Boris has nailed colours to mast

I agree the subject needs to be handled sensitively but also with common sense .

@WinterTrees
All politicians and parties appear slippery and untrustworthy nd suspicious! But we have to vote one of them into government!
And currently Labour are way ahead in the national polls and have been for some time. So your take on what the average voters sees on this issue may have some truth - but in terms of what the average voter actually cares about enough to get out and vote you’re probably way off.

If we're talking about vulnerable women (in terms of 'it not being feminist to vote for Tories'), here in Scotland, our 'left wing, progressive' Government has already ushered in self ID. The SPS has a policy of self id in terms of allocating transwomen (many of whom have been convicted of violent sexual offences against women) into the female estate, in contrast to England, where a GRC is needed.

Bear in mind that these women are generally in prison for repeated low level petty crimes and are vulnerable in many cases due to alcohol/drug addiction, or have mental health issues and 80% of women prisoners have suffered previous head injury, mostly due to domestic violence.

"Women with mental ill health in prison in Scotland – new report finds further concerns, and calls for major change | Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland" www.mwcscot.org.uk/news/women-mental-ill-health-prison-scotland-new-report-finds-further-concerns-and-calls-major#:~:text=Scotland%20has%20had%20the%20second,402%20were%20women%20(4.9%25).

"Four in five female prisoners in Scotland found to have history of head injury | Prisons and probation | The Guardian" amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/13/four-in-five-female-prisoners-in-scotland-found-to-have-history-of-head-injury

"The Status of Women In Scotland - Prisons - For Women Scotland" forwomen.scot/03/08/2021/the-status-of-women-in-scotland-prisons/

I don't know why people are surprised really. Obviously Boris knows what a woman really is (as do most people), and we already know Boris is frequently prepared to say what he thinks and hang the consequences. Expecting to disagree with Boris on every single thing just because he's a mop-headed Tory buffoon is ridiculous - he probably also likes ice-cream and disapproves of kicking puppies.

I really don't want to vote Tory, and will probably spoil my ballot paper. But right now I admit I really don't want to vote Labour even more than I really don't want to vote Tory.

Sad to say that the Tory candidate here will get my vote based on this. I have two young daughters and have only ever voted labour. But this is my hill. Labour is indeed losing women.

@Papayamya

But I don’t think they’re doubling down at all. You need to think of parties in terms of brand image/market position. Contrary to what they’d love to believe, the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph are not representative of the average British voter. The Angry News these days has 2 million odd circulation between them out of an adult population of 50 million plus. The average British voter doesn’t like identity politics stuff, but nor does it enrage them. And they consider the whole spat very minor in the scheme of things - ie stuff like cost of living, housing, jobs. Labours brand position is to aspire to be a progressive modern party which can be trusted on the economy. And that’s the brand they try to sell 50 million voters - and staying “neutral” or on a few niche issues is part of that. They don’t care what Daily Mail readers think as they won’t vote for them anyway.

Nice. I'm still not voting tory though. Or for anyone else for that matter.

If Labour change their stance I would vote for them in all probability.

When ordinary people see Starmer - the actual leader of the opposition, and sensible women like Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper and (admittedly less sensible) Anneleise Dodds and Charlotte Nichol getting red-faced and flustered as they twist themselves in knots trying to evade the simple question 'what is a woman' I think most of them will just lose trust and wonder what they're trying to hide.

To the vast majority of voters the answer is obvious. Very crudely - let's say a third of voters won't be aware of the gender issue at all, a third will be aware and have a sort of neutral attitude of kindness and acceptance to those who transition, and the remaining third is divided into people who have strong feelings on either side of the debate. That means that only a sixth of voters would actively support the new religion of pretending to genuinely have no understanding of the unfathomably complex matter of what makes a woman. To everyone else it just looks slippery, mendacious and highly suspicious.

Which it is.

Vote Labour and get rid. We can work with labour to change their batshitery on gender.

They have been publicly making fools of themselves on this issue since before the last election, they have tolerated bullying of a GC MP, they have threatened to expel women who won't toe the line, they think rapists should be housed in women's prisons if they identify as a woman, they have branded grass roots women's rights organisations as hate groups, no one on the party condemned Labour youth intimidating women trying to attend a WPUK meeting during the LP conference, a long standing LP member was bullied out of a CLP officers position by a TRA (Battle and Bexhill 2017) and the entire executive committee resigned in support of her, David Lammy thinks you can grow a cervix. I could go on and on, Labour are a lost cause for the moment.

An election victory would make them feel vindicated for their TWAW stance. I will not vote for a party when the Leader states its "not right" to say only women have a cervix. You cannot reason with willful denial of biology, they are ideologically driven which means there are no logical or evidence based arguements which can persuade them they are wrong.

Until that changes I would rather give my vote to a party who acknowledges biology.

Also, the Tories have no doubt come to the conclusion that the loudest shouters for TWAW/Self-Id would never vote Tory anyway, if they ever bother to vote at all, so there is nothing to be gained trying to chase that vote. Plus, I think they've finally realised that Twitter is not the Oracle and the number of people as a percentage of the voting population actually on Twitter is low, whereas Labour appear totally cowed by Twitter activists and opinion. Labour fell into the same trap at the last election and clearly have learned nothing from it.

There are several parties promoting TWAW/Self-Id so the votes for that will naturally be split amongst them, one party saying 'No' will not suffer from that, a lesson they learnt from UKIP and their single issue.

Do you know what stops keeping it a marginal issue: stories of a woman being raped and disbelieved because her rapist masqueraded as a transwomen.

The way Labour treated and are treating Rosie Duffield is unforgivable.

Also because this issue means the labour party are asking us to deny actual reality and because the result is so catastrophic for women and girls resulting in enabling the breakdown of safeguarding and thus enabling rape and sexual abuse, it means I feel I have no choice but to vote Conservative. It's way more important than any other issue including climate change (all parties are doing something about this and none deny it's an issue). The breakdown of democracy itself is caused by accepting as fact that TWAW and the way it so strongly tries to silence all debate on it.

Another feminist party is a lovely thought but in reality it just splits the vote and risks a party coming in with the TWAW belief - more effective would be for those feminists to unite under Conservatives and to try to affect change and policy from within. At least until proportional representation is a thing.

I hate partygate and all the other Tory crap but none of the other parties are showing any ounce of being more honest or with any semblence of integrity so I feel there is no other choice.

And to anyone trying to dismiss this as a 'small thing', I suggest you put that same question to the Labour Party (and indeed all left of centre parties). Why they are jeopardising the votes of so many women - many of us dyed in the wool lefties - over such a 'small thing'?

The polls are not relevant because of our FPTP system. That's why the Tories have won. Opposition is split.

if you think the trans issue will be anything but a marginal issue issue for the vast, vast majority of voters- male or female

Well that's the hope of keeping it minimalised and out of public sight as much as possible, certainly. No debate, frantic attempts to hush it all up, there's a good reason for it.

Because once you start thinking about it, it affects every damn thing for half the population. Everything. What the hell else could matter to me as a woman politically once I've been vanished and reduced to a second class citizen?

Largely why women keep talking and raising awareness here.

suspect we'd have a far harder job trying to persuade the Torys to give a fuck about any other women's rights, or disability or poverty or workers rights or race issues etc.
Conservatives did a 180 due to Marcus Rachford and public pressure very recently.
They will change when needed to survive, whereas Labour remain wedded to ideology so never change tack.

I do also agree tory policy towards women isn't great, but similarly I think it's better than not recognising what a woman is at all, there is no way that will make things better for women. Stuff we have started to see like biological men wanting to be welcomed into women's spaces is genuinely scary and will have awful repercussions for lots of people, including some of the most vulnerable (those in hospital, refuges, homeless, girls) amongst others. Also intrigued how stuff like maternity rights would be affected if the government in charge can't even acknowledge basic facts like men can't give birth.

I wish so much we had a better choice.

Labour have been wishy washy on this issue for a while. Labour are also at least 10% ahead in the polls nationally (polls which, contrary to popular /tabloid belief, have been pretty accurate over past couple of decades).

There’s always a million or so “I would never ever ever usually vote Tory but this time I absolutely have to because of Labours policy on XYZ” Tory voters at every election. The polls have already factored you in!

That stuff does matter to me, but so does all the stuff I posted about that you cropped out

Yeah, but I didn't insult all that stuff as being just a bunch of flowers, did I?

Ha ha I've used that very same analogy of being in a crap relationship with someone who buys you a bunch of flowers every so often. Many times. On this board. Except my crappy relationship was with the Labour Party.

When it comes to election time vote for who you want. But if you think the trans issue will be anything but a marginal issue issue for the vast, vast majority of voters- male or female - you are very naive. Cost of living, wages, energy, house prices, overwhelmed health services + possibly climate change and any war related security issues.
And besides, on the Trans/ Gender issue, the parties will simply say what it is they think their base/the electorate want to hear to get into office. The vast majority of them couldn’t give a shit either way.