Why I'm voting Conservative

Anybody who has been watching this particular policy area should know that extreme trans activists (I would define extreme as ‘not acknowledging that women have any right to sex-based services or spaces’ and ‘endorsing experimental medicine on children’) exist in all parties, also within the Conservative Party. So passing any legislation in this area is incredibly difficult and takes huge amounts of groundwork, persuasion etc.

This isn’t your run of the mill uncontroversial policy area because you have activists to deal with who do extreme things such as pouring urine on government buildings. Can’t imagine many people would do this over, say, a new law regulating the issuing of driver’s licenses.

Quite frankly we are looking at houses overseas with a view to relocate. I don't really want to live in a dead end Labour hell hole of socialism where no one can ever do well. I can't imagine the damage they are going to inflict on this country in the next few years.

"Firstly, let me say, it pains me to admit this because I’m not a Tory."

You are now. Have fun with that x

That is 7 or 8 years in which the Tories could have done something. Do you know how much legislation has been passed in that time? And you think they couldn’t have got a Bill or Amendment, through in all that time if they actually cared.

Honestly we really need a fact checker so that we dont have this idiotic repeat of false history over and over again.

Sadly thanks to the powers of the TRA networks, the early years of the Tory Government the priority was to simplify the GRA ie bring in self ID.

However, thanks to both lesbian and gay networks, and a growing number of women's groups (and of course FWR) enough people raised alarm it this was abandoned.

The postitive of this was not just ending the attempt to bring in self id, but enough women coming together to lobby against how the GRA undermines women's sex based rights in the EA.

This was a sucess for women. And because of this sucess, and also because Kemi Baddenoch became Women's Minister we were on the way to maybe geting the EA amended.

Unfortunately the GE stopped that.

How is it possible that anyone can think they can pop in on FWR and right complete twaddle and think they will influence us.

I must have typed this point at least 2 or 3 times in the past couple of days when it is clear an onslaught of those who clearly aren't aware of FWR, have arrived.

If you want to influence us, at least fact check befoe posting.

By not doing this, and disrespecting what FWR has been part of influencing for more than a few years now, is the very, very last way you are going to get anyone to listen to you.

I wish FWR had an automatic delete for any one who posts re-written history thinking it will strengthen their arguement.

It does exactly the opposite.

No. You're correct there.

Edited to add

You would think such a phenomenon coming totally out of the blue would cause some concern and warrant some research.

We do have the Tories to thank for Cass.

Yes it’s there. The creators of the legislation ignored the warnings of harmful impact

Sports were discussed, as recorded in Hansard, but ultimately not considered an issue because the sports federations were trusted with it.

But the huge wave of girls IDIng as transmen or NB? I don’t recall anyone anticipating that in 2003 Parliament?

It was predicted. It was raised during the debates (it's in Hansard) and subsequent to that by feminists like Germaine Greer.

And this is an inescapable fact.

TBF tho, no one would’ve predicted back in 2004 that a legal fiction intended to give 5,000 ‘transsexuals’ the right to marry would be the first step towards a huge wave of ‘transgender children’, males competing in female sport events and women being denied women only rape crisis care.

The internet & smartphone play a massive role in what played out afterwards.

Sure Start was a fantastic project. I still have friends today that I met via a Sure Start baby group (and that baby just turned 24!)

Problem was that it’s one of those interventions that takes ages to recoup the initial costs, and it’s not entirely clear how much value it has societally until years after (a decade after it’s taken away and the negative knock-on effects take over from the positive ones!)

I dunno whether Labour will be able to find much spending dosh but the reinstatement of Sure Start would be high on my personal agenda (supported parents, stronger families and more cohesive communities save money on social services, crime and policing and contribute to better health outcomes for all but not within the time span of one GE!)

Sure start were absolutely brilliant!

Largely agree.

Though I don’t think it’s a wholly miserable election. There are some absolute grifters in the Tory party who will be out of power on Friday and that can only be a good thing. And I know lots of people dislike Starmer, and he’s certainly not exciting, but I had some professional dealings with him many years ago (before he became an MP) and I do think he is clever and committed to public service and so that’ll make a pleasant change. At this point I only want someone to get their head down and work us through the mess we are in, so I don’t need joyous - the bar is set low at simply “not selfish and incompetent”!

I just wish WPUK had actually managed to influence Labour policy in the last 8
years 😭

Then it would be an exciting GE, rather than a miserable one.

Plus it’s 5 different governments really - Cameron was busy with gay marriage, May wanted to bring in Self ID, Johnson was extremely sceptical and started the reverse course by appointing various ministers and secretaries (eg Sajid Javid) into relevant roles, Truss didn’t have time to anything as PM (but had in the W&E role under Johnson) and Sunak has finally drawn a line (and promoted Badenoch into Liz Truss’ old W&E role).

(apologies for any inaccuracies on that quick and dirty timeline but a lot has happened in the past few years!)

The Tories have been embarrassingly chaotic as a whole, but each from Johnson onwards they have been rolling back the TRA shitshow that Penny Mordaunt and Amber Rudd initiated under May.

Only one party will amend the EqA to biological sex

And given Labour created the GRA and are responsible for this mess. Plus no proposal to amend legislation we may well lose the ground many women have gained.

You may have been under a ”trans trance” for 10 years, but most of us have been talking about this for years. Have you forgotten that the discussion about changes to the GRA began in 2016/2017? Even Women’s Place started about mid 2017.

That is 7 or 8 years in which the Tories could have done something. Do you know how much legislation has been passed in that time? And you think they couldn’t have got a Bill or Amendment, through in all that time if they actually cared.

You can vote for who you like, obviously, but it is a nonsense to suggest that a vote for the Tories is for the furtherance of women’s rights.

Here you do not give any credence to the issue that we were all under the trans trance for years, and thought of it as progress. Why would the conservatives be any different? They were doing their best to deliver the kind of policy people wanted. It was a tiny minority on MN actually, that were acutely sounding the alarm. The trans movement grew into outright activism and then it became obvious. Since then it was more or less supported by everyone, then we were silenced and unable to say what our concerns are - and now we are left with only ONE party that even recognises a bio woman!!! The conservatives! That is where we stand today my friend.

I think you're more likely to find a greater proportion of misogynists in the Labour party than the Tory party.

Misogyny is a Lefty man's disease

Not decided how I'm gonna vote yet. Keep settling on Labour, but then my brain goes "Hang on, why are you voting for a party that can't define you"?

The Communist Party recognises what women are and have a candidate in my area.

I don’t understand this approach/thinking. The Tory party have been in government for over a decade. If they gave a shit about this issue, they have had plenty of time - and a parliamentary majority - to have done something about it. It’s actually not that hard to pass a Bill or an amendment to a Bill if they really want to.

Moreover, women’s rights are not just about the trans issue. Women, as ever, have borne the brunt of the horrific Tory policies and ideologies while they have been in power. There is not a single policy they propose which would address the problems they have created.

Voting for more of the same is bonkers, in my opinion.

And (allegedly) the majority are male on male assaults.

This is the situation I'm finding myself in. Voting Tory as a protest in my area isn't much of an issue though. It's a safe labour seat and Tories often come in 4th. However - even the Tory candidate has avoided speaking about safe sex spaces so hasn't won my vote on this issue. There's no one else to give my protest vote to - so it's either him or spoil my paper which feels a bit pointless - though have done it repeatedly.

I cannot vote for a party with Harriet Harman and her Fawcett fake feminism. And I say that as previous Labour supporter.

What an absolute dire election.

@walkingwithelephants

If Labour get in you won't even be able to use the words 'woman' or 'girls' by the time of the next election, campaigning for our rights will be impossible.

What country do you think you're living in? It's actually getting a bit insulting to women who do live under repressive regimes when we have people in a stable democratic society talk nonsense such as this.

‘New Deal for Lone Parents’ under the Blair government was awful.

A worker at the job centre told me (age 24 in 2000) that I’d ‘made my bed and should now lay in it’ rather than aspire to university, that the best a single mother could hope for was a ‘little secretarial course’!

I do think the Tories have been way worse for disabled people, and getting rid of Sure Start was stupidly short sighted, but I don’t think single mums are ‘demonised’ in the way we were 20 years ago. Perhaps that’s partly just because single motherhood is no longer a route to a secure or assured tenancy in social housing tho, so an accident rather than by design.

I haven't quite made my mind up but in my constituency the choice I have is Lab, Lib Dems, Green, Cons or George Galloways party. It's 99% certain that Labour will win so I may very well vote conservative for the first time ever