Shaking after explaining why I couldn’t vote Lib Dem to a canvasser

I've posted this on another thread just now but it's pertinent to this one as well.

I've just picked up this paragraph from The Times but sadly, do not have a share token to offer.

"Ministers are expected to drop plans to make it easier for people to change their gender amid concerns about the impact on children... The consultation, which was launched in 2018 by Theresa May, proposed to change the law so that people would be able to officialy transition simply by making a declaration of their gender... The proposals to change the Gender Recognition Act have met with criticism from some feminist groups, whose members are concerned about the prospect of trans people being able to use single-sex spaces. Ministers are also concerned about the impact the proposals could have on children, who are being helped to transition while still developing their “decision-making capabilities”.

Please let it be true...

You’ve got to love free text boxes. I had one recently on form I was competing for DS for a school volunteering thing.

In the ‘any questions’ box I asked if they could confirm that overnight shared accommodation would be sex separated.

That does sound cathartic Witchlight

As well as crossing out gender/writing sex on paper forms, I now also select the “other” option online if it has a free text box, and write “I do not subscribe to gender; my sex is female”. I cannot answer what my gender is, in the same way I cannot answer what my religion is, I have neither.

transwomen ARE women. Period.

My response to that, to a very woke man, was that period was exactly the right word. Trans women couldn’t have one, didn’t experience them and were male, or transwomen, not women. He snorted wine through his nose and I laughed at him. It felt really good - I said I didn’t identify with being nice and was having a non-binary moment. It still makes me smile.

@MrsTidyHouse - I feel a bit overwhelmed that I might have helped!

And yes - I am sure that many of the info collectors and collaters think us weird...but we are trying to keep accurate records for ourselves, the next generation and for posterity. It's a small act of defiance for me, i guess, but little things (especially when we cannot physically or mentally manage anything more) add up. And I think a lot of people are sympathetic to the idea of future healthcare planning etc. Fingers crossed that this comes to the forefront of discussion.

I await the knock at the door **

I was hesitant when I signed the Labour Women’s Declaration in my real name (it’s unique enough to be quite decidedly me) but nothing happened.

No one contacted me, no one deleted me. Still breathing!

It’s hardest the first time.

I expect nothing will happen except the person reading it will think ‘weird’ and if they are curious will google about it.

If they already understand why you did it, they probably agree with you. Very few people familiar with the debate truly take the opposing view, and those that do are blue haired wokesters, who are unlikely to be leading scout groups.

If anyone asks you directly, say you think accurate record keeping is important for health and safety reasons and medical doctors need to know sex for accurate diagnostics and treatment. If the person is sympathetic you can then go on to say you and your children are ‘gender free’ and ‘gender is a collection of harmful sex stereotypes’.

They might think you are being weirdly specific, but they probably won’t conclude that you are a bigot!

DH and I talked this morning. Ginny’s last post helped me with the mental gymnastics, and I will be scoring out “gender” and replacing it with “sex”.

Ginny - very thought-provoking about the misgendering. Thank you.

we just need to say something for the first time, and then next time will be easier.

That is difficult if your DH is not entirely on board, Mrs.

I would be tempted to say, if they are not yet of majority, every decision you make as a parent could be used against your child... but should be seen as just that, the action of an adult, completely out with your child's control.

If you wanted to use today's language, misgendering is very, very serious. So you can testify to their sex (using proven scientific method), but their gender is entirely subjective, and therefore it is not for you to comment**. It would seem incompatible to complain of "sex assigned at birth", but to also allow a parent to "gender" a child. Just a thought...

And if I ever see a canvasser, I might point out that there are no protests outside shops selling "it's a girl//boy" cards and banners, only where women meet to discuss the rights of women and children. Strange.

**disclaimer - I of course think that anything affecting the mental, physical and emotional well-being of a child is of importance to all responsible members of society, particularly the child's parents.

Thanks, DuLANG and GinnyLane.

Oh dear. I just ran it by DH, and he thinks not to change any DC forms, only change any forms of our own.

Now I’m stuck, because only this afternoon, he and I were discussing men in women’s spaces, and we are definitely on the same page. Maybe he is a bit scared of possible repercussions for the DCs. We just can’t figure out a way to protect them.

Sorry for the derail.

Delurking to add my standing ovation to wellbehavedwomen - you articulate your anger brilliantly, and your posts are helping me to formulate my thoughts - thank you.

Well done OP.
I used to get v anxious over this but

1. It isn't only you being 'unkind' - there are fuxxxxg millions of people with your views. But they are cowed like you because of activists.
2. It is a lie men are not women any more than doors are windows or Scots are English. But people today want to be 'nice' and seen as 'nice' so they say trans women are women. But we all know it's a lie.
3. Imv there is no option but to call out this lie unless we are living in George Orwell's 1984.

*@MrsTidyHouse * - I did exactly that on my NHS forms for group CBT. The fact that the class is mixed sex when I have been referred to the CPN following a rape (because no other therapy is available) pushed me over the edge from "nice" to "no fucks given".

Yes!
The first time I did that was at Ronald McDonald House.

Very well done, OP and others.

I have never stuck my head over the parapet before now, but I just looked at the DCs’ info form for cub scouts, and it asks for each child’s gender. Should I score it out and write in “sex”?

I feel like I want to give you a standing ovation, wellbehavedwomen

@TedsFederationRep The "trans issue" - in fact, let's call it by its proper name, "the erasure of women issue" - overarches everything to do with hard-won sex-based rights. This. This, exactly.

@GinnyLane

I appreciate that for some of you the trans issue overrides all this. But if we keep putting it before everything else then every other problem affecting women will get worse.

Karen Ingala Smith, the founder of Counting Dead Women, the source of much of the information quoted in that link, said elsewhere:

"Many of the women and children we work with are terrified of males. And yes, this includes males who identify as transgender. One of the most important ways that we can contribute to creating a ‘safe space’ for women who have experienced men’s violence is quite simply by keeping men out. It’s partly about the psychological benefits for women created by women only spaces but also about statistics – as I outlined earlier, most sexual and domestic violence including prostitution is perpetrated by men against women and there is no credible evidence to suggest than trans identified males commit crimes of violence against women, girls and children at rates any different from those of other males and these is plenty of evidence to indicate strong links between trans activists and sex trade supporters.

This is not about lack of compassion with male victims or people who identify as trans – it isn’t about people who identify as trans at all –it is about women; it is not about denying anyone’s human rights, anyone’s privacy and dignity. Of course not. But it is about fighting for women’s human rights. Our right to safety, our privacy and our dignity, for some of us, our right to life itself. It is about recognising that women have sex-based rights and protections for a reason."

If women's refuges become mixed-sex refuges, they won't be women's refuges for long. Women, and girls, will be at even greater risk.

That's the point Karen Ingala Smith is making. And I agree with her.

The "trans issue" - in fact, let's call it by its proper name, "the erasure of women issue" - overarches everything to do with hard-won sex-based rights.

@wellbehavedwomen - um, can we vote for you?

We don't get canvassers here, so thank you, @moggiemonster, on my behalf.

@HPFA - do you imagine we're all too ignorant to know this? That all the little ladies just don't understand? I've got two disabled kids and am on long term treatment for cancer, ffs. I worked for the CAB, helping women sanctioned for missing buses to appointments, or whose zero hours contracts meant they had constantly ricocheting support in benefits. You think you can teach me what is happening to this country after ten years of austerity? Please. I STILL think - know - that this matters more. Despite having been a staunch supporter of the original GRA, and having actively campaigned against Section 28 alongside my mum. You think I'm ignorant? Well, I'm afraid I think you are, for swallowing this misogyny down as a worthwhile price to pay. This is so much worse for women than Section 28 ever was for the gay community. Not even in the same damn ball park, in fact. And it's not great for gay women either, who won't be able to have any groups or orgs at all for lesbians now without transwomen (attracted to women - so heterosexual males, in old money) insisting on their inclusion. What a brave new world, indeed.

If Labour want women to vote for them, then perhaps they could reconsider their choice to pose an existential threat to feminism, and to remove the ability to identify, in law and in data capture, what a woman actually is, and how structural oppression affects us. The FACT women like me would currently vote for them when hell freezes over is not evidence that we don't get it. It is evidence that THEY don't get it. And their determination to focus on educating lost sheep, instead of recognising that just perhaps, the electorate may have their own ideas of what needs to happen in this country, is what is keeping them utterly unelectable. They lost to Boris fucking Johnson, for crying out loud, with Dom "The Dementor" Cummings as the puppeteer. Lost by an 80 seat majority. How much clearer does it get that they need to stop dictating, and start listening?

Labour's present trans-rights-filtered attitude to women and rape: for the many, not the few. They can fuck off if they think I'd soil my hands with their campaign literature, far less give them my money or my vote.

Yes, I'm angry. Betrayal does that.

And labour would give a shiney shit about women - when they won’t even explain what one is and are prioritising Kent’s rights whilst promising to dismantle women’s?

Labour used to be a party for the grown up workers - it’s now just for the students and the wokes.

This is what has been happening to women under a Conservative government.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/20/men-killing-women-cuts-refuges-legal-aid

I appreciate that for some of you the trans issue overrides all this. But if we keep putting it before everything else then every other problem affecting women will get worse.

@BuzzShitbagBobbly - that is very good - not exactly hard to spot the XY competitor there. I showed my DD and DS - they looked confused as to why it should even be a question!

Good for you. Canvassers take what is said to them on the doorstep very seriously.