Trans Rights: The Conjuring Trick at the Toilet Door - AND left vs Liberalism ID

And because it's contrary to the current sacred texts of the Guardian.

True, because only 40% of Labour voters agree with TRA objectives like cross-sex service use and altering ID. But this contrasts with 20% for non-Labour voters. Even Green and LibDem voters are less captured than Labour voters!

I suspect that Labour backbenchers might be even worse. But that's not a reason to be against voting Labour if you like their other policies. Left voters have a self image of kindness, so need to be persuaded that this particular form of kindness is in fact cruel to quite a few people. It's a weirdly difficult message to get across, maybe not just because of misogyny, but because it's a complex topic that has effects in many areas.

Labour voters are in favour of giving trans people additional rights, to the detriment of women

@theilltemperedamateur I would suggest that a majority of people who vote Labour do so in spite of not agreeing with the above.

A joy to read. And by the way, SSSIS, I didn't know you were a bloke. What a nice surprise.

TRAs accuse GC feminists of being far right, not far left. And the fact remains that neither is treating trans people as a useful scapegoat right now. And nor are the main parties.

The question I was trying to articulate an answer to was: why are Labour more pro-trans than the Conservatives? I think it's because they are the party of regulation.

Centre left seek to regulate the economy to balance the interests of capital, labour, consumers, and the environment, rather than leaving it to the market.

And they take a Rawlsian view of disadvantage, legislating to mitigate it, instead of leaving it up to personal responsibility and voluntary philanthropy.

That made Labour the nanny state party: if anyone was going to legislate to 'protect' trans people, it was always going to be them, and they were always going to be smug about it.

The question is: what sort of idiot thinks transwomen are more vulnerable than women?

Given that women have been subjugated for millennia, and there has never been a society where the situation is reversed, I have to conclude that our suffering is just too big to be seen by the naked eye. They're used to it and they're fed up with the complaining wimmin, who are never satisfied. They've got trans ladies to champion now.

If China is part of the Left, words have again lost their meaning.

That’s a great article. Thanks

Apologies for flouting Godwin's law, but Nazis are a good example. They arouse righteous joy in their followers by attacking selected scapegoats. Far left populists like Leninists and Pol Pot did the same thing, but we're less familiar with the latter in the UK. A polity in which trans people are scapegoated in this way for political gain is imaginable, but it's not what's actually happening, except in TRA's heads.

Why is do you think it is that we're less familiar with Far Left dictators in this country, especially as Communism as a political system has been very dominant since early in the 20th century.
Far Left populism is set to become more dominant in the 21st Century thanks to China becoming a Superpower, will we be turning a deaf ear to the lesson's that could teach us, in the same way we didn't learn any lesson's from the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, most of South America?

Conservative voters are just as likely to be misogynistic (or antisemitic) as Labour voters, and to believe, or not, in magical things. I was looking for some clarity on this though. Why do you think Conservative voters are just as likely to be those things?

My position is that there is nothing in the philosophies of the Labour movement and of traditional Conservatism to tell us whether a randomly selected voter will be more or less likely than normal to be misogynistic or antisemitic or to believe in transgenderism. What is observed empirically is a different matter and may change over time. We do know from recent surveys that Labour voters are the most likely to believe in transgenderism.

For the full picture can you explain what you mean by far right populists?

Apologies for flouting Godwin's law, but Nazis are a good example. They arouse righteous joy in their followers by attacking selected scapegoats. Far left populists like Leninists and Pol Pot did the same thing, but we're less familiar with the latter in the UK. A polity in which trans people are scapegoated in this way for political gain is imaginable, but it's not what's actually happening, except in TRA's heads.

I don’t find the Labour Party approach to gender ideology remotely reasonable

I agree. Something went wrong and I think it's linked to the fact that the centre left is inescapably more authoritarian than the centre right. I will think on this some more.

Yes. The article is spot on. Hopefully to be read by some of the useful idiots still wailing about men being denied access to women's undressed bodies.

Ah yes, that is a good point. Where people are using AI properly as a writing tool I think its use no more discredits the content than any other tool.

DH uses it for business communications and contract checking and finds it very helpful, raising good points for consideration and helping him to produce concise, clear text.

Good to know that pp can’t challenge the substance or detail of his article.

Thank you for explaining.

Conservative voters are just as likely to be misogynistic (or antisemitic) as Labour voters, and to believe, or not, in magical things.

I was looking for some clarity on this though. Why do you think Conservative voters are just as likely to be those things? There appear to be a number of openly anti semitic/Islamist Labour politicians who are voted in by Labour voters.

By contrast, far right populists promise to hurt disliked minorities and are authoritarian once in power.

For the full picture can you explain what you mean by far right populists?

TRAs paint GC feminists as people who are trying to hurt a minority, rather than people fighting their own authoritarian attack on the rights of women.

I think it’s fair to say that many of these TRAs are in the Labour Party, I don’t find the Labour Party approach to gender ideology remotely reasonable. They brought in the GRA under the radar and against any objections and started the process which has led us here.

Its become the go to barrel scrape for people who can't find anything wrong with the content of a piece of writing, but desperately want to discredit it nonetheless.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way! I just assumed they didn't like the post because it was too long and involved (admittedly, guilty as charged). I never thought of it as a way of refuting something against which you have no argument. That makes a lot of sense, and I'll look out for that in future!

I must have expressed myself very badly, because your interpretation is almost the opposite of what I intended!

Labour voters are in favour of giving trans people additional rights, to the detriment of women. Traditional Conservatives are against this sort of thing, not because they are all proto-feminists, but because they tend to laissez-faire egalitarianism.

Labour and Conservatives are reasonable parties with different ideas about how to go about things.

By contrast, far right populists promise to hurt disliked minorities and are authoritarian once in power.

TRAs paint GC feminists as people who are trying to hurt a minority, rather than people fighting their own authoritarian attack on the rights of women.

I hear you! I've been accused of being a bot/using AI on a mild thread about shopping this very morning.
Like you, I'm on my phone, never used AI and in my case wouldn't know how to start.
Its become the go to barrel scrape for people who can't find anything wrong with the content of a piece of writing, but desperately want to discredit it nonetheless.
The article is an excellent example. Clearly the fact that 'a leftie' has said something of value has caused much consternation.

Conservative voters are just as likely to be misogynistic (or antisemitic) as Labour voters, and to believe, or not, in magical things. But they really don't like the state interfering by giving a visible minority additional rights.

What evidence are you basing that on? I don’t think that claim is at all accurate or reasonable. You make quite an assumption about the motivations of Conservative voters. And are you then implying that Labour voters DO want to give a visible minority additional rights?

TLDR – Being GC doesn't mean you have to become a Nazi.

‘Casually’ throwing in the implication that those who are not on the side of authoritarian Labour are at risk of becoming Nazis, clearly demonstrates part of the problem Paul is highlighting.

Knaggs is great on this stuff, and this is one of his best.

This is a liberal campaign. It is not, at its root, a left-wing one.
The left is supposed to begin with material reality. Bodies. Labour. Class. Wages. Violence. The analysis of women’s oppression that produced the Equality Act, that built the refuges, that fought for the single-sex provisions now being contested, was a materialist analysis. Women are oppressed because they are female. Not because of how they feel about being female.

This nails it. It's worth noting that most of the ACTUAL "far" left are gender critical. The various communist, Marxist-Leninist etc. parties with a few hundred members each have mostly issued statements, to varying degrees affirming their acknowledgment of the reality of biological sex, the importance of women's sex-based rights and acceptance of the supreme court judgment.

Which is not to say I agree with them on much else. I'm certainly no communist. Just making the point that a gender critical, biologically-based apprehension of sex and gender is in accordance with Marxist analysis, which as Knaggs points out is fundamentally materialist, not idealist.

The "left" have embraced TWAW precisely because most of the ones who like the feelz and imagery of calling themselves Marxists, haven't actually read any Marx.

Flirts, I agree. It's the idea, the content, and the message that are important.

I've been accused of using AI for my posts, on another thread, probably because some of my posts are long, involved, and tend to use big words and correct punctuation. And I use American spelling, because I am American.

I also break up my paragraphs to try to make them easier to read. It takes a long time for me to put a long post together (especially on a tiny phone!). And readers ought to know it isn't AI-generated just from the numbers of edits I've had to make for spelling!

I don't use AI. I don't know how to use AI, and I'm not interested in learning how. It's something I'm pushing back on in my work, so hopefully I can get through it long enough for me to retire!

Just to point out that you can't always tell who's using AI and who isn't.

Great article, makes a lot of excellent points, and if it gets the points published so more people can read them, I don't particularly care if it's partly generated by AI. The ideas came from a thinking human being. AI just helps with the writing (so I'm told), and everyone except me seems to be using it so I'm onto a losing game, I guess.

The article made me think about Labour drifting from its core mission (as Stonewall did) and how this cause became so central to it. Did it regard the battle for working class equality’won’ as Stonewall seemed to view gay rights as done and dusted? And I wondered why that might be. Poor people still exist. They still need a voice to fight injustice on their behalf. But a lot of the old class distinctions are more complex. Many male-dominated industries – even those involving manual labour (the old ‘working class’) jobs are well-paid. A lot of female ones, as this article suggests, are not. Hence food banks supporting more women than men, the male/ female pay and pensions gap, care responsibilities etc. Likewise, poverty affects those with disabilities (mental or physical) or due to issues like age. Perhaps it was representing the needs of women, the disabled etc that just didn’t appeal to many institutions on the left. They wanted to carry on representing predominantly white males and this movement gave them exactly what they were looking for.

Is ought problem anybody?

"1. The Materialist Foundation
Gender critical philosophy (often rooted in radical feminism) is fundamentally materialist. src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/lf4EUcqBDTY?start=1" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> 1, 2]
Definition of Sex: It defines sex strictly via biological realities—chromosomes, gametes, and primary/secondary sex characteristics.
Biological Determinism: It argues that sex is an immutable material fact, not a social construct.
Rejection of Gender Identity: GC perspectives heavily reject "gender identity" or self-identification as a legitimate basis for social categories, arguing that these rely on subjective idealism over observable, physical reality. 1, 2, 3, ]

1. The "Is-Ought" Problem

1. Philosophical Friction

Only if its true!

More important is what was said.

What is GBOL?

They aren't part of the Labour party.

Majority of writers are men.

That are inviting guest contributors.

Can be found on the about us section - surprise, surprise - on their web site!

I remain to be convinced otherwise, but I think that AI is a dismal thing, which will destroy yet more jobs, (and make wage labour seem a completely inappropriate mechanism for distributing wealth, not that it ever great in the first place), and make everything that we read seem that bit more untrustworthy.

The thing is that conventions in writing are likely to be led by AI in future. So people will see the “the” thing as how these things should be written.

I don’t actually agree that paragraph is definitely AI but tbh what is your point? AI is a tool and it isn’t going away - even you admit that not all his article is based on AI. I doubt anyone here would have picked up on this if it weren’t for you. Which is interesting.