War over trans lobby is manna for the right - Matthew Parris

I think Matthew is pretty bright and a very good writer. Though I will caveat that by saying he has what you might call an intelligent layman's understanding of an issue - he doesn't seem to bother to research a subject in detail before sharing his opinion. (I was surprised to find that he actually employs a researcher.)

I don't think he understands this particular issue. Of course it ought to be a trivial issue of interest to only a few people. But he hasn't grasped that all our major institutions (BBC, NHS, universities, civil service, charity sector etc etc ad nauseam) have been captured by this ideology, with the consequence that people are losing their jobs if they share the wrong opinion, and many others are frightened of speaking out as a result. Rewriting the law, or public understanding of the law, so that any man can claim to be a woman and be treated as such has very far-reaching consequences.

Zutt, cowardice in not speaking out is now endemic, and goes back longer than we think.

In 1989, Salman Rushdie had the fatwa bestowed in him, a threat to execute a British citizen for exercising his free speech in writing The Satanic Verses.

Two senior politicians of many told him to shut up and not have the book published, because of the fear of reprisals and that free speech was optional.

Guess who? Some cowardly intersectional leftist or religious apologist?

No, Margaret Thatcher PM and her attack dog Norman Tebbitt.

To expect Matthew Parris, a mediocre politician and even more mediocre commentator, to have any balls and take the side that he knows is morally and scientifically in the right, is asking too much.

My point is that sticking up for those saying the right thing has been minimising for decades now.

We're reaching a point with politicians and commentators where they cannot justify why, how or when some men are women. But they dont have the stomach to talk about the current laws, and what that means for women and children.

So they are saying that everything is fine now, and the best way forward is ignore the TRA, let them demand the impossible, and lets get on with living in a world where we know what a man and a women is. (Just dont talk about how men get to have female passports and birth certificates.)

We're back to 2017, before the consultation on self id. Only more people know the political class think theres nothing wrong with men in womens single sex spaces.

Obviously not the gay ally you want in this fight.

Basically he's already looking to a post-2024 Starmer govt where so-called trans conversion ban and stringent anti-LGBTQ hate laws are in operation, and the Tories need to frame their policy.

And he wants the party to be on TRSOH, effectively indistinguishable from the Left. And to take no part in the culture war.

I thought it wasn’t bad until the victim category was introduced with the egregious omission of children; people, including those in universities of all places, as well as in schools, the NHS, and the Civil Service who dare not speak up for fear of their jobs ( see another current thread to see the vast extent of this complete censorship); women who are disabled but cannot be sure of same sex care; women in prisons who are undeemed worthy of the respect of their sex; lesbian and gay people who are expected to forget sex based attraction infavour of a gender reassignment based one; and last but not least our very language, especially anything describing women, even in a clinical setting where lack of accurate language is absurd.

If Kier Starmer knows the truth but will not clearly state it, which he could do alongside proposing help for transpeople which does not compromise others’ needs, then he is not someone to be seen as a victim as suggested.

ZuttZeVootEeeVo · Today 13:22

The hostile environmental is driven by TRA not getting the policies they demanded. The policies came first, not women asking questions.

Well, precisely! It would have been quite illogical if women asked questions and complained, then the policies followed!

It's an entirely understandable reaction to a series of poor (closely linked) situations, isn't it?

Sorry that wasn’t a direct quote, just an exasperated summary!

“It doesn’t affect anyone” - there speaks a gay man with no wife or children to be affected. Way to go to show your lack of vision and empathy you prat.

Thanks so much for the share token, @Igneococcus .

I wish we could see the comments (share tokens are articles only) but I'm pleased to hear they are predominantly gender critical.

I quite like Matthew Parris and find him frequently insightful on some topics, but whenever an issue affects women you children his attitude is almost always "that doesn't affect men like me so I will pretend it isn't there."

He's also disingenuous about gay men not wanting to be women. Rupert Evert was vocal about how he would have bought into transitioning as a teen if trans ideology had been around then, and how grateful he was to avoid that and just be happy as a gay man.

The high percentage of young people who desist and become content gay or lesbian adults shows that yes, for a chunk of gay and lesbians going through puberty, 'becoming' the opposite sex is an appeasling prospect for a time.

1.2k comments on this piece! Largely all gender critical.

There's an assumption that TRA/woke/left are demanding more because the right are fueling it by giving it attention. If questions weren't asked, politicians wouldnt have to say anything, TRA wouldnt feel threatened and demand more rights.

It sound very reasonable, but its not what happened.

If everything worked and everyone was happy before self id was proposed, why was it proposed? Why fix something that isnt broken?

The truth is the politicians on all sides support the definition of women being 'whatever' and have been introducing policies under the radar for years.

When women started asking politicians justify their policies, they can't and have to backtrack. The hostile environmental is driven by TRA not getting the policies they demanded. The policies came first, not women asking questions.

Yep this is what worries me @Clementyme

It's a gift that if they solve it goes away.

Helen Joyce is not impressed and has tweeted:

This by Matthew Parris is downright despicable. Can be summed up as ‘men claiming they’re women, and ideologues indoctrinating kids, don’t affect me so they’re being made up.’ One of the smuggest, most self-centred displays of wilful ignorance I’ve ever read

I don't read Matthew Parris's columns unless someone here has kindly shared a link (Thanks for this one, Igneococcus) but I do listen to his radio programme Great Lives. I have found that he is astonishingly lacking in empathy. He can't worry about teenagers who want puberty blockers or women in prison feeling threatened by a transgender prisoner because he is simply incapable of putting himself in another person's position.

Agree@Clementyme

And to end it, all Starmer has to do is say that a woman is an adult human female. No exceptions. Repeal GRA and clarify EA.

What's so strange is that he keeps doubling down on a massive own goal.

I read this earlier and thought it was a load of pontificating that we are making a big fuss over nothing. Very little said or acknowledged about the fact that women don't have the luxury of 'just ignore it and it will all go away'. It's not going away, in fact it will take a lot of pushing back to get this to go away.

Also, the fact that listed out the victims of all this and put transsexuals as number one shows where his bias is. Eh, no mate the biggest victims of all this are the vulnerable children caught up in this nonsense, followed swiftly by the women dealing with our loss of spaces and language.

He thinks he gets it, but clearly misses huge swathes of stuff because he is a man who isn't really affected, except in a theoretical sense. Meanwhile in the real world actual women are being actually affected, and it's not just going away.

While men love individual girls and women and many throw in when sexism directly affects a daughter, mother, spouse- on a general level, men just don't give a shit about us. It's not even hatred, it's indifference, blithe disregard. (Very few exceptions to this rule, sadly, and another thing which makes Linehan such an outlier, for his flaws he actually seems to care about women as people.) The Woke Bros who defend transgenderism so ardently don't do so by actively seeking out and including trans men for friendships or homosexual relationships, but by defending the first kind of woman they've ever been able to relate to - a man.

So of course some of them just want us all to bloody stop talking about it, but I won't as long as my sisters are getting mutilated, brain washed, raped in prisons, unfairly beaten or horrifically hurt in sports, or made unsafe in female spaces.

I think even if he spoke with the woman who was raped on the "female" ward by the transwoman the staff let in he still wouldn't give a shit. Or any of the other women attacked, verbally abused by, and made pregnant (prison example) by transwomen.

Fair points Abra1t and Heliotroper

Matthew Parris is saying what my male identified progenitor of the same vintage says: utter disbelief at it all.

We've had arguments about it, with him calling me an extremist for saying sex is binary and immutable! He's right that it is attention seeking nonsense, but doesn't realise how ingrained it is in his grandchildren's environment. He thinks there's some happy compromise to be found if only hysterical females (like me) would calm down dear.

Then I retort: easy for you to say, you're not adversely affected. Cue defensive huffiness, as his self image is open minded, right-on, progressive boomer.

DH gets it. Although not engrossed like I am, he's aware our teenage children are prime targets. Probably not interested in the fate of female prisoners and other marginal women though.

I’m surprised at some of the comments here. I thought this was a good piece which cuts to a big part of the issue that is rarely discussed: that the issue is £££ for a small number of vocal minority interest groups. Stonewall has adopted this cause because, without it, it would basically cease to exist: almost all the rights they campaigned for they now have. Yes, as a piece it’s light on the impact on women and girls, but he directly refers to his support for Janice Turner, who has been very vocal on the issue, so I took this piece more as a “that’s all been quite rightly said and I agree - and here’s a different slant on the issue”. And of course, he’s right - it IS manna for the right. Everyone over the age of about six can immediately tell you, just by looking at someone, whether they are male or female. We need more straight talking about the issue and less hand wringing and philosophising.

As ever, first response nails it succinctly.

A more nuanced version of ‘nothing to see here’ and he doesn’t see the women crushed under the trans train!
Waste of time!

It's like he's decided it's all a bit too hard and difficult, and can't be bothered so just shut up and it'll go away. In which case, pushback is to be expected.

It took me a while to wade through that word salad. He's a very poor writer, isn't he?

He's not wrong that this culture war is a gift to the political right. Everyone knows women don't have penises. The political right knows women don't have penises and isn't afraid to say so. The political left knows women don't have penises but for some unfathomable reason have decided to pretend they do. The electorate knows women don't have penises and for some of us this is a reason not to vote for left wing parties. It's a political position that makes the left look batshit insane. This can only be to the political right's advantage.

But there's a whole paragraph in there about the victims of this ideology. Trans people who just want to live their lives in peace and privacy get one line. Children who have been irreversibly damaged get one line, although Parrish seems to be revelling in that, in a way I find pretty distasteful. The rest is all about how the political left will lose out. Yeah, they will, but it's their own stupid fault and I don't care. Women, who have lost our single sex spaces, services and sports, and even the very language we have to describe ourselves, don't even merit a cursory mention.

All this does is make me even more angry with Labour and the Lib Dems who have forced us onto the same side as this excreable turd through their determination to pretend that the earth is flat and water is not wet.

Where are the grown ups?