Julie Bindel & Sharron Davies can't believe women centre their politics around the trans issue

I agree with them too. It infuriates me that I'm left in this position, but given a choice between someone who expressed a commitment to act on the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis but who was a dyed-in-the-wool genderist, versus a gender-critical climate-denier, I'd bite my tongue and give my vote to the former. I'd find it hard to door-knock on his or her behalf, mind you.

Tbh, I'd vote for anyone who was willing to say "people have different views on this issue, as on any other, and it's important to reach a compromise", whatever that person's own views.

Apologies, I had meant that last post for another thread.

On the other hand, Rachel Reeves managed to say something about single sex spaces in public which might have been taboo before. So that is a small sign for the better.

People just don’t understand though the extent to which this is an issue about the safety and well being of women and children, and also about resisting the trans activist authoritarianism complete with ideological indoctrination that has even been infiltrating schools.

^Is Labour Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues- its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator^

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues-

This is about something Rachel Reeves said.

I posted it on another thread too.

Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues-

And you can self identify as dyslexic when applying for jobs.

Identify as is used for disability. Some people who are technically classed as disabled don't think of themselves as disabled. For example diagnosis with MS means you are classed as disabled but certainly when I was first diagnosed I wasn't disabled by it in any significant way.

I used to be a Labour Party member and was invited to some particular event if “I identify as BAME” which seemed to me to be inviting self identification into that category much as events for those who “identify” as women do.

But that's different. I actively choose not to identify as such even though one parent was - it's not clear cut.

Plus, disability is very harshly screened and often to the extent of erring on the side of no impact on life (as posts on MN more generally attest).

I used to be a Labour Party member and was invited to some particular event if “I identify as BAME” which seemed to me to be inviting self identification into that category much as events for those who “identify” as women do. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if disability were treated in the same way. Already certain conditions seem to be becoming trendy and displayed on social media bios just as is the case for LGBTQ+. For some people identifying into any minority, marginalised or other group seen as oppressed gives them a feeling of being of greater value or more interesting or more worthy and an entitlement to be prioritised and listened to more than “boring normies”.

Self-ID is already happening with autism spectrum conditions and DID.

But don’t you think that people could? Why should gender be the only characteristic that people can identify as?

If disability becomes a matter of self identity then it may suffer similarly to the protected category of sex. Once anyone can say “I identify as disabled” surely that is going to have impact on people who actually are and on resources and services for them.

That hasn't happened and is pure speculation.

I wouldn't vote Tory anyway but I certainly have no reason to vote Labour.

I totally agree with you - but I also think that there is more chance to find a place inside Labour than with the Tories.

“I'm not telling anyone to put women's rights aside. For some women, the big issues include adequate disability and welfare support though.”

If disability becomes a matter of self identity then it may suffer similarly to the protected category of sex. Once anyone can say “I identify as disabled” surely that is going to have impact on people who actually are and on resources and services for them. Reality apparently doesn’t mean anything to Labour, nor do concrete definitions. If everything becomes floaty and fluid then how will they make any difference to the material reality of the lives of ordinary people who are struggling?

Yes they do. Which is why I'm horrified by current Labour shadow chancellor Reeves' repeated statements of intention to clamp down on welfare claimants and we've already seen Labour would have provided far less help in the cost of living crisis, £90ish compared to £1200. There is no evidence whatsoever that Labour will be better on disabled people's rights or welfare, it's no better than a fairy tale. I wouldn't vote Tory anyway but I certainly have no reason to vote Labour.

How can we fight for those issues if the leading party can't define what a woman is?

The issue is fighting against the savage cuts that the Tories have made.

For some women, the big issues include adequate disability and welfare support though.

How can we fight for those issues if the leading party can't define what a woman is?

Sick of being told to put women's rights to the side and think of the bigger issues.

I'm not telling anyone to put women's rights aside. For some women, the big issues include adequate disability and welfare support though.

Sick of being told to put women's rights to the side and think of the bigger issues. History has proven that the discourse never gets around to it.
The right to the definition of our sex class in law is the very basis on which all laws that affect us are written. That is non negotiable to me.
Until labour change their stance on this I cannot vote for them.

I no longer regard any party as a friend to women.

I think this is a battle which needs fighting on every front. So I am grateful to all women fighting for our rights in whichever political party. However I can’t see that the Labour Party is any more a friend to women than the Conservative Party. We don’t even exist in biological or physical reality to Labour, we are just a “social construct” or one of many possible identities to be chosen from the identity menu.

I am too but I also know that the Tories are no friends of women and particularly poor, disabled and vulnerable women. They are not, to me, a viable alternative and I'd rather stay and fight on the left.

I remain glad that those women are there fighting for women and also against the Tories whose rule had led to cutbacks and poverty for many vulnerable women and their children.
I remain glad they're there too, but when their own party is refusing them a stand at their conference, and when Keir Starmer is still ignoring their requests to meet, then I also think it's legitimate, if harsh, to question what is being achieved. I know I would be if I were them.

Absolfuckinglutely.

The Tories furlough scheme in lockdown actually had more akin to left wing politics and came under fire for how much borrowing was being done to get people through it.

Now our national debt is actually higher post-covid than it was ever under a labour government. This is a contributing factor to the current recession.

The chance of a true left wing government went with the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories and 'New Labour' have a lot in common, oh, except the Tories actually have a diverse panel of leadership candidates and don't appear to be as sexist.

The Labour Party is refusing these women in their own party a voice. To me this is a form of dishonest theft from the women of this country.

I remain glad that those women are there fighting for women and also against the Tories whose rule had led to cutbacks and poverty for many vulnerable women and their children.

Conservatives For Women have been working hard behind the scenes for a number of years now and the results are showing - there have been lots of conversations with conservative MPs, those in the Lords etc. Which is why we've seen reversals in various policies, bills being amended to ensure women are not erased in law.

Contrast that with Labour Women's Declaration. They have also been working very hard behind the scenes for ages and yet - they still can't even get a fucking stall at their party conference.

That tells me everything I need to know about the two parties. And yet women have to put up with sanctimonious lectures here and elsewhere on how we have to keep crawling back to Labour and "the left". No thanks. I have something called self-respect.

My rights are important to me and I will do what it takes to protect them. Freedom of speech, resisting authoritarianism, preventing the erasure of women in life, law and language - these are pretty fundamental issues from which all else flows. They are not trivial, back burner topics. I have grown up in the Middle East and have lived in South Asia. I know exactly what it means to not have freedom of speech, to live under theocratic authoritarianism, to be part of societies and cultures where women aren't even fully human under law.

I don't care if the Conservative party are mouthing all the right words about women's rights out of crude self-interest. My own self-interest in protecting my rights means I will be strategic about using whatever legal and political levers available to ensure I do not end up living in the type of society I did my best to escape from.
I am done with having my concerns being made to play second fiddle to everything else. I moved to the UK to get away from the ideological control exerted over women's words, our lives and even our thoughts. And now the gender zealots think they can pronouns their fatwas here with impunity? Over my dead body.