Nandy on R4

Excellent letter from Ruth Serwotka to Nandy and the other candidates but initially in response to Nandy's interview:

You went on in your Radio 4 interview to conflate “causing harm” with “causing offence”. This should alarm everyone in the labour movement and beyond committed to free speech and debate. It is difficult to understand how a women’s rights organisation causes anyone in the Labour Party reasonable offence. And “being offended” cannot be the basis in law or party rules for expelling, proscribing or silencing others. We are deeply concerned that a candidate for leadership of the Labour Party does not seem to understand this and the damage it does to the case for action in genuine cases of discriminatory, abusive or harmful behaviour.

Our views are that current equality law must be protected, that the current sex exemptions in the Equality Act must be upheld, understood and enforced.

Is that “hateful”, “harmful” or “offensive” – or grounds for proscription?

womansplaceuk.org/2020/02/14/dear-lisa-nandy-a-letter-from-ruth-serwotka/amp/?

They have basically made a declaration of war - are they too stupid to realise that (and who is sitting there whooping and clapping them on)?

Calm down? We should calm the debate down? By calling reasonable organisations in favour of upholding the current law hate groups? By saying men are women and can enter any all female space they feel like, and calling for the expulsion of thousands of Labour member for saying that women should keep their rights??
How has a person with such a tenuous grasp on reality managed to become an MP? She is extremely out of her depth. I'm almost embarrassed for her.

In UpsideDown world, Nandy has now said (of another topic):

For people to hear us we cannot just shout the same things louder.” Good line from lisanandy re Labour manifesto

twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1228311937471176704

Astonishing in some ways as I feel that on some issues and pledges, all we hear is the same things, shouted louder. Or does the move towards pledging to expel people negate that?

I wonder what they will say should a synagogue refuse to allow a self-iding woman use the mikvah (post menstrual bath)
They won't know who to support will they?

I wish that interviewers, when faced with TWAW, would ask in what way an adult human male is a woman.

I wonder how they will address the religious woman’s rights to privacy Vs trans rights to use woman’s changing rooms/toilets/section of the synagogue or mosque, etc?

Lisa Nandy and other candidates met with Jewish group yesterday and tweeted

"I'm angry and sorry about where our party has got to on antisemitism. But the Jewish community deserves more than my anger and sorrow. I promise that no one will ever again be forced to choose between standing up for what's right and standing up for the Labour Party."

Maybe she, like me, could cut and paste this for when they wake up to the selfID shit.

Thanks Langinspace,

"If you start from a postition" - of wobbly and untrue foundations, the whole lot comes crashing down.

LangClegsinSpace - Thank you so much for the transcript! It means such a lot to me to be able to read what the interview was like!

In other news, Brad Blitz (the Director of the IoE in UCL who hosted the #WomensLiberation2020 event) has commented wrt Lisa Nandy (his whole thread is worth reading):

Pity lisanandy
wasn't at #WomensLib2020
IOE_London
to hear
MForstater
I checked out
WomansPlaceUK
website beforehand & listened to the speakers. There was nothing hateful or transphobic but a dignified response to protect the rights of women and children. #Losttheplot?

twitter.com/ProfessorBlitz/status/1228036990207062016

That’s not how I was interviewing her and following up on her garbled nonsense. I think my neighbours will agree... my cheeseplant has more brains than this one.

Done a transcript:

Radio 4 Today Programme 13/02/20

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000f69n

Justin Webb
Lisa Nandy

[1:19:18]
JW: Labour's candidates for the leadership held a debate last night on Newsnight. Everything from trans rights to economic policy came up. We'll be hearing from all of them in the run up to the actual voting. Balloting by the way opens next Friday, although the result isn't going to be known until April 4th. The only backbencher standing is Lisa Nandy, who's the MP for Wigan and she's here in the studio, good morning to you.

LN: Morning.

JW: Could we start with trans rights? You and Rebecca Long Bailey have both signed a new trans rights charter. It calls on Labour to expel transphobic members. Why have you signed it?

LN: Well, because for the last few years I've been horrified to see how discriminated against people are in this country who are trans and I think the debate has descended into pitting people against one another. I want to see Labour doing better than that. I have a young person in my constituency who's going through the process at the moment. It's been horrendous for her and her family. The waiting times are very long, the levels of public understanding are very, very low, she's been bullied while she's waiting to get through the gender recognition process and her family have got no support at all. Every time I see that family I just wonder if they're going to survive much longer with the lack of support that they've got and I just want her, and people like her, to know, in this contest, that they've got somebody who's prepared to go out and defend them and support them and stand up for them and will never hear anything other than compassion and decency from me.

JW: Point nine of the charter you've signed says, 'Organise and fight against transphobic organisations such as Woman's Place UK and other trans-exclusionist hate groups.' What's your evidence that Woman's Place UK is a hate group?

LN: Well, wilfully trying to go after trans people, causing offence and, um ...

JW: Causing offence?

LN: Causing offence, causing real harm. Causing harm with the words that we use, with the language that we use, with the lack of tolerance and understanding. And I've been someone that's been very, very tough about this over the course of my lifetime for a good reason, because I'm half Indian, I've experienced discrimination and hatred, my family has as well. I know how it feels and I know that it cannot be left to those who experience it to stand up against it. And that's why I signed this pledge ...

JW: Is it hatred though, for ...

LN: ... It's a very tough pledge, but it's important that we are tough on hate.

JW: Is it hatred for people in Woman's Place UK to say we want there to be, in Britain, places where people who have a Y chromosome and are anatomically male, should not be allowed to be?

LN: I think it's absolutely right to be able to have a debate about it, with decency and compassion. That isn't the debate that's been conducted over the last few years. But in terms of safe spaces, I used to work for the charity Centrepoint, we ran hostels where we would admit young people from all sorts of different backgrounds and we often came up against this issue where, remember a few years ago, we had Eritreans and Ethiopians both being placed into the same hostel, and there was an issue with those young people where two of them had been former child soldiers, fighting on different sides in that conflict. We've always had to strike the right balance to make sure that people are protected, but ...

JW: So what is the right balance?

LN: ... but if you start from the position, as I do, that trans women are women then the way that you resolve that issue is not to pit women against other women, it's to have policies in your hostels that make sure that you don't admit people who are trying to do harm to people who are already there.

JW: Right, so it's the harm but it's not the anatomical and the chromosomal thing, it's the harm done. So in other words, there's no space in Britain that you think someone who is genuinely, and regards themself as genuinely, female, even if they are - have a male body, there is no space that they should be excluded from, because of that?

LN: That's - yeah that's right, I mean, if you start from the position that trans women are women, which I do, that I accept that and I understand that, then - um - then you don't exclude women from women only spaces.

JW: And just a final point then on this, are you seriously saying that people who disagree with you should be expelled from the party? Because that's point ten of this charter you've signed: 'Support the expulsion from the Labour Party of those who express bigoted, transphobic views'?

LN: Those who express bigoted, transphobic views, not those who disagree. There are very, very live debates in this area around how you protect people, how you support people, and it's really important that those people, particularly women who've suffered domestic violence, know that we're taking this seriously, that we will be robust about making sure that there are policies in place that mean that people can't do them harm. But - but I do really think that we've got to calm this debate down. Over the last few years ...

JW: I suppose that's the point, isn't it ...

LN: ... there's been a heightening of ...

JW: ... this charter doesn't calm it down, it actually calls for people to be expelled.

LN: Well I think it does calm it down actually because I don't want anyone to be in the Labour party who is wilfully trying to do harm to other people. We've seen it in the last few years around ...

JW: Right.

LN: ... around antisemitism and ...

JW: But you would - if you were leader you would go ahead with expulsions? People would be expelled?

LN: ... we've been tough on that. We've - we should exclude people who ...

JW: Ruth Serwotka, who's a Labour - a well known Labour left person, we've had her on this programme quite often, who set up Woman's Place UK, she'd be out?

LN: We should exclude people from the Labour party who are trying to do harm to other people and that is because we're better than that. We're a compassionate party, we believe in a compassionate society and we've got to live those values.
[1:24:22]

(interview continues to a discussion about crime)

I believe in the Labour leadership candidates's feminism as much as I believe in "Jessica" Yaniv's and "Karen" White's womanhood.

No. This isn't about trans, that's another conversation. This is about anti-women politics, beliefs, actions. Own it

I used to think this wasn't the biggest issue for women and girls-it mattered to me, but other things mattered more. Now I can see that if you can't organise as a sex and you cant even legally define who is female then females of all ages are screwed. There can be no monitoring of equal pay, no accurate recording of crime stats (which affects funding to various bodies) and nowhere that girls and women can go and boys and men can't. War on women and girls is right, and I am LIVID that people who want to be elected to lead this country have so much contempt for the majority of it's population.

This. This, precisely.

I STILL support trans rights - in the accurate, truthful sense. I always will; I will always, always support people who are at risk of harm. Trans people need to be able to live their lives free of abuse, assault, discrimination or injustice. But not being allowed to claim a female identity which you do not possess is not fucking oppression; framing it as such is abusive gaslighting of women seeking to defend our rights. It's fucking offensive to have such contempt for women's oppression that you define it an optional choice. That position could only be consistently held by someone who did not, in reality, believe that women are oppressed.

This no longer has anything to do with trans rights. This is about the absolute elimination of women's rights. If you can't even define what a woman is, and women are no longer allowed to meet as a collective to talk about issues that affect us, then we're fucked. And that is the goal. That is WHY so many gleeful misogynists, who want to see themselves as 'good people' but resented having to pay lip service to feminism, are so militantly claiming to be trans-allies.

This is the most extreme and rancid form of Men's Rights Activism it is possible to imagine. And we're being threatened, abused, assaulted, fired and demonised just for wanting to talk among ourselves about it.

I'm reaching the point too where I'm no longer talking here or anywhere else about 'trans', that word is coming out of the situation unless it's essential, because ...This is about anti-women politics, beliefs, actions. Own it

Applause

I imagine that all the Labour leadership candidates know that they have to say TWAW no matter what they actually think or they stand no chance of being elected; the actual election is a simple "One member one vote" thing, when it finally happens, and it is a fact that the beardy dudebros and the Aunt Lydias make up a massive part of the membership.

Even so, Nandy and Long-Bailey have clearly drunk the Kool Aid. I'm not certain though that Thornberry drank quite all the glass; but she is (typically) both being lazy - she has not done her homework on this - and thinking (wrongly) that she can somehow appeal to "both sides".

It's just about possible that Starmer has done a bit more thinking about it. I don't see how he could avoid signing some kind of TransPledge, once the fuss kicked off, because of the beardybros, and he tried to pick the marginally less poisonous one.

I'm not trying to defend him signing (and I won't be voting for any of them, having already expelled myself). But, he's currently front-runner only because of affiliate votes, MP votes etc - and none of those will matter at all in the election. Only the party membership. So, I'm just saying, I'm not sure what else he could have done in the circumstances.

I'm reaching the point too where I'm no longer talking here or anywhere else about 'trans', that word is coming out of the situation unless it's essential, because trans people (and vegan people and extinction rebellion people and football people and paleo diet people and all groups of people with an interest in a specific agenda) aren't relevant. This is anti-woman activism. This is a directly anti-woman agenda.

Those are the terms I want this on, not least because any time anyone now asks what about the 50% of the population who are born female and their rights, the answer is now 'but trans'.

No. This isn't about trans, that's another conversation. This is about anti-women politics, beliefs, actions. Own it

Yep. I'm with you. And, everything wellbehaved said on this thread

I used to think this wasn't the biggest issue for women and girls-it mattered to me, but other things mattered more. Now I can see that if you can't organise as a sex and you cant even legally define who is female then females of all ages are screwed. There can be no monitoring of equal pay, no accurate recording of crime stats (which affects funding to various bodies) and nowhere that girls and women can go and boys and men can't. War on women and girls is right, and I am LIVID that people who want to be elected to lead this country have so much contempt for the majority of it's population.

GCAcademic That academic's pinned tweet is about taking viagra for their ladydick.

Of course it is. How else can one get one's students to understand how oppressed and yet simultaneously fabulously feminine one is? Not inappropriate at all . . .

Very disappointed in Nandy.

I really do think people around personally her will not agree with her stance. I'm still sceptical as to how much of this she has a) looked into properly and b) actually truly believes.

Look at the utterly defamatory stuff this academic (!) is saying about Selina Todd and other feminist academics.

GCAcademic That academic's pinned tweet is about taking viagra for their ladydick.

Blah! Can never highlight other posters quotes!

I've seen language like "I think" be criticised as not listening to other's lived experience

Don't forget! that listening only goes one way!

Women's lived experience "la la la! Can't hear you"

Yes!

I saw some bloke on Newsnight saying 'a man is not a woman'/'a woman is not a man'. I thought he was a dangerous dinosaur

A 'dangerous dinosaur' for saying that men aren't women and women aren't men? It's sex-ed week at my kids school at the moment - I best let them know that they are dangerous dinosaurs for teaching 5 year olds exactly that...

I've seen language like "I think" be criticised as not listening to other's lived experience, or implying that the speaker doesn't believe other people think.

It pisses me off so much that TRA and acolytes frame gc women as alt-right/alt-right infiltrated. Whereas these boards prove people come from all over the political spectrum.

It's the same with anyone who asks a question about any detail of identity politics or whatever is "identified" as a left position. Even a Marxist asking questions about movement of labour is alt-right these days.