Robert Jenrick on women's rights

I think there is a bit of a cross-over between some Reform voters and those who were anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown and so on:

....But in recent years inspectors have found a growing number of non-religious schools set up by people radicalised during the Covid-19 pandemic into an anti-state, and sometimes conspiratorial, ideology.At the same time the number of home-schooled children has increased rapidly, from 60,000 in 2018 to 86,000 in 2023, according to most recent figures published by the government.
Last year The Times discovered an illegal school set up in Sussex three years ago by anti-vaccine activists and former members of the far right.

I know or have heard of a quite a few. A lot of working class people became quite radicalised during the lockdown. Where I live you would see them out and about with stalls in the local park, trying to engage people on the street and in other public places. Some have decided to home school.

There was also national media article a while back about an alternative school which had been set up for the children of such people which was proving quite controversial.

Yes, I'd rather he'd said men. Because it absolutely indicates not only an understanding of the issue (it's not because they're trans, it's because they're male), but also suggests a disagreement with the ideologically forced language.

Personally, it sounded to me like he would absolutely use the language, but realised the optics of sport, prisons and now, hopefully toilets.

I don't think he, or very many men at all, will ever get it in the way that women do.

There is a dilemma though by barring any man from from women's spaces. It follows that transmen must use men's spaces, which wouldn't be popular.

Why does that follow?

There is a dilemma though by barring any man from from women's spaces. It follows that transmen must use men's spaces, which wouldn't be popular.

Surely not?

I think that is the best way that we can protect women like my daughters my wife my mum, the women that I want to see have their rights protected now and in the future.

Yes, yes, Bob, but what about women other than your own womenfolk?

It was a slip of the tongue!
I'm not surprised he gets confused, my brain is scrambled when I look at a woman but see a man.
I was parked up in South Africa looking out to sea, a deserted spot with no buildings, when a man dressed in a long red sequined dress was knocking on my window, his grinning lipsticked mouth with only a pane of glass between us, freaked me out.
Nor do I believe that thousands of men have been saved from a life in the wrong body by wearing fishnets and lipstick, especially when they claim to be Lesbian.

There is a dilemma though by barring any man from from women's spaces. It follows that transmen must use men's spaces, which wouldn't be popular.

I would actually take 'transwoman' to be male and 'transgender woman' to be a woman who had transitioned. I do know that both terms are used to describe men, but what I think on hearing it differs.

I always struggle to fill in surveys because I overthink the question.

I think there were some minor differences in perception in that survey too, but not enough to be significant.

Unfortunately he's been neither clear nor used the ideological jargon ("correctly").

Yes, agree.

I would actually take 'transwoman' to be male and 'transgender woman' to be a woman who had transitioned. I do know that both terms are used to describe men, but what I think on hearing it differs.

I always struggle to fill in surveys because I overthink the question.

OK I'd agree with you on that.

Unfortunately he's been neither clear nor used the ideological jargon ("correctly").

I'm not completely sure what your stance is regarding Jenrick's ignorance. That it's justified, because the vocabulary was concocted deliberately to be confusing?

I've been clear what my stance is. That he needs to be clear, but he doesn't need to use the jargon of the ideology.

Yes in clearer terms, and as per the link shared above:
just under 2/3 understood
Approx 17% unsure
Approx 17% got it the wrong way around, as Jenrick did.

17% is commensurate with the proportion of the population who have difficulties with the English language in general (eg due to EAL, SEN, etc), eg comparing with GCSE stats

Not where I'd place Robert Jenrick in terms of his English language aptitude.

In my view, he's ignorant and/or lazy and/or deceitful in this matter

Either way at best he is spectacularly badly briefed. To come on Mumsnet with its Terf Towers reputation and not to expect a question on this issue to the point that he doesn't know the terminology and doesn't know the law is a pretty poor showing.

Yes, I edited my comment before you replied. Survation, June 2023, 17% thought transwoman means FTM. 17% is quite low. It's less than the proportion of kids who fail English GCSE, for example. (Where "pass" is grade 4 or above).

I'm not completely sure what your stance is regarding Jenrick's ignorance. That it's justified, because the vocabulary was concocted deliberately to be confusing?

Both can be true: the vocabulary used by trans-ideologists is (deliberately) counter intuitive, but a politician who cannot grasp it must be very wilfully ignorant or disingenuous or of slow understanding.

For comparison, the Telegraph has just over 700,000 subscribers (print + digital), and 49% are Conservative voters.

Don't know what proportion are actual members.

YY @illinivich

The language is purposely confusing, so I'll give him a pass for saying the wrong term in a live interview.

What im getting from that exchange is that he does believe that women have the right to single sex services, but once reminded of the law, says thats the tricky bit. Rather than expand and talk about how the GRA and EqA can be adapted to work, or how they cant and therefore what has to change, he just repeats what he thinks should happen.

So basically doing what the Conservatives have been doing for years - kicking it into the long grass and hoping society, not politicians sorts it out.

I don't think Jenrick should have to use obfuscatory, ideological activist terms like "trans woman" to mean a male. I do think he needs to understand the issue and express himself clearly.

They've pointed out a several years old survey by yougov that says that, at the time of the survey, a large minority of people mixed up so called transwoman and transman.

Nope, only last year.

(For a start, this movement has exploded in the general awareness in the last 2-3 years so any survey undertaken before that time has become quickly out of date).

But not this one, because it was only taken last year.