Labour's Ben Bradshaw on the attack

👏 Exactly

. I'm Gen Z & bisexual myself but it's annoyingly true that most who say they are are trying to be cool & kweer 🤮 This also means young lesbians get disappointed after being gaslit that they have a huge dating pool.

It's important to note that LGBTQIA+ has been totally overrun with GI. Something like 20% - 30% of Gen Z women are in the LGBTQIA+ community often due to some form of 'non-binary' identity and 'saphic' interest, in spite of their heterosexual (though still somehow kweer) boyfriends and zero interest in or attempts to 'transition' - beyond hair colour and cut, and piercings. For reference gay men make up approximately 2% of the population (including of gen z) and lesbians, likewise, between 1% and 2%. Media never makes an effort to disambiguate the constituency of the LGBTQIA+, and to some extent it wouldn't matter because many respondents especially a certain subtype of 'lesbian' simply lie.

So attacks against LGBTQIA+ is always framed as a right-wing threat to the greater omni-cause to which membership to the LGBTQIA+ is practically a left wing requirement. It's dire for actual gays and lesbians.

And old thread, I know.It's just that I've read up on that era & Section 28 (as well as seeing lots of posts on here) and it does seem in practice to have had a bad effect on quite a few things: making teachers uncomfortable about defending from homophobic bullying being only one.

Maybe your area was more lax? I know it varied from area to area.

But I don't think you can dismiss it as having no effect anywhere in the UK.

Presumably you agree with it being repealed?

Whether the govt refuses to accept/challenges the new Scots self ID/gender bill or whether it lets it proceed will be telling as to the tories’ true attitude on GI matters and willingness to engage in this issue. It’s not something that can be fudged.

He's well into this.

Interesting that he relies tono discussion or concerns from women though.

twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1613129528360013825?t=csJMMrxwyRyWEwhlfzW7VA&s=19

When did Scotland start going down the Self ID route @IwantToRetire?

And if Labour had been in power we would have self id by now like Scotland.

I am no Tory but it is really silly to imply they are the only ones doing it. Like it or not they put the brakes on their own early plans to make getting a GRC easier.

2 different Tory Ministers for Women have clearly stated that in terms of refuges etc., women only means biological women only. If Labour had been in power they would be suing WA & RCC for being transphobic.

The Tories are also saying, that they might challenge the recent court case in Scotland.

If Labour were in power they would be applauding the SNP (and Scottish Green and Labour) for implementing self id. And pointing out that of the 4 UK nations England is now the only one without self id.

This comes up on threads over and over again. Nobody needs to be told the damage the Tories have done to the country.

But that means that yet again for the "greater good" women are being told they shouldn't put their rights before others.

It would be more productive to show how if at all Labour have been listening to women. But that would be hard to do because they haven't.

And dont forget when Labour gets in, it wont be because they won, it will be a negative vote against the Tories.

The Tories aren't kicking this into the long grass. It's their policy and they're going through with it. By the end of this parliamentary term the Trans agenda will be well and truly pushed through and it will be the Tories wot done it.🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I would still settle for kicking into the long grass and dragging feet over galloping straight into it with insane enthusiasm. Labour will never call on anyone to sort this out, they are wholly in favour of it.

Just to add that I think Labour are absolutely culpable for not calling on the government urgently to sort this mess out, so this isn’t just a party political dig- they’re all as bad as each other politically.

But we can’t ignore that the Tories have been in government and kicking this issue into the long grass for the past 12 years which is becoming pretty unforgivable.

Usually in government departments and public bodies there is great caution about appearing to contradict a Minister or junior minister’s policies let alone getting into the virtually unthinkable situation of actually refusing or opposing a direct Ministerial instruction.

I don’t know the administrative structure for prisons relative to powers of government Ministers but surely prison bodies or individual prisons’ governors would only be able to ignore a direct Ministerial instruction if they thought it was illegal what they were being asked to do or say, if it was an inappropriate ask going beyond the Ministerial powers?

At which point if needed, a court case would soon settle who was on the right side of the law.

And furthermore regardless of the chain of command from government Ministers to prisons, I had understood that public bodies which surely includes prisons, had to abide by the Public Sector Equality Duty. And housing men in with women prisoners clearly fails at that equality duty.

So isn’t what is actually lacking here, any instruction from (…the past few years’ succession of…) Tory government ministers with responsibility for prisons: to tell prisons or their representative bodies, that prisons must stop allowing men to be housed in with women?

i think we have to wonder why hasn’t anything been done yet?

Indeed.

It continues to be regrettable but basically oh well acceptable that women are being raped rather than men having to face boundaries to their self actualisation.

Seriously. And women are expected to keep on voting for this.

Mangy I don’t want to be a dick this is a genuine question and you’re probably a lawyer who understands this stuff- I’m certainly not- but how can it logically be that the incumbent Tory government on whose watch this has all proliferated has got its hands tied and can’t direct public bodies to simply adhere to existing laws - and yet a Labour or anyone else government would be able to make the same bodies make pro-TRA changes? Surely either Ministers and Governments already have this power or they don’t?

A quick look at the ECHR flags up to me:

ARTICLE 3
Prohibition of torture
No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

ARTICLE 5
Right to liberty and security

1. Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person.

ARTICLE 14
Prohibition of discrimination
The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

How can it be that the public bodies or authorities who are ultimately answerable to the government and who are duty bound act within the law would be able to resist the government pointing out that by housing men in with women they could be in breach of the Human rights Act and the Equality Act? It seems plain as day.
Then bring a case so if those bodies and authorities want to continue putting men in women’s cells they will have to justify it in court.

My personal suspicion is the government don’t want to do this because they don’t want to acknowledge any utility in the Human Rights Act because they have said they want to get rid of it, because it’s being used to successfully challenge government decisions. That is more important to the government than the interests and safety of women prisoners. I would really love to be proved wrong by the Tories doing something about this issue but they have known about it for years and been told about it for years and done nothing.

The Karen white case made national news over four years ago. That showed that White was not in a unique situation and this practice of men in women’s prison estate predated White’s offences.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-45825838.amp

i think we have to wonder why hasn’t anything been done yet?

The Tories have already addressed the prison issues. They said that men will not be housed in female prisons except for when exceptions are made and they are put into women's prison.

Oh and they have appointed Jamie Wallis MP to Women's and Equalities. The minute he rocks up to work in his best Thatcher outfit (I don't think he'll wear his leather mini skirt but you never know) and walks into the Ladies toilets, it's all over. We won't have any rights left.

The Tories have destroyed the lives of women in the UK.

I don’t want to argue with anyone because we can all vote (or not) according to our conscience in the UK thank god, but if the Tories had any inkling of a social conscience we wouldn’t be seeing the proliferation of food banks and warm banks that are a feature of every part of Britain at the moment.
Its easy for politicians or anyone who lives in a naice area not to see or understand how absolutely devastating poverty is particularly at the moment.

MangyInseam - I see what you are saying about how adminstrative systems can mean there is slippage in intention. But that is why I said there needs to be a legal challenge that make it clear the framework in which Government departments can implement decisions re for instance prison services.

I think it's pretty likely that the Tories will address the prison issue. We know it's on their radar.

It's not always possible for the ruling political party to directly tell bodies within the government what to do. I know that seems a bit odd on the face of it, but there are layers of political direction, and some parts of the state are deliberately insulated from being directly run by elected politicians. There are also people within these different layers of the state who have their own mandate to make decisions, and these people and groups sometimes may oppose the direction elected officials want to take. I think we can all see why this could be important in some scenarios, in fact we might be better off if they had done this with reference to gender ideology.

If another party was in tomorrow, I think we could count on them reversing any movement in that direction. I know it's maddening, but that's how it is at the moment.

For me this is the problem with say the petition to change the wording of the EA.

It is already clear under the EA that there are circumstances where single sex provision for women based on sex is needed and legal. (Did you know that the EA even specifically mentions that survivors of rape don NOT have to accept TW)

We need to be campaigning loudly and clearly that first of all single sex provision is legal, and secondly make sure that all the services and institutions (such as prisons) are included in it.

But at the moment not just politicians, but funders and the legal profession are somehow able to disregard this legal realilty.

I think in terms of fundraising for legal cases it would be much more worthwhile for a high court challenge to those who are breaking the law.

And why Sarah's court case will be so important, because if a provider and their funders can say no we can operate and ignore women's rights outline in the law, what is the point of having it as a legal right?

I can see what the Tories have done to women in this country both inside and outside of prisons.

Yes. Absolutely.

Sadly however, all the other parties would do the exact same, just faster and with a lot more enthusiasm.

Frankly we have a lot more chance of getting the Tories to develop some morality and social conscience than we have of getting Labour et al to develop some sanity. But yes, it leaves women selecting not a party that they actually wish to support, but the least worst option out of a range of bloody awful ones.

Thank you all for your posts this situation is absolutely nightmarish. I really hope that those women prisoners affected will hand together and take this Tory government to court for allowing this to happen in breach of their human rights- because it’s entirely happened on the Tories’ watch. Worth remembering for everyone planning to vote Tory because you believe that they ‘know what a woman is’. Utter horseshit.

This is the same Tory party that wants to remove the Human Rights Act that Labour brought in, which these prisoners could use to get redress.

But then for that legal case to ever happen those women would need good advice, resources, time, money and be willing to be publicly known as a ex-prisoner or a current prisoner and to have some faith in the legal system. which I’d imagine in their situation is by definition almost practically impossible. So their vulnerabilities are compounded.

So we’re back to continuing to lobby the present government who so far as I know haven’t acted on this, despite Rishi Sunak‘ knowing what a woman is’, but I would be very happy to be wrong on that.

And no I don’t have any party to vote for on this issue but I can see what the Tories have done to women in this country both inside and outside of prisons.

Well that's the $64,000 question. There doesn't appear to be any kind of magic key. You'd think the very fact of it would be enough. But it clearly isn't.

Comments like that on Twitter are effective.

",What excites you the most about female prisoners being housed with violent male sexual predators? What gets you going the most? Is it the fact they can’t run or the fact they’ll get their sentence increased for complaining?"

The poster is picking the shit up that Bradshaw is agreeing to, and rubbing it all over his face.

And while of course, there will be people who don't give a flying fuck, other people, will be noticing.

And keep on doing what we're doing. And supporting KPSS, of course. It's their entire focus.