To think the gender and sex Ed wars are created by tories

[Unexpectedlysinglemum]

The tories have totally messed up the country recently I think that people who did or didn't vote for them can see they are doing an awful job and they have no reasonable expectation of winning next general election..... EXCEPT now the Tory press has created this total obsession about

1. Sex education and
2. Gender and trans issues.

They are painting them selves as the only party that will save us from the wokes who want to identify as a dog or teach 12 year olds how to have anal sex... this is what the Tory tabloids are claiming is happening in schools.

What does everyone think?

From the Atlantic article:

"Here in Britain, Starmer is betting that most voters will gratefully accept his proposed compromise—one that both assuages their concerns and takes some of the heat out of the debate. Labour has made concessions to trans activists, too, by proposing a system that will allow patients to receive a dysphoria diagnosis from their family doctor, rather than having to apply to an anonymous panel. Starmer has so far declined to apologize on the party’s behalf to feminists who were harassed for views that Labour now officially shares."

He's hoping no one will notice the small print.

Are GP's going to be trained to diagnose gender dysphoria?

How many appointments will be required before a diagnosis can be made?

If a GP can make that diagnosis then does that mean we can dispense with gender clinics?

If the diagnosis element is so straight forward then surely we can just introduce a treatment protocol for hormones and surgery which the GP's can administer.

Will Labour clarify what sex means in the equality act to make it easier for service providers to offer single sex spaces or will they allow a GRC to stand as evidence of "legal sex" for all purposes?

I'll believe the Labour Party is committed to protecting women's rights when they stop refusing membership to Karen Ingala Smith, who compiles the femicide census read out by Jess Phillips on every International Women's Day, when they stop lying about denying Labour Women's Declaration a stand at the party conference and when they condemn party activists for the shameful bullying of Rosie Duffield. Oh and I do want a fucking apology.

They are gaslighting us and Starmer knows it which is why he got Annalise Dodds to issue the new party line on self ID. I don't believe the Labour Party has changed its ideological position I think they just want to pretend they have and will introduce a form of self ID but will attempt to deceive us by calling it something else.

The GRA was a mistake and needs to be repealed. Protection for gender reassignment should remain in the EA 2010 to ensure trans people are protected against discrimination.

It's not just gender wars is it though? It's 'Stop The Boats' and 'Green Crap' and most recently ULEZ. Anything to divert anger away from their complete failure of Government.

It should be so simple shouldn't it @Dramatico ? Yet this Tory government are failing to implement common sense in our health, social care and education sectors. They're not even issuing guidance. Why is that?

TooBig

I may be reading your posts incorrectly but I get the sense that you are trying to highlight the Tories contribution to the problem and to lay the blame and focus on them.

However, I think most posters who have grave concerns about women's rights are viewing this as an issue that is bigger than party politics and are failing to find comfort in Labours positioning.

It feels like separate debates are going on

@Brainworm, I'm highlighting the ways the government are failing women and children today, while making a mockery of the whole thing by using it as a Culture War.

Re gender transition, the Guardian says "Dodds said the current process meant that “a panel of anonymous doctors” got to decide something of momentous significance, “based on reams of intrusive medical paperwork and evidence of any surgery”. She added: “This is demeaning for trans people and meaningless in practice. A diagnosis provided by one doctor, with a registrar instead of a panel, should be enough.”

One doctor. No specifics. I guarantee that will.mean any doctor prepared to dish out a diagnosis on demand with no evidence but the requester's say-so. No "reams of intrusive medical paperwork" needed, remember.

I am convinced tht the Tories are to blame for the woeful performances of the England RU team and the women's football team not winning the World Cup. In addition they were to blame for our not winning the pub quiz last night and the washing get soaked in a downpour. Sure I can think of lots of other things to blame them for.

'Anything to divert anger away from their complete failure of Government''

Why can't we have anger about the shit show that has been the Tory Government and, at the same time, Labour's shit show in recent years on women's rights issues?

It comes across as a different tactic to insist on no debate. Don't debate this or demand better because it helps the Tories.

As the saying goes, Women won't wheest on this. The fight has been brutal and ugly. We have shown that we will keep going until we are heard, understood and attended to.

If Labour said, you have a point, we got this wrong and, in power we will fix, they will feel less heat. However, until women's rights are protected, this is the burden all parties will have to bear.

The right wing press leverage this because they can. Labour need to stop providing fuel for the fire.. The Right will continue to provide heat and oxygen, but Labour are not passive victims here

'@Brainworm, I'm highlighting the ways the government are failing women and children today, while making a mockery of the whole thing by using it as a Culture War'

I think this government is dire and has caused untold damage. They get no support from me. They are using this to make themselves look good and Labour bad, but this is because Labour have been bad and are yet to be good. This is Labour's problem to fix.

I have no idea why anyone who agrees with the GC position, or states they do in any case, would welcome GPs okaying legal change of sex certificates to go from male to female.

I wonder what GPs will think of this. Or where they're going to get the time.

I have no idea why anyone who agrees with the GC position, or states they do in any case, would welcome GPs okaying legal change of sex certificates to go from male to female.

Exactly. It's self ID with a placatory administrative step which means it's a complete waste of time and money because it does nothing to address concerns about single sex spaces and services or safeguarding.

Activist GP's will be delighted, the rest may not be quite so pleased.

Is it going to be GPs?

Or is it going to be a doctor / doctors offering "specialist services" in diagnosis of gender dysphoria? And how rigorous will the process be?

Here is Annaliese Dodds's own piece in the Guardian. It says "one doctor". No details.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/labour-will-lead-on-reform-of-transgender-rights-and-we-wont-take-lectures-from-the-divisive-tories

That's even worse...

"Gender" directly affects me and my family and several other families I know. Families whose children are suffering very direct physical and mental harm from this. If it doesn't affect you then count yourself lucky. Your good luck might not last.

And although this might not be the biggest issue for you it certainly isn't trivial. OK, if you're happy to share (you, your daughter and your mother) the women's changing rooms and shower at your local swimming pool with a beefy six foot physically intact bloke who identifies as a women then that's up to you. Or if you don't think it matters what sex of person is responsible for your intimate physical care when you're ill, or for your daughters' or for your elderly mother's care, or if it doesn't matter to you if someone is trying to force themselves into spaces for the other sex and the reasons why they might be doing that, then you crack on. If you don't think women should have the right to talk about their experiences of rape in a space where no-one has a penis or male patterns of aggression and entitlement that's also up to you. But other people really do care, right up there with climate change.

Why people imagine this issue should have anything to do with party politics, left versus right, Tories versus Labour or whatever else, utterly defeats me. There are people like you with their heads in the sand on all sides of this.

Politicians on all sides have massively let us down. Some have tried to make it a party politcal issue and others have silenced voices of dissent within their own parties. The Greens in Scotland believe in self id so much they'd happily sacrifice the power to do anything about climate change, well that's their poor choice. As for the SNP, given my own ethnic background, who I am married to, and who I am a parent of, I take it very personally when the First Minister for Scotland announces that people who don't agree with her on self id support Nazis, homophobes and transphobes. She even had the brass neck to say it right in front of the Asian woman MSP who had spent hours in committee sessions patiently asking how self-id would affect the rights of women from religious minorities to single sex spaces. A few months I wrote to MPs and MSPs about related issues, and one or two Conservatives really were the only people who replied, yes we can see there's a problem.

It might not be your biggest political issue, sure there are many issues in the world. But whatever your prioirities are, one thing you need to accept is that the world does not divide up tidily into nice wellmeaning socialists and nasty Tories.

I'm heartened that Labour have dropped Self ID. There's a wee glimmer of hope that the Tory trans shitshow will end with them

As others have said, labour plan to make it as easy as getting a new bus pass to legally change sex marker.

What we need is for the exemptions, where in some instances it is legal to exclude males, even those with a special lady certificate, to be solidified and actually enforced.

I don't get any pleasure from knowing that in upholding sex based rights, some encounter distress

Not women's problem though.

The only 2 options are, we either completely remove the rights of ALL females just because a tiny % of males are upset by their sex and have demanded we alter the definition of our own bloody sex class to 'include' them or we uphold the rights of all females.

The feelings of a tiny minority should not dictate that the rest of us be forced to deny reality or alter the very language we use to describe ourselves, just because they can't cope with it.

The Labour Party have reluctantly accepted the public is not ready for open self ID, so they will introduce it by sleight of hand and hope everyone is fooled. There is no recognition of how badly women in the party have been treated. They still talk to Stonewall, dont talk to womens groups. There is no commitment to issue that guidance for schools that the tories are at least looking at. They are still not opposing harm to children, even if they are marginally less enthusiastic about promoting it.

I would really like to be able to vote Labour at the next election, I dont expect to do so. If the tories take action on this instead of sitting on their hands I may even vote for them. Fine words butter no parsnips my granny would have said - or all mouth and no trousers.

Words from either party wont cut it. I'm expecting to spoil my ballot again because I wont legitimise any party destroying children's lives.

Exactly to all the above concerns about Labour's apparently Damascene conversation.

At the end of the day, they still believe some male people are "really" women (and vice versa for trans men) because of how those people think.

The fundamental issue is not whether a GRC is required, and if that's supported through self id, or a tame GP, or a firey committee of Lisa Nandys who can ascertain the True Trans with a mere glance in the eyes.

It's not about how high the bar or well kept the gate, it's that that particular wall never should have had a gap in the first place.

Womanhood is not a type of personality, or a state of mind that occurs in whoever happens to think it.

There is no way this bizarre belief can be compatible with understanding the reality of life for female people and what that means for our opportunities, safety (physical and economic) and dignity.

Forming any law around those false beliefs is detrimental for female people who at a swipe of the pen not only have to accept men as "women" when this is not reality, but also lose legal recognition of their actual reality.

As long as Labour or any other party stand behind the sexist and regressive idea that the physical differences are inconsequential, it's just that women think differently to men, they cannot be trusted to understand women's needs and therefore they cannot be trusted to safeguard women's interests.

Is it going to be GPs?

In The Atlantic article it says "family doctor" which I interpreted to mean GP.

YANBU. They flipping started all this shit by having a consultation and proposing a move to self ID in 2015, now they are pretending they are the only party who can stop it happening.

It's shady as fuck and I say that as a fully indoctrinated radical feminist. Drives me to distraction that they are playing politics and making a wedge issue out of something so central to so many people. Very irresponsible

Anyway I see this thread has already derailed into "But labour...." when the OP specifically asked about the Tories 🙄

I think they mean men won’t need a panel anymore, just a sole practitioner, their local GP

What GPs think of that idk.

Tbf someone already posted how great it will be under Labour and no need to be concerned which re routed thread

Which of course only the most Labour lot will agree is dandy

Most can see through it even if some blindly say all fine

Can anyone find a source on the Labour Party site or a quote from a Labour politician saying that it will be their local GP?

Because the only reference to diagnosis under Labour's proposed reform that I can find is the piece by Annaliese Dodds in the Guardian on 24 July which I linked to above.

Which is also what the Atlantic piece links to. It mentions "explanatory tweets" tweets by Annaliese Dodds - does anyone have access to those? They would presumably be around the same date