Dawn Butler and biology

LOL @ 'selfish' and 'need new word'.

Yes. You're probably right, ProdigalKitten.

Maybe I am just looking at 'liberal progressives'. 🤷‍♀️ But it seems to go further than that. Old-style liberals seemed to have a notion of various individuals sharing a common space, and the idea of some sort of balance of the rights of those sharing that space.

This politics seems founded on the idea that 'balance' is a morally-wrong, politically-wrong impediment and restriction on liberty and choice.

(I'm struggling to describe this!)

Anyway, here is probably not the place for these thoughts. I'm quite sure it doesn't pertain to the Dawn Butler's of the Labour Party. It's just a weird vibe I've picked up from fringe members and writing I've come across. 🤷‍♀️)

Maybe we need a new word for that weird combination of extreme libertarianism in regards to sex and political and philosophical authoritarianism. Well, other than "selfish".

The unconscious notion of the individual - and how that individual is formed within politics and operates within society - with which this politics works just seems ;to me, anyway,) to be fundamentally very, very different to old-style left-wing politics.

And incredibly flawed.

Yes,?you're right, BovaryX.

Except that I just can't shake off this feeling about the strangeness of this sexual politics.

It's just so very, very amenable to libertarianism, isn't it?

It's just so very individualistic and privatised.

All of it. From trans issues to the incredible fetishisation of a weird notion of 'choice'.

I look at the discourse around sex work and I just find it baffling, for example.

it's actually full of libertarians.

Respectfully cat I don't think that is true at all. Libertarians believe in freedom of speech. Libertarians believe in a small state, low taxes. Libertarians do not believe in wealth redistribution, or attempts to enforce equality at the cost of liberty And Libertarians certainly do not believe in Stalinist purges, #no debate, cancel culture and sacking people for wrong think. The Labour party hasn't been taken over by Libertarians. It is in the grip of zealots and fanatics, Cultural Marxists who are on a Year Zero crusade and won't tolerate any dissent. This is why they were obliterated in the election and this is why they are unelectable.

GC 'hardcore' WPUK organisers /'ring leaders' to be identified & expelled

Well, this is certainly a chilling insight into the Stalinist tendencies of the modern Labour party. Forced reeducation for those who have just made a linguistic slip, expulsion for the hardcore GC ringleaders whose ideological crimes are beyond atonement. Does this cabaret of clowns realise most of the country is GC? That most of the country does not subscribe to their lunacy about giraffes and sexless babies and embryos with female brains and male genitals? The Stalinist purges and incoherent ideology will condemn Labour to political irrelevance. Thankfully.

Ideally, those people (whose politics are private, individualist, with a very shallow grasp of class politics - and therefore very happy supporting Trans politics as 'progressive' politics,) should be in the Conservatives.

Yes, this is something I've noticed for a number of years. Many people in the old leftist parties are really liberal progressives, and in my experience don't really understand the difference or know much about how that is different than the traditional leftist. They see it as the modern version of what used to exist.

But I would argue that something similar has happened with many Conservative parties. It's somewhat different in the US which has a different political tradition, but in countries like the UK and Canada conservatism wasn't primarily individualistic - that tended to belong to Liberal parties. Conservative parties also recognised social groupings and relations of classes, and supported things like the state intervening in important, large or foundational economic projects - protection of certain industries, for example, or large public infrastructure projects.

In recent years Conservative parties have also fallen prey to individualist thinking. It seems to be a matter of Conservative parties today being dominated by strong economic liberalism with somewhat more social conservatism, while leftist parties are the other way round, but both are essentially forms of neoliberalism.

I wonder who's going to break the news to Dawn 'n Labour that the Guardian thinks that sex is biologically classifiable and measurable? In, ya know, funded scientific research?

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/feb/19/having-multiple-children-of-same-sex-does-not-run-in-family

Well, I think it's all fabulous.

Gender Disappointment will be a thing of the past.

Instead of parents, moments after the birth of their baby, saying "what have we got?" midwives will in future ask parents "what did you want?"

And the parents will say "boy" or "girl" and the midwife will say "congratulations, your wish has come true"

And no-one will say but this boy has a vagina, or this girl has a penis, because it won't be relevant.

And if they insist, they will be ... um ... shot?

Nah, surely not.

Libertarians in the Labour Party? Where can I read more about this?

Good posts Cat. As well as outrage and disbelief, it has also provoked huge ridicule. I think ridicule might be more harmful to the cause and to the Labour party.

PermanentTemporary I just see it as pedalling back in face of protest, to be honest.

They meant every word of that pledge.

And, such is the echo-chamber within Labour, they went straight ahead with it.

And the MPs signed it.

They had no idea - no idea at all - of the outrage and disbelief it would provoke.

And that is a huge problem - in many, many levels.

How did they not know?

The roots of that lie in a poisonous culture in Labour, a horrifying lack of talent in the candidates, in those in charge of policy ... the answers to that question are, in part, the answers to Labour's devastating GE defeat.

They're all trying to row back now.

And, frankly, I don't think we should let them.

This needs to be out in the open.

So I say: shout louder Nadia Whittome. Shout loud and don't stop.

Oh, it's so awful.

I'm very sympathetic to solidarity with Trans people.

But this isn't about solidarity.

It's a 'gatekeeper' belief and a signifier of a set of priorities and beliefs.

And ... those priorities are pissing me off when people are freezing to death with no food.

All I want is for them not to piss all over the people who voted them into their jobs.

Expelling unrepentant misogynists, theres a thought..so near all TRAs, and people who claim groups such as WPUK are 'hate groups' because they focus on the rights of women, all the lefty dudebros..half Labours membership surely, at least?! Yeah, will believe it when I see it

I think you touch on a Labour Party problem, you know, PermanentTemporary.

One of the current problems with Labour Party membership is that, far from having been taken over by the Hard Left, it's actually full of libertarians.

Ideally, those people (whose politics are private, individualist, with a very shallow grasp of class politics - and therefore very happy supporting Trans politics as 'progressive' politics,) should be in the Conservatives.

But I think the unaffordability of housing has sent them to Labour.

And they are massively different in politics and outlook to traditional Labour voters.

They're a lot more privileged, used to having their voices heard, and noisy, too.

Also Zarah Sultana, a Coventry MP, wildly waving a little trans flag... Coventry ffs. Has she no idea of the impact of mixed sex spaces on muslim women ?

Organised by James Murray MP
(Labour and Co-operative MP for Ealing North🌹✊. Former Deputy Mayor of London for Housing)

The use of 'unrepentant' is really horrible. Ringleaders. God.

GC 'hardcore' WPUK organisers /'ring leaders' to be identified & expelled
The 'ignorant' will be educated
The ideological will be expelled along with 'the ignorant' who do not learn the lessons.

But... Christie Neary at least honestly states that they were a founder of Labour Campaign for Trans Rights a d helped to write the pledges... but thinks at least one of the pledges was unwise and unhelpful. AFTER playing a part in exposing all the female party leadership candidates to incredulous ridicule for signing their red-mist tantrum in the first place.

I'm not letting the candidates off; they're grown women who should take responsibility for their actions. But how is it remotely helpful to Labour, trans people or women to put together an intemperate Trumpian wishlist and somehow get it to besmirch candidate reputations,and then to say 'oh sorry, that was a bit strong, didn't really mean it'?

I'm guessing the aim was to get out in front of any rearguard action on statement of women's rights as happened just before the election. Ie it was all about factional scrapping, with no actual vision of why trans people should see the Labour party as a trans positive force at all. Trans ideology is about individualism, denial of class interest and privacy above all. Why us every trans person not a Tory?

Is re-education a good thing now in Labour policy?

#labourlobotomy

Her replies are a hoot, though.

Someone has asked her if 're-education' will be in fully-automated luxury gulags.

Nadia Whittome, Labour MP for Nottingham East (@NadiaWhittomeMP) has just tweeted the following:

"Yes, as I’ve said above, unrepentant transphobes/racists/misogynists etc. should be expelled.

The Labour Party should educate those who are ignorant rather than ideological. And if they don’t respond to education, they should also be expelled."

She has a very, very comfortable majority (over 15,000), although that majority fell at the last GE.

Nadia Whittome MP
"As far as I’m aware, I was the first MP to sign these pledges and publicly support the campaign. It’s perfectly reasonable to support a trans sister’s call for education before expulsions, i.e. expulsions as a last resort."
twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1229724791206285313

Recommended re-education program outlined by Christie Neary published by Labour List
( co-founder of the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights.)
extract
But the problem of transphobia is widespread. If Labour were to attempt to purge the party of transphobic views bureaucratically, it is likely to end up expelling swathes of people whose transphobic views are not well-thought-out. Instead, they may be ignorant, or see their advocacy of women’s rights as being in conflict with trans rights.

Such a wave of expulsions would not only distance us from many who could, with some patience and education, be won round to the cause of trans rights. It would also serve to make party machinery the decision-maker as to who has crossed the line and therefore must be expelled. Such a situation would make Labour’s current inadequate democratic culture even worse.

If not expulsions, then what? I would advocate for a concerted campaign of education on the topic of trans rights as well as a culture of open debate and discussion. This is where our ideas come from, and it is the lifeblood of a vibrant labour movement. This position can be caricatured: some assume that what is being called for is a staged debate between a trans person on one side and someone who seeks to deny trans people of their right to any kind of dignified existence on the other. This is, of course, not what is meant.

What I’m talking about is fora in which people are able to effectively challenge and convince those that hold transphobic views of the importance of supporting the rights of trans and non-binary people. We have to educate activists – including trans people, as well as cis allies – in order to give people the skills to confidently challenge these ideas wherever they rear their head in the labour movement.

LCTR will have a key role to play in facilitating education in the Labour Party and creating a culture in which trans and non-binary people are able to engage in the movement that best represents their class interests."
labourlist.org/2020/02/labour-should-combat-transphobia-through-education-not-expulsions/