AIBU To Remind Everyone That Self ID Was A Tory Policy?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

I've seen so many posts over the past few years with people urging us to vote Tory because at least the Conservatives know what a woman is.🙄

This is nonsense for the following reasons:

1. The Tories introduced Self ID under Theresa May's GRA Reform and Penny Mordaunt championed it.
2. Tory MPs have reported women to the police for retweeting AHF posts and tweets by JKR.
3. Trans contagion amongst teens happened under the Tory government.
4. Trans women in women's spaces such as hospitals and prisons and Girl Guides happened under the Tory government.
5. Rape in hospital that isn't considered "rape" because there was no man present? Tory government.
6. It's a Trojan Horse. Bridgend Tories won the seat with a small majority. Their Tory MP, once safely in his seat announced that he was trans and intended to become a woman. I am gutted for any GC/feminist voters who held their nose and voted Conservative only to end up with Jamie Wallace.
7. In the latest leadership race, Penny TWAW Mordaunt nearly became our new prime minister. Few (if any)Tories gave a fuck about her well documented TWAW stance.
8. 1 week after Starmer refused to answer "what is a woman?", PM Boris Johnson did the same. This was not publicised to anywhere near the same extent.

So some Tories know what a woman is.
Some Tories don't.
Most don't give a shit about women or their rights either way, they're just happy to use us in their culture wars.🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Yes you are absolutely right. And actually a lot of commentators pushing back against GI are Irish too
i meant the governments when I said England ( Westminster, the terrible Tories)

Except it isn't so much a lie but semantics because it's all about self ID via gender than biological sex.

If I hold up an apple and tell you it's a melon, that's not semantics. It's a lie.

You could say any lie is semantics if what you mean is that it would be truth if only you change the meaning of the words you're using. That's just absurd.

Gender is not sex.

I also don’t think it’s a niche issue. It effects 51% of the population for starters. I was actually talking about it with my 86 year old mother in law a couple of weeks ago. She is not political, I have never discussed politics with her before. She was very well informed!

I can go about my daily life not being too much affected by trans woman in woman's spaces day in day out and can challenge where necessary.

It tends to be the most vulnerable women in society who are impacted the most by males in women's spaces. Hospitals, rape counselling, DV shelters, prisons.

I can go about my daily life not being too much affected by trans woman in woman's spaces day in day out and can challenge where necessary.

You mean, you can accept their line that TWAW but challenge it when it leads to real life consequences? How? How do you accept and challenge it at the same time?

Is that itself not a form of dishonesty?

There’s not a chance in hell that penny mordant will get a cabinet post imo. It’ll pour with rain this August in London first!

I understood your point was about governments, sorry of my post gave a different impression. I just like to take every opportunity to acknowledge the efforts so many women have made, often at great personal cost. It's becoming a global effort to protect women's rights.

Completely agree, collective genuinely grass roots pushback.
I think the Westminster government is the only government in the world that is reverse ferreting on GI? I can’t think of another one just yet ( they all will within 5 years imo)

I know gender is not sex.

I'm not an idiot. I also don't believe trans woman are woman.

They are trans woman.

But I don't believe any politician believes you can change biological sex either. They believe in self I'd which is different.

But that amounts to the same thing: that to all intents and purposes, woman is not a fixed biological reality but a feeling, and anyone can become one merely by saying they are.

I agree it has been from ground up

I remember not really engaging then reading more on here - it’s those posters who explained well what was going on that really helped

And it’s not so niche it can’t end a candidate hopeful who was high polling

Accepting the use of female when it is a male is madness - and since it impacts laws and language not good for women

Id rather have a party that doesn't know what a woman is than one who doesn't know what a truth is.

Excuse me?

If you make a mistake a work you might be tempted to lie to save your arse, hopefully your integrity would prevail and you would be honest but most of us can relate to that temptation. If you decided to lie anyway and got found out then it's likely people would think less of your for lying than for making a mistake, I think that's quite understandable for most too. If you were found to repeatedly lie people would almost certainly make assumptions about your character which again is understandable.

Claiming that men can be women is not just a lie it's gaslighting. It's an ideological lie which demands compliance unless you want to be branded a bigot. You are being told to deny the evidence of your own eyes. This type of behaviour is sinister and very authoritarian. If a politician can lie and gaslight about things we can see are not true what else are the likely to lie about and demand compliance?

Self serving lies do not need to be approved of to be understood. Gaslighting is a different thing altogether and, when combined with authoritarianism, is areal threat to democracy.

But the Conservatives already are dealing with self-ID. The AG made a speech on the subject yesterday, setting out very clearly where they stand.

David Lamy seems to believe it. Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner are definitely trying to give the impression that they believe it.

Absolutely

Good post.

Another Tory bashing thread. How original 🙄

This is a tough topic. I respect people who feel strongly about this issue but I feel equally strongly about other issues.
I am particularly focussed on things that i think dilute democracy. So attacks on the judiciary, limiting judicial review leaving the echr which is all about protecting people from their own government, proroging parliament, clamping down on protest rights, the idea of clause 22 where ministers can make law without gowing through parliament, filling lords with people who wont hold them to account. I dont think people understand the polictical system in the uk or just how much is in jeopardy. Id rather vote for a party that let itself be held accountable and use things like judical review, select committees, the european court of human rights and protest to argue for my other issues. Otherwise i could find that all gone and next time i have something I care about, i cant do anything.

I am particularly focussed on things that i think dilute democracy.

Like attempts to redefine half the population out of existence?

i dont think that affects democratic structures and processes no. I also feel reassured that they can attempt this but i would have had several legal methods available to try and stop it that could soon not be available.

i dont think that affects democratic structures and processes no.

So the representation of women and their rights and needs in a democracy has nothing to do with being able to define and recognise them?

I see your claim to be respectful of other views and attempts to appear polite and reasonable, but it's still looking like the same old deflection and whataboutery to me. Sorry.

There's no need to be rude, and I think we broadly agree on the issues, because I would also gladly take a reverse ferret from any of the left-leaning parties (and am hoping for just that before the next GE).

I stand by my point - I don't care that many Tories are smugly telling us that they know what a woman is. Everything they have done over the last 12 years has been a shitshow for women, whether it's self-ID, driving down the health service (midwife/hrt shortage disproportionately affecting women), basically de-criminalising rape, terrible early years funding/closing sure start centres, impact of covid on those with caring responsibilities, etc. And let's not start on who is going to feel the worst of the cost of living crisis....

They know what a woman is. And they don't care. And if ANY left-leaning party can get their house in order (and kudos to the brilliant women trying to affect change from within them), then at least we'll have some choice. Which has to be better, right?!

@ReneBumsWombats I am explaining why i wont be voting conservative despite them being more likely to identify a women. I fear the route they are taking is a slide towards fascism and that matters to me more at this stage. I genuinley believe another party more respectful of democratic process, law and accountability can far more easily be persauded what a woman is than our ability to fix the country after another 5 years of removing accountability bit by bit. You dont have to agree b

Fascism?

Oh dear.

OP has an interesting point.

I first encontered gender ideology in far left activist groups. Back then I considered it one of our more extreme ideas and I didn't expect it to catch on.

When I got involved with more mainstream politics, I honestly never expected to come across it again.

I should have known better.

Gender ideology seemed to offer mainstream politicians a way to look progressive without spending any money or upsetting anyone important. So of course it caught on where wealth redistribution (just to give an example) did not.

The Tories probably thought that this was a niche issue where they could pick up some youth votes, improve their image on equalities and probably not even be noticed by their core voters.

Now that they understand there are wider implications and that women are upset they're backtracking.

The left have painted themselves into more of an ideological corner and sat in it for longer so they will find it harder to change their minds.