Can anyone help? GC stance on trans women on women shortlists

Decisions are made by the people in the room.

All-women shortlists are a mechanism designed to get more women into the most important room where decisions are made.

We are 50% of the population and we need to be represented by our people who actually understand our needs - see the recent ‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez for a whole book of problems we face when decisions are made by men.

Someone who is male bodied and male socialised but presents ‘as a woman’ (whatever THAT means) cannot correct this imbalance.
How could they?

You should maybe also look at the fundraiser page for the court case against the Labour Party. Need to work your way back through the updates if you have time! uk.gofundme.com/fighting-for-female-representatives

Also (cant find the original post about this) but 300 women resigned from the Labour party in protest #LabourLoosingWomen - this is BBC version of the story www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43962349

Again if you have time (and not all totally relevant) the thread #LabourLoosingWomen twitter.com/hashtag/labourloosingwomen

Relevant current thread

UPDATE: Gender Critical Women vs Labour Party, Court Claim Filed
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3569603-UPDATE-Gender-Critical-Women-vs-Labour-Party-Court-Claim-Filed

There are two issues.

The first is straightforward and easily highlighted if you ask why we have AWS and women's officers in the first place. Women are underrepresented in politics (as we are in all positions of power) and so these things are there to mitigate this. It makes no sense to create these opportunities and then open them up to males. It's not only about providing women with opportunities to enter politics, it's also about ordinary women having their interests represented by people who properly understand what it is to be female because they are female.

The second issue is more technical and is to do with the wording of the Equality Act and the wider implications of how this is allowed to be interpreted. All women shortlists are legal because part 7, s. 104 makes explicit and specific provision for them. It's not lawful for a political party to have a shortlist that is only open to people who share one particular protected characteristic unless the protected characteristic is sex. So you couldn't have an all black shortlist or an all gay shortlist or an all christian shortlist. The law makes very specific provision for single sex shortlists and nothing else.

To be legally female you need to be actually female or be a tw with a GRC. Self-ID tw are not legally female and do not share the protected characteristic of sex with women. Not even as a legal fiction.

If political parties are permitted to interpret the protected characteristic of sex as something anyone can claim, just by saying so, then this affects every other time sex is mentioned, anywhere in the Equality Act.

The protected characteristic of sex becomes utterly meaningless. We no longer have any sex based rights. This is why everybody should care about this even if you think AWS are a bad idea.

Should we just say trans women are “women”? Trans men are “men”?

Why? just call transwomen transwomen and transmen transmen seeing as that's what they are.

I object to men in women's sports.

I object to men taking roles that are reserved for females
eg Women's Representatives in Students Unions, Trade Unions and workplaces

I object to the over-represented sex applying for a short-lists and pushing out the under-represented sex.

Forgot to include the link [sorry!]

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/7/crossheading/special-provision-for-political-parties

See Equality Act 2010, Part 7: Associations

see Special provision for political parties

section 104: Selection of candidates

section 105 Time-limited provision

Should we just say trans women are “women”? Trans men are “men”? It still pains me, however. I’d prefer a return to transsexual either way. Self-ID is always the fundamental issue here.

Bunce makes my piss boil.

A great example of how ‘trans’ women (thanks Stonewall for your fucking stupid ‘umbrella’) are lauded for their stunning brilliance. Meanwhile a trans man makes the papers for having a baby. 🙄

Bunce was included in a list of Britain’s top 100 female executives compiled for the Champions of Women in Business awards.

Bunce was ranked Number 32 in the list, organised by the Financial Times and diversity campaign Involve, and material released to announce the awards shows him in both his male and female guises.

The case of Philip "Pips" Bunce peaked a nation.

Bunce, a married father of two, cross dresses as a woman at work sometimes. He received a Woman's prize last year.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6197705/City-workers-hit-gender-fluid-banker-works-days-Philip-Pippa.html

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-over-women-s-business-honour-for-cross-dressing-banker-h0gv3l7nw

Could you just say it's important to have proportional representation of 50% give or take of people with female biology who are currently underrepresented, probably for reasons connected to biology (getting Pg and bf or perception that they might) but also childhood socialisation.

If they want to campaign separately for representation for the 1-2% of people identifying as trans you'd be interested to support them, particularly if it includes FtM as well as MtF trans people. AWS are not a catch all measure for any disadvantaged group.

AWS are allowed because of measured , observable differences in the way men and women ( sex) are supported / promoted. There is no evidence that there is any similar systematic discrimination based on gender identity.

Whilst transwomen May claim that their gender identity affects their opportunities, women claim that their gender identity is irrelevent thus there is not even consistent anecdotal support for restricted shortlists based on gender identity . This is anecdotal evidence of a Male/female sex based split as to how gender identity affects opportunity

Restricted shortlists are in principle a bad thing, so should only be used where there is real evidence that discrimination exists, and there is also evidence that forcibly changing the mixture in the short term can lead to long term changes.

Apparently it is ok, apparently all the major political parties think so.

I’m completely against it. Women are discriminated against for being women and nothing else. Men do not become women by feeling or wanting. Insisting on inclusion in women’s spaces (including AWS) is entitlement of a sort that only undermines their argument. Take it to a logical conclusion and ask yourself if an AWS were entirely populated by trans women, would that be OK? Who would they be speaking for? Of course it’s not OK.

Childbirth and nursing will always put us at a disadvantage because it isn’t valued. It will always been seen as a lesser ‘choice’ until it is.

AW are there to ensure representation for women as a sex; if there’s any reason at all why women should be represented as a ‘gender’ I am yet to hear it.

The way I see it, the purpose of these, and other similar things, is to adress a specifically biological issue. I don't actually think that it matters in many jobs or careers if they are male or female dominated, so long as they are open to people who are so inclined.
I also think that it's inevitable that, apart from any other factors, women will have a different choice profile than men simply because they are the child bearers and will often be the early caregivers. That's just about childbirth and nursing, I don't think of that as a disadvantage in itself either - it's just different.
However, particularly in politics, I think it is important to try and have something much closer to representation by both sexes. Because of the nature of the job, and because of women's biological role, this can be a challenge, it will take some real planning and care to try and make this happen - that would perhaps even be the case if the various systemic and cultural factors were changed.
I think that is the most important purpose of those roles and shortlists, and it simply does not apply to transwomen, who don't get pregnant and nurse children.

Yes, I would rather see trans men on a women’s shortlist than trans women. Trans men face the same disadvantages that women face growing up but with the added stigma of being trans and gender non-conforming. Their transition to life as a man doesn’t always lead to them enjoying full male privilege, often the stigma of being born female remains throughout their lives and men do not fully see them as men.

Trans women, on the other hand, are already over represented in public life. The most vocal and obnoxious TRAs (Morgan’s Oger etc) are all trans women. They don’t need the support to enter public life that a women’s shortlist is designed to provide.

And also yy on child-bearing: one of the major reasons women need additional support to enter politics is because of family duties / maternity leave messing up their careers. Again, not an issue that affects trans women as - oddly enough - transition to womanhood never seems to involve taking on the shitwork that women are saddled with around the world for trans women...

Yes there are exemptions for AWS written into the EA2010.