Will Labour introduce Self ID & curb free speech?

Hurrydash · Yesterday 19:26

As things stand a Labour government will just be a Tory government that demolishes women's and parental rights, and freedom of speech - freedom of thought too if they could.

I wonder if books will be affected. Children’s literature such as Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton has already been censored or ‘brought up to date’. What next? Will adult fiction (and non-fiction) go the same way?

That's quite an significant clarification.

I came back to this thread, saw this comment from duc748 and thought (with a little hopeful leap of the heart) that maybe Labour/Starmer had clarified that they don't count men as women under any circumstances.

I should have known better.

PS think both Sunak and Starmer are just awful.

As things stand a Labour government will just be a Tory government that demolishes women's and parental rights, and freedom of speech - freedom of thought too if they could.

I don't want either option but given the choice then where my vote is going is obvious.

If Labour make some clear commitments to maintain women's rights and freedom of speech I'll vote for them - any Labour focus people reading this take note.

I don't think they any better than the Tories but given the right circumstances I think they should at least be given a go.

Thanks to women speaking up on this thread and others

Despite claims we have it wrong or it doesn’t matter, politicians are slowly realising it does. Labour will be lobbied by males pushing for their version, they already are.

Keep going

That's quite an significant clarification.

Yes it is a good thing but I see LWD have since clarified that Sadiq Khan did not actually visit their stall and has yet to agree to speak with any of them.

'Overall, despite this friendly but cheeky pic with @SadiqKhan - who sadly did not visit our stall & has never (yet!) agreed to speak with any of us - many delegates were keen to grapple with issues so long silenced in our @UKLabour party.'

If Khan didn't actually refuse to stop and pose for a photo with LWD then that might still represent progress of a sort but it's not what I understood from their original tweet.

I have a lot of time for LWD - they're currently one of two reasons why I might yet vote Labour - but I need to be able to trust what they say.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1764587728396566863

Given that Labour are likely to be the next government (27 point lead in a poll this morning) what they say matters whether you vote for them or not.

In that sense LWD having contact with leading Labour politicians is a very good thing.

Labour party members may be more radical - but there are a lot of former Labour party members who are not.

When it comes to an election you need to appeal not to party members but to the larger pool of people who might vote for you. Too much pandering to a small number of people loses you both members and votes.

I believe analysis found that labour party members were more radical than labour MPs generally not just on this subject. In turn Labour MPs are more radical than Labour voters.

I believe there are similar patterns for other parties.

When we talk about inclusion and representation, it's problematic from the parties to NOT be reflective of those who vote for them.

That's probably true of the front bench loyalists, not so much the rest of the parliamentary party and the constituency parties - who are far more vocal and far more radical.

I was just thinking the same. Labour don't really give the impression that they believe in anything much. Except focus groups, perhaps.

anyolddinosaur · Today 10:10

I can not trust anyone who ignores women until an election is on the horizon and then does as little as they think they can get away with to address their concerns.

How very well said.

It's a negotiation. If Labour want my vote they will have to earn it. Not impossible although they're running out of time.

Well it's no longer easy for Labour to win my vote back. Believing that sex is real and matters apparently makes me an "ultra" to Adamryan. It was the normal understanding of everyone until some people decided science doesnt matter and fantasy is more acceptable. Wishing you could be the opposite sex doesnt make you change sex. You can change your appearance but not your sex.

I can not trust anyone who ignores women until an election is on the horizon and then does as little as they think they can get away with to address their concerns. The economic situation is bad, neither party has much idea on how to improve it. Labour will curb free speech and introduce self ID because they wont be able to do much else that will please their supporters.

Meanwhile the right wing of the Conservative party are trying to take over and lose any chance of avoiding a disastrous election defeat. They are not going to win voters from lifelong Labour supporters by being more right wing. It is adopting hard right policies on austerity that got them to where they are now. Tax cuts are stupid, inheritance tax cuts would be even more stupid. They need to restore NHS services and money on AI is not going to cut it.

As for the Lib Dems, they are just a joke. They'll happily push drugs on children. They took £1.5 million from the company that makes puberty blockers.

Yes it would be easy for Labour to win my vote.

and I totally agree with @TheInebriati wanting women to have single sex spaces is not an extremist position, no matter how much certain posters try to paint it otherwise.

Me too. It's easy.
Listen to women, stop abusing anyone who has a different view and speak up about the wholesale social grooming of children into thinking their bodies are wrong.

Now if they really want to win my attention, Khan and Streeting could post those photos on their Twitter pages....

They're gonna have to go some, AFAIC. It's not helped by my MP being one of the worst.

Yes I saw that and I'm watching. You've still got time to win my vote back, Labour - it's up to you.

And also Wes Streeting in Newcastle.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1763906812393230668

Sadiq Khan being willing to be photographed with a member of LWD is quite the change.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1764000017788858744

I don't consider the language of private, consensual conversations to be any of my business.

I do believe the language of public information and public policy should be clear and unambiguous. I would place most news reporting in that category too, especially when paid for by the public purse.

If that's an extreme view then I guess that means the Campaign for Plain English are extremists too.

When sex matters we have the right to expect single sex facilities, and that's not an extremist position.

Undermining that by giving people the right to lie about their birth sex on official identity documents under the guise of 'gender identity' is the extremist position imo.

@AdamRyan Thank you. I appreciate your re-reading and reconsidering.

My reference to "GC Ultras" describes people who believe there is nothing other than biological sex, people can't and shouldn't transition, there are men and women end of.

The thing is, I do think that. I am one of your "Ultras", and I don't like this position being painted as extreme.

At the same time I also believe trans people are mostly expressing something they genuinely feel.

But I don't think this makes them objectively any different to others of their own sex or any closer to others of the opposite sex, and I don't think the things each trans individual is genuinely feeling are necessarily very similar.

The awareness of the two sexes and the social gender constructs culture lays on top of them are so deeply embedded in human social experience that they are like a jutting out hook ready to catch pretty much any feeling of "not fitting". Whether that is feeling that one doesn't fit socially, emotionally, physically, intellectually, sexually and I'm sure 1M other drivers, that fundamental awareness of there being an Other type of human is there as a ready made metaphor to project your feeling of Otherness on to.

So I am against transitioning in the gender sense because I don't think imposing a subjective belief about ones own and the opposite sex out into the real world and on to real other people is a good solution. I think it forces the transitioner into an unstable (not mentally but socially) position where they are always expending mental effort to keep their constructed identity together against the reality of their true sex and history. And if there is medical transition as well then there is a whole addition layer of at best practical challenges and at worst ongoing physical issues to deal with.

I'd really love to see people accept themslves as their sex plus whatever separate, non sex/gender social identity resonates for them than legitimise the idea that (a) people can be socially or legally not of their sex, and (b) socially or legally closer to the opposite sex. The first because it's not true, and (like those medieval scholars) trying to fit the impossibility into the real work just creates more and more problems, and the second because it reifies the idea that there are mental traits that are "right" for each sex and if you don't have them you are in some way a flawed specimen of your sex.