Kamala supporters/ democrats: why do you think you've lost?

[TERFCat]

From reading Twitter, the rhetoric on the left seems to be that they've lost because Trump voters are stupid, racist, sexist etc etc.

Personally, I think that the conversation needs far more nuance than name calling.

I'm left wing but can't vote for anyone who will allow men into women's safe spaces or will sterilize autistic/ gay children. If this makes me "thick" or "fascist", then so be it, but those names won't change my vote.

Anyway - for those of you who'd prefer a fascist to Kamala Harris - any response to my questions about Project 2025?

Such hyperbole.

Restoring women's single sex spaces and sports and protecting children from the removal of healthy body parts is not 'erasing trans people out of existence'.

If you come on speaking such nonsense I find it hard to take any of your other points seriously.

The majority of us on this thread are the in the UK and have not either supported or voted for Trump.

"Restoring women's single sex spaces and sports and protecting children from the removal of healthy body parts is not 'erasing trans people out of existence'."

Have you ever spoken to a transgender adult? Asked them about their experience of transgenderism? Looked at the research on psychological outcomes following gender affirming care and surgery? What's your experience of supporting someone with gender dysphoria?

I can't even begin to address your comments because it's really clear that everything you believe you know about gender dysphoria and trans healthcare comes from reading sensationalist anti-trans propaganda.

I'm going to guess you've got a fixation on transgender women that's arisen completely from what you've read on gender critical sites and have never listened to transgender people's opinions or feelings on this issue. I suspect you've never actually met a transgender person, which is why you're able to talk about them in the way you do.

@lifeturnsonadime

"The majority of us on this thread are the in the UK and have not either supported or voted for Trump."

The fact you can give a fascist the nod of approval because you appreciate that his campaign invested multiple millions on running ads drumming up fear and hatred of the 0.1% of the population that's transgender women, should tell you something about what's happened to your ability to behave or think in a humanitarian or rational way when it comes to this issue.

It was clear to me (and to everyone else to) that Biden can't really do this anymore after the debate. I don't know if that qualifies as dementia or if its just a general age related decline. I am neither his doctor nor a medical expert.

The lack of direction is that Ukraine has been slowly losing ground. Congress signed off on additional spending but it doesn't seem to have translated into an urgent plan for Ukraine to get the resources they need and to win or at least hold up. Anyway they are in big trouble now Trump is in. Really depressing.

I would have voted for Kamala a 1000 times over Trump. Was just posting about what I thought the Dems could have done differently.

There are plenty of transgender adults who don't support men being in women's spaces and sports or double mastectomies for minors.

Trans people will, of course, still exist if we start putting females and children first.

I don't want to turn this thread into yet another trans thread but you are being hyperbolic, anti woman, and you don't even speak for all trans people despite what you are claiming.

Transgender women are male or in other words men who identify as women.

And for such a tiny minority it's strange how many women & girls in the USA are losing lucrative educational scholarships and sporting opportunities to them.

It is not fascist to push back against the removal of women's rights no matter how much you say it.

Many people who voted for Trump are "Trump voters" but not necessarily "Trump supporters". They held their nose and voted Trump as he was more appealing than Harris - for many reasons it would seem. The American women I know who voted Trump would not call themselves his supporters or fans. They weren't happy about it, but they always vote. They perceived Harris to be too much of a risk & they felt Trump was a better choice economically.

The Democrats failure to reach swing voters, and those who can see the many harms in political changes along the lines of "gender identity" and "identity politics" (which the Democrats seem to have unthinkingly embedded in the heart of their politics) is a massive problem for us all.

Demonising and calling Trump voters names isn't the answer.

Hopefully more people will start to realise that the road paved with identiy politics is a disaster for absolutely everyone. All these people who are crying about and hating on the women/black people/hispanic people/gay people/trans people voting for Trump need to climb out of their echo chambers and have a good look around them.

@izimbra we don't divide our spaces by gender feels - but by sex. If you want to campaign to change everthing so same sex spaces become same gender spaces, then you are of course free to do so.

You will neeed to define the following (at least):

Gender
Transgender
Transwoman
Transition
Woman/Girl
Man/Boy

in a non-circular way that makes sense, and that is robust enought to be used in legislation.

I for one think the reasons we created same sex spaces for women/girls stand today more than ever and I will campaign to keep them. But I'd be happy to see your definitions of the above.

Love that you've gone into so much detail but it's kind of irrelevant.

We've always had transgender women.

They've always used female spaces and they'll continue to use female spaces because they feel and believe this is most appropriate for them.

You want trans women to be stopped from using female spaces. So how do you suggest this be done?

Because in the end no matter how much space this issue takes up in your brain - you're obviously very preoccupied with it - trans women make up such a tiny percentage of the population that the problems you perceive trans women causing for females are largely hypothetical. Most people who are obsessed with trans women have never had any dealings with them outside of bleating about their existence to other GCs on social media. If you want to legislate to force all transgender people to use the spaces designated to their biological sex you need to discuss how this would work. Otherwise it's just pointless talk (which GCs absolutely love - this is clearly a great hobby for you)

Edited to add I don’t actually support either side.
Personally have 3 reasons I think they lost

1. they thought having celebrities talk for them was more important than policies
2. Biden should have stood down earlier.
3. the left have the all or nothing approach that I don’t believe (most of) the right have. They believe that anyone who votes for trump is thick/unintelligent etc etc, and don’t respect that people can have different viewpoints. When I was younger it was respected that people had different viewpoints and that was fine, people didn’t talk about politics.

My own daughter is an aspiring professional in her sport. Why should she have her opportunities removed because a male insists he competes as a woman rather than as a man?

Why should she have to change with men which would make HER feel uncomfortable.

My daughters privacy and safety in sport is more important to her and to me than the wishes of a man.

So yes I am obsessed. Biden decided girls like my daughter were less important than men who claim a gender identity on day ONE of his presidency. That tells me all I know about the way that the Democrats treat women.

Any man, however he feels about himself, who forces his way in to women's spaces without consent is a predator.

I want men to understand the nature of consent and that they are not women and that if they had any respect for us they would advocate for third spaces. Two many women, sexual assault survivors and religious minority women are being told that their needs are less important than the wishes of men. It's not acceptable. It's sexist and it harms females and it will eventually stop because, as the outcome of this election demonstrates, a lot of people think that the assault on women's rights and the harm to children to prop this has gone way too far.

Can you hear yourself? Can you hear patronizing you are? Can you hear how you are using domination as a tactic? Can you hear how much you hector and insult people?

And these are avowed swing voters that a reasonable person would be very interested in. In hearing their perspective, in finding out what makes you unelectable.

The fact you without irony write “they'll continue to use female spaces because they feel and believe this is most appropriate for them” in response to people telling you trans ideology is a misogynistic men’s rights movement. It literally hasn’t occurred to you that women might be entitled to a say on this, particularly given that you support rapists being in female prisons too.

We had an honor system before, and you and the men whom you support blew it up.
And it isn’t about toilets primarily, it’s about mutilating children, seeking criminal penalties on those who try to stop it, and protecting those who do it in law.

I think people are sick of illegal immigrants who have to be put in hotels. There is no money for this. Reform would make a big difference on illegal immigration.

look, the uncomfortable truth is that a lot of ordinary people vote for fascists when they feel like it would make them better off.

and fascism is very good at offering clear answers to complicated political situations.

honestly it makes me scared but what - did you think it could only happen in Germany? Belgium, of all places who should know the effect of fascism first hand (!), have started to vote in the far right now.

so yes I agree the left needs better policies that actually fix issues working people care about, and quickly

Personally, I have donated to the Ukrainian appeal and next month will donate the same to Palestinian ones. United24, unicef and Red Cross are all options for this.

I’ll look for opportunities to integrate more with Europe, and I’ll listen to people who are worried about gender/cost of living/housing and email politicians on the left to amplify these concerns

and I’ll pray like hell that ww3 isn’t on the way

I think you are attributing more weight to this than the average American did.

A backlash against the incumbents and the cost of gas is probably as sophisticated as it got for a lot of them.

I'm a left progressive who didn't give a fuck which candidate won. Under Biden, a Democrat, we have a war in Ukraine started by the US when their money armed the opposition against their elected government and is affecting us all in our pockets. There is also a genocide in Gaza happening without any of our countries saying enough is enough because it's not in the interest of USA. Interests, economic ones, Europe and the UK have for decades put as their primary goal aligning their politics to the US and their military might.

The real problem is the global economic shift is changing from the West to the East. US is a damaged economy, owing trillions of dollars and literally printing money on the back of their military power. Trump at least acknowledges that's not in the best interest of his country to keep doing the same.

Mind you, I don't think Trump or any other president in the US, have that much power when multinationals are the ones in control. Same as in our countries, whoever think an elected government will do the best for the people, haven't seen in their pockets what politics really is about.

They may well be but Reform can no more stop x channel boats than Lab or the Tories, without deliberately drowning people, maybe thats what people now want?
Their idea to tow boats back to France would either lead to conflict and/or the blocking of channel ports.

We left the EU so all the political leverage we had with France/EU has now gone.

Trump isn't going to round up 14m people, that would require measures & holding camps not seen since WW2 in Europe.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/3112331/an-open-letter-to-kamala-harris-from-a-democratic-woman/

If we got out of ECHR we could stop sending lifeboats to a few miles off French coast to pick them up and bring them to UK and leave France to deal with them in French water. If we put any that got here on a boat straight back they'd soon stop coming.

you are spectacularly deluded 🙄😐😁

What should women do?

Well, not vote for Trump would have been a start. The sole point of my post was to say that I cannot conceive of any set of circumstances that would result in me voting for him.

However, he won. So I agree that his opponents need to take a long, hard look at why people did vote for him and strategise properly.

It's going to be difficult though, faced with a populist blowhard who just says any old thing that gets the attention of a nation feeling the strain and looking for leadership (even the wrong kind).

This is stupid. Trans women are men. Someone "identifying" as the opposite sex does not make it true. Popping on a dress and some lippy doesn't make men more vulnerable than women. I don't care if they don't feel safe in men's spaces. That's where they belong. Whether a woman looks masculine or not, you can 99% of the time, still tell she's female.

Can you conceive of a set of circumstances for Elon Musk? Whose child has been mutilated in homage to the religion Kamala Harris bends the knee to (and that’s before you see that Musk is estranged from his child, to their relationship destroyed too?)

I am no Elon Musk fan by any stretch of the imagination, but really any parent with his resources would do what he did.

Mutilating children is not “a vote loser” (although it is). It is evil, and as a policy it will cause Democrats to always lose. They have to comprehensively root out the policy, and every single person who was responsible for embedding it. It’s that simple.

@Interlaken

Have you ever met a trans adult who transitioned as a minor?

There are very few of them.

The vast majority of adult transgender people don't regret transitioning.