Spectator article: Don't fall for it people

Did anyone else just catch a huge whiff of TRA?

No, that's a Momentum tactic - if you aren't in full agreement with them you support fascists. It's all a bit Rik from the Young Ones, but nastier and more likely to punch you.

And FURTHERMORE I have nothing but contempt for right wingers from any party (especially those in Labour actually) who are happy to put their boots on the throats of the working class if it will help them cosy up to the business class. I'm glad to have you as enemies and I don't want your approval or your support

To everyone else - solidarity

Hang on one fucking minute.

Did anyone else just catch a huge whiff of TRA?

These are not arguments. Formulate an argument or sit tf down.

To be fair, your 'arguments' have not been particularly well thought out on this thread, so you've a bit of a cheek tbh.

This: Do not try to manipulate women with authoritarian abuse tactics. is a prescient comment - you are doing exactly what the TRA & wet lettuce MPs, trade unions & party 'leaders' are.

LittleLebowski's post at 07:04 - I recommend you take all of that on board Jennifer - your current approach is alienating, at best.

I’d have more faith if the ‘list makers’ had been suspended and the not so secret group taken down.
As for the Unions, given the fact that Kiri Tunks, Ruth Serwotka and Paul Embery have been speaking out for months, why should others be scared of voicing their opinions?

And I won't be voting Tory (what a weird assumption, that Labour members would suddenly turn blue), I won't vote at all. As it stands I plant to go and spoil my ballot paper. I have never not voted but at the moment I can't because there is no one for me to vote for.

I donated to the crowdfunder under my real name. I think this issue is critically important. But I've never voted Labour, and I don't intend to unless Corbyn or whoever replaces him someday is willing to say that a woman is an adult human female. That this is even controversial shows how far we've come from the realm of sensible debate. I'd vote for any party willing to take a reasonable view on this.

I'd describe myself as a social libertarian. All the libertarians I know believe not only in individual freedom but in rationality and objective reality. It is the height of irrationality to say that a penis is female. It's postmodern nonsense. It also harms women. I differ from American libertarians in that my economic views are more centre-right - I considered voting Tory in the last election, but couldn't do it due to their dreadful education policy and attitudes towards disabled people claiming benefits. I'm pro-Brexit.

All that is to say that I'm not your natural ally. But for this one issue? I'm happy to have 'comrades' from all across the political spectrum. Gender-critical women don't need to be divided based on whether we support Corbyn or not, or whether we vote Labour or not. It doesn't help.

I haven't RTFT yet, just wanted to say, I'm a lifelong Labour supporter but I left the party at the end of last year and will not vote for them (or anyone else) while this is an issue. I would have loved to be able to stay and change things from within, but as it's apparently not open for debate that is impossible. The only way I could register my opposition was to leave and to write explaining why I had left.

Suggesting that women should just stuck it up and vote Labour anyway, is suggesting that they should vote not only against their own best interests but against those of half the population. I can't imagine any other group of people be told they should do that.

Yeah, what she said. "Put your own life vest on first" is always solid advice. You got the ball rolling, Jennifer, it's OK to take a rest now if you need it.

Jennifer, I am a floating lefty voter. I’ve voted Labour, Green or Lib Dem over the years, currently a WEP member, voted Labour in the last general election. I donated to your crowd funder as this is such a key, cross-party issue. I don’t really care either way about Corbyn but I admit I find the personality cult disturbing.

I think you have done an amazing job, you’ve bought this issue out into the daylight, increased awareness exponentially, and triggered debate not just in your party but more importantly in the media and amongst people of all political colours. The fact is that Labour cannot get into power without convincing floating voters to support them. You have to be cleverer than just writing people off because they’re not Corbynistas.

I follow you on Twitter, and your posts there and here are beginning to sound quite concerning on a personal level. Please consider taking a break, I hope you have some friends/family/support around, we all have to prioritise self-care and our own mental health when we step into these arenas. Please don’t take this as a personal attack or criticism - I admire you enormously and applaud your courage to stand up. We - women - need you to be able to keep doing that, for all of us, not just Corbyn worshippers. Solidarity, sister, but please, look after yourself, you can’t carry on the fight if you’re unwell.

If you vote for a tory government which sells arms to a murderous Saudi regime, deliberately starving Yemeni families. A gov't which supports apartheid Israel. Which sells arms to IDF soldiers who shoot teenage girls at the checkpoints on the way to school. This is your choice to make. But don't pretend to care about women. If you care about women, you care about ALL women.

Wait, WHAT?

That is the exact same argument that TRAs use to guilt-trip bright eyed ideologue students. I'm not a bright eyed student any more and I recognise it for what it is.

Yes, the Tory party does some epically bad things, which is why I don't vote for them, but let's face it so does Labour. I resigned my membership after Labour's sustained legislative attack on asylum seekers (continued with enthusiasm by everyone else). I don't recall Labour putting an embargo on arms sales when they were in power. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Lib Dems who pursued a misguided war in Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq.

I do care about all women, and this is an issue which affects all women.

I would very much like to see a bunch of women force Maria Miller to explain why she unleashed this shit on all of us in the first place. Justine Greening too, though she at least seems to be backing down a little.

Could MN HQ invite a web chat with every party leader/spokesperson for women, ideally along with a gender critical party member?

The idea that anyone who doesn't think Corbyn is the solution to all our problems is a Tory is ludicrous. I'd like him a lot more if people would stop treating him like we were in the Matrix and he was an older, bearded Keanu Reeves! I'm still hoping he'll come around on this, because it would be a lot easier to sort this mess out if he did, but at this point my trust level in everyone in politics is at an all time low given the way things have played out on this issue so far and I have a lot more faith in a coalition of women being what stops it.

By divide and weaken I meant divide and weaken the solidarity of gender critical women. This issue cuts across politics as it affects all women.

"We take power. We take it together.

Then we eradicate misogyny. We stop this growing inequality in its tracks. We change the world."

The thing is mate, women have been told this bullshit for years. That after we give our time, money, physical and emotional labour to a cause. After we support men taking power then, out of thanks, they will start taking out concerns seriously and stop treating us like shit.

Thing is it's bollocks though. And I'm not going to hang around for the scraps from the patriarchy table anymore. This is the hill I'm willing to die on. This is the single most important issue to me right now. I have always been a lefty, I've always voted labour except when it was tactical not to. But I can't vote for a party that doesn't believe I exist.

Labour needs to sort this out. Please listen to us.

By the way I was thinking about the 12 million unique users thing.

So there are approximately 33million women in the U.K. approx 7 million are under 18 so 26 million voting age women. So 12 million women represents 46% of the female, voting age population.

Now I don't know how many of those users are male or based overseas. A random guess but lets say 1 million of each so 10 million female, uk based users. That's 38% of the adult women in the country visit the site once a month.

There are a lot of us and we are pissed off.

Talking of support across the political divide maybe our next step should be to reach out to netmums too!

We are very divided on this issue and it will only get worse if Jeremy doesn't listen.

@LittleLebowski

Well said.

I’ve also contributed to the crowdfunder, even though the thought of JC in power scares the bjesus out of me. Happy to reach across the aisle and support leftie and Labour women in getting this crap out of their party. Pretending that we’re all comrades and believe in the godlike powers of JC to save women from poverty is going to do immense harm to WOMEN’S work against self-ID.

Glad you’re ok JJ and not having a go. I guess I just wanted to express that this is bigger than the Labour Party, and labour women who leave over it aren’t necessarily wrong to do so.

Agree this is an interesting thread. Looks like a thread designed to divide and weaken.

Comrades is this a Russian thread?

I don't for a moment believe that the Labour would listen to women's concerns once they are in power if they don't listen to them while they are in opposition.

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader.

Don't like him? Let's vote him out!

Goodness, this thread is weird.

I was happy to donate to your fundraiser, Jennifer and I think you're astonishingly brave to be taking on this fight. But the debate needs to happen at a higher level than "Blurgh, you're such a Tory" when people don't entirely share your politics. Your OP was about not letting this debate be weaponised by people who want to divide us - so don't do the work for them!

We are your allies on this fight. Absolutely. But being a centrist isn't a character flaw, and supporting Corbyn isn't a prerequisite. I would give up my vote and never vote ever again rather than vote Tory, but I simply cannot vote for Labour under Corbyn because the authoritarianism mixed with the cult of personality repels me.

Secondly, as an outsider to the LP

Join us! Change us!

We can be whatever you want us to be!

Right - my first post on Mumsnet - I am precisely one of those lurkers made aware of self-ID by the threads here.

I am not a Labour voter, but donated to the Gofundme campaign because it seemed like something could be done to draw attention to the issue, so that we don't as a country just sleepwalk in to a measure that could have permanent and serious consequences.

I am really sick of the attitude of Jennifer James here and on Twitter. To have any chance of success, opposition to self-ID has to reach out to ALL women in this country, left/right/centre whatever.

This 'comrades', 'sisters', 'wonderful Jeremy' crap sounds as mantra-drone like as 'Transwomen are women'
No wonder comments after sensible articles by people like Janice Turner are so often along the lines of "Ha ha! The left is eating itself".

I don't need Jennifer James to Momentumsplain to me how to be a feminist. Her lefty-pals do that quite enough. If she doesn't want the contribution of all women to an issue affecting all women, just the right kind of socialist woman - then I will email to ask for my donation back.

Oh and an MP opposing self-ID is Margot James apparently, but of course maybe that doesn't count because she's a Tory and maybe Jennifer, like Laura Piddock, doesn't actually want to speak to Tories.

I haven’t Rtf yet but wanted to comment before I go back and read it. Apologies if it’s moved on and my comment is irrelevant.
Firstly, thank you for speaking out on this. I fear what will happen to me professionally if I post anything gender critical anywhere other than here. I can only imagine how stressful it’s been.
Secondly, as an outsider to the LP I am worried by what I see and hear. I am a natural Labour ally, agree with much of what JC says and voted Labour at the last election. Given this I am finding it hard to be able to reconcile myself to voting Labour again with all that is happening- Lily Madigan, Linda Bellos, Owen Jones and the general behaviour of Momentum. It increasingly seems like LP are purging itself of any dissidents from JC/Momentum’s view and while I am no Blairite (in fact disagree with him on a lot of issues) I worry JC through his inaction, as well as actions, is making himself unelectable.