Anyone else left wing and gender critical?

I genuinely don't understand how a feminist can vote for the Tories ever. I'm waiting for Labour to see the light but no fucking way would I give my vote to a party led by a narcissistic misogynist whose policies bring down women even more. T

Yup. This. Our age perhaps?

I'm with you on all that OP. I think many are.
I hate the way that 'Woke' is used as an umbrella term for many different causes. Some of which I wholeheartedly support, some not. So I'm not woke or anti-woke. I think it's often used by different people to mean different things.

Yes I do wonder about the 'bedfellows' aspect - I was shocked by how much i enjoyed the recent piece in spiked by brendan o'neill , i must say. But its kind of teaching me not to 'think like a little leftist and move with the tribe', but to grow up a bit and separate issues out in my mind and address each on its merits.

I do 100% consider myself on the left though, and also very green (though plenty of beef with XR and IB etc) and I am certainly a lot more concerned about social justice and women's rights than I imagine most mail readers are. But i might even be wrong about them too! 😅

Me! I'm left wing and GC too.

😭but then who am I going to fucking vote for?

There is no fucker! Nobody! No bastard person willing to stand up for women and take any action.

I'd made up my mind to vote Tory, despite disagreeing with them on virtually all points of fiscal policy, social strategy, economic positions, benefits, NHS - oh, god, the NHS.

Christ.

I can not bring myself to spoil my vote. There is nobody to vote for.

Me - left wing voter all my life as are all my family (present and historical). And def gender critical - I’ve always considered “gender” as stereotypes, and irrelevant and should be ignored. Sex is only important sometimes, but it’s very important when it matters.

Dismissing GC people as 'far right' is pretty much the juvenile cry of 'fascist' used by people with few ideas of their own to shut down discussion they might find uncomfortable. It makes me think of the Young Ones. And its very convenient for many. Inevitably though, GC posters on here are going to share right-wing media approvingly - possibly making them look right wing themselves - because as you have sadly observed, the left-er media have gone into a collective cringe about "trans rights", so successful has the branding been of trans people as the most victimised victims of all the victims.

Me. I have always been very left wing. I come from a highly politicised country - used to be in the streets protesting since I was a teenager. Helped in slums and worked for a human rights ONG. Support BLM, voted Remain etc etc. Now politically homeless both in the UK and 'at home'.

"The GC posters on here all seem very right wing, slagging off the 'woke' by which I mean TRA but also BLM and XR etc. I don't feel I fit with the GC posters on here. Maybe I'm just on all the wrong threads."

I haven't seen any right wing posts. But I have to say that I do slag off the 'woke' now, as I have come to realise their lack of critical thinking and self-reflection is shocking.

Left wing, GC and politically homeless here. I think there’s been some clutching at straws going on on these boards sometimes. The Tories are not safe on this issue and haven’t actually done or changed anything legally to protect women.

They’re happy to give GC soundbites (which is a start obviously) but they have made no actual changes despite their massive House of Commons majority since 2019. The Tories have been in power since 2010 (including for a short time with the Lib Dems) so they’ve had 12 years to sort something out.

I couldn’t give a fuck if Boris johnson dsays he ‘knows what a woman is’, he’s not prepared to do something about it legally, so his views aren’t helping us.
I don’t think I can forgive Labour for being so unrelentingly sexist on this issue, it’s really alienated me from the current crop.

Apologies, you're right. When I think left, I don't think communist. I think labour. With a side of liberal. Communist would be a bit much for me.

I am. The impression I get is that the majority of GC feminists are squarely left wing. GC feminists do not, however, encompass all people who say that sex is immutable, important, and that recognition of it shouldn't be overridden by self id. While it would be highly remiss of me to say that there is no one on the political right who cares about women's rights, there are a significant number of politicians/commentators/etc for whom transgender issues are just another excuse for something to froth about over breakfast. Learning to say "save single sex spaces" to attract another demographic to your party/newspaper/radio shows isn't difficult.

Self ID and much of the other ideology espoused by TRAs is only left wing in as much as it has been adopted by traditionally left wing parties. There is a constant conflation of what is left wing and what is liberal because, in Western countries at least, economically left wing parties tend to adopt more socially liberal policies. That doesn't mean that all liberal (and in this case, I'd argue that libertarian was a more suitable term) policies are conducive to left wing economic policies. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're anathema to it. I'm not convinced that a movement which prioritises the feelings of (often privileged) individuals over the safety and dignity of a more vulnerable group is left wing in any sense.

Yes me too. I am very surprised.

I feel quite offended actually.

I actually find it quite amazing that you haven't noticed that an awful lot of women on this board share roughly your stated political alignment/evolution!

I'm very surprised too because I've seen your user name fairly regularly.

Maybe what you've picked up on is that a lot of us probably seem much more angry with the left than we are with the right, but that's because we trusted the left and now feel totally and utterly shafted by them.

This XR?

Yeah....probably gonna slag them off.

Certain people have created a narrative that anyone who doesn't align with a very narrow set of beliefs is 'far right'. These beliefs include the belief that one can change sex, and that its absolutely fine to inject kids with powerful drugs that could have lifelong consequences, for no medical reason.

Far right my arse.

If you are actually “left wing” you have no problem- the British Communist Party is staunchly gender critical. It’s just the centre left - Labour, Lib Dem, etc, who have swallowed the gender woo.
But I suspect by left wing you really just mean “moderately left” ex Labour supporter?
My daughter is a Communist party member and I’m a Tory. We are both rad fems and both gender critical.

Third generation leftwinger.

Considering voting Tories on Thursday, as they're the only party who will acknowledge what a woman is and that we need single sex spaces. Amazing.

Left wing and GC here. My voting pattern over the years has been LibDem or Labour. Basically whoever had the best chance against the fucking Tories. But deeply depressed that the left is shitting on women.

Plus threads like this

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4542143-alex-massie-sturgeon-is-all-wrong-about-womens-rights-times-link
Left wing feminists considering voting Tory because of self id.

This isn't meant as a criticism. But the linking of left wing GC views to right wing politics is uncomfortable.

I have no idea how to vote anymore.

And it's not just on here, I'm also a member of a ReSisters group and there's not a Tory in the bunch. I do find this odd and also kind of sad, the idea that this particular TRA misrepresentation of GC women has taken hold to this extent. Dividing us like this only advantages this pernicious ideology.

Exactly this. It's a delightful import from the US to scream "far right" at anything that doesn't align with current dogma. It's deeply disingenuous and a distraction from discussing the issues at hand. I've no time for it.

its contentious because for some TW validation is everything
therefore, admission and acceptance in the most womanly women-only places is some kind of badge for them- hence sex with a lesbian would be the ultimate validation
this is my generous, kind, interpretation
(I have others)

Most people I have spoken to about this feel the same. Are LW and GC. But keep it to ourselves.

Most GC women - actually all the ones I know personally - are left wing.

I'm not sure where you're getting your right wing bias from unless it's from Twitter and MRAs.

Me - I'm the person my family roll their eyes at for being an airy fairy liberal and I am very left wing liberal to be fair.

I honestly try not to get too much into it though because I think trans women and women fighting over access to women's spaces is akin to fighting over the crumbs while someone else is eating the cake.

The main issue is male pattern violence. Trans women want access to female only spaces to avoid male violence. Women don't want to open up our spaces because we fear male violence. I think it suits a lot of people to have women and trans women fighting over what a women in because then no one is addressing the real issues.

I also don't understand why the whole thing is so complicated. To me it's so obvious that for most things (your name, your career, your clothes, your hobbies) biology doesn't matter one bit. For some things however (medical care, sports, rape crisis centres) biology trumps gender identity. I just truly don't understand why this is contentious.