Conservative manifesto; no mention of GRA

I resent having no positive voting choice to make but the key thing to do in this situation is to write to all the local candidates who have a chance of getting elected and tell them what we want and don’t want.
Otherwise they will have no incentive to change policies, win or lose. Ears are particularly open at election time.

I'm going to be judged as hell here - how can anybody who is a feminist possibly vote conservative?

Their policies and actions are awful for women, disabled folk and minorities.

Yes, I like all of you want a government to whom "Woman: adult human female" isn't perceived as an act of aggression. It's really important to me... but even if they had the perfect GC approach, I couldn't hand on heart vote for them if women's rights were an influencing factor in the way I vote (and they are).

All of this for me, plus aside from my views on the Tories, I believe Johnson is unfit for public office following his conduct in the referendum.

While lots of you social norm voting Tory, this remains our last tiny grain of time in which to try to fix the climate and whatever I think of self ID, I'd rather give my kids a chance at a future where that needs sorting out than none at all. The Tories' record on climate is absolutely shameful.

@zampa. I appreciate that gender rights are important

Don't you mean sex based rights?

One factor worth considering is how influential any political party in power might be given the total capture of the civil service by the trans / anti woman ideology. I really believe that they are the "power behind the throne" and unless their influence is harnessed in some way, this will continue unchecked.

So many aspects of life that make for civil society, with human beings at its core, are suffering and falling into decay

Yes. This is the awful tragedy of austerity.

Too little, too late from the Tories for me, I'm afraid.

There is no party for which I can cast a positive vote. Another tragedy in itself.

The politician I respect most is probably Frank Field

Frank Field is one of my local MPS -although not in my constituency. I'd vote for him if he was, though. He has integrity, and has always stood up for his constituents - ravaged as they are after decades of neglect, and now austerity.

Zampa, did you read the fullfact check?

The conclusion says "This is based on which person in a household receives a benefit or is taxed, so doesn’t factor in the “indirect” impact on partners and household budgets"

The simple lead statistic is only telling half a story and women in healthy relationships may well have benefited from improved household income.

“Stayed” = “stated”

Autocorrect can suck the ladydick I don’t have. Because women don’t have penises.

Ohwhatatangledwebweweave

Totally agree with whoever said they just happen to be the party in power when the TRAs started this nightmare and that if Labour /LD were in power it would be law now. What a terrible position we women have been put in.

This is a very good point and worth reiterating. Much like you, I could never vote for the Tories because of austerity, UC, Brexit and their heartless treatment of disabled people. But this stuff would have happened anyway regardless of who is in power. The sexist and homophobic GRA was passed in 2004 by a Labour government- Gordon Brown’s government, not even the insane Momentum-riddled party is it today!

We know that the TRAs are opportunistic. After the Miliband defeat they saw a golden opportunity and useful idiot in Corbyn and Momentum, who are both hyper-woke, extremely intolerant of dissenting viewpoints and very very bad as class analysis - pretty embarrassing for what is supposed to be a left wing socialist movement. They never got as much of a strangle hold with the Tories because the Tories main concern has never been social justice reform.

The all party select committee which prompted the consultation last year on reforming the GRA was interesting. I’m acquainted with poster TheHarpySings who infiltrated the ‘We’re Still Here’ trans conference in September last year. Helen Belcher (Lib Dem) was in attendance and was also involved in that all party select committee. According to TheHarpy, Belcher stayed at the conference that during the committee meetings, Maria Miller would just defer to Belcher’s knowledge around the subject, it seems without asking any awkward questions or applying any critical analysis to what Belcher was saying. They also didn’t bother asking any women’s groups what they thought about it.

The choices in this election seem to be between what kind of disaster you’d prefer to live through.

I'll vote for them as "the least worst" option. Tbh even a delay would be a good thing. Get more people on board. But I highly doubt the current lot believe TWAW. Most of the Tories pushing for it were very much Tory wets or Liberal Democrats in the wrong party who've been cleared out now.

My reasoning is that I honestly believe the policies and pledges of the Tory party are way preferable to those of Labour for the working class women, men and children in the area that I live

Maybe in the area you live.......

My vote always goes in favour of social values, not just on my own personal financial situation. Where i live the council has already been hit by 63% budget cuts, and with a further £53 million to come next year - leaving the city on the verges of bankruptcy.

I contribute several times a week to a food bank.....and watch as local children's & community facilities close down; fire stations are lost; police numbers reduced. The government appointed company, Carillion was given the contract to rebuild the city's central teaching hospital. It was supposed to have been completed three years ago - but instead is now having to be partially deconstructed due to structural faults - and with no date yet from the government when it will be ready. It is holding up all manner of other related projects in the city, and the current hospital is crumbling, has water leakages, lifts that don't work etc

My city has a legacy of handsome Victoria parks, and the largest of them ( a Grade 1 listed park), about 15 years ago, after decades of degeneration, had some money spent on its renovation and rejuvenation: the lakes, the trees, the play areas, the palm house etc - but now we see it sliding back towards its former condition. 'Parks and Gardens' services have suffered due to the cuts, and the park is less regularly maintained and refurbished than it needs to be.

So many aspects of life that make for civil society, with human beings at its core, are suffering and falling into decay. The city's galleries and museums have suffered too.....loss of staff and maintenance issues....while London museum and galleries receive new extensions, expensive re-modelling every few years, ours have leaking roofs, closed galleries, shabby carpets, poor lighting ( & this is in a World Heritage site). Just to open one new train station to serve the city centre requires a 30 year plan....

All of this and so much more is what austerity means where I live......and there is more to come, in spite of what Boris Johnson says to the contrary.

Some interesting comments on this thread. I did think that Brexit had shown us how alienating these right / left all tories are racist zealots and all lefties are communist traitors beliefs are and if you vote for anyone other than my agreed party then you're .......... - but they seem to be alive and well with a few posters.
My tory MP is gender critical (but hasn't spoken out publicly) there's a good woman labour candidate who wants women to focus on other more important things than women's rights and child safeguarding and there's a Lib Dem who is full on TWAW. It's a dilemma between my decades of voting Labour who are clearly going to abandon women ind introduce self ID or the risk of voting Tory who are currently quivering in a corner in fear of the bullying trans lobby - so it might happen anyway.

I was quite content about spoiling my ballot, but am in a labour/conservative marginal. My vote does count. I think it would feel like a cop out (kind of leaving up to others) if I didn’t vote positively for women’s rights.

I think in the end BovaryX’s post is the best summary here. If you are a Feminist Conservative - then this election is not a challenge for you. Your values politics and ideology have already aligned you to a position where you can be feminist ie egalitarian on the basis of sex/gender - smulatensouly whilst embracing conservatism which, as many would argue, does not place equality in the same place as socialism. So you have a clear and easy choice.

But if you are not a feminist conservative - if you are indeed a feminist socialist, or even a feminist centrist for whom conservatism does not and will not in any way sit right, then it’s YOU that feels choice less in this election. You do NOT have an easy choice. You cannot transform yourself from feminist socialist to feminist conservative, and in the end that is why some of those against TWAW will either comfortably or semi comfortably vote conservative and others will remain political homeless and spoil their ballots.

At least the Tories are having the sense to back away from it

As with fracking you cannot trust in that, though - it is has not been decided upon from any position of integrity. Boris Johnson, for one, has no political integrity, not it seems any core political values.Fracking will be back by next year should they win the election, and Self Id will worm its way back too

@Thoughtlessinengland an openly gay man voting against gay marriage because he thought civil partnerships were adequate.
He is in one himself.
He's not exactly against the LGBTQ community is he?
I have checked his voting record ( that's how I found out that he voted against gay marriage) and he is pro nhs, pro remain and pro disability rights.
Turns up regularly at parent / carer disability events I attend in the community and is fighting the local labour council for social care reforms , as they just keep slashing the budget for disabled kids and putting money in crack pot schemes ( just for clarification we have a first time young Tory mp voted in at the last election and a local council that has been labour for decades )
I'm sorry but people have a right to vote, I don't want to risk a Marxist government and the bloody swamp needs draining.
I'm very much hoping labour will get a wake up call and rebuild itself into a party I can feel proud to vote for and become involved in again.
The very far far left have ruined the party and people should take the blinkers off and be afraid.

The Tories don't care about women. Their fiscal reforms have historically shafted women at every income level.

fullfact.org/economy/austerity-women/

I appreciate that gender rights are important but can't comprehend basing a vote on this issue only (in the same way, to me, it's not all about Brexit).

Fwiw, I'm no fan of JRM or IDS either; like Labour, it's a broad church.

I don't think either main party is a broad church at the moment. They have both taken steps to purge moderates.

That, and the fact that the other parties have outsourced their equalities policies to homophobia misogynists, is why so many of us are going to be stuck on 12th December.

I'm almost too scared to write this (in much the same way that I'm often too scared to challenge trans ideology) but I'm someone who thinks of themself as a feminist but not a socialist

Well said Thingybob. It is possible to be a feminist without being a socialist. And everyone is free to vote however they like. It’s ludicrous that you feel scared to give your opinion. But it is a sign of the times.

rights & the only response I’ve had was from the Conservative, who said that after 40 years in the NHS she’s very clear on the importance of single sex wards

Empress, that really is an indictment of the colonization of both Labour and the Lib Dems by this aggressive lobby group. I remember when the Lib Dems leader was brave enough to oppose the invasion of Iraq. What has happened to them?

I am against any form of extremism

And thus you find yourself able to vote for a man who openly voted against gay marriage? And who presumably voted for countless inhuman injustices to the disabled infirm and sick that his party brought into practice? In the end I suppose it is inherently about which issue one prioritises over which other. Nigel Farage is superbly against “all this trans stuff” as are many in his school of thought but for what reason? Is it really for feminist reasons? Is that why this man who voted against marriage equality is anti TWAW? Is that why the DM is against it? How can we not see that the opposition to TWAW comes from two distinct different ideological areas - and just because the one of those on the left is not available to people, one votes into power the one on the other end which is out to wreck untold damage? Why not spoil the ballot instead? Is voting in the supporters of a hard brexit and much worse else truly the best way to make a statement against extremism?

I’m in what is probably a safe Labour area. I emailed my Labour, Tory, Green & LibDem candidates to ask how they were going to defend women’s sex-based rights & the only response I’ve had was from the Conservative, who said that after 40 years in the NHS she’s very clear on the importance of single sex wards.

Ours has been a traditionally Lib Dem seat for decades.
I've always been a socialist, canvassing with my grandfather from age 7 and very much involved in the Labour Party.
I had never considered voting any other way , not voting or spoiling my paper.
At the last election I couldn't vote for Corbyn or Lib Dem . Wouldn't even consider voting Tory then.
So I spoilt my ballot.
To be fair the very long standing Lib Dem MP was very helpful to my family with issues regarding my 2 disabled sons and I'm very grateful to him but the party is not for me for reasons already mentioned here and I think Jo Swinson is bloody insufferable.
Anyway this useless Tory MP won last time.
The guy is hopeless and not well thought of.
Terrible self promoting, pompous twat. I emailed his office to ask about self identification and a few other disturbing issues after my 12 year old came home from his special needs school having had a "lesson " in gender equality from an outside organisation without our prior knowledge and being told that the "old" male / female sex issued at birth were irrelevant and people should be able to decide for themselves.
He was told not to say boy , girl , woman or man and use they / them pronouns from now on!
Now this is a school for kids with moderate to severe learning and physical disabilities.
It's an hour from our town in a labour stronghold.
He was so bloody confused and after dinner he just walks into the living room wearing my clothes and a old tatty Halloween wig because he wanted to see what they meant about people being gender less and just people.
He even informed me I was a cis woman!
Well I didn't react , he did it a few more times and that was the end of that.
He's back to being the school Romeo and wearing too much lynx Africa to attract the girls 😂
As our current MP is gay and doesn't hide it , I thought he would support the school but he was outraged.
Strange when I checked he even voted against gay marriage!
He told me that self identification is not Tory policy.
Still took the useless bugger 6 weeks to send an email to the LA about the outrageous lesson though.
I'm not going to waste my vote this election and I'm going to vote Tory.
I never in all of my 44 years thought I'd say this and actually vote conservative but I'm sick of this tiny minority of people trying to take my rights as a woman away from me.
I am a woman. Born female , not cis and I don't have a gender.
I have a sex.
I'm pro gay rights 100% , my Dsis is lesbian and I'm pro any adult male or female to undergo gender reassignment ( not children or teenagers though ) and go through the proper process to make that happen for them.
Self identification is insanity and senseless.
Why is it ok to bully and vilify women or men who don't agree with a tiny minority's opinion ?
I'm not trans phobic in any way but I am against any form of extremism and in my humble opinion this militant trans lobby that is seeping into our society is an extremist view point.

I think the fact that it's not in the manifesto isn't necessarily meaningful. There's hardly anything in the manifesto. They've let self id happen by the back door anyway and I can't see them doing anything to reverse that.

My mp has no intention of dropping it they are just not putting it in the election promises because they believe brexit is what will decide the vote not women's rights shows what they think of women doesn't it