Thread 22 Starmer - Running up to local elections

[BIossomtoes]

Here we go. Previous thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5305431-thread-21-starmer-casting-nasturtiums?page=40&reply=143731831

Apparently today the Home Office are going to publish the nationalities and offences of foreign criminals who have prison sentences of more than 12 months. I don't know why they think there is a need for this, surely it will just reinforce anti- immigrant sentiments towards particular groups of people.

Thanks Blossom

My tax is the Hen House from Anna Pugh

Tax sourced. This shot out of the ground over Easter last year, too, despite it being much earlier.

I bought a pear tree 4 years ago and the quince rootstock has grown up as well since. Got three pears the first year and nothing since. So it's now two trees, purely ornamental. This year the blossom is quite special.

Flower tax from me too. Some tulips from my front garden.

Place marking for more wrong posting. Will pay tax later.

Yes, I found this news unsettling too.

Is Prettybird still around by the way? Unless name changed I haven't seen her for a while.

I am now actually imagining you (a fly grown person, I assume!) on a bonsai!

Perhaps they should also make it clear what a tiny monitory of prisoners are foreign while they are at it.

I’m going to be generous and assume that’s the intention.

Cat tax from me, and I promise I will try to MN leftly. This is the Ladyship, who is venturing out more these days.

There's now a second 'Labour isn't working' thread on here - I'm not so much as looking at it and I'm certainly not telling them they aren't doing it right. Wish we could be accorded the same decency. It would feel a bit like people coming on the long running support threads for partners of alcoholics and going on about how we should all be staying with our alcoholic partners and supporting them because - oh I don't know, some bullshit reason. It's about respect.

I think it's more that you're all very vocal on this thread regarding other matters but were silent on the SC ruling and the protests and threats made by some TRAs.

I'm quite sure that if any other party was in power you'd have been the first to criticise the lack of comment by whoever was PM.

We don't discuss Gaza and the protests either, is that ok with you Budgie?

@2dogsandabudgie Oh look! Here’s me being silent on the matter! I would have posted more except I’ve just been away.

Sorry if it’s tedious for you to have to read my posts re-posted here, but it’s also equally tedious being told we’re not posting ‘right’ or in the right place.

BIWI · 16/04/2025 20:59

HoundOfTheBasketballs · 16/04/2025 20:54
It’s just that the feeling I get from a lot of people posting on MN is that trans people are all in favour of their rights at the expense of women’s rights. But the people I meet in real life aren’t like that. The trans women I know are just people, trying to get on and live their lives in peace. They want to be happy and safe and they want women to also be happy and safe. But when I go on the internet it all feels so much more aggressive. Maybe I should just stay off the internet.

I have never understood what rights trans people feel they should have, that they don’t already have.

BIWI · 16/04/2025 21:27

But why @Diverze?
There's no need to call her a man, that's hurtful.

The reality is that she is a man because she is biologically male.

I guess it's a bit like calling someone fat to their face, or ugly.

… which implies there’s something wrong with being male. Why on earth would you or she think that? How is that helpful?

BIWI · 16/04/2025 21:50

Springee · 16/04/2025 21:37
Excluding trans women/excluding trans men - both wrong

Excluding them from what, though?

Some months ago, another MNetter posted a link to the Boots website page about menopausal issues and products. The whole page had been written very carefully to exclude the words ‘woman’ or ‘women'. It was all about ‘people’ who were going through the menopause.

Which is totally ludicrous, given that the menopause is a biological lifestage that only adult females will experience.

Why should that advice/those pages have been written such that they could include transwomen, who will never go through the menopause?

And yet, it was clearly done because someone in Boots was fearful of excluding transwomen.

BIWI · 17/04/2025 09:05

Also very revealing, of course, that the Supreme Court was asked to define ‘woman’. Rather than ‘man’.

BIWI · 17/04/2025 09:11

Trans people in sports, prisons, changing rooms should all be regulated to an extent, and women have to be protected.

Well that’s easy, isn't it? Transpeople compete in the sport that reflects their biological sex (go the prison that does so, and also changing rooms). Therefore women are protected.

Not sure why you put ‘to an extent’ @whengodwasarabbit1?

BIWI · 17/04/2025 09:16

By saying that trans women can’t use women’s toilets, you’re effectively saying they’re not allowed to exist, because everyone needs to use public toilets sometimes, and it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female to have to use a men’s toilet.

But why should I worry about someone’s dignity, at the expense of my own safety?

AFAIK, men’s toilets always have cubicles, so a trans woman could use one of those surely?

BIWI · 17/04/2025 10:06

That’s the great thing about a legal ruling - there are no ‘both sides’. A judgment has been made. Trans women are not women. Trans men are not men.

BIWI · 17/04/2025 10:07

and it definitely causes harm to the people who are banned.

How, exactly, does it cause harm to a trans woman being banned from using women’s toilets?

BIWI · 17/04/2025 12:24

Empathy or sympathy?

Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional experience. (Merriam-Webster)

I do have sympathy for those people (especially children, and those with autism or other conditions) who have been led to believe that they are ‘in the wrong body’ and that they can change to the opposite sex.

I have sympathy for any trans person who is concerned or worried about yesterday’s ruling.

But do I have any empathy? No, not really, as I can’t and haven’t shared their emotional experience.

BIWI · 16/04/2025 20:51

Thank you Mumsnet.

I came to the ‘party’ a bit late, as I had no idea that people could be banned/silenced/pilloried for views that seemed, to me, to be eminently obvious and sensible.

It was a shocking revelation that women could be subject to such strictures; very Handmaids' Tale, and seemed unbelievable.

Since then I’ve ‘watched’ many of the legal cases, and am in awe of those women (and their legal teams) who have fought so hard for women’s rights. Especially Maya - go you!

But without being able to talk about it here, it would have been so much more difficult.

Recess is over, Starmer has responded to the SC ruling and Phillipson is giving an offical statement later. There will also be statements on Ukraine and British Steel

And Starmer will attend the Pope's funeral

We were called out on our posting content and style LONG before that ruling.

And actually, why on earth does it matter to you @2dogsandabudgie? If you don’t like what we post about/don't post about, why are you on these threads at all? Or are you another one who thinks that they have the right to monitor and police them?

I think it’s another of those situations where it’s best to just not respond if someone starts to post about something we have no interest in discussing on this thread.

I think this is some kind of gotcha.

Some lurkers want some of us to break ranks and declare TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN so that they can respond accordingly. Of this I am sure.

The prodding and goading make that rather obvious,

I don't choose to share my views on FWR or anywhere on MN - other than when ,frankly, bullied into it.

But, for clarity , my views are not the views that seem to be held by the Labour leadership.Perhaps the lurkers/scolders could also read Diane Abbott's book (this would be fun! We could have a readalong!) or even Rory Stewart's which make it abundantly clear that no one political party is a hive mind , much as Blair tried to achieve this and , it seems, Starmer was applauded for. I think possibly only the Greens of the bigger parties have a unified viewpoint or party line on this specific issue. I am not even sure that Reform do but I'd guess so.

So, it is possible to be a Labour voter, supporter and/or member and have very differing views on this specific issue. The aim of this thread is not to fall out over our differences.

Just to mention, I think soup got a hard time yesterday and I have never found her to be obstructive, difficult, unkind or aggressively pushy so I do think that was a bit unfair in the midst of the kerfuffle.

I think it’s been abundantly clear (to me at least, since I joined these threads), that respectful disagreement is more than OK.

Maybe we should visit the "Labour isn't working thread" and tell them what they should be posting about?

I think we should rise above it. It’s beyond me why a bunch of women of a certain age chatting amicably about politics and all sorts of general shit should provoke the kind of reaction it does but it doesn’t really matter. It’s best ignored.

Leave them to it, we just continue these threads as we have done.

Hope you are ok

Let's not, we have more sense.

Posting incorrect cat tax. Start as you mean to go on.

Thank you for the new thread.