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

I agree with them. There are other issues affecting women and you’re quite privileged if this is your main concern and not feeding your family, affordable childcare, issues with carers etc

Show me the action then?

The Tories have been in Govt got 12 years. Was this happening on Labour's watch?

All i have heard is words.

We need freedom of speech. The Labour Bristol Council have just passed a motion saying we can think but not say GC beliefs

I agree, if he actually believed it at least he would be standing by his convictions.

He doesn't believe it and yet isn't strong enough to stand up against his own party, so I have no faith in his standing up for our country.

I like what they’re saying. Sometimes we can get so caught up in an issue that we stop to look at the whole picture, or maybe that’s just me.

One of the many issues around women’s rights & gender theory is freedom of speech, we’re all individuals with our own views and we should be able to express them however we want. I’m not angry with the Labour Party, I’m really disappointed but if there was an election tomorrow I’d still vote for them. I’m not wasting my vote, I’d never vote Tory so I don’t have much choice.

If Keir Starmer changed tack and talked about fairness toward women and respected the need for female only spaces I’d not only rejoin Labour, I’d be out canvassing.

How on earth could you read my post as supporting Boris?

No one is starving?

maybe no one you know.

OP I agree with them. I am GC and have been called TERF a million times but there are bigger issues.

Yes we are. And isn't that brilliant?

Maya has proved that in court

I agree. He's just saying it to be popular and it's not like it really matters right? The people paying the price for this are not the important people (men). So what if women get no rape support ,get assaulted in prison, lose the ability to record their oppression. They're only women right?

Well, they're right... there are lots of important issues. Fortunately in the immediate question of who may become the next PM there are only one or two who've clearly ruled themselves out eg Mordant. Most of the others know what a woman is. So yes, surely none of us are judging who out of the available candidates would be the best (or least worst) pm based on 'the trans issue alone'?

If Boris had thought saying TWAW would have made him popular then he would have. Its incredibly naive to believe that there was ever any integrity in anything he has said.

I do think Keir has taken the wrong line here however.

I can't vote for anyone who says TWAW because either their beliefs about the nature of reality don't line up with mine at all, or they're utterly spineless. Neither is something I'd want in a PM.

Julie is free to vote (or to support politicians) based on the issues that matter most to her, and so is everyone else. Being told that this isn't important or that it's something that can be sorted out later isn't an argument I agree with. Women's issues have very often been sidelined that way.

This!

Has anyone said they shouldn't express their views? They have, as is their right, and many here disagree with them.

Not that my vote counts for anything anyway. My constituency will only ever be Tory. It is one of the safest seats in the country. Labour had never stood a chance here.

I agree with them.

And whilst we are still in a democracy, we are all entitled to have views that some may disagree with.

So it’s ok for you to express your views but it’s not ok for them to express theirs? Nice.

I have absolutely no say in who will be the next PM/leader of the Conservatives. I don’t think any of them would be likely to promote economic policies which would help ordinary people. So yes I am speculating on which one would be best for reality, freedom of speech, child safeguarding and women’s rights, areas where I may have some common ground with some of them.

Oh for a party which is economically progressive and socially conservative if that is the way to put it!

I mean I want everyone in our country to have what they need, I want publicly owned and funded public services run by best practice to serve the needs of the people not for profit.

I also want families and communities to be valued rather than rampant individualism of identity politics or seeing individuals merely as units to fulfil a function in the economy moved around at the will of capitalists. I want us to celebrate our rich cultural diversity whilst also keeping in mind what we have in common. I want an end to the categorising of people by oppression and privilege, the oppression Olympics as it is aptly named and a return to the values of being non judgmental and aiming to treat everyone with respect and compassion whilst maintaining healthy boundaries.

Modern Labour do not value families or communities in the traditional sense of the relationships built over time in a local area and Tories don’t really care about families and communities either they only care making the rich richer at the expense of ordinary people.

If there were a general election tomorrow I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them.

Doesn't it end up being a balance for most people anyway? I wouldn't vote for the BNP even if they were the only GC party for example. Or some of the other loonies you get (up here in Yorkshire we get candidates standing for an independent Yorkshire...)

Last few of elections I've voted for least worse, not necessarily who I think is best

I can't trust a party that will say TWAW, that will punish people who can't say TWAW, who will make laws based on TWAW that predominantly impact women. A party that actively excludes those who can't say TWAW.

How can I trust that party on anything else, when they behave like bullying despots around that issue. Who are so convinced they are right they won't allow it to be discussed.

At least the Tortes are embarrassed about their misbehaviour, rather than trumpeting it and embedding it in policy.

No, I'm tired of women being asked to stand down whilst other priorities are dealt with. Our willingness to put others first is one of the reasons Westminster does not work hard enough to earn the female vote. I would say now is exactly the right time to drive home the point that we matter and if political parties want to succeed then they need to show they think we matter too. If we cave now then every fight for women will be harder.

Others can do as they see fit but I won't be berated by anyone for putting women first.

Come back to me when WW3 breaks out and I'll review my position.

Once woman are redefined legally to mean anyone who wants to be a woman the destruction and chaos to womans protections and services may never be undone.

This is my position too, once protections are gone it will be near impossible to get them back.

The thing for me though is that the Labour Party are saying TWAW, look at all the comments from Nandy, Lamy etc.

Many of the current issues disproportionally affect women. If Labour are falling over themselves with this ridiculousness they are not focusing on real women as a group, they seem to be constantly checking and ensuring they are including everyone else. I see Kier as a weak leader actually as he is too scared to come out and say what he knows is true.

So having a parties stance on women as top of my list is me thinking about broader issues like COLC. I will not vote for a party who has openly declared it would put a child rapist in a woman's prison because they say they are a woman.

As someone said on another thread yesterday, can you imagine telling a BAME person off for choosing which party to vote for based on their policies on racial equality or attitude towards different ethnic groups?

This is not trivial - we are talking about politicians redefining literally half of the human race. And the fact that they are largely doing so utterly disingenuously and cynically (not to mention often ignorantly, bumblingly and ineptly) in order to look woke just makes it even more impossible to vote for them.