Reflections on Trans Arguments

Even the Reactionary Right Wing are currently thinking 'Fuck Me Labour are a bunch of evil cnuts, making us look pretty reasonable at the moment'.

I don't even know what is Right and Left any more.

I'm not sure you understand quite how much bandwidth this fight is taking up. Writing to and visiting MPs and councillors and service providers. Pushing back at employers, ever so carefully so as to avoid forever being labelled a bigotted terf. Researching and arming oneself with facts and evidence for the fight on social media. Standing on high streets handing out leaflets. Trying to support woman-only and lesbian groups and services financially or otherwise. Responding to consultations. Making FOI requests of public bodies. Crowdfunding and, for some very brave women, taking part in court cases. Constantly watching the political parties, the LGBT+ lobby groups, committee meetings and Union conferences for the next method by which they are going to try to sneak gender instead of sex past us. Negotiating excrutiatingly difficult conversations with our children and young people, themselves terrified of being outed as 'transphobes'. Trying to support friends whose children are succumbing to the insidious grooming.
The Greens and Lib Dems are lost. The Tories and Reform are just not on my radar on this issue. You watch them, by all means, but don't you dare berate me for being laser-focussed on watching Labour.

How many other people I disagree with and have nothing to do with do I need to publicly denounce before I'm allowed to talk about what I want to talk about?

Right. Well I could do with a workout so I'll chase the moving goalposts a little more...

First however let me start by saying that last time I went round this route with a poster who posted very much like you do, she used what I'm about to say as an excuse to accuse me of being basically a Nazi apologist and it stopped any rational discussion stone dead. Not on my part, I hasten to add but on hers, she literally repeated that slur pretty much every single post afterwards, not just to me but to everyone she disagreed with, inflating it as she went from one comment in one post taken out of context to "posters are saying..." . But with optimism in your comprehension/good faith I'm going to say it anway.

The reactionary right wing are who they are. They don't hide it. They make a virtue of it. They are putting out a stall for people who want that. What am I going to do, point out that some of their support is sexist? Anti-immigration? Racist? We know that. (Although I will also say that if you think the only people who vote Reform are white, you must live in a very white and/or middle class bubble)

So what's the point of me saying "Reform are bad mmmkay"? They already know people like me think that and they don't care. All I'd be doing is virtue signalling to other people who already think Reform are bad that I have all the right beliefs. It's performative and pointless.

What I want is to have a credible Left party to vote for. That's why I'm talking about what the Left is getting wrong and why I care so much about the Left fucking this up so badly, because they are making themselves into parties I cannot vote for due to their utterly craven betrayal of women. It's hardly rocket science.

Because the reactionary right is currently not in power with a very comfortable majority, Labour is and it is their policies that get critisised.

Right, I hereby declare that I hate the reactionary right wing and all it stands for. They're a pile of bastards, Trump is the devil etc etc etc.

If I genuflect enough can we move onto how the left (for most of us the natural voting choice) have driven away voters by being, well, quite shite, on this issue and others?

Or do I need to do a few more Hail Labours?

We need to be able to hold the threat of not voting over them NOW, to get the commitment so that we CAN vote for them.

That's a point I can accept however it bothers me that I never see any real criticism of the reactionary right wing on here. It's always 'but Labour/the left are bastards'.

My niece became a trans activist while at uni. Her younger sister started uni in Sept 2020 and spent her first year online. She is much more gender critical but that may also be due to being in a STEM course, her older sister was arts based. Also the trans activist is neurodivergent. My sister has to pre warn people not to bring up the subject of trans ideology when in her company because she becomes over animated. My other DSis, now no longer with us, had a phd in genetics so you can imagine the problems this caused. She does seem to be less militant now she is in her mid 20s and has recently been travelling for 12 mnths which has exposed her to a broader set of opinions.

My DS is cautiously critical but, because they had a M to F student in his year through senior school, is probably much more understanding. I recently bumped into the M to F and they have definitely followed a gender neutral path and I would describe them more as male Goth than a trans female. I think that they have worked things out. They were not a trans campaigner and intent on radicalising their fellow students. Also they are all shit scared of being cancelled.

I do believe that when OPs make such a list they are mansplaining in the way most men like to do. They forget that they are talking to grown women who have more lived experience, a fully mature frontal lobe and have probably been gaslighted for years by men.

Also, when people go to University, they can become quite rigid in their thinking and supporting the 'right' ideas. So when they come home in the holidays, they then 'educate' their family.

Nothing is more fun than sitting next to someone who is looking up on their phone to see if a normal phrase used in conversation is bigoted or not.

I wish this was talked about more. So many families in turmoil and scared to speak about this - despite the monumental harm happening to some young people.

Weaponising the young to fight a battle they're just not equipped to navigate is unforgivable. Yet we're still standing by watching as so many groomers supported by useful idiots, target children - in schools and everywhere children gather.

Parenting's the toughest job in the world - and can be frightening at time. We must speak up and support parents trying to navigate this - not silence them with threats and emotional blackmail.

Yes. If I recall correctly there was a particular poster over numerous threads last year, twisting people's posts, determined that anyone raising any concerns about labour were right wing bigots etc. As was anyone mentioning ethnicity in terms of the grooming gangs - actual fascists dontchaknow.

I briefly thought of them when listening to Baroness Louise Casey talking about her report on the rape grooming gangs. Don't suppose they'll have noticed - insight and self awareness not a strong point for them. 😑

Perhaps for the enjoyment of the scold?

I don't really understand what the point is now though. The next election is probably four years away.

To be blunt- as you guys love being- if you vote for Reform or the Tories in the next election, or abstain and facilitate them getting in, it means embracing a whole bunch of truly unpalatable measures that will really hurt women and the country as a whole. Is that really worth it?

Seriously, what unpalatable measures would be worse than eliminating the sex-class of women so that we can NEVER demand considerations or rights as a class again? What would be worse than sterilising vulnerable children? You talk about defending democracy, but the progressive Left helped to start dismantling that with its chilling effect on free speech and support of #nodebate.

Yep I noticed that. Different name, different poster - perhaps - but very much the same rhetoric and the same language.

But still. If someone links to a few posts in the Genderist social media (which to be frank is most of it) adhorting people for whom trans "rights" (aka cross sex privileges over women) are a red line to send the message to the Left parties that unity is more important and they'll accept TERF-friendly policies for the greater good, that would carry a lot of weight with me in terms of believing this is anything more than just "it's easier to fuck over the women than the TRAs"

I will decide who I vote for, who I will not vote for and whether I will spoil my ballot or not.

Some random poster's lecture on the internet is not going to hold any weight when I am making this decision.

I would LOVE to see this Reddit post.

And it’s all sounding very very familiar

we got almost exactly the same posts before the election last year

👏👏👏👏💯

All this guilt-tripping of women without any demands on Labour to get a grip. Why?
@

Because I am also pragmatic, and I can see that if I want Labour or a Left coalition to protect women's rights I won't get it by telling them I'm happy for them to sacrifice women's rights for the greater good. There is no reason whatsoever we cannot have left wing parties that respect women, it's not an extreme position, and we should not be blackmailed into it.

Given neither labour nor greens nor tories actually have women’s interests at heart it actually makes it easier to vote because that’s one item that they are all bad with in different ways so I can ignore it

because vote spoiling won’t change anything

Ah, yes the 'well, at least we're not the Tories' strategy. So inspirational, so motivational. I'm wiping away a tear as I write this.

And again.

We need to be able to hold the threat of not voting over them NOW, to get the commitment so that we CAN vote for them.

If they believe we will vote for them anyway, then we have no leverage.

But hey, if this worries you so much, go and get the message out on trans Reddit, Bluesky etc that the TERFs are fucking crazy and they will burn it all down, so all those rational reasonable TRAs need to bite the bullet and tell their LGBTQIA++ Labour, Green LibDem groups that they need to compromise, they have to accept a manifesto that commits to female legitimacy and rights, maybe even to repealing the GRA, as the cost to the greater good of keeping the really bad guys out.

Go fight the brave fight and send me a link to your posts, I will be cheering for you!

If you'd read what I wrote properly, you'd understand that I am precisely not tribal. I vote for pragmatism over ideology. I would not vote Tory nowadays because they have gone the way of the republican party in the US: toxic.