Anyone else left wing and gender critical?

And have you ever actually encountered that? Or is this some imaginary virtue boosting scenario?

Let's take that FWR favourite of Baroness Emma Nicholson. She's a Conservative. She held conservative views in the past about gay marriage but I think she has conceded times change.

You still sound sanctimonious.

Left wing people are perfectly capable of being racist, homophobic etc

So say I go to a hypothetical event for GC women, and find that some of the women there are arguing for single sex spaces on the grounds of misplaced homophobia, mocking the appearance of transwomen, saying they’re going to hell and advocating violence, even genuine transphobia, can I not say that these are not values that I hold, and to my mind these are the “wrong” reasons to justify same sex spaces? The “right” reasons being the dignity and safety of the women using them.

if that makes me self righteous, well then I’ll take it.

But these people aren't gender critical in the true sense of the word. They sound pretty keen on upholding gender stereotypes and roles. So why refer to them as such? That is a TRA trick.

So say I go to a hypothetical event for GC women, and find that some of the women there are arguing for single sex spaces on the grounds of misplaced homophobia, mocking the appearance of transwomen, saying they’re going to hell and advocating violence, even genuine transphobia, can I not say that these are not values that I hold, and to my mind these are the “wrong” reasons to justify same sex spaces? The “right” reasons being the dignity and safety of the women using them.

if that makes me self righteous, well then I’ll take it.

Yes I think a lot of GC women are actually left wing, it's the TRAs that like to pretend we're all right wing (some are but I think we might actually be mostly left wing?)

What's "left wing"? It feels like it's been turned into something completely different to what I grew up as

literally no idea

loads of words and phrases seem to have changed meaning recently

What's "left wing"? It feels like it's been turned into something completely different to what I grew up as.

I was always "left politically." but that meant

Freedom of expression and speech
Non-totalitarian
Courtesy and kindness to all
Fairness in society and fairness in income (not meaning equal pay)

I support black rights and racial equality but do not support BLM (why should one organisation take control of a basic message? This leaves the message completely open to corruption)

I support gay rights but "the left" are vehemently against the right of people to be exclusively same-sex attracted.

I agree with equal treatment of the sexes and women having the right to work but really don't align with many things people who call themselves feminist believe.

Support refugees but not unchecked immigration or immigration of those we cannot track for the safety of our citizens and the refugees themselves. So for border controls and for refugee detention until they are given a proper identity for the country etc.

"wear what you want" has nothing to do with trans rights. Any rights for trans people are already covered in racial and sex equality. I cannot say that I support "trans rights" because they have no clear definition.

I won't vote again. It's clear that policies come from an overarching political body and local governments (those of specific countries) follow their direction with messages tailored to the specific area.

The vast majority of posts ive seen on here from people who don’t usually vote tory has them saying that they have held their nose or are unhappy that they are voting tory

ive not seen one single post from a ‘left wing’ poster saying that the tories are best for womens rights

Exactly right. 'Woke' is a very recent invention, and has never achieved anything of value to my knowledge. The generations who fought for and achieved essential rights were trade unionists, left-wingers, feminists. People with a real cause and real commitment.

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.

BLM and XR have also taken the TWAW stand, though I don't know how much this is nationally or internationally, and how much it's various local groups.

I haven't noticed a rightwing bias in FWR. When party politics are discussed here, it's mainly by lefties, liberals, or non-aligned women. Most are mourning the parties they used to vote for: Labour, LibDems, Greens, all now solidly behind the misogynist TWAW line.

I'm one of the many socialists who is now politically homeless. I would vote for a communist or even an SDP candidate, since those parties support women's rights. No matter how bad things get under the Tories, I can no longer vote for any party that supports self-ID, which = abolition of women's right to single-sex spaces.

True. "Woke" wasn't even a thing back then, and it's wrong to retrospectively give left wing activism that label (which started off as a term used by Anti-Racism activists in the US anyway).

EVERYTHING that the "woke" left have fought for and achieved over generations

It was the genuine left that fought for those things. Wokery is not the genuine left, it is a trojan horse designed to divide and disorient the left. And it has been far more successful in doing that than anti-communism ever was.

I've never seen BLM criticised on here

I have and if it's the Marxist/ anti- capitalist/ de- fund policing version of BLM I don't see why it should not be criticised.

I've never seen BLM criticised on here.

With XR I think people have an issue with the way they choose to go about things, not their concerns about climate change.

"Wokeness" seems to have devolved into a whole heap of nonsense, encompassing queer theory and gender ideology and thr bullying and deplatforming of people who won't get on board: it's now so far removed from it's origins and therefore worthy of criticism imo. Same with social justice.

I don't like this check list of social justice things you must be on board with to be left wing approach - it's caused a lot of this mess in the first place.

There are a lot of people on the right who are GC, but not necessarily for the same reasons as us left wing GC feminists. It can make it uncomfortable when you see people arguing for the same as you (eg same sex spaces), but for the “wrong” reasons (discriminatory rather than safeguarding, privacy, dignity)

Do you have any idea how self-righteous you sound?

I have come to the conclusion that the left are terrified of us talking to Conservative women.

I’m not surprised it scares them because, when you do talk, you realise that, for all your many differences, you share a sex.

It’s a powerful lesson to learn and no amount of finger wagging and emotional blackmail can ever undo it.

Why would people on the left accept identity politics? It's not leftist.

This isn't the only area where the left has changed its thinking, there is a reason all across the west workers are alienated from the parties that traditionally represented them. It's not because they've all become nasty right wingers, it's because they don't see their interests reflected there any more.

Political parties have flipped roles regularly, in many countries. It happens.

There are a lot of people on the right who are GC, but not necessarily for the same reasons as us left wing GC feminists. It can make it uncomfortable when you see people arguing for the same as you (eg same sex spaces), but for the “wrong” reasons (discriminatory rather than safeguarding, privacy, dignity). Unfortunately it seems to create heat in the online debate as the argument then focuses on the discriminatory rationale, which I can’t defend. I think this is doubly true if you talk to people in America and Canada where GC positions seem to be much more strongly associated with the right, with the left lumping together homophobia, misogyny and transphobia as faults of the Right. The idea that Trans rights are in many cases in direct conflict with Women’s rights, and a third way needs to be found, just doesn’t seem to have gained traction over there.

Fifteentoes

What’s interesting to me is that I am ‘the woke’ to most of my friends in real life (at university). Most of them are right wing or centrist.They roll their eyes at me/ look bored when I accidentally go on one of my lefty rants. But they’ve all bought into the ‘trans women are women’ mantra hook line and sinker. The only people I’ve met who are knowledgable about this and GC are socialists or communists.

I have idea why it’s predominantly the right wing press who report on this stuff (although kudos to Private Eye and the Observer who are pretty good on this stuff and could hardly be characterised as right wing).

This.

Strange kind of "predominantly left wing" forum that gets much of its source material from rabidly reactionary Tory media, spends most of its time attacking the left for its "identity politics" and extolling the virtues of voting Tory.

I get it. Many on the left have got it wrong on this particular issue. There needs to be conversation, there needs to be respect for science and there needs to be a drawing back from kneejerk politically correct views towards more considered and nuanced appreciation of the facts. At the same time, that doesn't erase EVERYTHING that the "woke" left have fought for and achieved over generations, often against the brutal resistance of the very Tory status quo that people seem happy to embrace as the alternative - from gay rights, to racial equality, to feminism itself which is the very point of this board.

You can vote Alba in Scotland if you're indy inclined.
Who to vote for in England, I have no idea.

So who are we meant to vote for? SNP want self ID and Labour do t know what a woman is.

I do actually despise Tory principles.

I don't despise anyone, Kimiko. I just don't agree with Tory political principles.

Mrs Thatcher was elected Conservative leader in 1975. It's half a century since a One Nation Conservative had any influence on the party. Might be worth voting for an Independent in locals ? If you can find a sane one.