According to the Conservatives for Women newsletter about half Tory MPs have now confirmed that they know what a woman is. This is a huge increase on last year and a long way from the days when David TC Davies MP was the lone GC voice in Parliament, but there is still a good way to go.
TooBig is right to remind us that this is not enough. Equally I am sure they would agree Labour, the SNP and others also have plenty of room for improvement.
Single sex spaces for women is not a party issue. We need everyone on board. Politicians, the Civil Service, teachers, police, right down to our families and neighbours. It is up to each of us to do what we can, perhaps by writing to our MP, perhaps by questioning something at school, perhaps simply by sharing concerns with family and friends.
The gender bollocks movement is not just down to the Tories. Labour are equally culpable. Blaming one party gets us nowhere. The fact that both Gillian Keegan and Keir Starmer feel the need to sit on the fence rather than turn up on a Stonewall awards night to soak in the praise is a step forward. The next step is to make that fence an uncomfortable place to be. So write to your MP. Raise concerns with your kids schools about toilets or educational materials or sports in the hope that they push back against the Department of Education. Inform the Safe Schools Alliance of any problems. (My own guess here is that schools with their decade or more or Stonewall training, young teachers straight out of University and noticeable numbers of trans or NB pupils lobbying via their LGBTQ+++ groups, are the tail wagging the dog, and GK, given other priorities, is insufficiently interested/committed/informed to take this battle on.)
More specifically whilst TooBig is entitled to their perspective, I feel that it is important that we can have threads that look at individual Labour or Tory policies or approaches without too much thread disruption. MN provides a platform for women to speak to each other. Left wing women, right wing women, older, younger, straight or lesbian, rich or poor, disabled or able bodied, and from a variety of ethnic or other backgrounds. It is a fascinating window into other people’s thinking or experience, one which has often caused me to reconsider my assumptions. TooBig might consider whether disrupting normally polite conversation within gender threads with repeated complaints about Tories, whether justified or not, is helping them achieve their objectives. Our ability to define ourselves as women is fundamental and goes beyond politics. We need this space to talk.