<waves at politicians seeking to understand women's rights>

I'm a woman who wants to vote. I want to vote for several things, but the most pressing must be the Climate Crisis- which affects every single person on this planet, and the stealthy removal of women's sex based protections- affecting ~50% of the population.

Everything else looks petty in comparison, and of course both affect the most vulnerable first.

Come on! Wake up!

Dear politicians

Whatever the fuck you're smoking in the HoP toilets that makes you buy into this bullshit (whether you genuinely believe it to be true, or just believe it is a vote winner) - is it available to the general public?

This will decide my vote now (most likely spoiled ballot) and will do in every election following. I will endeavour to vote in every single local election as well, and any candidate who is willing to stand up and vote against party line on self ID bill will get my support. More over I will explain this to every other woman I know, to my family, friends, school mothers, teachers, hcp and so on

This

Dear politicians

Brexit might save some of you from this for a while because it's impossible to be a GC remainder woman and find someone to vote for. However, Brexit will eventually cease to be an election issue and then be aware that we will remember.

Woman first, European second.

Dear Politicians

Why is a GRC even necessary today? Same sex marriage is legal.

It makes no sense to falsify information on passports and driving licences & should not be allowed to happen.

The biggest fear men have when going to prison is that they might be raped. The biggest fear most women have on a daily basis is that they might be raped-think about that.

Dear Politicians,
Why are you willing to endanger women & girls by removing the single sex spaces that protect us from male violence?

Woman is not a feeling, woman is a biological reality.

TTFN
GibbonsGG

I see my previous post was deleted, which as ever says far more about Mumsnet than me.

I won't repeat it, even though it is true, and I sincerely hope politicians saw it and take it on board.

I will say this.

Sex is determined at conception and observed at birth (except in the miniscule minority of cases where babies are born with ambiguities which have nothing whatsoever to do with 'trans' in which case it is investigated at birth).

Sex can never be changed. It can never be 'identified' in to or out of.

No one was ever 'born in the wrong body'. There are no 'women trapped in men's bodies'. There are no 'men trapped in women's bodies'.

Anyone who has told you otherwise is a liar. If you fell for their lies you are too stupid to deserve my vote. If you know they are lying but going along with the nonsense anyway you are too cowardly to deserve my vote.

Grow up you twits. It isn't just women who hate this claptrap. It is the vast majority of the population. There will be an almighty backlash and if others, homosexual people for example, are caught up in that backlash that will be on you, bunch of pathetic, spineless, cowardly worms that you are.

Dear Politicians,

I am not a gender stereotype, I am a biological reality.

I'm still thinking of spoiling my ballot.

Your Sincerely
Mrs Wednesday x

Dear Politicians

You apparently support an ideology that asserts that sex (as in male and female mammals) is an outdated method of categorising humans, or perhaps that white people invented sex and foisted it on the rest of the world in colonial times, or perhaps that sex is a spectrum or too complicated for us mere electorate to understand. You support this ideology to the extent that some of you seek to try and change the Equality Act 2010 because of this. I have a question for you: Would all of the women here on this website talking about rape, pregnancy from rape, sexual assault, trying to conceive, infertility, birth trauma, post partum depression, smear tests, mammograms, maternity discrimination, gender pay gap, coercive control, domestic violence, stalking, caring for elderly parents, caring for grandchildren, universal credit, being a single parent etc etc, would they all have been spared the difficulties in their lives if they had only had the temerity and foresight to declare themselves in possession of a male gender identity at some point? If not, why not?

Mumsnut that is fabulous

Dear politicians,

If you make the legal definition of ‘woman’ into anyone who signs a piece of paper to say they are then you make ‘woman’ a meaningless term.

If it’s a term that holds no legal meaning then all our sex based protections are gone, if you can’t define sex you can’t protect those of us who are mariginalised because of it.

If it’s a term that holds no meaning you have taken away woman’s vote. You can’t measure what natal women vote for if the catagory ‘women’ includes men. You can’t assess how women feel about issues that effect our lives if you can measure who women vote for. Women can’t come together as a group to use our democratic rights to influence positive change for women if the group ‘women’ includes men. Women can’t use media and social discussions to raise awareness of issues that effect us when a significant number of ‘women’s’ voices come from men.

There’s no way to measure the gender pay gap if ‘women’ includes men. There’s no way to assess how many women are in senior positions in employment if some of those ‘women’ are men. There’s no way for any woman who is unfairly passed over for promotions on the basis of her sex to complain when her employer can claim that 50% of the male managment are women. There’s no way to assess how many women are in STEM subjects when ‘women’ contains men.

There’s no way for any single sex prison, hospital, mental health facility, dv refuge or any other single sex facility can turn away a man when ‘woman’ now includes any man who signs a form.

Making the legal definition woman something any man can opt into, without any ‘transition’ of any sort makes the term women meaningless. Doing so wiped out all our sex based protections and all our rights in one go. You maybe a woman yourself, but if your not you were certainly birthed by one. You may also be married to one, or have sisters, daughters or other women you care about. They are the people whose rights you are erasing.

This will decide my vote now (most likely spoiled ballot) and will do in every election following. I will endeavour to vote in every single local election as well, and any candidate who is willing to stand up and vote against party line on self ID bill will get my support. More over I will explain this to every other woman I know, to my family, friends, school mothers, teachers, hcp and so on. I know a lot of women, I suspect that’s true of other women on this board do also. At some point one party will release what a large % of votes that is, as more and more women are aware of this. Will it be your party or will it be the reason you loose? Females make up 51% of the population, and our erasure of rights effects us all. That’s a lot of votes for whoever is smart enough to figure that out.

Dear Politicians
The definition of a woman is:
adult human female
No one else has the right to identify into that category. No one.

Hi
Here is my election poster. It hasn't stopped any of you pouring junk mail through my door, but I live in hope. Until you meet this criteria you can expect my spoilt ballot on Thursday.

Oh, hello Canvassers. Oh look, one of you is male and one is female (in old money)! Tell you what, nip into my dining room and get naked together, then we’ll have a chat about my vote. That shouldn’t feel awkward at all.

No? Really?

Well what if Mr Canvasser here kindly identifies as a woman for a bit?

Still no?

WELL BUGGER OFF AND THINK ABOUT WHY THAT IS

Hi there politicians,

TW are men. To say otherwise is to reveal yourself as a foolish ideologue, tremendously dim, cowardly or cynical.

Labour, I’ve voted for you at every GE, but I don’t think I can this time; you’re saying a lot of the things I want to hear, but I fear that identity politics will undermine what you set out to achieve.

It’s quite a thing when a vote for the cynical feels like the least bad option.

Regards.

enjoy your (political) erasure.🤣

Dear politicians,
Explain, using nice simple language, how removing sex-based exemptions from the Equalities Act can leave the legal wriggle room necessary to keep convicted (and still be-penised) rapist Karen White out of women's prisons?

Or, conversely, explain to us why you think it would be such a brilliant, inclusive move to put Karen White into a women's prison (given that last time we tried that, he sexually assaulted two women inmates while on remand)?

Dear politicians;

Explain how your policy to remove women's sex based rights from the Equality Act will be better for women than UKIPs plan to remove women's rights by abolishing the Equality Act.

Use plain English and give examples; e.g. why you think mixed sex prisons, psychiatric units, hospital wards, domestic violence refuges - are better for natal women.

Hi politicians

Until your party acknowledges women as an oppressed class by means of their reproductive sex and has a manifesto with policy created on this basis, I won't be voting for you.

Otherwise, you're just white noise.

HTH

Lang

Dear Politicians
A female body is what makes a woman. Nothing more, nothing less. It is quite literally what I have in common with all other women.

It is the basis of all the oppression women are, and ever have been subjected to, and it is the reason we need women’s rights and women-only spaces.

Dear politicians,

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why we have sex segregated spaces?

Is it an arbitrary piece of discrimination, just like the "color bar" in the 1950s southern USA?

Or is it because statistics show us that some men (sadly a not insignificant minority) pose a physical risk to women, so we keep them out of spaces where women are vulnerable (changing rooms, sleeping accommodation, etc)?

Reminder of those stats again: in the UK, 90% of people incarcerated for violence against the person, and 98% plus of people incarcerated for sexual crimes are male.

There are more men in prison for sexual offences alone (13,535 as of June 2018) than there are women in prison in total (3, 831 as of July this year).

Supplementary follow up question: do you actually believe it's possible for people to change sex?

Hi politicians

What are you going to do with the female people who are no longer able to access smear tests, stay on hospital wards, use public toilets, use public facilities like swimming, or access refuges when they and their children's lives are in danger, because due to their faith, culture, disability or trauma, are unable to be undressed or sleep in a space with stranger males regardless of how those males choose to identify themselves?

While it's lovely that those males have more choice - by all provision having been taken away from females to give to males as extra alternatives to their existing provisions - what are you going to do with the females now wholly excluded from basic access to essential services?

And why is it that female people are actually having to ask you this in the 21st century, as if they still have to point out that females are human too and should have some semblance of equality of human rights to those gifted to male people?