I didn’t leave the left. The left, left me.

[GenerativeAIBot]

Stop me if you have already heard this the last few days, I am trying to make sense of how I feel about Trump and other right leaning wins:

“Woke” issues being pushed to where they have been, has empowered the right by giving them something real and legitimate to campaign against. Something more than their usual transparently false bogeymen.

In general, Authoritarianism, compelled speech, no debate. Specifically men in women’s sports, in women’s changing rooms, unfettered immigration, being asked to ignore the evidence in front of our eyes.

This is happening across the world, Italy, France, Germany, USA, UK.

I remain entirely committed to progressive taxation, a social safety net, collective bargaining, workers rights, public schooling and health services as well as the rights of everyone to live contented, unmolested lives.

I reject identity politics in their entirety. For example, I consider terms like “Woman of colour” to be the epitome of divisive, racist, sexist thought patterns that seeks to infantilise people and move their locus of control from internal to external. Disempowering people and making them victims.

I didn’t leave the left. The left left me.

Reasonable?

I’d be really happy to discuss policy issues like prisons etc, but I feel like the more fundamental issues need to be addressed before we can even begin to have a productive conversation about that.

We need people to first accept that trans experience is real and legitimate. We are nowhere near that point sadly, and that’s what needs to be addressed in the first instance.

I don't think immigrants are bad. I'm married to one and we have three children, after all. So I can say with some confidence that I'm well aware of the benefits and skills and money for the treasury that legal migration brings into the country.

I also know that many legal migrants don't have any truck with being forced teamed with illegal migrants. And to pretend that both cohorts are similarly invested in the laissez-faire approach to border control is a nonsense.

This from John McTernan sums this Labour government up:
"We can do to the farmers what Thatcher did to the miners. It’s an industry we could do without. We don’t need small farmers.”
He said that live on TV.
For them, it is all about revenge. Nothing to do with sensible policies.

You see what you've done. You've bought a very good discussion. To this debate, the thing is, it's a very nuanced debate. This person who has put this post up is literally debating in bad faith because II have never said. I agree with every illegal immigrant coming in but as soon as I defend the left, I get told that I do. Because they don't want a proper debate, they are doing what I believe our reform talking points

clearly religious people are wrong, because we have more than one religion. Hinduism does not align with Islam, for example. they cannot both be true.

Trans identified people are free to exist. Without impinging on the rights and safeties of other people.

The peanut analogy is a really good one.
Some people keep saying “but it’s only 1% of the population!”, completely ignoring the effect that one percent can have if their rights are regarded as more important as other people’s.

All we are asking you do to is accept the reality of trans subjectivity and seek to understand it.

I do understand how they feel - I really do (as much as any human being can ever really understand another's experience).
I have every sympathy.

But social policy and law cannot be built around subjective feelings.

Law and policy has to be based on the objective reality of biological sex. Because anything else is too subjective and open to abuse.

And if he did actually say that I would have to check that out myself, I believe that is wrong. I actually i'm the first to say, I don't believe in everything labour has done,

you are failing to engage with every single question you are being asked. Justify your beliefs, this is a discussion,I want to know more about what you think and why

No it's a straight forward question. Would you place a trans woman, with no surgery and who has committed a sex crime in a cell with a woman?

Why if you believe there is no distinction would you hesitate?

Not what other people believe but what you think. Would you place them together?

He was live on TV when he said it!

What part of people are aware that trans people exist and understand what they feel is real TO THEM (other than the bad actors) aren’t you understanding?

People are aware that anorexic people exist, are sympathetic to their plight but also don’t agree with them that they are fat. Because they aren’t.

Colour me shocked that you can’t/wont answer the prison/sport/rape centre question.

Of course you and the other TRA’s of Mumsnet can never answer this as if you say they shouldn’t, your house of cards falls. If you say they should then you rightly look like a… If I said what I want to say here I’d get banned.

https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1856099317268000809?t=0VdL0K_DE6mQnJv15ecZSQ&s=08

It blows my mind that this is so difficult to understand for one poster

Just answer us this, Tandora, since you're ignoring all other questions. If you want to create a space to reflect this indefinable subjectivity that is so important to you, that's actually fine. You can create unisex spaces, if you don't lie about what they are, and then all you people who desperately want a space where 55 year old men can undress and shower and box with women can have it.

But why can't those of us who don't want that space - possibly because we are Muslim, or Orthodox Jewish, or traumatised, or vulnerable, or from another culture, or just plain not invested in a delusion - create an additional one for only women, for safety, dignity and fairness?

Why can't you allow both to exist?

Why must all spaces reflect only your beliefs?

At any cost?

But social policy and law cannot be built around subjective feelings.
Law and policy has to be based on the objective reality of biology

This is a very strange claim. Social policy is a social, cultural and political phenomenon - it is always determined by people's thoughts and feelings. There is no biological coding that dictates social policy.

Thank you for at least trying to understand and empathise with trans experience. <3

@Tandora - stop avoding these questions. If you have some depth to your opinions - please share them. I definitely want to know.

But one of the most commonly espoused reasons for opposing migrantion is the impact of overpopulation. Boosting birth rates would have exactly the same impact, so that should be a no go for all who opposed migration on those grounds.

Even if that was the route the government took, declining birth rates are a global issue and have been for some time. The entirety of the developed world have birth rates below replacement level & the world average is now just at replacement level.

How do you propose we buck that trend and boost birth rates? Financial incentives, parental leave policies, affordable childcare, housing support, and promoting work-life balance have all been tried in various countries across the globe and none of them have managed to get birth rates back to replacement level, so why would we be any different?

The only way I can see would be to remove some freedoms/rights of women around contraception, education or work but surely we can all agree that no one in their right mind would support that?

My objection to unfettered immigration is not space. it's resources and some other issues.

Birthrates - yes all of those things but 10X (not the compelled pregnancies!). I don't want to end up like South Korea, and we really really are heading that way

Childcare should be free

Child tax credits should be higher

Maternity rights should be rock solid and longer

Not strange for the people who don’t insist squares are circles just to so it fits into their narrative.

Why are sports segregated by sex? Why are prisons segregated by sex? Changing rooms? Toilets? Why is anything segregated by sex?

Is it because of ‘thoughts and feelings?

Colour me shocked that you can’t/wont answer the prison/sport/rape centre question.

It's so basic, how can it not be answered. If the belief is that there's no separation why hesitate?

Imo it's a gravy train and some will be fearful it will end. Fine we all get defensive over an ability to work but the prison question exposes the major lie on which it's built.

So then what? We take it all down? Maybe. I'm pretty sure the more it's pushed the more people will push back and those who are adamant people must comply are helping that demise happen.

Let me try to be as clear as possible.

I don't want to have unisex spaces - I want women's spaces and men's spaces, however, my definition of "woman" (which is a word/ label) includes trans women. I recognise the material reality of trans women's bodies, however, I do not think their bodies render them inevitably dangerous or threatening to me. I do not think think that gender and sexual violence is a function of biology, I think it is a function of power and patriarchy.

I understand that some women feel very strongly that they do not feel safe around trans women - I consider this to be rooted in fear and prejudice. I suggest one potential way to resolve this in the short term might be two types of women's facilities - one for (non trans) women who do not want to share the space with trans women, and one for women inclusive of trans women.

Maternity rights should be rock solid and longer

And yet you would vote for Kemi Badenoch? 🙄

To clarify:
Social policy and law in general is often based around feelings and beliefs, such as the belief that rich people should be taxed to give money to poor people.
Most social policy and law is like this, and is therefore hotly contested.

With respect to the status of transwomen in society - presumably we want a lasting settlement that won't be hotly contested? Such as the way that racist and homophobic beliefs are now universally condemned by society at large.

How can law about who can enter which sports or spaces be based on the subjective feelings of individuals? How would you even write the law? "If you think you are a woman inside, you are allowed to enter, even if your body is male"? Is that a satisfactory basis for law? Can you see the issues with this?

I believe she was misquoted, however, sometimes you just have to hold your nose. Right now Kemi gets my vote. I have in my 46 years voted, labour, LD, Labour, green, green, Labour. The next one will be Tory if nothing changes.