How can we prevent the trans issue from being a gift to the right wing?

And I value women, the cunty type.
So what?

We have gasp different opinions.

You vote whichever way you like. We too shall vote how we see fit.

Apologies for quote malfunction. The first 3 paragraphs of my last post were quoting ChopperC110P

*This attitude is literally how fascists have been VOTED into power.

We do have a responsibility to vote against the worst. The fact there is no best option that perfectly aligns with all our values is no excuse to refuse to vote, spoil a ballot or even vote for the worst option.

If you seriously think women or you personally have no responsibility, then frankly, we and you don’t deserve the right to vote. With rights come responsibilities.*

Well thank you, ChopperC110P for your word perfect demonstration of why I am no longer a Labour Party member and why my vote is now hanging by a thread. 'You're either with us or you're a fascist enabler' - I remember that attitude as if it were yesterday.

Rest assured that I intend to use my vote as responsibly as I can and that I have already given it more thought than I have to all the other elections of my voting life combined. And I repeat that, if Labour are not the recipients, then that will be on them.

I agree on much of this

A short time ago Starmer was announcing a line with greener in it. Likely because he looked to Aus Labor for tips.

Now Uxbridge means he’s having a go at Khan.

Amusing to watch how easily he’ll spin for a vote. But that cost of living claim goes down the pan with £12.50 a day charge.

As for shift to right it’ll happen anyway as climate causes movement.

And he’s still scared of TRAs so just wants the women’s rights issue to go away.

I think the OP is right to raise this issue and I do worry about it a lot. The problem is that the right have leapt on the left's failure to protect women's rights, and therefore they're happy to portray themselves as the only people who will safeguard women. ... I don't want women's right to safety and privacy to be seen as a right-wing issue. I don't want to vote Tory because, among a whole bunch of other things, I have no desire to see asylum seekers sent to Rwanda.

I agree and of course the Tories (and other conservative parties) will not safeguard women in the broader sense of protecting the poor, disadvantaged, disabled, minority women ...

What Helle said.

Well this thread has gone as I expected it would. OP, I suggest the only thing you can do is continue to write to your MP and any minister or shadow minister that is relevant. If you are a member of a particular party then getting campaigning.

However, the framing of this wide range of issues as ‘a gift to the right wing’ is based on emotional manipulation.

These wide ranging issues are universal. People from all the political spectrum believe that no one can change sex and that there are situations where that matters.

This is not the only issue of our time that is held across the political spectrum. The difference is that some political parties have been significantly influenced to only affirm a group of people with the extreme view that people can change sex and should be accommodated on every demand.

What is interesting is that earlier this year, the Labor PM from Australia had no issue answering who a woman was . A female adult human. Why can’t Starmer do this?

So, there are different approaches in left wing parties across the world as well.

The people, thankfully few, who cannot comprehend that this is, and always was, a universal issue and seek to shame women for speaking out or for changing their votes are not new. We have seen them so many times before. They have nothing more to add to threads except this type of shaming posts.

The answer is that feminists need to always campaign from a feminist perspective. This will always overlap with other group’s actions and objectives. So what? Are you going to stop because some body else is also concerned but from a political party you disagree with? Really? What other campaigns do you expect to be solely the left’s concerns in modern life? Do you also not understand that there are cross bench projects happening right now…. Should they never happen?

The labour position is by no means moving more GC as you well know.

It's certainly more GC than it was. Not that long ago, the LP was totally in favour of self-ID, and it seems to have rowed back from that a bit. It is also pledging, as admittedly it did in the last election, to retain single-sex exemptions. As Pronounsshera says, the question is "what do they mean by single sex spaces and how do they intend to protect them". If they allow people with a GRC to enter single-sex spaces, then they're not in fact protecting single-sex spaces.

I think the OP is right to raise this issue and I do worry about it a lot. The problem is that the right have leapt on the left's failure to protect women's rights, and therefore they're happy to portray themselves as the only people who will safeguard women. It means that people like Julie Bindel, Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock will go on GB News or write for the Daily Mail because those are the outlets that will platform them. I understand why they do that but I am concerned about it too. I don't want women's right to safety and privacy to be seen as a right-wing issue. I don't want to vote Tory because, among a whole bunch of other things, I have no desire to see asylum seekers sent to Rwanda.

We also need to face the fact that it is overwhelmingly likely that in the next 18 months we will have a Labour government. It doesn't matter how supportive the Tories are, or claim to be, if they're not in power. We have to persuade Labour to do the right thing.

Either you have a very short memory or you haven't actually been following the debate and are just hopping on to cheerlead the tories.

You dont know what you are talking about.

This has been discussed in feminist circles for years, long before 2016.

The issue has always been the fact that politicians talk about 'gender' then switch to allow gender to mean sex. Its how badly written the GRA and the EqA is thats the problem. Men dont want the public or the state to recognise their gender, they want everyone to ignore their sex. And these two acts allow that.

Trying to introduce self id didnt cause the problem, it highlighted the problem.

The trans issue has come as a welcome relief to many who can now be much more openly right wing but didn't want to look 'bad'.
It's nonsense, isn't it. British politics for goodness-knows-how-long has been a tussle between the Conservatives and Labour. People have been voting for both sides for over a hundred years.
Labour would like the narrative of it being 'a dirty secret' but it really isn't.

Trans will only have a big effect if its a very close election. Cost of living has overtaken the other issues .

I think that American right wing guy the Tories brought in has told them to ditch culture wars and go negative on tax etc .

They'll be banging on about congestion fees and scary tax rises. It worked in 92. And Starmer's response is usually to half apologise , blame his own party and run away. Might work.

Could be a hung parliament then if enough GC ppl abstain or vote for independent candidates. Supporting women's sex based rights won't cost him many votes , especially if he wants to woo soft Tories or floating voters. Alas he is too craven.

Well said.

Lol I suspect the trans issue has also come as a welcome relief to many on the left who can now be openly misogynistic and bully women with impunity whilst simultaneously convincing themselves that they are so much better than the Tories.

This.

Lol I suspect the trans issue has also come as a welcome relief to many on the left who can now be openly misogynistic and bully women with impunity whilst simultaneously convincing themselves that they are so much better than the Tories.

This was 8 years ago. It was this Conservative government. Yet now people think the Conservatives are going to protect women's rights.
Either you have a very short memory or you haven't actually been following the debate and are just hopping on to cheerlead the tories.
But the ball was started rolling by the Labour Party and their GRA so, by your logic, we shouldn't trust them either.
You say "this Conservative government" but that article is dated Jan 2016: that's four Prime Ministers ago!

Politics seems to be getting far more polarised, and the common ground that holds a society together seems to be rapidly shrinking. It's quite scary, and I have no idea how to deal with it.

To be fair though 8 years ago no one really understood the gra, self I’d etc. it was part of the tactics to get it into law before anyone debated it or understood it as a “be kind” situation.
it was Janice turner’s interview with Maria miller that made me consider it more. Can’t believe that was 8 years ago?!
even mumsnet hadn’t completely settled on a position and it was a hot debate.
I don’t think we can blame the tories for that. No one was paying attention

This is just a straight up lie. The labour position is by no means moving more GC as you well know.

If you write deliberate falsehoods, people will think you are a liar. What else are we supposed to think?

When Maria Miller had her consultation, trans politics were really not being widely debated by the mainstream.

She ran a consultation, invited no feminist groups to be involved, called us bigots and "purported feminists" for having concerns. And proposed a move to self ID for transgender people.

This was 8 years ago. It was this Conservative government. Yet now people think the Conservatives are going to protect women's rights.

Either you have a very short memory or you haven't actually been following the debate and are just hopping on to cheerlead the tories.

Here's an article from 2016 where Miller talks about how trans people deserve self ID (and interestingly Jess Philips from Labour is quoted in the GC side of the debate)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/maria-miller-says-only-hostility-to-transgender-report-came-from-women-purporting-to-be-feminists-a6830406.html

I can never vote Conservative - look at how they’ve screwed over the UK in 13 years - but what I can do is write to the local Lib Dems and Labour parties and get them to engage in debate about this issue. Hopefully there’s time before the GE to at least give pause for thought, and these MN threads have lots of excellent points to make.

I believe that whoever wins the next GE is going to have to volte face on gender anyway, as the snowball becomes an avalanche. The trans ideologues have not had a good year in any regard, and people are “peaking” all over the place.

I agree. I don't think the genie can be put back in the bottle.

It was the Tories that pushed back on Scotland’s gender Id policy that has prevented self id by the back door into the rest of the U.K. ( and the snp implosion afterwards setting back independence) .
if Starmer had been in power he would never have pushed that back and we’d be in a much worse situation now.
rishi did good work there.

What patronising nonsense. I've been forthright on the trans issue for years, during a time when I was a Labour member at the start. I left only because of that. My eyes are open to the misogyny in the party. Labour losing women.

I’ve left the left as I believe in a tolerant, pluralistic society and it has pained me to realise they don’t. Their extreme intolerance of diversity of ideas, which is an intolerance of diversity of people, appalls me.

The Labour Party never used to be like this, Tony Blair understood the party needed to be a broad church. I will not vote for Labour unless they become a tolerant, pluralistic party wanting to maintain a diverse society.

If you do lose support this is part of why.

I think the devil is in the detail which we don't have yet

Specifically what do they mean by single sex spaces and how do they intend to protect them. I would want to know if they include trans women as women when it comes to single sex spaces. If gender doesn't change your sex Labour need to be clear that single sex spaces are exactly that. But I fear they are going for a fudge.

The issue of a GRC is largely irrelevant because no-one and no service provider can ask to see them. In any case a GRC is not a safeguard because convictions for sex offences, violence and deception etc do not prevent someone getting a GRC.