Labour promises to keep single-sex exemptions

I imagine Dawn Butler will be feeling the heat right now. Her allies had high expectations and she hasn't delivered. They won't be happy with her. I'm not inclined to take much notice of anything she says over the next few days. It's the senior leadership I'm watching.

Whatever Labour's definition of women is I think it's clear that it includes TW. Otherwise their AWSLs would not be open to TW.

This is true but not settled. The legal challenge is still to come (and the judiciary are seemingly still very sensible on this matter) and there are fewer Transwoman candidates this time. Heather Peto was on an AWS and withdrew (was unlikely to win, had not connection with the area and several very well respected local councillors were also standing).
Sophie Cook failed to be selected and is standing as an independent, so has obviously left the party.

Labour’s only trans candidates are a non-binary person, Thom Kirkwood, who has already got Thomself in trouble multiple times and has had officially complaints made against Thom to the NEC (standing in a conservative safe seat, not an AWS) and Heather Herbert who is the absolute last minute replacement for Kate Ramsden (and Labour have been 3rd or 4th in elections, after Conservatives, SNP and the Lib Dems).

www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/first-ever-non-binary-candidate-17269669

www.ellontimes.co.uk/news/politics/heather-selected-as-gordon-labour-candidate-1-5044144

So while transwoman candidates are entitled to apply for AWS seats, the local members who select candidates don’t seem keen.

Oh, she hasn't blocked her? May the freebies are still hoped for...

Of course she did. Dr JCJ hasn't any clout to offer Dawn a nice freebie trip abroad or some other 'persuasive' awards evening for being a super duper ally and quoting lyrics from The Greatest Showman to further the great cause.

Dawn Butler, for example, is a...

Above post is incorrect - I misunderstood and will ask HQ to remove it.

It is a bone yes, but is it a distraction or is it something we could potentially use in a fight? That's what I'm trying to decide.

I think this is a fudge that they believe will appease both sides for the purposes of winning more votes. Commentators close to labour are being relatively quiet on the issue, probably for that very reason. Their direction of travel has been clear for some time and appears to be consolidated by Dawn Butler's intervention today.

I don't think it's nuance. I think they are being dishonest.

They are doing exactly the same on this as they are on many other issues - trying to face all ways, saying one thing and saying another at the same time to hoover up as many votes as possible.

Yep, it is dishonest rather than nuanced. And as as said previously, it feels like being thrown a bone to distract us.

There must be someone in the Labour Party desperate to try and pull the wool over our eyes. There have been quite a few threads on FWR recently stating, sometimes IN CAPS, that they are for women’s rights when they are actually undermining them.

Labour are trying to be more nuanced about it

I don't think it's nuance. I think they are being dishonest.

What is Labour's definition of woman

Whatever Labour's definition of women is I think it's clear that it includes TW. Otherwise their AWSLs would not be open to TW.

Dawn Butler's tweet:And there is no way spaces will be permitted to discriminate against trans people. That is illegal and it will stay illegal.
Well yes discrimination is illegal. But as I understand it, single sex (not gender) spaces in specific circumstances are not illegal. My take - as a non lawyer- is that this is either another careful bit of word play or Dawn Butler does not understand the law.

her tweet states NO spaces can discriminate against trans

I'm wondering what Dawn Butler's position would be in a Yaniv 'wax my balls' situation. Would she force unwilling women working in a salon to comply?

I don't think the significance of the Labour manifesto is that it is actually any good for women's protections (it probably isn't) - I think the significance is that Labour felt sufficiently pressured to fudge it.

This.

John McDonnell is the power behind the manifesto. He is not woke, indeed he might well be GC but too careful to let on. He wants Labour to be elected in order to progress other priorities. Hence a careful tightrope designed not to lose votes, and perhaps pick up LD votes along the way.

This goes back to the pre-New Labour/Tony Blair era. The Labour Party manifestos in the 80’s and first half of the 90’s. Contained massive contradictions. That was because the writing of the manifesto would be farmed out to a group of people for one issue and a different group of people for another issue. They would then essentially cut and paste different position papers into one document (the manifesto) regardless of the direct contradictions in policy. They were considered unelectable back then, much like now.

I've thought about this long and hard. Like so many of us, I've spent far too much emotional labour on this issue.

I suppose I'm pleased to see that Labour are trying to be more nuanced about it.

However, the issues for me are as follows:

What is Labour's definition of woman?

Do Labour believe that people
can change sex?

Once someone has legally changed their 'sex', how can you enforce any exemptions allowed by the EqA?

Privacy issues - how do you prove who should
be allowed into single sex amenities and spaces?

How to protect the (mainly) women workers who will be on the front line of making policies work and enforcing them?

What happens if (women) workers disagree with these policies - will it impact their job?

If the GRA is changed to allow self-id, will the certificate say legal sex or legal gender? Will
it say both?

What is Labour's definition of sex? What is Labour's definition of gender? How many genders exist?

How will they balance introducing self-id with protecting young people's health - and ensuring
self diagnosis doesn't lead to an even bigger upsurge in damaging cross-sex hormones and risky, radical surgery?

How will everything be paid for?

Who is/will be advising them on this?

What do they mean by changing the 'culture' around these issues?

Will there be any 'cultural' changes that allow alternative pathways for trans identifying young people to explore in medical and therapeutic settings - other than the affirmative only pathway that currently exists?

TLDR: Labour's manifesto raises many more questions than it answers.

I wondered about Madigan’s reaction but that account is currently set to private

LM doesn't seem worried and I can see why.
TW are able to apply for Labour's all women short lists which are covered by the EA. To allow TW to apply for these positions Labour's reading of the EA must be that TW are W for all purposes.

If Labour's manifesto promise to strengthen women's sex based rights does not include TW they do not need to wait until the GE, they could start right now by saying AWSLs are for women only.

EA Guidance
This section allows registered political parties to make arrangements in relation to the selection of election candidates to address the under-representation of people with particular protected characteristics in elected bodies.
336.These arrangements can include single-sex shortlists for election candidates, but not shortlists restricted to people with other protected characteristics. With the exception of single-sex shortlists, arrangements made under this section must be a proportionate means of reducing under-representation.
337.This provision applies to the selection of candidates in relation to elections to Parliament, local government, the European Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales.
Background

338.For sex, the section replicates the effect of similar provisions contained in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, as amended by the Sex Discrimination (Election Candidates) Act 2002, relating to the selection of candidates. For the other protected characteristics this section introduces new provisions allowing political parties to take action in their selection arrangements in order to address under-representation in elected bodies (apart from shortlists restricted to people with a particular protected characteristic) where this would be proportionate. This will, for instance, allow political parties to reserve places on relevant electoral shortlists for people with a specific protected characteristic such as race, disability etc.
Examples

A political party can have a women-only shortlist of potential candidates to represent a particular constituency in Parliament, provided women remain under-represented in the party’s Members of Parliament.

A political party cannot shortlist only black or Asian candidates for a local government by-election. However, if Asians are under-represented amongst a party’s elected councillors on a particular Council, the party could choose to reserve a specific number of seats for Asian candidates on a by-election shortlist.

Labour is a mess of contradictions, "let's throw every incompatible, Ill thought out concept into the manifesto."

We must press on, definitely. Beryl can cock off.
And yes, more law suits whenever necessary.
So far, no one in the judiciary seems to have forgotten how babies are made.

Dawn Butler has weighed in to clarify that natal women will basically have no sex protected rights (I'm paraphrasing, but her tweet states NO spaces can discriminate against trans.) Archived for the future.

However, if Labour is arguing that trans women are biologically female, then this is factually incorrect? Are parties allowed to put "fake news" in their manifestos?

If not, might we have another lawsuit?

I think that select committee hearing and subsequent report will turn out to be more significant than we realised at the time.

So thanks again to Karen Ingala Smith for her fabulous performance giving evidence (and thanks also to the other witness for the sex toys on the train hilarity. You helped more than you could ever realise).

I don't think the significance of the Labour manifesto is that it is actually any good for women's protections (it probably isn't) - I think the significance is that Labour felt sufficiently pressured to fudge it. We all expected a fully Woke genderist tub thumping as per the Lib Dems and the Greens. That we didn't get it is a positive signal.

Our best response now is - nope, not good enough. You've fucked us over for long enough. The message needs to go through that we won't be listening to our Inner Beryls and we won't be satisfied with the odd bone thrown our way.

Until a statement comes directly from Labour, via a named spokesperson, Ellie Mae O’Hagan should be ignored,

No doubt there are woket than wokists working for the party who desperately wish that TWAW is true but that’s not what the manifesto says, it’s not what was discussed at the commons select committee and it’s not what the trade unionists at WPUK have been working on within the party.

Whether labour will officially capitulate or not remains to be seen, but the intent of the manifesto is clear.

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/women-and-equalities-committee/news-parliament-2017/equality-act-role-of-ehrc-report-published-17-19/

Whilst Labour keep insisting that TWAW, one has to assume that any statement re protecting 'women's' rights will, by definition, be inclusive of transwomen.

Weasel words.

I'm not LGBTQ and so making sure they are 'centred in everything we do' doesn't interest me.

I'm the B part. I don't think we need to be centered. Taken into account like everyone else, certainly, but centered, no.