Message from Lynne Featherstone Lib Dems

How very “right on” of her

Interesting post theOtherPamAyres thank you.

I agree someone definitely saw her coming

Yeah, we only want to or exclude them from women-only spaces in the name of feminism, because we’re a bunch of transhobes. Do you want to tell this 10yr old that she’s a transhobe for not wanting to share toilets with a man who says he’s a woman, Lynne Featherstone? Any woman that is willing to sacrifice the mental, sexual and physical wellbeing of other females, in order to placate male activists should hang their heads in shame.

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/819644/mum-of-supermarket-toilet-sex-assault-victim-warns-freed-attacker-could-strike-again/?fbclid=IwAR1BjeZ0GLBEa4iRDzUXAABAzAkHHl3HBdfac2NqBfN-JyKO6GYyw1l1FcY

This is the text of the email I've just sent cancelling my membership. I've copied it to Vince Cable, Jo Swinson and Lynne Featherstone.

^I was horrified and angered yesterday to read in Lynne Featherstone’s article on LGBT History Month the following paragraph: "I also have a message to those people who believe they can restrict trans women’s rights, deny their human rights, or exclude them from women-only spaces in the name of feminism: You are not feminists. Your views are not welcome in the Liberal Democrats."

I have been a lifelong LibDem voter and supporter and more recently a member. However I cannot stay in a party in which such a profoundly illiberal sentiment is expressed by a senior spokesperson. Women who fear the erosion of their hard-won rights to protection, dignity and safety and also the erasure of the language they use to describe themselves and their bodies are indeed feminists, since they centre in their politics the needs and rights of 51% of the population - biological women.

Please cancel my membership forthwith and remove my contact details from all your mailing lists. I am heartbroken to have to do this, but I cannot stay in, and support with my hard-earned money, a party where my legitimate concerns are brushed aside so aggressively and unfairly. Please confirm that my membership has been cancelled, along with my direct debit, and that I will receive no further emails from the party.^

Thanks for this link.
I sent it to my DH and he has promptly emailed them and withdrew his membership.
Anyway they are an irrelevancey. I only support them because they are pro remain.

How can we forget Lynne Featherstone's role in the mess that we have today?

When she was appointed the new coalition Minister in the Equalities Department in 2010, her civil servants handed her a file that had been gathering dust. It was an Action Plan for Trans Equality.

As she says herself - trans equality hadn't been on her radar and was no-one's priority, but she was impressed that civil servants had (magically) anticipated that she was a person who could inflict untold damage on women's rights and protections. Well done, civil servants in the Equalities Department. You saw her coming.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ministers-reflect/person/lynne-featherstone/

Featherstone is now caught in a bind. She cannot admit that her legacy has been the worst assault on women's rights in generations. She has to 'spin' it as a victory for LGBTQ rights.

Her reckless dismissal of different viewpoints means that she and the Lib Dems are toast, as far as I'm concerned.

Why ‘protect’ a transvestite above a goth or a kid with glasses?

I wonder how much power and influence the average transvestite has compared to the average goth or kid with glasses?

Angry it’s great that you emailed to Lynne Featherstone. Her and people with authoritarian, boundary-erasing views like this need it repeatedly pointed out how these views directly affect lesbians and women in general, transsexuals and children.. and anyone who objects to sex stereotyping or supports free speech.

But by saying that surely she is denying women their ‘human rights’.

OK, so we all agree that Lynne Featherstone is wrong, can we please now let our elected representatives know, too?

If LF were still standing for election in my constituency I would have to actively campaign against her. I respect her opinion but her incessant attempts to shame other women is IMO beyond the pale.

As is implying that anyone who does not support her view on self-ID or has a firm grasp of human biology and reproduction is somehow denying others their human rights. This is trivialising what human rights actually are. She should know better.

Why ‘protect’ a transvestite above a goth or a kid with glasses? Remember that poor girl woman who was beaten to death because she was a goth (and I’m sure there have been more cases)?

True. If protection is needed for people whose looks contravene some societal norms, it's not really because of a definable 'protected characteristic' as such.

Oh, OK Lynne. Gotcha.

This confirms my decision not to vote LD.

FTR, nobody wants to restrict trans people's human rights, Lynne

Plenty of women object to female-identifying males in women's spaces. Almost as though women expect rights too (silly women).

Why ‘protect’ a transvestite above a goth or a kid with glasses? Remember that poor girl woman who was beaten to death because she was a goth (and I’m sure there have been more cases)?

Being charitable I think many politicians don't understand that "trans" means any more than full transsexual?

She understands it right well, though, since she mentions there are many trans people who never live in the other gender let alone make the actual change hormonally or surgically

What makes those people trans, much less 'women' is anyone's guess.

Perhaps she said something vaguely supportive years ago, and got lots of back-clapping and approval? And it felt so good that she's been doubling down ever since?

I’m not sure that gender non conforming people deserve legal protection any more than, say, goths do. I don’t think anyone should be treated differently because of how they look, but legal protection should only be given for characteristics that are not a choice - eg sex, race, disability, sexuality.

If I choose to present in a way that isn’t typical for a woman, that’s essentially (in my eyes) no different than presenting as a goth. Funny how gender non conformity seems to be mostly about surface, rather than (for example) not conforming to male aggression.

Self ID would effectively put “I feel like a woman” onto the list of protections. That’s too low a bar for me.

Transvestites and transsexuals then? Like in the old days?

I lost my argument in the Equality Bill to have this ‘strand’ termed ‘gender identity’ rather than ‘gender assignement’. I was arguing on the basis that there are many trans people who never live in the other gender let alone make the actual change hormonally or surgically and therefore the term reassignment did not cover those who made no change or who were indeterminate in gender identity.

In some ways, possibly that might have been a good idea - from the POV of protecting gender nonconforming people of all sorts from discrimination and harassment but (crucially) completely separate from any notion that TWAW and so making no threat at all to sex based protections. It makes it more obvious that the 'gender identity' is a function of mind rather than matter, and not a binary, completely different issues to sex. Comparing with other protected characteristics, more like religion than race.
It would have been bad for dysphoric transsexuals though, I suppose, who need protections more than the more nebulous TG people.

Perhaps there should have been two distinct categories - 'gender reassignment' for TS people and the other...'gender nonconforming' - more easily understood, and including people who suffer discrimination regardless of their sense of 'identity', but because of other people's stereotypes.

Sorry to be so ignorant but have the Greens changed their their opinion on this yet? Who the hell can I vote for?

Ugh I actually voted for her once

Being charitable I think many politicians don't understand that "trans" means any more than full transsexual? Could that be right? Just can't get my head around how any female could want to give up single sex spaces to men based on self id (and villify those females objecting to this).

It's disgusting and very sad.

"and therefore the term reassignment did not cover those who made no change or who were indeterminate in gender identity."

Presumably Lynne Featherstone has a determinate gender identity and identifies as female. I'd love to know what she thinks that means, and what she thinks she shares with women that she doesn't share with men apart from biology.

What is that sets apart the 75% of members of the House of Lords who are male? Their manliness?

The Lib Dem’s have lost the plot. They were a joke party when I was a student and they have only gone in to show themselves as a useless paper bag in the wind.

Disappointing.

The only party that has come out in favour of sex segregated spaces, and supports women and lesbians, is in fact - the Communist party.
There have been some good articles in the Morning Star on the subject. Women are perceived as an oppressed class because of their sex, not “gender identity”, and they’re fully on board with the dangers of male rapists in female prisons, men taking places in women’s sports or on women’s shortlists, etc.
My problem in voting for them is that I’m a lifelong Tory, and regard their politics and economics as anathema in all other respects bar their feminism!

It’s like feminism never happened..

Yes, I'm pretty sure Jo has affirmed her belief that TWAW.