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

For me, the dilemma would be way more acute if both Wales and Scotland were paragons of good governance, excellence in public services, rational debate in gender, absent of personality cults and lying in office, and pragmatism over ideology.

But despite both countries getting funding per capita way in excess of England, and independence in all the areas that matter, they are wasteful, ineffectual and riven by factions, and put ideology first over their citizens, if anyone thinks Labour run by Starmer will somehow buck this trend, they're seriously mistaken or naive.

Scotland and Wales are the blueprints for Labour winning overall.

For me, there's only a superficial dilemma is not voting for a left party. It's soon quashed by everything I've read on the SNP and Welsh Labour.

I think we've had one confirmed Tory voter, and a lot of people saying that the Left/Centre have pissed on their own doorstep.

If you think that's 'rabidly Tory' you are sadly deluded.

To quote a popular IdPol mantra, mebbe you should educate yourself.

Here too. If the left want your vote op they need to change.

I really don't know. I think we just need to keep making noise.

Wrote to your MP/MSP regularly. Bring it up whenever you have contact with a politician.

I also think piling on on Twitter shows them how many feel strongly about this issue.

This.

It's not my responsibility to prevent right wing parties gaining traction on this issue, and I don't have the power to prevent it anyway. Centrist and left leaning parties have created a void because they refuse to listen to women and wont meet with women's groups and that has allowed other parties to fill that gap.

All that is on Labour, Lib dems and the greens, not on me.

This sums up my position too. Like PP, I'm also politically homeless.

Well said.

I don't get why people think anyone needs to justify their voting choices to randoms online. Most people are somewhere in the centre and not tribal unlike the many very loud voices on the internet. I don't need validation from anyone to vote how I want to.

I say this as a centre-left voter who has always voted Labour apart from a foray into the LibDems as a student. I didn't bother voting in the last election and may or may not in the next one.
What I can say is that I will never vote for a party that will literally lie about there being more than 2 sexes or will say that women can have a penis. As soon as they voice that lie, I no longer believe anything else they say. If they can be manipulated to that extent, what else will they fall for? I also don't think Labour are going to be the saviours that many people think they will be, where are they going to get the money from to fix everything?

In answer to the OP, I don't think there IS anything we can do. My prediction is that there will be a big rise in right-wing governments over the next ~5 years. I think there's a good chance the UK will buck this trend and go to Labour at the next election BUT there will be backlash at the following one due to overreach on many issues.
People will only take being lied to and manipulated on these issues for so long, and when they realise how much it will affect them, and more importantly - their kids, I think it will flip back the other way.

@DojaPhat and @Fawful So tell me who I should vote for. I set out my red lines earlier. Two of them are probably acceptably left wing from your point of view. The third is single sex spaces and services.

Is your view that I should give up one of them for the other two? Prioritise social justice over women’s rights? Or that I’m just wrong that women’s rights are in any way threatened?

Make your argument. Please! I don’t know how I’m going to vote.

Time machine?

More seriously, Labour, LimDems and Green have made it extremely clear that they have no interest in representing the views of their voters, they just want to dictate what we think. So, they haven’t got many voters.

Tories have been a disaster for a decade but Rishi seems to be a nice guy who gets it and is cleaning up the party. I think I’m gonna vote Tory for the first time. And I voted for Corbyn!

Slow handclap for Kier…

The OP doesn't want to vote to the right, and there's answers like ' actually, the right is more clever', 'I'm not ashamed of voting Tory'. OK - but the OP doesn't want to do that.

? Women hold 51% of the votes in this country. So women literally decide who is in power.

Your mistake is in thinking that anyone needs in any way to justify any of their choices to you. Talk about delusions of grandeur.
Posters are justifying their choices to each other in these replies, not to me 🤷‍♀️
The premise of the thread is that OP doesn't want to vote for the right, and half the answers are about why she should do it anyway against her judgement.
We're not 'flocking here' to tell you to vote another way; we're responding to answers the OP is getting.
Also, trans issues fall under identity politics, if we're going to use that term at all. Or do identity politics only get to be labelled as such when they concern the right of black people and Muslims?

Except Brussels have said this morning they are concerned about the shift to the far right in Europe

Most of the replies here, @Fawful are not 'rabidly Tory'. What you are seeing is a mass of left/centre women who are utterly fucked off with the parties they would otherwise vote for.@FlirtsWithRhinos was spot on there: why should we vote for people who are telling us to ignore our oppression and that women don't really exist?

I've never voted Tory in a national election. It will probably be a spoilt ballot this time.

'Rabidly Tory' my arse. @Fawful in saying that you reveal yourself: bad wimms who don't agree with you are obviously right-wing nut-jobs who can be ignored.

It is not women's responsibility to get this government voted out of power. That's the opposition's job, and if they have alienated some of their most loyal voters to such an extent then that is their fault and theirs alone.

Absolutely this!

I think what I reflect on is that there doesn't seem to be much of a shift away from the left because of this.

Spain has this morning not got the hard right result that was predicted. Vast swings to the left in Selby and Frome a few days ago. Democrats in power in the US. Etc.

Well said. You choose to vote Tory and you’re not pretending that you’re being forced against you will to vote that way. You’re owning your choices.

And the attitude of the posters who flock here to scold us is exactly the attitude we get when we raise it with Labour, Lib Dem’s and greens. We’re used to it.

the redefinition of women away from “adult human female” and towards “adult human female and special men with special lady feelings” affects 51% of the population

I can’t give af anymore if this is a gift to the right. Women here have been effectively and literally told to fuck off by Labour, Lib Dem’s and greens and told they don’t want our votes.

well guess what??

i will never vote Tory, never have, never will but I’m not voting for any others either so yep another politically homeless woman

Sorry but you 100% choose which party you vote into power. There’s no one holding a gun to your head forcing you to vote one way or another. Stop making excuses and acting like you are not choosing where to use your voting power.

It’s interesting that the left wing don’t look at their role

Op there’s your answer the left won’t self reflect on why there’s a shift away

Same here. Feel like they’re gifting themselves to the right wing.

@Rudderneck that would be more convincing if there weren't a Democratic presidency and Senate right now. I agree that the African American vote for Democratic candidates has reduced - 90% voted for Biden and that is a lower proportion than in the past.

A much bigger drop in the Hispanic vote and I'd agree with your analysis there.

@dissidente I agree at least to some extent. What keeps me on the GC side is that I can't accept the state telling deliberate lies in policy - the 'assigned at birth' stuff is just wrong, and all parties are currently paying lip service to this. I do believe the best protection for girls in particular is to focus on folding gender back into general CAMHS services. The Tory shredding of CAMHS funding alongside other mental health services is one of the things that mean I will never vote for them.

I see conflict from some left wing GC posters. As it’s a difficult position to be in.

The pretzel stuff comes from committed gender ideologists as there is a fundamental flaw. What they advocate for is built on a fundamental lie. At some point they will go full pretzel to push that on to society.