Lib Dems choose trans rights over Fair Play for Women

'though admittedly not as bad as the former Lib Dem who refuses to stand down even though he's gone to live in Fife'

What the what Father?! Tell us more!

They could be the nicest people in the world, but I still find their being nominated for an award intended for women to be offensive.

If we’re recognising their ‘struggle’, there needs to be an award for activists/nominees/councillors who have difficult lives.

I don't like men LARPing as lesbians.

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe - you lost me there.

It’s one member of the party - not somebody officially speaking on behalf of the party as a whole.

The majority of the party are quite unaware of the issue. The Lib Dem leader on Liverpool City Council was asking what a TERF was on Twitter the other day. Nobody was really talking about it at conference. Most people adopt an “obviously we’re against transphobia” position and don’t think any more about it.

Ironically it’s one of the frustrating things about being a member of a progressive party. OF COURSE you’re not sexist, racist, etc - you’re a Lib Dem! So you don’t actually have to examine your own attitudes and behaviour. I think we’re seeing the same phenomenon here.

*I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

I also knew Patsy Calton and she would have had no issue with them being nominated.

But this thread is eye opening seeing so many make sweeping generalisations about people they have never met based on tweets taken out of context.*

I've never met Zoe O'Connell but I've always found Sarah Brown to operate in one of two modes - completely disengaged or bizarrely aggressive. Brown was a poor councillor even by the generally low standards of Cambridge (though admittedly not as bad as the former Lib Dem who refuses to stand down even though he's gone to live in Fife), and her attempt to gain electoral advantage earlier this month by claiming that 'transphobic hate literature' was being circulated in the ward in the run-up to the by-election was utterly pathetic.

Brown was worse on Twitter than in person - her old account was deleted not long after she lost the 2014 election so can't be read now, but it was an absolute car crash. The context for the 'pickled balls' comment may not be available (because she removed it) but it's completely fair to take it as typical. That said, the spat between Brown and the blogger was very entertaining for people in Cambridge who had encountered both of them - like the Neil Hamilton-Al Fayed court case, where you wanted them both to lose.

I don't expect the LibDems could predict how powerful the image would be. It neatly summed up how women feel about the political climate and about political parties.

Safeguarding - in the bin
Women's voices - in the bin
Women's rights - in the bin.

Thanks, Lib Dems. The image summed up all a woman voter needs to know about your party.

From another thread:

'Women in Cambridge were silenced within days of the Equality Act of 2010 becoming law. Sarah Brown a Liberal democrat (Then a Cllr) who co-runs the Liberal Democrats LGBT twitter account, removed sex as a protected characteristic within days.

I understand then went around other local authorities and encouraged them to do the same, so females lost out from the start. (quoted from a threadhere

Sarah Brown is fantastic? Really? Someone having had a tough life doesn't make them the opposite sex or deserving of a platform or a woman's award.

And [[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3263172-Andrew-Gilligan-Latest-bullying-transgender-complaint-swiftly-rejected-by-parliamentary-standards-committee#prettyPhoto here] is an eye-opening thread about Zoe

Join the rest of us who have already decided to vote for the 'none of the above' party.

And you'll spend the rest of time moaning about the election results.

You have to decide which party is the lesser evil & vote for them, even if it means gritting your teeth.

The Lib Dems won't be bothered if they lose votes through attrition.

They will be bothered if their votes move to another party though.

FFS. Where do the Green Party stand on rights for women? That's Labour and Lib Dems ruled out. There's not much left.

Do we need to canvas Posie Parker to start an XX Party?

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

Well done those two. Doesn't make them have any true understanding of the very different battles women have to fight to make headway in politics.

I think all Mumsnetters understand that life is tough for people with gender dysphoria, but it's a completely different set of battles to the ones that female Mumsnetters go through.

I agree with Tallulah. "Female" denotes sex; "girl" and "woman" signify age.

Not having this. They take away women, we resort to female, they object to female, we are forced to say chromosomes, they say chromosomes are reductive, we end up with penis and vagina people, they say stop reducing people to genitals. It's all their fault in the first place. Fine, we will have 'woman' back

'Female' is a specific biological definition referring to the reproductive potential of one of two sex classes in sexually reproducing species. 'Woman' means an adult human who belongs to the female sex class. We need both words.

I don't like 'female' as a noun applied to women or girls either. I do think it's a bit dehumanising, like we're subjects of interest on a nature documentary. As an adjective obviously perfectly fine. MRAs and other Reddit misogynists are particularly fond of talking about 'men and females'. Personally I find this even more objectionable than 'men and girls'.

But I'd certainly rather be called a female, or even a girl, than a ciswoman.

I agree but it's worth being aware of. I think it's indicative of a slight rocking of the boat.

There are quite a lot of mutterings within the Lib Dems at the moment.

For the Lib Dems, it is a case of too little, too late. They have a long way to go before they have any credibility at all.

I have no idea what Pasty Calton would think, I do know there are many people within the Lib Dems who are concerned about the misogyny coming from the LGBT twitter feed. The tweet putting woman's rights in the bin didn't go down well at all. There are quite a lot of mutterings within the Lib Dems at the moment.

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

I also knew Patsy Calton and she would have had no issue with them being nominated.

But this thread is eye opening seeing so many make sweeping generalisations about people they have never met based on tweets taken out of context.

The Lib Dems can fuck off

Sorry that's what I meant to say

Thanks to this radicalisation portal I’ve stopped qualifying ‘woman’ in any way. No more ‘actual woman’ or ‘old fashioned cunty woman’, just woman.

Don't ever concede the word woman. As you can see, nothing is ever enough.

What have I misinterpreted?

Isn’t the tweet objecting to “female” as noun not an adjective? “Female” as a noun always sounds pretty bad to me (see Friday Night Dinner for a serious academic reference )

The Lib Dems can fuck off.

Not having this. They take away women, we resort to female, they object to female, we are forced to say chromosomes, they say chromosomes are reductive, we end up with penis and vagina people, they say stop reducing people to genitals. It's all their fault in the first place. Fine, we will have 'woman' back.

Oh, really?
That's disappointing. Do you know any more about that MrsMcGarry?