Why do Labour women make this so much worse than it need be?

@Narcoanonymoose The economy will recover eventually and we'll all just have to tighten our belts. Our inalienable rights based on Sex, once repealed, will take a lifetime to recover.

Spoiling your ballot just means Labour have a chance of winning with a smaller vote share. That could end up us up a Scottish situation, where the SNP are now in power with a mandate to press ahead with GRA Reform, together with the Greens.

Your vote is yours to do with as you wish, but please don't make a virtue of handing off responsibility in that way, especially as the combined twin evils of austerity AND GRA Reform will mean it is working class Women, Women of colour, Women of limited financial means who will be disproportionately impacted by the repercussions of Self ID.

Women will be impacted. In Prisons. In Hospital Wards. In Changing Rooms. In Sport. At School. In Refuges.

Middle class women aren't likely to end up in a refuge. They'll kip at a friend's in the unfortunate event of domestic abuse. In hospital wards, middle class women are more likely to be on some BUPA scheme, that gets them a private room. Middle class women are more likely to be in secure jobs, or have the confidence to be vocal about a biological male in a female space.

I appreciate its difficult for certain Lefty people to engage with the reality of what will happen, but someday, you’ll pull a loose thread and the story you’ve been telling yourself will unravel. You’ll be left—as I am—without the consolation of appearances and slogans, but the unvarnished reality of what Labour are prepared to do to Women and Children, to pacify a few base activists.

I mean... in 2020, the TUC passed a motion implying anyone who shared Maya Forstater's beliefs regarding sex being binary & immutable could be regarded as creating a hostile environment for trans colleagues & potentially be sacked!

A Labour Party that violates my core values and commitments (to liberalism, tolerance, nonviolence, solidarity across difference, the pursuit of knowledge, freedom of speech and belief, language as a means to communicate and not obscure... women's rights, protections for children), is not one I will EVER vote for, or facilitate to victory by spoiling a ballot.

@TedsFederationRep thank you for that. Agree that all are implicated to a greater or lesser extent. I will spoil my vote rather than vote for the conservatives. In their own way conservative economic policies have been horrendously damaging to the lives of ordinary women too and by voting for that party I am giving them the green light to carry on with austerity. Once they win another election and have cancelled self ID what are we left with ? The same old trickle down economics, privatise everything bar your grandma, inequality and corruption. By voting for them I am enabling then to carry on.

Sadly yes.

It means that once again, women are denied real political choice. That's not good for democracy or responsible government either.

That's not the only difference though @TedsFederationRep.

The main difference is Labour's policy is Self ID and the Tory Government don't want to beyond what the 2004 GRA states already: (legal recognition of Trans ID for most purposes, subject to two year life test and medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria)

So it's a very stark choice.

He was judged far too violent to be contained safely in a high security male prison so a judge ruled - under Labour's gold-plated Human Rights Act - that he should be accommodated with women instead.

Then came the Gender Recognition Act 2004, which was Labour legislation, but the Conservatives don't have clean hands either. Theresa May and Maria Miller opened the Pandora's box by openly supporting Self ID.

By that time, a new Conservative government realised what it would mean and Self ID was stopped through the efforts of Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch - although their fellow Tory MP Crispin Blunt tried to sneak through a secret deal on Self ID and had to be admonished by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for breaching the rules.

As I say, none of the main parties can claim to have clean hands in this attack on women's sex-based rights, our safety, our privacy and our dignity.

The difference is that today, in 2022, Boris Johnson is clear that biological women have sex-based rights that must be respected. Liz Truss played a blinder by replacing David Isaac (former head of Stonewall) as head of the EHRC with Baroness Falkner of Margravine who in turn appointed Akua Reindorf QC to the board. I am sure I can detect Akua Reindorf's hand in the new EHRC guidance on women's sex-based rights.

Meanwhile, Labour, LibDems, Greens, SNP, are still fully committed to introducing Self ID and still cannot or will not define what a woman is.

To answer your original question, at present, out of the 197 male prisoners currently in English and Welsh prisons who claim to be women, about 60% are sex offenders.

Don’t take my word for it. Those are the MoJ’s own statistics. And claiming to be women means they have the right to ask for transfer to women’s prisons.

Now tell me this is not a predator's charter.

I will vote for any politician in my area who will stand up for women's rights, whether they are Conservative or not, but right now, my only choice locally is Conservative. If we are erased as a sex class with our own needs and rights, nothing else in any party manifesto will matter because we will be invisible and silenced.

Sweden has a very high union membership and stronger unions than the UK. There are nationwide negotiations between unions and employers, overseen by government, to fix pay and conditions.
Back when the UK had strong unions in the 70s, the unions were opposed to having a minimum wage. That's why the UK introduced a minimum wage in 1998 or so (after its unions had been largely crushed), not in 1945 or 1966 or 1974. The US had had a minimum wage for ages.

My husband is Swedish - They do not have a minimum wage over there. Yes, lovely, clean, high income, high tax Sweden. They also don't have healthcare that is free at the point of use. You can always get a doctors appointment any time you want, but you have to pay 200kronor or so.

You wouldn't believe how many British sacred cows don't exist in genuine social democracies.

One that is most shocking to British lefties (other than paying to see your GP) is that in Sweden you see a lot of flags. It's a very normal thing for normal Swedes to have a flagpole with a Swedish flag outside their home. No, not just when the football is on. All the time.

This is not some crazy American capitalist society. It is a social democracy, run by the Social Democratic Party, with the opposition parties including the Moderate party and the Center party. Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage, but Texas does. Draw your own conclusions.

Part of the reason this happens I think on the left is that people for some reason take a very ideological, and binary few of policy initiatives.

So they think, minimum wage is how you make sure people get paid a fair wage, and if you care about the poor you want fair wages, so if you don't want minimum wage you must be a terrible person who does not care about the poor.

It doesn't seem to occur to them that there might be other ways to accomplish the same goal, or that almost all policy approaches have pros and cons, and some may work better in some places than others.

And most of all, that you are not evil because you might think a different approach is the better one.

So are trans women allowed in female prisons at the moment ? Or are labour proposing it ?
Likewise with trans women using women only refuges and trans women taking part in female sports ? Is it already going on ?
I'm getting confused. Are these things happening now or threatened by a labour gov ?

Here's a really good GC post from yesterday by a woman on the "soft left":

softleft.substack.com/p/sometimes-its-hard?s=r

Who is not me by the way! I saw it on Twitter and couldn't see it here so wanted to share.

I thought this thread was more about insults people lob at each rather than questions to the government

Maybe that’s part of the problem, they’ve become synonymous for many - asking questions to those in charge has just become insults online / irl at people on the other side

@VelvetChairGirl I think you exemplify exactly why a lot of people are turned off by lefty/ socialist types.

There is a blanket refusal and intolerance to accept a diversity of opinions or political positions other than your own. That's normally what we call "bigotry".

Hurling abuse at people who vote Tory, when you yourself appear to lack the critical thinking to reflect that Keir Starmer, (leader of the main lefty party), was quite prepared to let Rosie Duffield be bullied and intimidated out of the last Labour Conference because she said only Women have a cervix, is quite laughable.

And don't even get me started on Corbyn's laundering of anti-semitism.

People vote on issues and if they don't see the world as you do, it doesn't make them "fools".

Get your head out of your bigoted backside for a minute.

It seems very odd on here that so many people say a leading party in control of the country for 12 years shouldn't be questioned.

If you can't question the people in charge making the rules for the last 12 years, who can you question?

It's beyond bizarre!

Are there seriously people out there thinking that voting Conservative will turn us into a Swedish type government.

For a start, Sweden has PR, and you'd never find a party further than advocating PR that the UK Conservative party. So that's more than a fail at the first fence.

JennyPourQuoi

You want us to be like Sweden?

Well, the Conservative party would be the absolutely last party anyone would vote for to be like Sweden.

Our inalienable rights, once repealed will take a lifetime to recover.

This concerns me a lot too. Plus the economy has been hit hard by two global events, I’d always said that we were storing up rising costs - made worse due the war granted, but there was a lot of public want for what has caused it.

I am very worried about losing rights long term, and for dd.

Are you going to vote Johnson and have Liz Truss/ Kemi Badenoch and a moratorium on "Conversion Therapy" ban on gender identity?

Or are you going to vote for Starmer and have Anneliese 'I don't know what a Woman is' Dodds as your Equalities Secretary? And Emily "Some Women have Penises" Thornberry as your Home Secretary? And this at a time when "Women" are "raping" Women via distorted crime statistics.

The economy will recover eventually and we'll all just have to tighten our belts. Our inalienable rights, once repealed will take a lifetime to recover.

I can't see myself forgiving myself if we end up in Scotland's position (GRA Reform) because we held our nose and voted for Starmer.

Since when does the Venn diagram of gc views and left wing or anything else have to be a circle?

I completely agree with you but there seems to be a number amongst my acquaintance for whom no difference of opinion is acceptable. They’d pride themselves on their liberal inclusiveness and their feminism but if you deviate from The Accepted Views then you’re out in the cold.

Similarly, an ex friend often took to screaming on FB about Tory scum/monsters and Evil Brexiteers who were turning the UK into a fascist state where poor people would be left to die. Firstly, they assumed that none of their friends was a Tory voter (which was not the case) but they also seemed oblivious to how intolerant and hate-filled their behaviour was.

The closer people like this come to realising that it might just be them who ends up on the wrong side of history here, the more desperate the rhetoric and invective becomes.

All this ties into Labour because they’ve typically been the party of the oppressed. That they’re doing the oppressing is something they just can’t face up to.

The only way we can work is cross party against this nonsense.

They will learn.

@Mackerson makes a good point - Most of us have more in common politically than we have differences.

Most of us here agree with the general shape of society. We want a little more or less emphasis in one place or another. Spend more on doctors, less on defense; or whatever you prefer. There's no reason why we can't have a sensible discussion on these things.

The problem is that there is a small and very loud group of more extreme people who want to whip every discussion into a frenzy. Even when everyone is on the same wavelength, they will find something to spark a purity spiral and an outrage, and force everyone else to agree that we need to smash the system just to shut them up.

I once posted an article from the DM about child safeguarding and girlguides and the first comment was a sniffy one about how no-one was interested in reading a “daily fail” article. That was on the feminism boards. Tbh I was like 🙄.

I’m a centerist, have voted for everyone except the BNP and UKIP. I have no problem reading anything. Even tried to read “mein kampf” but had to stop because it was basically really boring (I’m not white incase anyone decides this is evidence of nascent white supremacy). I always considered it utterly childish to not read something because you don’t like the source.

People have told me they couldn’t read JK Rowlings open letter because she’s transphobic and I was like “how would you know, you haven’t read it”.

Hopefully this whole thing will make people a little more open minded and prepared to have a proper debate. We seem to have lost that and settled for “I feel….” Instead of evidence and logic. Its poor, our ability to discuss without rancour has atrophied as a society.

Social licensing/moral licensing is a really interesting explanation for why people behave like this. You see it in people with political affiliations they believe makes them “good people” or when people excuse abusive behaviour by TRA’s. A poster a few days ago posted about victim virtue signalling and dark triad personalities. Was really interesting and encourage everyone to have a read.

You wouldn't believe how many British sacred cows don't exist in genuine social democracies.

One that is most shocking to British lefties (other than paying to see your GP) is that in Sweden you see a lot of flags. It's a very normal thing for normal Swedes to have a flagpole with a Swedish flag outside their home. No, not just when the football is on. All the time.

This is not some crazy American capitalist society. It is a social democracy, run by the Social Democratic Party, with the opposition parties including the Moderate party and the Center party. Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage, but Texas does. Draw your own conclusions.

me. I have no argument with people criticising parties and politicians across the entire political spectrum. I've no problem with people disagreeing with voters of other parties.
My point is that I have watched people on here be abused with the most horrible words because of how they voted and it is by far left wingers that use abusive language against Conservative or UKIP voters. There's no effort to understand why they voted that way, just a pile on of abuse. And then those very left wingers, some of whom have been involved in that abuse, are appalled when they find themselves shut down because they have a different view to the rest of the left wing pack. But why should they be shocked when they've seen it happening to others? They say they want an open and civilised debate but I can't help wonder if in reality that only applies to the issues over which they are receiving abuse. Other issues they'll stand back on and let the abuse continue.

I have friends of different political persuasion and I disagree with some of what they say. (In actual fact we agree over a lot more than we disagree.) But I've never called them a wankstain or an arsewipe. I can't even get my head round the abusive gutter politics of it really. My point is that as SM makes the country more polarised, so this is exactly the time that intelligent people should be debating with facts rather than insults.

"JennyPourQuoi
If we look back to Labour's last stint in government, what were their great works?"

The minimum wage!

Unbelievably today, hard fought against by certain sections of society and the Conservative party!

You wouldn't believe how hard the minimum wage was fought for!