Labour ‘must fix its trans stance to win the next election’ - party needs to clarify its policies to be closer to the public’s views on the debate

And the Tories have actually listened to women (purely out of self-interest, I'm not suggesting that - as a party - they give a flying fuck about women's rights, tho some individuals do). That gives me hope that we can roll back Stonewall law.

Where is the hope of that from Labour?

I will never apologise for centring self-ID above all other issues because self ID would render all other women's rights meaningless.

And the distinction between bad (Tory) guidance and bad (Labour) legislation is important - one is a lot easier to undo.

It's all very well saying 'But the bad things have been happening under a Tory government', but that's a narrow view of the issue.

Visible changes in the past decade, yes - that's under the Tories. And some of it has been done by the Government - guidance to schools on RSE content (although they are now undoing that), MoJ guidance on where to house and how to assess prisoners (ditto), Annex B (sort of). But a lot of it isn't under government control - changing room or crisis centre policies, the Equal Treatment Bench Book, all the organisations following Stonewall law. Those are down to unions, pressure groups, individual councils ... all of whom build on the GRA and the poor wording of the EA - both Labour pieces of legislation.

So the choice is between 2 parties that hate women. One of them manages to do so while also claiming we don't exist.

(Of course policies other than gender come into play when making the impossible choice, but Labour display similar cognitive dissonance and detachment from reality on multiple issues. So do you pick the party that will do awful things because they believe in them; or the one that will do awful things because the polls/lobbyists/activists tell them to and they don't know what's real?)

They are not left-wing or they would be advocating nationalisation of utilities and repossession of the infrastructure (e.g. resevoirs and half the Lake District) which were sold off in their privatisation.

Labour currently bans Karen Ingala Smith and many other women speaking on DV from basic party membership

When you have banned Karen I-S, and sacked Joan Smith- one of the country's foremost experts on VAWG - for wanting to centre VAWG (then refused to meet her, despite many promises to do so) then, guess what, Keir Starmer?

Labour currently bans Karen Ingala Smith and many other women speaking on DV from basic party membership.

I don’t think that having gay or trans relatives is the issue here. Lots of individuals got caught up in the groundswell of support for LGBTQ++ visibility and rights, without any real thought as to what that meant. Young “trans” children were presented to us like puppies, and a lifetime of dangerous drugs and surgery was not considered. fairy wings on a long haired little boy is as cute as a sleeping puppy in a basket and both bear little relationship to reality. I am quite happy for individual politicians to believe whatever the fuck they like, but I want policy to be carefully considered and if thousands of life long lefties are saying they are worried about something, I want the party to listen.

If you want to know what it’s like to live in a country that has a Trans supporting Anti-Women government,just look at the Let Woman Speak event in Hobart.The booing and hissing at a disabled elderly Lesbian,who btw nursed gay men during the aid’s crisis was the most disgusting behaviour yet.I’ve visited Tasmania and seen first hand the misogyny and abuse of women.Whatever your views on KJK she’s doing a powerful job of Letting Women Speak.People who criticise her while sitting at their keyboards should put their money where their mouth is and start their own campaign..

Yes it’s a clear conflict of interest. on matters that are uncontroversial ( say like funding breast cancer treatment as your relative has breast cancer) that is less an issue ( although some might disagree) but where an issue is very controversial with differing opinions and a clash of rights personal stories should not be used imo

Anderson ( current chair of Stonewall), who says he will support Labour at the next election, recently met Sir Keir Starmer to discuss business policy and said he was confident the opposition party leader would “do what he says”.

Key to his decision to abandon the Tories now is his belief, based on discussions with party insiders, that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will ramp up the so-called culture wars as a central part of his 2024 election strategy.

Anderson quit as the government’s LGBT adviser last year, claiming ministers were trying “to drive a wedge” between transgender people and gay, lesbian and bisexual people.He opposed the UK government’s decision to block a highly contentious gender recognition law, passed by the Scottish parliament, which made it easier for a person to legally change their gender. One Tory source said Anderson was “furious” about the government’s decision to block first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s “radical gender self-ID proposals”.

www.ft.com/content/0668efbd-ca9c-4b8b-a1c1-0c2adcd75348

I'd never expect a politician to criticise their own child. It must be difficult for those with queer-identifying kids, especially given how keen our merry rainbow friends are on convincing kids to go NC. I'd be happy if their politician parents just chose not to comment.

Equally, though, I expect anyone who believes themselves worthy of high office to take a broader view than the interests of their own family, and to be able to weigh up the competing needs and rights of different groups, instead of shouting bigots and dinosaurs at women.

I don't actually think that Starmer is a man of principle, or political integrity. He is a people pleaser and will do what he thinks he has to do in order to get elected. He's a bit like Boris Johnson in that respect, but without the wit or the loyal following.

Not only trans identified young relatives, but those with children who are gay ( Yvette Cooper, for example) and are subsumed in queer politics.

I know that is what he has said and therefore we have to take him at his word; it is just that I find it difficult to conceive how they believe this stuff. It all came in under Corbyn; it was he who started using pronouns; it was under him that many young local councillors were elected - all Momentum affiliated and all who ascribe to the typical woke agenda; use pronouns etc. He still has a committed base of party activists.

Everything else aside, I could never vote for a man so painfully thick, he thinks a man can grow a cervix.

Helen Joyce once said that those who have supported a child’s transition as parents or relatives will be the last ones to abandon gender ideology. I think she’s right. Somebody like Thornberry will always choose this precious belief over my political interests. There can be no common ground, not for a long time.

The Scottish situation is indeed instructive. And the reality is that GC women are just not worth enough to the Labour Party leader to spend any political capital on. They think we are cheap dates.

There will never be any political party that represents all my views. But I’m allowed go vote according to my self-interest, I don’t have to apologise for it, either.

For those who point to Tory policies on refugees and the NHS, I hope you put Labour policies under the same scrutiny. But for me, it all begins with the same question: if you can believe that men can become women, due to an inner, authentic ‘gender self’, what other absurdities are you willing to believe?

That doesn't surprise me.

There is an unusually high number of senior Labour figures who have young trans relatives.

I suggest that those in the Labour Party who are most behind gender ideology are those who came in via Momentum during the Corbyn years. That is certainly true of my MP Kim Johnson - who was a Momentum plant after Jewish Louise Ellman had been bullied out. She, and people like Nandy and Long Bailey and Nadia Whittome and Russell-moyle are all Corbynites.
Starmer is having to keep them on board because of the young activist base who joined under Corbyn

Not true of Angela Rayner or David Lammy, though, is it? Or Yvette Cooper.

And Starmer does not have to keep the Corbynites on board. He has chosen to take them on, on other issues - Brexit policy, anti-Semitism. Apart from the time early on that he mangled a reshuffle when weaker, and ended up saddled with Rayner, he has succeeded in facing them down.

Even if he didn't feel strong enough to oppose self-ID outright, he could have encouraged a free vote for Labour MSPs on the GRR and its amendments. And he could have spoken out against the Rosie Duffield abuse in general terms, without even addressing the cause of the abuse. And I don't remember anyone holding a gun to his head when he told Pink News that Labour would introduce self-ID. God knows, he is an accomplished enough fence-sitter when he wants to be.

Starmer is showing us what he believes, which is that Labour should support self-ID. Anyone who thinks otherwise at this stage is deluding herself.

I raised it with a door to door Labour representative.

They said it's only the top of the party that are 100% gender ideology. There lies the problem

I suggest that those in the Labour Party who are most behind gender ideology are those who came in via Momentum during the Corbyn years. That is certainly true of my MP Kim Johnson - who was a Momentum plant after Jewish Louise Ellman had been bullied out. She, and people like Nandy and Long Bailey and Nadia Whittome and Russell-moyle are all Corbynites.
Starmer is having to keep them on board because of the young activist base who joined under Corbyn.

I'm a lifelong Labour voter who would find it very hard to vote Tory. How can I vote for a policy as nutty as sending asylum seekers to Rwanda? Or for a party that has constantly underfunded the NHS, the police, local authorities and social care to the extent that those institutions are not capable of doing the job they are supposed to do? Real people's lives have been harmed by Tory ideology; real people have died. It's not a small thing.

But it would absolutely stick in my throat to vote Labour after the way they've behave on the gender issue. It's not just that they have adopted the utterly lunatic and harmful policy of self-ID, it's that they have abused and belittled those of us who have campaigned against it. Look at the absolutely shameful way they treated Rosie Duffield. Look at the way they banned Labour Women's Declaration from party conference. Look at David Lammy calling us dinosaurs. Look at Russell-Moyle accusing JKR of "weaponising" her experience of domestic abuse. Look at Angela Rayner, Long-Bailey and the rest signing a charter to have gender-critical women expelled from the party.

And now, it turns out, Labour are desperate to attract the vote of the very women they have spent the past five years insulting. How can we just roll over and say "OK, we'll vote Labour"? It means giving up the only lever we have, which is the power not to vote for them and their stupid, ill-thought-out, misogynistic, homophobic policy. I am not promising Labour my vote until Rayner, Starmer and the rest of their supine front bench get down on their knees and deliver an abject, heartfelt apology for the way they've treated women in their own party for the past six years. And even then, frankly, I'd have to think about it.

Starmer has said, multiple times, that he believes the current proposals around Self ID " don't go far enough".

I wonder what that guy( is the new CEO of Stonewall) has been advising behind the scenes? He recently defected from the Conservatives to the Labour Party. This is has obviously been a stategic move in order to influence an incoming new government. Perhaps he's suggested they keep it quiet to deflect attention.

Starmer MUST be clear about where UK Labour stands re women's rights to single-sex (not -gender) spaces, services, facilities, and accomodations - whether those plans are for protecting, eroding, eliminating, or ignoring them

Honestly, it's too late for me. I wouldn't believe or trust him at this stage if he did. And I say that as someone who rejoined Labour specifically to vote for him, as better for women than Nandy or Long-Bailey.

His front bench is packed with people who support self-ID and who believe that women are bigots for opposing it. And, as you say, the GRR is instructive, as is Starmer's behaviour when Rosie Duffield was abused by her colleagues. The latter is the absolute clincher for me. Starmer 'got it' on anti-Semitism: he understood how the party had become hostile for Jewish people. But he sees very similar behaviours aimed at women, and he does nothing. When someone shows you who they are....

Exactly.

The idea that this is a Tory smear or a culture war started by the Tories is just nonsense.

There is so much evidence out there that Labour do intend to reform the GRA, Starmer is on video saying he intends to introduce self ID, Lisa Nandy thinks rapists should go to female prison.

I judge them on what they actually say.