Are you voting in the next general election purely on the transgender issue?

It’s a shit position to be in 2024.
I looked into the greens and they are totally sold on the trans issue ans well, knee high, and as you say a wasted vote anyway.

Thw suffragettes would be appalled that you can’t vote, nor feel anyone truly represents you.

Yes there is no independent in my area. I can't bring myself to vote Lib Dem, Green, Tory or Labour.

I can't vote for the Tories after their behaviour during Covid. It sickened me to my core.

I won't vote for Lib Dems as they're fully captured by the TQIA+ cult and any party that is so easily led by pressure groups is too weak to lead a country full of ordinary people.

Greens - not a real party.

So I was going to vote Labour but I just can't. They don't seem to like women at all or care about us.

So I have no options. It's devastating.

Oh to be so unpopular that 35,507 people vote for me to represent them for the third time, and more party members vote for me to be leader than the other guy.

Labour must be hoping they turn out to be really unpopular!

You might discuss the merits or otherwise of conservative PMs but at least there are women to discuss!!!
Powerful ones at that. Labour have never even had a party leader that was female much less ever managed to get one voted in to lead the country.

If it was down to labour we wouldn’t have a single example of women in power. It is now 2024 and combined with their trans position they are making it abundantly clear how they feel about us. It’s a fucking disgrace.

Thatcher wasn't a feminist. She was still a woman.

Truss wasn't that popular. She was just more popular than Sunak.

Yes, Angela Ripon was the first...but do you recall what a fuss was made of the fact?

That’s such an old fashioned way to view a female PM

You may not agree with her policies but they were hers and therefore led by a woman

There’s no mould women have to fit, and I actually think she did show many it can be achieved which is in its own right a good thing.

I hope we’ve moved on and people don’t say she’s more of a bloke to their dc, especially girls

She was very popular with the grassroots membership - which is how she got elected.

You are missing my point. Growing up in the 1970's there were no female newsreaders,no female experts on TV, doctors were still imagined to be male...and so on...certainly no female P.M. Thatcher changed that - and it was thrilling for a woman to finally have reached that position - regardless of whether or not you agreed with her policies, or liked her personality etc,

Of course they don't have to behave in a certain way. But Thatcher became PM by displaying more traditional, stereotypical male characteristics of the 1970s than many men around her.

I'm not saying that's wrong. I'm not saying women should be ladylike and dainty. It's what she did. She was our first woman PM but she really didn't further the cause of women in general and seemed to have no time for most women.

She was not ‘more of a bloke’

Women don’t have to be a certain way, it’s sexist to think they should be

Thatcher became PM by being more of a bloke than the men around her. She did nothing for women and seemed to despise them.

At the last election she won her seat with a majority of over 26,000. A seat she had held since 2020. She was also popular enough amongst her own party membership to win a leadership election to become PM.

There happened to be a radio piece on Thatcher earlier, on Times Radio or R4

She did incredibly well to succeed to PM, even if people are not admiring the policies

It was fascinating, think it’s a series

It does mean something. It means that if a woman is able enough and/or popular enough she can reach the highest positions in the land - and be taken seriously. It signals to girls that women can be the PM of a country.

Liz Truss was neither popular nor able. And look how that ended.

It does mean something. It means that if a woman is able enough and/or popular enough she can reach the highest positions in the land - and be taken seriously. It signals to girls that women can be the PM of a country.

The Tories are not known for identity politics - in the sense of group identities; it is more about individuals

No.

I am a woman, and a feminist, but I am also disabled and have a school aged disabled child who doesn't have access to appropriate provision.

I have to be his voice too.

No. The Labour Party have hugely pissed me off on this issue, but overall I feel that the Conservatives are just so bad for the country and I disagree with them on so many other things that my priority is to vote against them.

This basically. Starmer's stance on the whole trans debate fucks me off, but so does having a broken NHS, broken education system for SEND kids, a PM that couldn't give a toss about climate change and immigration flights to Rwanda. The Tories have totally royally fucked the U.K. over and absolutely do not deserve another 5 years.

And to add:

Where is your tipping point, Keir?

If you don't care about data integrity being lost when it comes to decisions about where public money is spent (do we need more money spent on security in women's prisons because more "women" are now committing violent crime and sex offences?), or speaking out to save women's sports, where do you stand on allowing schools to teach children about this belief as if it's a fact now that you know that thousands of children are at risk of lifelong medical dependency and complications? If the scandal itself doesn't shock you, how are you going to fund the NHS when their medical complications start putting a strain on services?
At what point do you say enough is enough and you can't keep forcing everyone to accept the belief that we all have a gender identity? Are you going to introduce hate crime laws that are designed to stop me speaking out against this? As PPs have said, we've seen what's happening in Canada, Scotland and other countries that are governed in this way.

To add a different twist on this:

If a politician is prepared to argue for laws which enshrine a belief (that not everyone holds) as fact, even if it's unclear whether that politician a) holds that belief themselves or b) is in a "hostage" situation where they have to keep their own party members or fund providers happy, how can they be trusted to make any decisions on anything when it comes to serving the public?

Keir, are you watching what's currently happening between Humza Yusaf and his "captors"? He tried to break free from them but couldn't. Do you really want that for yourself?