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

You don't misremember. The HoL debates are recorded in Hansard. Some choice parts.

twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1049289194370002945

More extracts.
twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1052160108489334785

@Anothernamechangeplease the Taliban are the absolute opposite of gender critical. Their position is that gender is something to be enforced by draconian laws and punishments. They are not in any way critical of gender as a concept. They are all for it. Women by dint of their sex are forced into very specific restrictive gender roles on pain of harsh consequences.

Nothing. I'm not saying that they are the same. I'm merely saying that an understanding of basic biology doesn't guarantee that people will be supportive of women's rights.

‘To be honest, I imagine that the Taliban would be fairly gender critical. That fact alone does not make them the guardians of women's rights.’

What have the Conservatives done to women (in actual fact) that would lead you to compare them to the Taliban?

‘Well, because they are moving on it in the way that their statements indicated they would. Do the people who say this actually not follow what is going on?’

I think they wanted to see stronger action taken, which I get. Johnson is an instinctive liberal - personally libertarian, extremely tolerant of a wide range of behaviours. Unusually so for someone on the right. The good in that for us is that he leans towards free speech. The bad in it is that he didn’t move quickly enough, and took his time to see that the people shouting about autonomy and inclusion were actually the authoritarians. Once he understood, he did move. Now I’m hoping we’ll get a PM who is actually selected on the basis that they will deal with this form of extremism.

I say it because I do follow what's going on, and because I see the disproportionate impact of Tory policies on vulnerable women through the work that I do every day. The Tories might indeed understand basic biology, and I'm glad of that, but nothing will convince me that they care about the rights of women.

Knowing what a woman is is only half the picture. Giving a shit about women's rights is a completely different matter.

I am not saying that Labour or any of the other parties have the right answers either. They don't, and I am politically homeless as a result. I just don't understand where this idea has come from that the Tories are somehow the party of women's rights just because they don't buy into the gender ideology nonsense. There is so much more to it than that.

To be honest, I imagine that the Taliban would be fairly gender critical. That fact alone does not make them the guardians of women's rights.

It was under Blair that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was quietly passed without thinking ahead to problematic consequences.

If I recall correctly, some people in the HoL did look forward and question it - am I misremembering?

It doesn't suit their left=good, right =bad agenda.
The reality is much more nuanced and no one's rights can be protected long term if freedom of speech and thought is lost.

I keep wondering - I hear this in every thread, oh, and why do you think the Tories will actually do anything?"

Well, because they are moving on it in the way that their statements indicated they would.
Do the people who say this actually not follow what is going on?

Anothernamechangeplease · Today 18:52
Sorry, Anothetname. I had been trying to answer you.

They did know they were supposed to be levelling up.

It was under Blair that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was quietly passed without thinking ahead to problematic consequences. It is true the Conservatives were then following through, but then they paused.

Nearer the start of this thread people were trying to explain why they think that if the Labour, Greens, and Liberal Democrats cannot see, for a start, the horrible dystopian, Orwellian control of thought and speech that has been well set in motion, and are willing to dismiss women so easily, then there is not a lot of reason to have faith in their skills in general or their willingness to stop a sort of fascist like mind control. It feels like they fully support it.

“Only women have a cervix.”
KS’s answer: “You can’t say that.”
What else won’t you be able to say?

What about the indoctrination promoted in education instead of actual education?

The NHS advice rewritten according to unscientific TRA populist principles?

Above all, this path, if left unchecked is going to ruin a lot of lives.

Sorry, I did not make myself clear.

Yes, it's true that some Tories are gender critical and will speak out on the trans issue. That's good. I am sure that many Labour politicians also understand biology and I wish that that they would have the courage to say so.

I just don't think that the trans issue is the only one that matters. There are so many Tory policies that are having a disastrous and disproportionate effect on women right now - especially poorer, more vulnerable women. I don't know why people are willing to overlook those issues simply because the PM understands basic biology.

The problems that have arisen as a result of current gender ideology have arisen on a Tory watch. Yes, I'm glad that we haven't got self ID, and I'm grateful for that, but it isn't exactly as if they have done everything possible to protect women as a sex class.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot today. I thought radical feminism was based on a Marxist class analysis of oppression, how would that stand up if we are deprived of the right to use the word which names the reason for female oppression. Jean Hatchet is correct that feminism is dead if the word woman does not mean adult human female.

I expressed some reservations a few months ago when I saw JB assert, in an interview, that feminism should remain on the left. I think many the politics of many feminists have remained left of centre but Labour are nowhere to be seen. Are Labour actually a socialist party or are they a socialist party in name only, what has happened for them to prioritise the subjective experience of identity above objective material reality. I thought material reality was fairly central to socialist thinking.

It also occured to me that the timing of the tweet was unfortunate coming so soon after the woman who launched the "respect my sex if you want my x" campaign won a major victory for all of us.

I agree with pp that it is a strategic error to tell the party who are ignoring you that you will continue to vote for them even if they don't start to engage with you.

I'm left wondering if JB has a greater passion for things she opposes rather than the things she stands for.

I only hope that should we ever find ourselves in a negotiating position that we are not represented by people who would sell women down the river in service of blind allegiance to a political party who does not give a shit about women.

I do not give a shit about Conservative motives for putting the brakes on self ID, just that they have which has given us time. We will never get our rights back if they are given away, I think it's such an urgent, important and foundational issue that I'd be prepared to cut a deal with the devil.

I agree about women having more self respect, I've found mine and would like to encourage other women to find theirs. Any political party who does not respect my sex can fuck off to the far side of fuck off.

There do seem to be some troubling links between the far right and those who are "gender critical " so maybe you frequently find yourself accidentally endorsing holocaust deniers @EmbarrassingHadrosaurus and not deleting or apologising when this is pointed out to you,

I would be more careful about such things

You're demonstrably not careful about your assertions or accusations. You stated

I don't imagine Davies was following the right wing holocaust Denier for his tractor content.

You seem now to acknowledge that Sharron D doesn't follow him and you had no grounds for your claim nor your speculation as to her motivational drivers for this non-existent follow. And you're now shifting the goalposts. You're praising yourself for how much more careful you would be when you're have actually made quite a serious accusation.

If you made that accusation on Twitter, have you withdrawn it and apologised?

Are you withdrawing that accusation here, on MN?

Anothernamechangeplease · Today 18:07
I'm also totally bemused as to why anyone would believe for a moment that the Tories will stand up for women's rights.

Some of them do. There were also signs that others were starting to at least begin listening.

I know Liz Truss did; Kemi Badenoch; Sajid Javid; have taken a stance about protecting woman and children in opposition to TRAs

Some if this, say when Boris said that biology matters, followed by Rishi Sunak a few days later saying he agreed, may have been opportunistic, but even then it still made a difference that they publicly broached a hitherto taboo subject and were not immediately called upon to resign.

Agree mrsho

Since twitter was' bought' by Musk GC beliefs have been easier to air, I've not been suspended since he took over. Now it looks like it will fall through I'd imagine censorship will be again.

Wrong think arrests here we come

@mrshoho

You’re right. They threaten to literally gag our ordinary speech, and you still have people defending the idea of voting for them.

As there are some more posters on the thread, I'd like to ask my question again:

....anyone on this thread who thinks it's important but not the most important issue. How do you see that panning out?
^^
Is it that you believe we can fight off self ID if and when Labour are elected? If so please could you explain how, as presumably it's going to be in their manifesto? (plus I will add, they won't even need our votes by that point).

Or do you think we could get the legislation repealed at a later date? And again, if so then how?

Just posters who actually oppose self ID please. I'm not interested in the 'Feminism must prioritise everyone else' school of thought.

Also it's not directed at anyone who thinks the cost of living crisis leaves them with no choice.

But surely GC women voting Labour is akin to Turkeys voting for Christmas? Labour have said they are committed to reforming the GRA and introducing self id. We could end up finding even having this conversation unlawful.

@antifascist

I’m sorry you’re getting it in the neck from some of your supposed ‘allies’ on Twitter. They have misinterpreted you, but their comments demonstrate that they’re not nice people. Stay here with us. We mostly disagree with you but look how nice we are.

I don’t know where this idea that it “doesn’t affect” us comes from. It affects me because I have a young daughter who has suffered trauma in her early life and finds life hard sometimes. She is just the sort of vulnerable person to whom the trans ideology appeals as a solution to their problems. Two girls who I have known from birth are now young trans men, taking testosterone and planning mastectomies. They too were vulnerable because of mental health issues that made them feel like they didn’t fit into the world. Both lesbians originally. But even if it didn’t affect me, why am I not allowed to be horrified at what is happening to other women and girls?

‘I'm also totally bemused as to why anyone would believe for a moment that the Tories will stand up for women's rights.’

Because they did. As a result of decisions taken by Tory ministers, we don’t have self-ID. We have some (still not enough) clarity on single sex spaces. We don’t have a ban on nebulous “trans conversions practices”. We have arrangements coming through for open sporting categories. We have the Cass Review. We have sensible people on the EHRC. We have legislation coming on freedom of speech in higher education. We have the Cass Review.

anyone with the public profile of Sharron Davies who approvingly retweets someone with an easily identifiable record of Holocaust denial is irreponsible at best.

There do seem to be some troubling links between the far right and those who are "gender critical " so maybe you frequently find yourself accidentally endorsing holocaust deniers @EmbarrassingHadrosaurus and not deleting or apologising when this is pointed out to you,

I would be more careful about such things