What is a woman?

[smileladiesplease]

Rishi tonight on talk TV

piers 'what is a woman?'

Rishi 'an adult human female!'

Fffsssss Starmer wake the bastard fuck up!!!!!!!

Seriously now read the bloody room!!!!! I want to vote Labour again please

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/gender-neutral-toilets-waterloo-station-network-rail-b1057494.html

See this report tells me the tories do not give a shite about those vulnerable women in prison that we all care about. Nail marks and blood on the walls, women suffering extreme mental health crises, staff unable to cope...all under the tory watch
HMP/YOI Eastwood Park - women in crisis held in appalling conditions.

Read our inspection report -

justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/ins…

And our media release - justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/med…

Not quite sure how to link but these women aren't threatened by transwomen
(who should not be in female spaces) but they are let down and in actual physical danger because of years of mainly tory austerity and under investment. How folk can kid themselves that the tories are a better bet for women is laughable. Labour are no better re self ID but I'm certain the criminal justice system would never have been neglected as badly...

@Stasiland that's heartbreaking. It's not a prison I've had cause to visit but women's prisons are deeply troubling places to be and doubtless even more so under this government. Sunak can say what he likes but until he acts to address this sort of thing I won't believe he cares about vulnerable women.

I don’t think he cares about vulnerable women.

But I don’t think that someone can care about women if they don’t know what one is.

The problem is that labour are at least one step behind. They don’t care about women either. To actually help women, you need to know what one is.

That’s the issue. Not that the tories all of a sudden care. But Labour are showing they care even less.

Realistically though Labour know what a woman is. We all know what a woman is. And I believe they'll do much more for women and children than the Tories. It's a privilege to even be able to worry about gender politics tbh. I'm sure all the mothers living in mouldy flats trying to scrape food together for their children couldn't really give a fuck.

The Equality Act 2010 was brought in under a Labour Government. It is the Equality Act that allows providers to determine appropriate single sex spaces.

It is the Labour Government who introduced the Gender Recognition Act in 2004 which created a legal fiction that allows a man to become a woman for legal purposes and to falsify their birth certificate to say that their sex is female.

It is the Labour Party that intends to widen this legal fiction by making the process of obtaining a GRC and thereby falsifying sex on documents much easier, no longer need to have a diagnosed gender dysphoria or to have 'lived as a woman for 2 years).

But yet you blame the Tories?

I'm no Tory, but Labour have lost my vote now so, like many others I'm politically homeless.

Rishi at least understands that many if not most people understand the emporer has no clothes even if they cannot say it out loud.

Its sunlight at least.

Hmmm I was a single parent living in a shitty house with my 2 children. One who is disabled. And yes, I did care then.

If they know what a woman is, why are they pretending otherwise? To appease who? And where does that end? With the removal of women’s rights. Which absolutely doesn’t help vulnerable women.

My exhusband raped me. If I had had only been able to access support if I was willing to accept it from a biological man, then I wouldn’t have got the support I needed. The support I received enabled me to live again. I studied and have a decent job. I don’t live in a damp cold house anymore. I am not rich but we have what we need.

How would it have been better for me not be able to access the help I needed?

Or are you going to tell me that it’s privilege to have female only support after being raped?

None of that is directly relevant to the nonsensical notion that Starmer is directly responsible for the creation of a gender neutral toilet at Waterloo Station.

Well he didn't build them but the Labour Party so in that sense he is not directly responsible.

But an implication that this is under Sunak's watch so the Labour Party has nothing to do with the politics that leads providers to build gender neutral spaces is completely absurd.

In the example of Waterloo Station transwomen will have 3 options under Starmer, The women's (self ID), Gender Neutral or Male. Women wanting the privacy and dignity of a single sex space will have none.

This is also happening in the constituency of Lloyd Russel Moyal , who shouted at women speaking up for women's rights in the HoC without sanction, in rape crisis support where in Brighton a woman who has been raped and wants single sex services is denied it. A transwoman has 3 options - www.brightonandhovenews.org/2022/05/05/brighton-rape-crisis-centre-sued-over-refusal-to-offer-female-only-groups/

The fact that this is already happening is not a reason to vote Labour. The Labour party will call women bigots for raising it. Just like Lloyd Russell Moyal did in the HoC. They will cement laws to the detriment of women.

There is a long way to go. The GRC needs to be repealed the Equality Act needs to be tightened so that Sex means biological sex not legal sex.

If Labour gets in there will be no way back.

Well he didn't build them but the Labour Party so in that sense he is not directly responsible.

Apologies need an edit button -

That should be he didn't build them but the providers did based on laws enacted by the Labour Party.

Laws which the Conservative Party have had nearly 13 years to repeal if they felt inclined.

Well yes but can you imagine the response if they'd have prioritised repealing equality laws during covid!

It's only coming to light now that these laws need repealing because Stonewall have had such a malign influence on service providers and convinced institutions that the 'most oppressed' are the tiny minority of males who want access to women's spaces.

Given that feminists have been called bigots for highlighting these issues for years it's only the high profile actions of Sturgeon and the 'trans' rapist that are starting to make political appetite for protecting women and children. Oh and the likes of Lia Thomas and Laurel Hubbard in sport.

I would vote Tory if they went further than speaking the bleeding obvious about what a woman is and committed to amending the Equality Act and repealing the GRA. As it currently stands I'm politically homeless.

For others the tipping point for voting Tory has already been reached.

Realistically though Labour know what a woman is. We all know what a woman is.

So why are they pretending they don't? Whose interests are they facilitating?

They had plenty of time to reassess and amend the legislation before covid if they'd considered it a priority.

Nothing would induce me to vote Conservative after their record over the last 13 years.

Instead, of course, they're talking about repealing all kinds of human rights and employment legislation which will affect women more adversely than anyone else.

What about the other 10 years?

Do any of you speak politician? This guy who claims to know what I woman is also claimed that Zahawi was innocent. Then said that there were serious issues when nothing had materially changed.

All of this whataboutery.

No political appetite as explained in my original post.

Look it's obvious that the Tories could have repealed the Acts of Labour that caused the harm. It's even more obvious that if the Labour Party get in and formalise laws for Self ID that it will be even harder to claw back from the harms they are knowingly and actively causing to women. Why do we know? Because it's already happening. Do they care? Well ask them. But given the attitude to women who raise this explained earlier in the thread, they don't.

And how will we know that when women are legally defined as anyone who says they are?

What a great way to fudge women's rights issues, we pretend that they include males.

The Labour party is no protector of women. None whatsoever.

The only people who stand to gain from Self iD are males.

I am very GC if you've followed anything I've ever written on this issue but the idea that rishi suddenly becomes trustworthy and authentic because he says something that appeals to you is fucking naivety no?

He's a liar that's desperate for votes and his own political survival. He'd court anyone right now if he thought there was 20 votes in it.

When the GRA consultation was called (by the Tories) in 2018 it had significant support within the party. The consultations author is currently the leader of the commons. The only openly trans MP is fully TRA and a Tory.

The idea that it's a party of allies is nonsense

Well we can both be GC and have different opinions, no?

I can't see how a GC woman could possibly vote for a party that is hell bent on advancing trans rights at the expense of women and allows it's MPs to behave in the way that Lloyd Russell Moyle behaved in the Ho . The outward distain towards women in that display is my bottom line. But I respect that you have a different opinion.

@OneTC yes yes yes

One thing I am interested in @OneTC is how can you reconcile a vote for Labour as a Gender Critical woman when it would be so easy for them to respect women as a sex class?

I can understand why you feel that the words of the Tory party are empty and that you don't trust Sunak and would not vote Tory but I can't understand how you can actively vote in a party that will destroy women's rights wholesale whilst holding the GC position.

Don't women deserve better than a Labour Party that openly has a woman problem?

How do we solve this if we don't vote with our feet (in my case decline to vote)?

Surely you don't think that you can fix the woman problem once the LP have the mandate to do as they wish and remove women's rights?

Because in many constituencies not making an active choice for the party most likely to dislodge the sitting Tory is in effect a vote for the Conservative party.

And removing this government from office is my priority.

To clarify I'm not a woman, I'm not a Labour voter. I'm critical of Starmers position but see that it's mirrored by quite a few in the Tory party. I don't think there's as much difference in their 2 positions as it's being made out when you look at the sum of their comments on it. TWAW comment aside, but like I said there are senior Tories of the same opinion.

Starmer set his position out on it earlier, and he got ambushed on it first but it would have been interesting if the timeline had worked out that rishi got hit with a question like that first when it wasn't clear where the opposition stood. The consultation on GR enjoyed quite popular support in the Tory party and when you read the intro written by Mordaunt it was intended as a pretty gender positive thing, there's lots of affirming, and talk of leveling up and recognising vulnerability and loads of stuff that's entirely at odds with the position they've suddenly found in the last couple of weeks

The only place I ever see this issue being discussed is here, and I think Mumsnet can give you a pretty skewered view of how much this matters to many people. Most people I know either don't give a fuck or actively support the trans women are women view and it totally blows my mind that so few people seem to have actually thought about it, so I come here to read about other people's views on it. The only really GC person I know is another bloke, none of our women friends care.