Health Secretary Victoria Atkins: ‘The Labour Party is writing women out of our vocabulary’

Adam, so presumably you read my post above (08.38) - what do you disagree with?

Brava 👏

I‘m not sure how easy it is to repeal the GRA

Whenever a thread covers it on here it seems to be outside just U.K. law, eg ECHR

I’d love more insight from lawyers though on what could be done

Also agree with @IwantToRetire it’s a ridiculous argument

It’s clear we are here for ti the GRA and the people who brought it in

No one can be surprised that men have gradually become more aggressive and emboldened wrt a massive legal underpinning

I think it's clear by now that the Tories have no intention whatsoever of repealing the GRA and that any opposition they may have had to it back in the early-mid 2000s has long since withered away.

@donquixotedelamancha well said. Not to mention the appalling maternal death stats under the Tory administrations,particularly amongst black women. The Tories don't give a flying arsecheese about women . Labour do- a bit more in fact. Yes they are bloody annoying and I hate that they have forced me into a position where I have to overlook their pandering to the likes of Steph Richards so that less women won't die in childbirth, more children will go to bed with a full tummy , we have more decent housing for all but the evidence of previous Labour govts show we have a better chance of this than under the current shitshow.

IWFH - is it not acceptable for people to develop their ideas on this subject? Many posters here have said they initially supported ‘trans-rights’, until they understood more fully what that actually meant. The Dentons Report specifically recommended trying to bring in this ideology under the radar and under the cover of more popular legislation. It’s not surprising that most people did not see this coming.

You cannot change the law so males are female and then moan a charity is enabling that to happen

If you don’t want organisations springing up and influencing public bodies don’t create the bloody law that allows it

There are lots of things the Tories have done which I don’t agree with, but I don’t think it’s fair to entirely blame them for the TRA capture of various institutions.

Think about the context, the reputation of Stonewall as a positive force for the benefit of lesbians and gay men; publication of hugely flawed academic studies over that period; international pressures from eg the UN. Look at what has happened in countries with left-leaning governments during that time - Canada, Australia, even Scotland.

There is no doubt that the UK is in a much better position than it might have been. That is not necessarily because of much action by the Tories (other than the Isla Bryson debacle) but there certainly hasn’t been the political charge to wipe out women’s rights that there has been elsewhere. A few sports bodies have been brave enough to stand up (eg Rugby) and the UK government has supported that - look how the Welsh Assembly has kicked against it.

As OP says, this piece demonstrates that women like Victoria Atkins and Kemi Badenoch can make these statements from within government. Meanwhile Rosie Duffield’s treatment by Starmer and the rest of the Labour leadership remains disgraceful, and Ashley Dalton (shadow minister for women & equalities) is holding online meetings platforming (TW & campaigner) Steph Richards

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5012545-ashley-dalton-labour-shadow-minister-for-women-and-equalities-this-evening?page=2&reply=133224018

If Labour had been in since the GRA until now we’d be even more fucked

There are very few governments fighting against this stuff

The law created this anyone not seeing that is blind to the cause

This is presumably the same Victoria Atkins who when Women's Minister was interviewed by the Telegraph in 2018.l? Glad she was so decisive then (when losing a general election wasn't on the cards).

Asked whether feminist campaigners were right to disagree with equal access for gender reassigned persons, Mrs Atkins highlighted that “the vast majority of us” were not extremely for or against transgender equality, but that a debate still needed to be had.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/27/much-better-place-tories-move-britain-forward/

Exactly. I’m not sure how people are still oblivious to the impact of poor legislation the GRA

What the fuck did they think would happen if males could legally be female?

Over time the whole of society shifts to gender not sex based and men get more enabled and in some cases violent and aggressive

The GRA underpins every single one of these threads

Apologies for derail

That just reads like a longer version of your first post.

And people who voted for Brexit are not a monolith - they did so for different reasons. If you find it so hard to disguise your contempt when you speak to them then I'm not surprised they don't want to discuss their reasoning with you.

I certainly don’t think all people who vote differently from me are stupid. I do think unfortunately that some stupid people have fallen time after time for the lies of Johnson and his friends. I know people who still think he was a great PM and it was all a left wing conspiracy to get rid of him. They also think Brexit is a good idea, despite not being able to name a single advantages for this country. I’m not sure there is any other description for people like this other than stupid?

The only 'tired old rhetoric' being used here is the Tory Party blaming Labour (a party that has not been in power since the 6th of May 2010) for things they couldn't be arsed to deal with themselves.
The trouble is that Tories (both MPs and voters) have ended up believing their own lies.

One of the reasons I first fell out with the left (before I'd even heard about self ID) was their habit of calling people who vote differently to them 'stupid'.

@IwantToRetire Whether you like it or not during the time that the Tories have been in power like virtually every institution in this country had effectively been captured by Stonewall and others.

But the Conservatives have had very opportunity to stop Stonewall having so much influence. They were told over and over again, for almost a decade that Stonewall was toxic. They’ve only just begun to “care” about it.

This! It’s obviously their strategy in the run up to the election.
Make everything labours fault and enough stupid people will fall for it. (Like they did for Johnson and Brexit). You can’t blame them for trying a tried and tested method.

I must admit I was a bit disappointed to have the same old rhetoric about this all happened under the Tories.

But it did, and many of them have been and still are pretty gung ho about it, including some prominent women like Caroline Nokes. Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, has been noticeably dragging her feet. So not just the “same old rhetoric”, as you characterise it, but a valid observation.
Both parties are captured and complicit, as bad as one another.

This isn't wrong, but can you imagine the uproar had they tried to do this, from Labour, and the media?

Governments have made it harder and harder for themselves over the years to directly influence state organizations like health and education, supposedly because this is meant to keep politics out of these sectors. (This thinking is not just in the UK, it seems to have been all over the place.) It's in many ways had the opposite effect though, it's meant that outside groups and influences have been able to insert themselves all the more.

Though part of the issue there may be what is a cultural change. Many people no longer understand, or believe, the idea that civil service and state orgs are meant to have a very politically neutral approach. If they did, they would be equipped to resist this stuff.

I think that VA is having a rant because she has discovered that she doesn't actually have the authority to effect any changes. The CEO of NHS England doesn't report to anybody and is accountable to a departmental sponsor (senior civil servant) in the DHSC and to parliament directly through the Commons Health and Social Care Committee. This accountability only extends to the annual NHS mandate. This mandate from the Secretary of State sets out the objectives and budgets for the upcoming year. The objectives are very high level and are nowhere near the level of detail that would enable the Secretary of State to direct any changes in communication content. There is no control of NHS England by the Secretary of State.

The Nolan Principles aren't even adhered to by actual politicians. They have no teeth unless they do. A fish rots from the head.

"They should have banned these activist groups from all public sectors a decade ago".
Agreed @@SaffronSpice The guidance is all there. The Nolan principles of public life are specific:
Selflessness - Holders of public office should act solely in terms of the public interest. Integrity - Holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organisations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work. All being ignored.

Schools are meant to be politically impartial by law.

The tools are there to tackle this but we've an incompetent and weak government that's likely to be replaced by one who also ignores these standards - but for different reasons.