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

I've always voted Conservative and will continue to do so. The GC issue has no bearing. I'm also not embarrassed to be right wing as I wouldn't expect those on the other side of the spectrum to be embarrassed either. There's no right or wrong, as much as MN perceives Tories to be evil.

If an alternative party emerged that was more in line with my political views, I'd vote for them as I don't think the Conservative Party has covered itself in glory. But I won't be voting Lib Dem or Labour.

While MN is fairly left wing, it's not representative of my friends and I can only think of one Labour voter. In fairness, we live in a wealthy area which may have a bearing on voting choices.

Some usual posts on the thread about women ‘looking bad’ etc

They don’t get the problem with gender ideology and are part of the group you’ll never convince op.

As for rise of far right in Europe, totally predictable. Two reasons but one is the left causing push back. The more you tell people lies and try to control the more people kick back.

Also migration part of it

The gender issue is in the cultural arena, and whichever politics left or right will serve the prevailing belief system.
Governments control defence, energy, the economy, housing, transport, health care and education.
Is gender woo more important than all of those?

Get the left wing to admit it is an issue for women and girls

Good luck it won’t be easy.

I want a party that does (as a minimum) 3 key things:

• reform social care (Dilnott or something similar), partly because it’s right and partly as a way of reducing pressure on the NHS
• make taxation fairer and more progressive. Rich should pay more, reduce regressive taxes and massive cliff edges.
• Protect single sex spaces and services

I also think the Uk as a whole has moved past worrying about what gay people are doing, there is no lie there and no harm. The trans stuff has a lie at the centre of it which leads to harm and thats the crux of people’s discomfort with it. I don’t necessarily think the UK has a lot of latent homophobia. As a society we are generally not particularly religious. Countries like Italy and Spain are still very Catholic.

I don’t see it as a left/right wing issue. There will be women of all political persuasions and none who are affected by this. It affects females fullstop. I think part of the problem with debate/politics these days is looking at an idea from the perspective of which tribe endorses it rather than whether the idea has merit on it’s own standing. I think less ideology would be better than more generally.

This^

I worry about it slightly differently, I think anyway, although from your follow up post maybe not.
Backlashes are never pleasant. If people are forced to pretend to hold opinions they are not that keen on really, then when they get an opportunity things turn nasty very quickly.
I worry that extremist trans activists will pish things so far that it will lead to a quite nasty backlash against all things lgbtq. And perhaps also a strong reinforcement of traditional 'womaning' ie stay at home in the kitchen.
That is not the fault of feminists.

Your mistake is in thinking that anyone needs in any way to justify any of their choices to you. Talk about delusions of grandeur.

What people can do is to let the left know how many people are single issue voters on this.

Even if you think you may eventually vote Labour/Lib Dem, still contact your local candidates and tell them you are a single issue voter and will only vote for someone who will preserve single sex spaces and not bring in self-id.

Because what most people want is for this to become an issue where all the parties are aligned on mainstream points eg single sex prisons, no gender identity teaching in schools, single sex hospital wards, sports, no self ID. Once those policies are as universal as (say) short waiting lists in the NHS, then voters won’t see the left as the threat it is to women’s rights at the moment.

Labour are demonstrably corrupt and incompetent too. Any party that puts the feelings of male AGPs over those of female rights, safety, dignity and equality are both corrupt AND incompetent. This is a massive women’s rights issue, and as a result I cannot vote Labour any more.

This is hardly the only issue the right is winning the argument on in the US. The Democrats are struggling including among those people they see as their solid base voters. The working class no longer trust them or see them as standing up for them economically, the Hispanic population is well on it's way to being a Republican voting block, and even the black population seems to be increasingly less loyal.

Identity politics, the kind of approach that is making so many American cities war zones, an inability to talk about immigration rationally, an authoritarian streak that doesn't sit well with most Americans - all of these are turning people away.

From a slightly more cultural angle, over the past 5 years, something I've noticed is that if you look at political writing, public intellectual types, it seems like at this moment in time, the right is producing more really interesting, intelligent writing and ideas. There are some very good writers and thinkers contributing to the political discourse, or older ones who are being discovered. There is a huge phenomena at the moment on youtube of young black Americans discovering Thomas Sowell, for example. Douglas Murray is another example of a person on the right producing some pretty solid stuff that is also accessible to the general public. There doesn't seem to be a comparable amount of good writing, or interesting political thinking coming from the left at the moment - a lot of it seems pretty stale.

To some extent I think this may be a kind of natural cycle. But if the left wants to get in on it, they need to start engaging, which they won't. So the kind of attitude that says, how do we stop the right from capitalizing on this so we can get back to left as usual politics, is part of the problem. Talking to people on the right as if they might have a point, and taking their arguments seriously, does not contaminate you. If you won't engage with the questions people are concerned about, you will inevitably produce shit and will lose their interest.

This

@TheTERFnextDoor

To answer your question.

The left (and centre) needs to open up debate about the trans issue.
Stop the #nodebate malarkey.
Stop calling anyone who doesn't agree that TWAW transphobes.
and actually start calling out the injustices that the TRAs have cause Including their calls to violence.
And both sides need to get off their arses and protect the children.

If that makes me right wing then so be it.

Absolutely 100% what @FlirtsWithRhinos said.

1. Separate LGB from QT. Their needs are not the same.
2. Separate QT from Bio- females. The needs of biological females are distinctly different from that of trans women.

Your idea of left wing isn't really left though is it.
Trans 'issues' are the least of our problems.
I love the fact that the so called left can on one hand spend ages harping on about trans rights and then on the other be harping on about how climate change is going to destroy everyone. If climate change was that bad then surely trans rights wouldn't be an important focus.

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.

Re Spain. The count in the GE has finished with no clear majority but uit looks as though the broad left party will have to make pacts with most of the small parties to form a government. Interesting the reporter{Adler) on BBC news reported that the trans law has been one of two divisive issues, which is why feminists were planning to cast a blank or spoiled vote. The actual figures aren’t out yet but this may have contributed to the slightly poorer showing for the left/centre parties.

This tells me far more about your prejudices and limited worldview than it does about the GC women who have been abandoned by Labour.

Female people exist. The history of sexism we faced and through its shaping of modern culture still face today was not imposed upon us because of some innate difference in the "womanly mind" but because of what male-dominated society constructed around our bodies.

I would not expect a Jewish person to vote for a party that insists Jewishness isn't relevant to anti-semitism no matter how well that party's other policies might stack up, because to expect a Jewish person to put aside the vile injustices their community suffered because it's inconvenient for others to acknowledge it is abhorrent. I would not expect a Black person to vote for a party that insists skin colour isn't revelant to racism no matter how well that party's other policies might stack up, because to expect a Black person to put aside the vile injustices their community suffered because it's inconvenient for others to acknowledge it is abhorrent. And as a woman, I will not vote for a party that insists body sex isn't relevant to misogyny no matter how well that party's other policies might stack up, because to expect a woman to put aside the vile injustices women have and still do suffer because it's inconvenient for others to acknowledge it is abhorrent.

To those who say we should see the bigger picture and put aside what we as women need, what we as women know to be injustice, and hold our noses and vote for parties who have already told us they cannot promise to protect our rights and indeed our existence as a legimate political voice I say

"YOU FIRST"

Because if it's such a reasonable thing, such a small thing, to let go of your own fight in favour of others, and so very dreadful to refuse to step aside and let your own poltical needs be subsumed, let the genderists and the TRAs prove their moral fibre and take that step first.

Because if they won't do it, why the fuck should we capitulate for them?

I think the problem is that voting Labour feels like staying with an abusive partner. If Labour would stop (figuratively) hitting us with their anti-woman policies that would help!

No party is perfect and I don't agree with every policy there is no way I would vote for a right wing party as I value education, services and healthcare more than other policies

@IwantToRetire I remember you asking a similar question on a previous thread but I don't think I ever saw an answer.