Andrew Marr questions Angela Rayner and Jo Swinson on SelfID and EA2010

Give it up, thirdfiddle. Jo Swinson used a homophobic trope regularly trotted out by extremist genderists on national TV. If she doesn't know it's a homophobic trope - that's even fucking worse. That makes her a homophobe and ignorant.

Well, the election gives us a window of opportunity to write to three or more would-be party representatives, demanding that they spell out their policies.

Yes it is a real let down. To put it mildly!

Rayner was awful throughout the interview. She did all the politicians tricks -

• picking a neutral phrase from the question to repeat at intervals ('at the moment')
• using the interviewer's name at intervals
• swerving every single question to repeat a pre-prepared spiel

But she's really bad at it and it was far more obvious than when many other politicians do it.

To be fair, most politicians have come up through posh schools and unis and spent a lot of time in debating societies, whereas Raynor left school at 16, trained as a care worker and entered politics via her trade union.

It's disappointing because we need more proper working class women in politics, but there's not much point if they're just going to do the same gamesy bullshit as the posh ones but not do it as well.

I've emailed my Labour candidate to ask how he would manage the conflict between preserving single sex spaces for vulnerable girls and accommodating trans students. As a teacher I gave an example of how this conflict could play out with students from a particular demographic. I emailed him very recently so I don't know if he'll reply or not. I live in a Tory area but the Lib Dems are definitely gaining ground. Yesterday I thought that his response would be the decider on whether I voted for him or not.

What Angela Rayner said in this morning's interview really worries me as a woman thinking about the future. That she is Shadow Education Secretary is terrifying for me as a teacher thinking about my present circumstances. Teachers often vote Labour. The situation is surreal. How can any teacher be reassured that Rayner's views promote the safety of either their majority or minority students in any way? I'm wondering if she's been in a school recently. Of course there is no way I can vote Labour now unless someone urgently wades in to clear this up

I absolutely cannot understand why Labour put anything about sex-based rights in their manifesto if this is how the politicians who have been put forward to answer questions on this point are responding.

And yy the spousal "veto" thing is terrible all round. Both the trying to get rid of it and the language used to try to pretend it's something it isn't.

CBA to defend her further, she was being an insensitive idiot at best.

makemorenoisemanc.wixsite.com/mysite/post/trans-widows-and-the-spousal-veto-a-modern-fable-of-male-entitlement

Worth noting another terrible libdem policy - getting rid of the spousal veto on acquiring a GRA . Also, funnily enough, homophobic as it forces lesbians with a partner who transitions into a straight marriage without their knowledge or consent.

No, the 'lesbians are violent too' trope is straight out of the homophobes handbook.

It comes from the same page as 'we'll, how do you feel about lesbians in your changeroom'.

It's not lesbophobic to say that a woman in a refuge if not fleeing from a male partner (much the most likely) must be fleeing from a same sex one. That's just logical. In Swinson's language, she is including transwomen in those same sex partners (obviously I disagree). She thinks that we're trying to protect women from being followed into a refuge by an abusive transwoman partner. Where actually much more likely is a male non trans partner pretending to be trans, or some unrelated genuine transwoman victim whose presence would still inhibit and trigger the woman victim. For trans victims provision is needed, but for the sake of the female ones it needs to be as well as not instead of women only.

I also want to induce unconsciousness in myself by ramming my head against a brick wall to escape the 'imagine if it was your child' rhetoric.

Slimy, opportunistic, gross use of children to manipulate mothers and women more generally.

It's lesbophobic to compare lesbians to men, just as its racist to compare black women to men.

Also - the data/study used most often to support the claim of 'ooh, lesbians do it (DV) too' asked only about lifetime experience of DV in a lesbian population. What wasn't asked was 'did this occur with a female partner?'

Many lesbians have experience of relationships with males (that pesky compulsory heterosexuality, innit) and so it is entirely inappropriate to extrapolate, from that particular data set, anyway, anything about DV between female partners.

Also, did I mention it's lesbophobic to compare lesbians with men ?

Yes, she doesn't look good either way ThePurported.

I despair of either LibDems or Labour getting into power because they are going to throw women’s rights under the nearest bus.

The homophobic thing people keep saying is you don't want to (inset vulnerable situation here) with males? Well do you object to (XXX) with lesbians then? I don't think what Swinson is saying here. She hasn't twigged that it's male bodies generally that are triggering to victims, not just the possibility of a specific male getting in. She's talking as if the only issue is preventing a specific abuser from entering.

In which case she is knowingly advocating for mixed sex refuges with added risk assessment, because if she is suggesting that a 'transwoman' could be someone's abusive husband, she is not quite the TWAW believer she claims to be.

I think the homophobia and cis-ing from Swinson is unsurprising, sadly. But tbh, the fact that she doesn't understand what refuges are for is the clearest indication that she hasn't the first clue about women's issues.

And Raynor's 'scourge of suicide among people of a transgender background' is just emotive word salad.

Thick as mince and spineless.

The whole lot of them

I can't get past how astonishingly rude Angela Rayner was.

Also I suspect she doesn't know what the GRA is.

How dare either of these parties pledge to reform the GRA when Women & Equalities (a cross-party committee) have been sitting on an unpublished consultation of 100K+ responses for over a year.

Much emoting, much bids for sympathy, it's difficult, it's painful, it's absolutely definitely not a choice (hello, APG, cross dressing, Pippa Bunce, be honest about this, it's not exclusively people with dysphoria) and vague references to statistics.

What statistics? Exactly? The one that was 27 self selected teenagers? What other valid ones have been collated? Why is it that the Tavistock says suicide is extremely rare? What about comorbidities? If we're going to make knee jerk law based on suicide stats, ASD and Anorexia are higher issues statistically from what I've seen when they're compared.

And yes. She has no frigging clue about what refuges are, what they do, her privilege and her naivety is clanging.

The bottom line: some males choose to identify as women. This is fine, no one should experience discrimination on how they present. However nobody changes sex . So the limits have to be where the rights of female people to dignity, privacy and safety have to be put above requiring them to pretend a belief they do not hold, and the large percentage of women who will be excluded from services for the benefit of these males. This is discrimination. This is exclusion.

It's deeply depressing the women who have played the game of Patriarchy and won to get into these high positions have so very little mind of their own and are this unintelligent. But then I don't suppose you're allowed up the ladder if you say things that challenge male interests, as women of the calibre of Anne Ruzylo demonstrate.

I feel very, very sorry for anyone who feels suicidal because not everyone believes they are now the opposite sex.

I do wish we could get beyond the Tinkerbell level of 'If you say TWAM, a Trans Child dies!' and into the realms of actual help for people.

I think the Equality Act does a good job. We have different protected characteristics because every individual in this country, no matter who you are, deserves to have protection on all of those different fronts.

Jo Swinson is absolutely right when she says this. Women and girls have protection from direct and indirect discrimination on the grounds of sex, as well as protection from harassment and victimisation.

Harassment in the Equality Act is unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating our dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for us.

Karen Ingala Smith has repeatedly and eloquently explained why this risk assessment idea is utter fucking bullshit, but that's not even the point!

Here is the point that Jo Swinson missed:

It's not enough that any particular, carefully risk-assessed male person is unlikely to actually rape us or physically attack us. That bar is far too low.

The law also says that service providers must not violate our dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for us. This is prohibited conduct in the EA. It's unlawful, even when done with the best of intentions.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/26

The homophobic thing people keep saying is you don't want to (inset vulnerable situation here) with males? Well do you object to (XXX) with lesbians then? I don't think what Swinson is saying here. She hasn't twigged that it's male bodies generally that are triggering to victims, not just the possibility of a specific male getting in. She's talking as if the only issue is preventing a specific abuser from entering. I see a distinction there. There is no implication that homosexuals are a higher risk than other females in general. Or is there and I'm missing something?

make sure that everyone feels valid

What is this fuckery? Why would it be the job of policy makers to make sure that people “feel valid” and what in the name of arse could that even mean?

Neither of them mentioned transmen and yes that example was homophobic and how come that was what her mind jumped to when talking about refuges?

It's that doublespeak again.

It's an insult to females.