald head and man's voice won't go away.

What the hell are we doing transing children, diagnosing them at age ten? Who are these parents that would rather have a trans child than a gay one?

Women's rights will be OVER with self ID. If a man can become a woman by saying so, women are no longer in a protected category. Intact men in showers, prisons, refuges, women's centres, caring for vulnerable elders, taking places on AllWomen Shortlists... Say goodbye to women's sports too. Yes the GRA needs revisions, but self-ID will be a disaster. Please meet some of the people who have done a lot of work on this and listen to their thoughts. At the moment we are being silenced, as trying to meet to discuss it has to be done in secret. Are people who shout down debate (see the trans tag #nodebate), who you want to listen to exclusively? The committee discussing the GRA has refused to meet women's groups, they have only heard from pro-trans groups including some which have been discredited. It seems simple, lets support people who need help, but there is so much more than this going on.’

onTheList

If my cousin's daughter, who is 25, has a degree and a good job and is an entirely aware and intelligent young woman, went to the doctor and asked to be sterilised because she didn't want to have children, would they do that? They would not. Because she might change her mind with the passage of time. Is this a sensible response? Possibly.

I am 31, have 2 young children and have a disability that came on after the birth of my youngest. Because of my illness my husband had to give up work to care for me. I was told last week at the pain clinic that because I had a lot of operations in a short space of time, my main issue is a lot of scar tissue rubbing on the nerves in my guts, to put it bluntly. As the bulk of the pain is because of this, its something I will have for life. They were honest with me and said they would try other medications but they are unlikely to have much effect. So, this is my life now. In a lot of pain and unable to do much at all, and my husband cannot work so we rely on benefits (that after an assessment part of them have been taken away as miraculously I have been cured by the midwife who saw me I am appealing and will win though)

Despite all of this (and having 2 kids already) the doctor refused to sterylise me incase I changed my mind. I am shitting myself in case I do fall pregnant. The doctor assures me that the implant will be fine, but I know that its not 100% effective.

Meanwhile, children are being sterylized for being GNC. Its infuriating. And I am terrified for those children too. Many of them will regret it, and there is no going back.

This BTL comment from the Indy is also good in linking to the wider issues to be worried about self ID (...if the AWS and Labour issues were not already worrying enough in themselves!) :

There are a lot of parallels between Milk’s experiences and mine as a young British transwoman.'

Except, Lily, you are NOT 'making coalitions' or 'encouraging solidarity' - certainly not with women, who are leaving Labour in droves because of the bullying tactics of transactivists and their allies within the party. You appear to have hijacked the position of women's officer in your CLP and made it all about trans, and mostly all about you. Women need and deserve decent representation at both local and national level. Frankly, you're not doing your job.

AWS are only legal on the grounds of the protected characteristic of sex. That means they are open to women and transwomen with a GRC. Self-ID for AWS breaches the Equality Act (Part 7, s.104). That's why Jennifer James's legal challenge has a real chance of success. The reason so many of us have donated, labour members or not, is because we can see as clear as day that it makes a total mockery of AWS if any man can tick a box to say he IDs as a woman and thus become eligible for inclusion on the list.

So it doesn't matter how many women you block, or put on a spreadsheet, or report to your party, or shame for being 'transphobic' - Labour are breaking the law. If you want to change the law that's a different process from voting at conference. Good luck with that. There's a reason the tories have kicked the GRA consultation into the long grass. It's because people are waking up to the implications of self-ID not only in 'fringe' issues like AWS but more widely, in things like changing facilities, schools, girl guides, hospital wards, choice of HCP, DV shelters, rape counselling, sports, support groups, prisons ...

Can we just pretend that Lily doesn't exist? Not a week goes by without a mention of Lily or a thread popping up. We know Lily thrives on this and is building up a bit of a cult of personality because Lily is the most persecuted person in the world ever even more than Nelson Mandela, and her hun bots are on constant lookout for any negative comment related to dearest Saint Lily.

I have a working theory that if Lily is no longer getting any attention then Lily will be dropped. It's the fact that Lily is a person of interest to us which means Lily continues to enjoy a level of influence far beyond Lily's talents and charisma would suggest Lily capable of.

Women being blamed for not putting men first

same old crap we have our own issues that we want to deal with but once again men want to hold us back