Scared and disheartened today

Both Heritage and Reform want to repeal the EqA by the look of it.

Heritage seem very much 'it wasn't like this in my day...political correctness gone mad' with their policies.

Worrying that the party with the former human rights barrister at its helm is the one which is 'legally illiterate'. Which raises a MASSIVE credibility issue for him, IMO.

He should be judged as the lawyer he is, and this is exceptionally concerning. Why is Labour's response a lie, essentially? Because Keir knows it is. What a fucking mess we're in with the choices we have next month.

We have labour, tory, libdem, green, reform, heritage, and an independent

its a tory safe seat, there is no way they won’t win but i will look at the independent as im not voting tory or reform and i really don’t like the sound of heritage

Sigh.
So no one for me to vote for.

Thanks for that article. I normally find Sonia Sodha very measured in her criticism so it's cheered me up a bit to see her going for the Labour jugular.

Sonia Sodha. "The polite way to describe Labour's response [to Kemi] is 'legally illiterate'"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/09/the-law-on-single-sex-spaces-is-a-mess-it-needs-fixing-not-political-point-scoring

https://x.com/soniasodha/status/1799714576847560850?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

I'm torn.

I understand the importance of having a good opposition AS WELL AS a good party in power for a healthy society.

Unfortunately we have a crap party in power which looks like it will be taken over by another crap party and a collapse in a good opposition and the risk of Reform and the LDs becoming bigger than the Tories and this then entitled to more airtime on public broadcasters (the popular vote is actually important for this - everyone says well my vote is wasted, but in terms of agenda setting and political debate for the next five years it's actually massively important even if your candidate 'has no chance'.

I'm finding this really difficult. I Labour until Corbyn, so spoilt my last two ballot papers.

A super majority for Starmer would mean and end to any progress and interestingly, Starmer has shifted on just about everything, except self-id light

They can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Women have woken up to it.

Dd aged 15 had this topic in her PHSE. She’s at a girls school. She was a be kind TWAW when younger but my influence must have gone in! She put her hand up and said people should be able to do what they want but girls need their single sex spaces. She’s a cool girl so all the others agreed. Dd then said her middle aged teacher “looked like she was going to cry” and said how proud she was of them as she wasn’t allowed to say that but they had said it.

You aren’t wrong.

But there is a groundswell of GC Labour voices, and I think Labour is the least worst option overall, because they otherwise most closely align with my views on other things. That’s not to say I won’t be writing to my Labour candidate and likely MP…

What has the world come to, when we’re having to have these conversations in 2024?

I am British but have lived in a different - and completely gender captured - country for the last few years. I'm planning to move back to Britain in the not too distant future and one of the things I'm looking forward to is living in a country where women's and children's rights and interests are so much stronger (and have so much more legal protection) because of Forstater, Roz Adams, Jo Phoenix, JKR, Kathleen Stock, the Women who wouldn't Wheesht, Esses, Cass etc.

I share all the concerns about what a Labour win will mean for all of the gains women have made (and I would normally be a Labour/LibDem voter myself). But even so, regardless of the outcome of the election I don't think these gains can be simply overridden or wiped out. It might be cold comfort but they are part of a long haul fight and a big part of that is women feeling like they can speak out against the erosion of their rights. This is definitely not something I feel like I could do where I live now. British terfs have created a culture shift.

Maybe I'm overstating how far we've come and I'm looking at the UK situation with rose-tinted glasses because I live somewhere that is so very far behind in this fight. But I'm looking forward to coming home and having my speech protected by the Forstater judgement and the changes that Cass has brought, which impacts my field of work.

Simply being Gender Critical (not that Reform are, they are at most Gender Traditional) is not enough for a party to gain my vote. However being Gender Gullible is enough for a party to lose my vote.

Well I won't be voting Reform but surely I could also say:

Voters should think carefully about the consequences of voting Labour. Your non-GC vote will be portrayed by Starmer as being support for his gender-woo policies. You may be OK with that of course, which is fine, but I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.

I doubt I'll vote at all, all the options are rubbish.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has said they would vote Reform based on the position they hold on sex v gender. Just discussed their position.

Anyway, even if they did plan to vote for them, so what. Reform are a legitimate political party and even if I find the majority of their manifesto to be abhorrent, other people are allowed to hold different opinions, being as we are in a democracy and all of that.

They may know what a woman is, but I think their view of what a woman should be and should do is unlikely to align with second wave feminism. That’s aside from their abhorrent views on several other topics.

Single-issue voters should think carefully about the consequences of voting Reform. Your GC vote will be portrayed by Farage as being support for his far right policies. You may be OK with that of course, which is fine, but I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.

I believe Reform and Farage are anti woke and support gender critical views. I asked their campaign manager in Scotland as I've been asking all the candidates so they know it's an issue.

I used to vote for the second party in my constituency. Lib dems 😞 and they're far from deposit losers, here.

This one?

Ooh. Yes definitely one of the latter two options. Though I live in a very staunchly labour area.

NoWordForFluffy · Today 21:21

I wish I had a PoW candidate

To be honest, we also have an independent, I voted for him in the mayoral election, but he didn't get in - Kim McGuinness did.

And the abandoning of children.

It's the lying.

It's suggesting we can lie just about this one thing because it makes some men happy. Even though it adversely affects women.

It's the lying and the sexism.

Join your local WRN as they are doing a lot of research & work about the parties.

Surely there has been too much sunlight now with the Cass report and what happened in Scotland? Women have woken up.

I wish I had a PoW candidate, @SinnerBoy.