Sunak to drop legal plans to bar transitioning in schools?

I don't disagree with you on anything, and you know from my posts I'm a full fat ally on the GC side.

I feel that social media is such a curse in so many ways. Yes, it's kept us informed, yet we are more atomised than ever before.

Its also peaked and desensitised us. We feel both angry but also helpless.

And it gives voice to the most toxic opinions.

These swirling changes, happening with this movenent, this movement being the first one to coincide with social media, makes the problem both easier to see, but harder to fight or remedy.

If there are environmental stimuli that will alter our brain chemistry and neurological evolution, we're at the start of all that. And have AI still to contend with.

So, I can't see another Isla Bryson moment. I mean, what would that be? A multiple rapist on a women's NHS ward. An unearthed grooming operation in schools from one of these Stonewall implants?

I mean, the scandals are racking up, and still there's no breaking point reached for the public.

Nope. Sunak has time for only one culture war issue, small boats. And he'll fail miserably there as well, like the rest. No addressing gender issues in school is more a failure than attempting to do something and coming up short.

Boats are a key topic I agree although kind of similar, in the legal issues that stop fast change

They may well dominate. I still think these events with imagery capture and annoy people hugely. Look at Sturgeon. And Mordaunt got hit by it at leadership time.

Whether I’d like it sooner rather than later not sure. But the media does a good job on it, it can hurt politically. We’ve seen that already.

but it took a very obvious and extreme example to get the kind of traction that makes the public demand change en masse.

If a politician doesn’t work out how to keep men out of female spaces why would that be the last event?

The general direction is more extreme not less. Look at where we were in 2004 to now.

MN is not necessarily the general public. And polls do label things as "XYZ issues" or "crises".
Small boats, NHS waiting lists etc.
Don't be too picky on my words.

Starmer has dropped Self ID, just as Tories had to five years ago.

There won't be an Isla Bryson moment here ahead of the GE.

I take no pleasure in writing these words, for me this is existential for how we develop as a society.

I'm feeling equal parts optimistic and jaded.

Optimistic that Róisín wasn't cancelled, that the sharp end of policy re sports, prisons, protected beliefs for GC are being nailed down.

Jaded that education and health remain captured, and groupthink still pervades the public square.

I did think that the Cass Report, the reports of genderised indoctrination in schools, would create a swing moment as Isla Bryson did in Scotland, but alas not.

However I don't think this is unique to gender. Where's the public anger on...Grenfell, Windrush scandal, grooming scandals, the teacher in hiding in Batley and the Koran scuffing autistic teen who was humiliated up North.

None of these produce the kind of uproar that leads to resignations or even governments falling.

We're so jaded, and desensitised by social media, that there are no national periods of uproar that lead to meaningful change.

That's why I feel despite widespread dismay at gender in schools, it won't be pivotal in creating seismic change.

@EasternStandard - RealityFan has put it in more detail, people generally don't think of trans policy as an important issue.

Yes it had a big impact on Sturgeon because there was a clear, pink example of what the practical problem was. But it is notable that this was what it took to cut through a debate that had been going on in Scotland for a while. What happened to Sturgeon was absolutely right; and she was very wrong, but it took a very obvious and extreme example to get the kind of traction that makes the public demand change en masse.

I would love to agree, but trans isn't in anyway the totem pole/lightning rod that Brexit was.

Johnson, effectively an amoral liberal or more accurately libertine, was able to hijack the Tory party and bend it using Brexit as a Pied Piper gambit.

Once it was done (2019 GE, the 2020 agreement with EU), he disappeared up his fundament as a political force, as the amoral libertine fell to one scandal after another.

Right now, he has few allies, and close to zero support in the country.

Trans doesn't have the traction Brexit did, nowhere close. But immigration and unhappiness with small boats polls significantly, especially it's resonance with Leave voters. That's why Sunak is pinning all his hopes on the last remaining Brexit shibboleth, control of borders and small boats migrants.

He just doesn't see trans being significant enough an electoral advantage to go there, he has no spare bandwidth, with migrants outcomes and his other pledges failing so poorly.

Throw in the TRA lobby in the Tory party which is more widespread than you'd think, just party discipline is better, and Sunak will not risk party disunity for trans that relates 19th out of 20 worries when public are polled.

Stuff like taking on the SNP over their ID bill is misleading, this is win/win for Sunak, pure party politics. But changing the law on trans? Nope, very little benefit re votes, and potentially chaotic for party management.

And no energy to spare re his failing pledges.

All the polls indicate that most people are not engaged on trans issues.

You are already promoting a response by calling it ‘trans issues’.

If you think people are unfazed by a man in pink leggings in a female estate give Sturgeon a call. I hear she has free time.

All the polls indicate that most people are not engaged on trans issues. That includes women.

I suspect the Labour Party will just watch the Tories implode on this. The more public it is, the better. In another life the Conservatives would have developed a policy, drafted it, teased out the problems in private and then announced it.

Instead you have this mess which makes them look incompetent

Are pp not wanting it to change?

I see people post ‘I’m GC’ but then a resistance to the electorate voting away from gender ID

It seems at odds

We’ll see. I think people feeling annoyed is a decent driver as any for getting to a leadership and a vote

And we still have the media, well half of it

I’m not really seeing any clear person for the lead atm but many of the MPs who were remain and are Brexit anyway. Ask Starmer

@RealityFan - totally agree. We will see a lot of announcements of possible policies in the next six months. None will probably come into effect.

I also agree that neither Cates nor Badenoch will lead. Neither is liked enough within the MP cohort. Of course that could change after the election.

Not gonna happen, other than Reform/SDP smaller parties who as we know have zero chance of power.

I'm afraid the Labour/LD/Green/SNP/Plaid Cymru left axis is now set on a general Stonewall approved trajectory, and the current Conservative Party is split down the middle, GC just holding the fort, but their wings are clipped and have little fight for this (Badenoch, Cates, Truss and Braverman being exceptions).

I have a strong feeling that Keegan will be the new Tory leader in opposition, Mordaunt lost her chance last time, Keegan will be the self made business woman (no nonsense successful Dragons Den panel-type character the Tory Shires love) to take on Starmer who immediately takes on the bean counter technocrat Sunak type public image.

She will be able to look both ways on trans policy, both seemingly moderately skeptical while also saying this is a private matter that the state has no place legislating on, and Tories will never go back to Section 28.

I'm also thinking Tory MPs will never let a Badenoch or Cates get to the final two for party members to vote on for leader.

Mumsnet members, it's about to get a whole lot more feverish after the GE, both parties will be divorced from reality.

Don’t forget 2019 won because Get Brexit Done appealed to many

If they prevaricate in same way people will just vote for a leader who will ‘get it done’

And yes I know all about Brexit etc and how done or not it is. That’s another issue. The point is none of this happens without people wanting it. And if they do pressure is there and votes flow accordingly

imo the public do get pissed off with pink leggings and males in wigs in female spaces, 6 foot 4 men in a women’s cricket team, and compelled speech etc

They might not tick ‘trans issues’ if that’s how it’s framed in a poll but that feeling of annoyance is there each time there’s an event. It won’t go away

I was about to post this ^ and read yours @RealityFan which I do agree with

We are so closely tied up in international law and various things are very difficult to change as they are embedded

Which leads me back to people being pissed off and where that takes us. If people feel strongly enough someone can get votes from it. See Johnson landslide

As an aside people expect a lot from Labour I’m not seeing policies that can actually deliver what the expectation is so we’ll see how that goes.

This is why I believe Tony Blair is a more significant figure/PM than Thatcher. And why his shadow looms over the gender legal debate.

Maggie took on the unions, created any number of bloody noses (Scargill, Galtieri, Kinnock, Brussels). But did nothing to break the vested interests of the professional classes ie the law, media, education authorities, health bosses.

Indeed, the growth of bureaucratisation of our schools and health, and evolution of unimpeded legal powers were instigated by her. And the QUANGOs were her invention.

Blair picked up on this and set it all in concrete, he literally created the professional state with the exponential rise in integrated acts and policies (eg we can't leave the ECHR because of the GFA, a No Deal Brexit could never have been contemplated because of the GFA, the GRA flows into the EA, scrapping either would likely fall foul of the ECHR).

And the post-2010 revolution in self governing trust schools makes the integration with those promoting gender ideology even more embedded. Yes, getting away from local authority control boosted Stonewall mischief in our schools.

I'm afraid the world of one human rights legislation flowing into the next, retroactively strengthening previous Acts, means as time goes on, politicians have less and less autonomy, fewer and fewer options to diverge.

And after the British people being childish enough to vote Brexit, there'll be no more referenda in this country.

Indeed, a three to four term Labour govt will reinstall us back in the EU, or certainly in a stationary orbit just short of rejoining where EU rules will again hold sway (I'm making no value judgement on Brexit, just seeing the potential road ahead).

So, Thatchers bureaucratisation of education and health, plus introduction of QUANGOs, was reinforced by Blair's professionalisation of the civil service, and his Russian Dolls nested and retrospectively reinforced series of human rights legislation, to the point where Parliament is a mere box ticking exercise, Brexit the only deviation from that, corrected soon.

I just can't even see a Badenoch/Cates reforming government able to face this down, as they speak out, their integration carries on apace.

The left believe in moral superiority rather than democracy.

They would say that 3 votes from the righteous outweigh 3000 votes from plebs who don't know what's good for them. Its part of the whole 'yes the facts say that, but I identify as this being good/ok/worth it' lunacy. And increasingly extreme end lunacy of just refusing to acknowledge that they can see the problem at all, or see the evidence as right in front of them, they just identify as it not being there.

It's fundamentally why they cannot be trusted with a till at Tesco, never mind a country. Wtf can you do with someone who cannot handle reality and lives in a fantasy gaslighting world except provide appropriate care and keep them away from sharp objects.

I don’t want a referendum I want a GE clearly including it.

Issues around party split shouldn’t stop anything this important. If people do care about it they’d not let that stop then wanting a say through a vote.

We haven’t had that, and we need to ascertain how the electorate feel

I would like it sooner rather than later but one plus is if we do it now and it’s voted down due to general annoyance with current party maybe in another five years when the next lot invariably annoy people

That is hugely depressing as a thought, more children indoctrinated, but backlash will continue as long as we have some of the press covering it

Hasn't Brexit demonstrated that if the public vote for something that MPs vastly don't support, even less so the general establishment, then it will be scuppered every step of the way, even worse, MPs won't know what to do with it.

I suspect the same for a referendum on gender identity. MN could "win" a vote in the country. A decade later, MPs would still be arguing about the extent and application of that vote.

The backlash is fairly recent though, no where near a decade of trying to reverse

This wasn’t even talked about at 2019 GE

It has to come from us to want to sort it. Which I’d say we are getting closer to. If given a vote on it we could actually see how people feel

It has to come from the electorate, that’s the democratic process

Agreed. However, the Tories have had over a decade to sort this, and have failed. The failure rests more with Johnson and May, and Cameron.

But the bigger sin is that the party allowed lobby groups to dictate gender policy and intra departmental procedures over its whole 13-14 years tenure.

Cameron so had his eye on the prize of same sex marriage legislation that the GRA and EA were never re-examined, and he effectively installed Stonewall at No.10 to advise him on getting the law done in 2013, at that point they were sitting tenants, and then pivoted from gay to trans re campaigning.

Theresa May was pretty much bolted on to Self ID until it blew up in her face.

Johnson was the ultimate liberal, maybe he had some personal doubts but was never gonna dive into this area that required principle and moral perceptiveness.

Truss? Who knows, had she decided to not set off a neutron bomb on day one of her premiership, maybe she'd be working with Badenoch and Cates right now to sort this, but somehow I don't think so.

And so that leaves one of the richest bean counters in the world picking up the tab at the fag end of all this. Despite his "my two daughters" schtick, Sunak never showed any interest in gender politics (his embarrassing "I agree with the PM" answer as Chancellor when asked What Is A Woman?, then purely groomed by PR when it was seen that gender was going to be sticky as an issue).

Good question

Can we clear this up with guidance?

There were a few moments where I thought we could diverge from more captured countries but at this point I think that might not be the case (so bloody depressing btw)

The legal complexity of what has been allowed, since the GRA and other laws elsewhere has grown and cannot be undone easily. We’re part of the ECHR too which adds a layer

We messed up, imo, as societies. Now we have children compelled to use pronouns, or ending up with surgery (not here), we have females unable to meet without men for rape support

The dissatisfaction won’t go away, tg our media is not fully captured, just half of it. It’s only that that gives me hope that maybe we can come back to it if there’s a Labour go next

... are required to lie to, and, about, a vulnerable child.

Can I be forced to force all the children to lie?

Most of the reporting and discussion fails to consider what "social transition" in schools actually entails.

Teachers and ^all the other children

Sunak is only going to be prime minister for a few more months, possibly 16 months if he holds out to the bitter end. There is very little he can pass in the way of legislation in that time. Probably all he is thinking about at the moment is how to win the general election. He has made five key pledges which aren't going very well, so he's going to concentrate on achieving those otherwise he will look like a complete failure.

What he doesn't want to do is get embroiled in something that is both complicated and controversial, which is exactly what the schools guidance will be, whichever side it falls down on.

The issue I agree is that they have run out of time to do the legislation which needs to be compatible with the ECHR.

I'd be angry if I had believed Badenoch et Cates on this. I posted here a few months back that I thought this guidance would not happen because of lack of time. They encouraged people to believe it was a quick fix. It isn't and the complexity of the issue would strongly suggest that legislation was needed to make the policy legally sound.

This issue isn't special to trans issues. It's basic public law. I would be a bit skeptical that the AG was the first to point it out. I imagine she wasn't but because of political egos they still believe it can be done risk free.

If the Tories pass legislation they give Labour a problem to resolve. If they issue guidance it will be withdrawn and not legally binding.

I agree legislation is the way to go. But I thought time was the barrier. I’d love to see it passed and am very concerned about Labour with it not being there .

And might it be difficult with ECHR? I don’t know what clashes would come up with legislation around children

I’m all for properly, but to me that means a manifesto pledge which we vote on and then takes the next five years to resolve through legislation. This has crept in in many countries only a massive effort through mandate will change course. Sadly it seems to be slim atm (devastatingly even)

Bring it on imo just give me the vote first. I don’t think it was at 2019 GE