This evening Labour held an online meeting for LGBT+ History month. I called round to pick up something from a friend's and he was listening to what was going on — so I stayed to take notes and to listen to what guest speaker Anneliese Dodds had to say.
Steph Richards (TW) of Steph's Place seemed to be dominating proceedings and ranting about Labour Women's Declaration, Sex Matters, Julie Bindel, WPUK etc, who are apparently all part of an evil right-wing plot against trans people financed by the evangelical churches. Steph is very angry about this! For someone who identifies as a woman he seems very angry with women full stop. I've seen it written down before but never heard anyone actually say all the right-wing evangelical tosh without laughing. I hoped someone would disagree or laugh, but no one piped up.
Anneliese Dodds couldn't make the meeting by Ashley Dalton, Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities attended instead and said that when Labour get into power they will:
Ban all conversion therapy
There will be tougher sentences for LGBT+ hate crimes
They want more LGBT+ people in Parliament and driving policy and there's money available to support those who'll stand. She wants activists on all fora. (We all know that when they say LGBT+ they mean T+, but GC lesbians, take note and get in there. Contact Ashley Dalton for more information and about the funds available.)
She suggested that we might want to introduce the use of pronouns in CLP meetings.
She also wants to breaks silos and have all minorities coming together to discover what they have in common. I can just imagine how that will work. Steph will dominate those meetings, too.
This doesn't sound like the Labour party is planning to change its direction any time soon.