Starmer and his 99.9%

I'd like to see this kicking off too

So funny.

My OH just told me that the TRAs are kicking off because of 'single sex spaces, adult permission/consent and men in women's sports' and that it was 'completely batshit'.

Lifelong Labour supporter, mid 50s and he left Labour last year because of this.

where are the TRAs kicking off?

Surely he must have known they would? he can't have thought really that it's just a matter of being decent and finding a compromise.

On present experience, Starmer's 0.1% is an underestimate of male-bodies who enter women only spaces (especially where women are most vulerable).

This is of course not including all the transwomen who 'pass' as women so completely as to be undetected.

Could the TRA's violent reaction possibly be a clever ploy for Starmer to have an excuse to roll the whole policy back? No thought not. He is not such a good strategist lol.

Gosh!

Firstly, Stephanie is awe inspiring.

Secondly, Penny Mordaunt’s leadership bid seems to be based on absolute whoppers! Fibs like that on a normie CV would have you back out the revolving door before HR had finished printing the name badge!

(lastly, tucked in there is the minutes from a meeting of the LGBT Advisory Panel - Presumably there must be more somewhere? www.gov.uk/government/publications/lgbt-advisory-panel-minutes-18-july-2019 )

Bit weird we’ve ended up having this conversation in the Starmer thread but oh well!

I suppose it’s a good reminder of enormous differences of opinion within a single party and a change of leader and a reshuffle can create a giant shift in policy.

(I did wonder if the new adult gender ‘pilot’ schemes had something to do with this panel but that seems to be a separate, mostly-doctors group: www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/gender-dysphoria-clinical-programme/ )

I found this by Stepanie Davies-Arai

thecritic.co.uk/why-women-dont-trust-penny-mordaunt/

Not only had no inquiry been planned, but even the research promised in the LGBT Action Plan never materialised.

Recruitment ad: www.gov.uk/government/news/lgbt-advisory-panel-recruitment

action plan: www.gov.uk/government/publications/lgbt-action-plan-2018-improving-the-lives-of-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-people/lgbt-action-plan-2018-improving-the-lives-of-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-people

What they actually did?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56731460

Not sure!

I was always under the impression that May wasn’t that bothered and had simply assumed it would be an nice little win (like Cameron had with gay marriage) but she wasn’t really bothered personally?

However, now that I’m typing it it’s entirely possible that scenario exists only in my head, so I will make looking into that my next ‘poking round the internet’ chore!

Mordaunt's LGBT Advisory Panel - didn't they just fanny about with GIDS (Tavistock) rather than there being kind of 'inquiry'? Wasn't there just something about streamlining the pathway?

May was very on board with updating/reviewing the GRA. She meet with stonewall while she was women minister and ruth hunt said that she met her several times and found her very supportive of trans rights. It was May who gave hunt her peerage.

If mordaunt was wasting time fannying about, i think it was as likely because of pressure from May as the LGBT advisory panel.

Yes, he’s clearly wrong on that one!

I too once had high hopes for Lisa Nandy, she would’ve been my 1st choice in that leadership election if she hadn’t ended up completely stuck on feeling sorry for her oft mentioned teen ‘transgirl’ constituent that she segued straight into advocating for male rapists to move to women’s prisons based on the rapist’s request.

As it was I voted for Starmer as he was the only one who didn’t sign the more batshit version of the two trans pledges.

A very low bar indeed.

Still, there must be a non-London no-nonsense soft-left female Labour MP that could fit the remit… mustn’t there? Somewhere?

*sad, doubtful, face.

Cummings has bugged me quite a bit before but this could work. If the next election doesn’t go their way maybe they’ll finally learn and do it for the next.

I hope they don’t win so they get rid of the gender lies that’s throughout and change direction.

@RoyalCorgi Yes, he really really should be standing up for Rosie ❤️. It’s shocking that he’s remaining silent.

Here the tweet thread by Cummings that trytopullyoursocksup references above, for the curious:

twitter.com/dominic2306/status/1451147084237787143

Very useful timeline, TheClogLady. It does illustrate how precarious this is, though - the shift in policy came with Johnson and the people he appointed to key positions. Without that, there would probably have been no Cass review and the GIDS clinic would still be in place. I think May had already decided to abandon GRA reform, or at least temporarily shelve it, but probably for reasons of expediency.

It looks as if Sunak will continue what Johnson and co started, mercifully. I don't know what Starmer is playing at. He obviously doesn't want to open up dialogue in the party as he has ignored all requests from gender-critical members to meet with him, and he hasn't told his own members to stop bullying Rosie Duffield. If this was an entirely self-interested position, then I could at least understand it, but in fact it seems highly unlikely to me that self-ID is a vote winner, especially in the red wall seats. Perhaps he is making some political calculation that is not obvious to the rest of us.

I agree with @trytopullyoursocksup and much as I loathe Cummings for all his shit-stirring especially wrt Brexit (and the trip to the optician’s beggars belief), Labour really do need to drop their hardened stance on gender ideology and the 0.01% or whatever Keir believes 😵‍💫because the REAL issue that needs dealing with in the UK is VAWG and the misogyny entrenched within institutions such as the Met.

Here’s my rough timeline, I really don’t believe Mordaunt deserves any credit for Cass:

W&E Cass Timeline:

(May Government)
April 2018: Penny Mordaunt takes on W&E role (replaces Amber Rudd who replaced Justine Greening)
July 2018: Matt Hancock replaces Jeremy Hunt as Health Secretary
July 2018: GRA reform consultation goes live
September 2018: Mordaunt ‘orders’ inquiry into massive rise of referrals to GIDS
March 2019: Mordaunt appoints LGBT Advisory Panel

(Johnson Government)
July 2019: Rudd replaces Mordaunt
September 2019: Truss replaces Rudd (Kemi Badenoch is appointed junior for Equalities at the W&E department at the same time)
December 2019: GE - Johnson increases majority
September 2020: Cass Review announced
September 2020: minimal changes to GRC process announced (lower cost and online forms).
March 2021: some of the LGBT Advisory Panel quit
April 2021: LGBT Advisory Panel disbanded
July 2021: Sajid Javid replaces Hancock as Health Secretary
July 2022: NHS England announces intent to close GIDS
September 2022: Steve Barclay replaces Javid as Health Secretary
(WEIRD LIZ TRUSS PM INTERLUDE, followed by Sunak)
October 2022: Kemi Badenoch takes over at W&E.

I hope Mordaunt didn’t bow to pressure from her OWN advisory panel because it certainly doesn’t seem like anything much was done re: GIDS referrals increase inquiry until after Truss took over?
Potentially a whole year wasted by Mordaunt fannying about!

Cummings does have incredible political instincts and since he left his post advising Johnson's govt and has been tweeting furiously as a renegade, two of the things he has been saying about Labour is that they should 1. drop this gender nonsense (and pay attention to violence against women, which ordinary people think is frightening, disgusting and has to stop) and 2. get a non-southern-metropolitan woman leader (I think he was specifically saying midlands at one point). I am fascinated by these points being hammered by the populist Cummings as my pessimism about engrained cultural misogyny has given me no faith that either of those measures would actually land with potential Labour voters.
BUT. in favour of those points I then find myself thinking:

1 - the media is misogynist and the traditional power seekers have courted that filthy hateful media for so long - am I confusing the media and the kowtowing to it for real misogyny in normal people? Sure it exists, but half of the voters are female, and lots of the other half have some women they respect in their lives;

2 - how would I, or anyone else, know whether a true pro-woman good faith stand would land with voters? no one has ever tried it.

Cummings is married to Mary Wakefield writer at the Speccie:

spectator.co.uk/article/parents-must-resist-stonewall-s-gospel/

Much as I find Cummings annoying (and the Barnard Castle excuse ludicrous) he did have excellent political instincts re: Vote Leave (unlike Starmer, whose second referendum manifesto pledge is probably the single biggest cause of Johnson’s stonking majority).

I bring Brexit up purely to link Cummings back to the thread subject and potentially as a sort of foreshadowing - can Starmer ever admit he’s completely out of touch with great swathes of Labour voters beyond the London/Cosmopolitan bubble? On Brexit or on the ridiculous concept of non-female women?

inews.co.uk/opinion/keir-starmer-advocating-second-referendum-brexit-1721731

SchoolsWeek seem to think Cummings was responsible for the DfE guidance (no teaching children that they are born in the wrong body)!

screenshots are a couple of tweets from Cummings (deffo him despite no blue tick) and the SW article, plus two from the Mail:

schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-relationships-sex-education-guidance-cancel-culture-anti-capitalism-trans-rights-culture-war/

(presuming DC is using ‘trans man’ in the old fashioned, ‘transsexual male’ way here!)

So I suppose it’s just about plausible that Amber Rudd did some preliminary work re: Cass but it seems like it’s the Johnson/Cummings/Truss (and Badenoch) team that pushed it through?

Here’s the Mail on Sunday article referenced by Vice: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7542003/Equalities-minister-Liz-Truss-abandons-drive-relax-laws-changing-gender.html