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 don't think I made my post very clear! No, I mean why is trans supposed to be front and centre of everything? The poster described trans as a 'fundamental issue' when it isn't - imo it's an extremely trivial issue that people in power are somehow obsessed with to the exclusion of that 51%. Or 100% really. If you see what I mean!

The same way we policed it for decades until the last decade. Are you really asking how we managed to do it for decades and years and years and years; until 10 years ago? This is what I really don't get. People that are so shocked by the idea of a female only space that they must have bypassed the last century and zoomed straight to today, because they have no experience that until 10 years ago, it was the norm to have female only spaces.

We can tell a male from a female. On the extremely rare occasion a woman is mistaken for a man, the voice or some other tell is apparent, and we apologise and move on. It's no big deal. It happened before trans was even a thing and nobody back then blamed or gaslight or victim-shamed women for it as a way to prove we don't deserve single sex spaces.

Tbf this is the issue for those seeking to redefine words. who made them king of the world ordering people to ignore basic and fundamental biology

It's not working for them, and they will likely risk it all collapsing as they push for more

@Tandora - Please respond to these points, I am genuinely interested in your point of view even if I do not agree.

So one for women and one for men (including trans women as they are men too).

Sounds good to me.

If you’d bother to read the thread you’d know that it’s not a ‘trans issue’ per se, more of a men being in spaces and sports where they shouldn’t be despite inner feelings issue. I’ll say it until the comprehension skill lackers get it.

There is no unfettered migration, most are here by invitation, and all people use resources whether they're British born or not. What are the other issues that are specific to migrants?

If you want free childcare, higher tax credits and stronger maternity rights then you need a left-wing government. Handing Badenoch, Farage, Trump, Vance power isn't going to achieve any of that as they are pretty much diametrically opposed to all of that.

it's an extremely trivial issue that people in power are somehow obsessed with to the exclusion of that 51%

They're not. They're talking about it because they can see it's a way to get people exercised, like 'Stop the Boats' when the people crossing the Channel on these boats are a small percentage of immigrants entering this country.

@GenerativeAIBot
Yes Tandora and those who subscribe to similar views have adopted a completely different world-view, one in which sex is deliberately made irrelevant.

Quite, but you're banging your head against the wall trying to point this out to the born confused.

I thought Tandora meant that within the context of a discussion of 'trans issues', discussing the meaning and world-view of trans is more fundamental that discussing policy.
Not that 'trans issues' are more fundamental than any other political issue.

Are you as for the pp also ok with the weekly drownings in the Channel?

Plus people profiting from the risk people face

I agree. I think this is an interesting thread. I also think it's a shame that it's had to turn into a trans one, a political issue that should be dropped imo. And by dropped I mean a categorical no, it doesn't matter how you say you identity other people still have rights, you still have to abide by rules that apply to everyone else and keep out of other people's spaces.

Of course not. Which is why there need to be safe, legal routes for asylum seekers.

I think those who have pushed this without listening to women will expedite this outcome.

For me, at least, it’s not that.

I may have moved a little to the right over the last forty years, but the Labour Party has moved further. So I’m more to the left of the Labour party than I was in my twenties.

I don’t think they have much of a clue about gender and identity. But they don’t have much idea about socialism either.

They were very fortunate this year to come up against a Tory party who were undisguisably hopeless and self-serving.

I am very sorry, I realise I misread you.

Ah, thank you for understanding.

@NonPlayerCharacter
The object of power is power.

This is the heart of the matter. Some academics and intellectuals have gained power (and money and careers) by adopting a world-view in which gender takes precedence over sex, or even in which sex doesn't really exist.

Just as many on the left seek political power, and power over the speech and beliefs and ideas of others, by espousing this worldview. Imagining that you have the power to control what others are allowed to say, because you are on the side of 'the good people', is intoxicating.

This may come back to bite them as individuals. Pity the female academic who is bumped off a women-only prize list by a transwoman. Or cornered in a toilet cubical by a masturbating male.

Yes, I'm asking because you haven't managed to do it for decades. Trans people have been around for centuries, living their lives and accessing female spaces mostly without incident all that time. The only thing that's changed over the last decade is the visibility and with it the rhetoric.

Not at all. I'm allowing you your space. I'm just asking for one for me and for trans women - on OUR terms - just like you want yours on your terms.

The fact that you won't accept my proposal exposes your true motivations.

You pretend that it's about your boundaries and safety being eroded, but I have provided you a solution that protects your boundaries and safety on your terms. You won't have it.

What you want , is not to protect yourself, but to eliminate the inclusion and safety of trans women and to erase them from society.

Most women can tell what a man is no matter what he wears, we just don't care most of the time
Even during Covid mask wearing it was possible to tell.
Talking IRL here rather than in very filtered photos

You think that. I do not.

On another thread someone described it as, which sums it up for me -

Women - ‘Yes, of course you can come and sit at our table’
TRA’s - ‘no, I want your seat’.

trans identified people never pass, certainly not MtF. That any of them think they do and their well meaning friends and family tell them they do makes a lot of these issues happen (changing rooms, toilets) they think they should pass so they try