The US ultra-right should leave the UK alone!!!

[StandFirm]

I was going to use a rude expletive in the thread title to truly reflect my thoughts on this. I've known about this insidious creeping influence for a little while but reading the article in the link below has made me livid. We are not going to be censored by foreign actors who understand nothing about our culture. I have often observed a false sense of familiarity among Brits regarding American culture but it goes both ways, and this attempt at dragging us along into the dark pit of ignorance should stay the fuck away from here:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/14/librarians-in-uk-increasingly-asked-to-remove-books-as-influence-of-us-pressure-groups-spreads

And which current prime minister declared that TWAW and that some women have penises?

Labour introduced the GRA.

Lisa Nandy said that it was transphobic to say that male pedophile rapists should be in male prisons because the pedophile identified as trans.

No one is exempt from shitting on women. Least of all the current government.

So you stand for books which encourage children to a pathway of self harm and bodily mutilation.

Nice.

Ah well, since we still have free speech in this country, I shall happily tell them to fuck right off and while they are at it, they can shove their bigotry so far up their arses it makes their eyes water.

Oh and to add.

We used to do gender non conforming perfectly well before the ghouls came along.

My daughter wore batman suits and was brought up to believe a girl can be anything (apart from a boy beause that's not possible)

And my son enjoyed parading around in princess dresses and pushing dolls in buggys and , guess what, is now a perfectly rounded young man.

What you support is the regressive side. If children like things that are stereotypically for the opposite sex they are now encouraged to believe that their bodies can change (be mutilated) to look like they are the opposite sex, because the TRAs have succeeded in putting people back in gendered boxes. Slow . Hand. Clap.

But on to the actual point of the post. We don't have true freedom of speech in the UK either.

Only have to look at what has happened to women who have been doxxed, hounded out of jobs or even visited by the police for trying to stand up for women's rights to single sex spaces or for speaking out to try to protect children from harm.

What is happening in the USA is clearly abhorrent. Trump/ Musk clearly have a De-stablisation agenda which is working. Frightening times.

I wish both sides of the US political spectrum would stop meddling in other countries' politics, TBH.

And which current prime minister declared that TWAW and that some women have penises?*

Fortunately he corrected himself before becoming PM. Unlike PM Johnson, who as sitting PM refused to say that only women have a cervix. But I suppose he was following on from PM Theresa May's introduction of Self ID. Both of which lead to PM Liz Truss's reduction in the price of a GRC to a fiver.

That's before we get into the rest of their divisive, misogynist, incompetent bullshit. You can't trust the right anymore, never mind the American Ultra-right who want to ban books.

I'm not arguing for free speech in absolute terms. I was just pointing out the irony of the previous poster who was agreeing with a pro-speech article with an argument that speech from their political opponents should be banned.

I think the question of how and whether to regulate the types of opinions that people can express is an incredibly difficult one for any democracy. For almost any topic where one person says 'that is harmful hate speech' someone else will say 'that is my free speech opinion' etc.

And this problem is even harder in a world of social media where some speech can reach large groups of people and with very little human oversight - algorithms or bad actors can push extreme opinions and make them look mainstream.

so there probably does need to be some form of regulation and fact-checking. But just arguing 'I don't like the politics of those people and therefore they shouldn't be able to say stuff' is never going to be a strong argument.

Yes, this is what I was thinking too.

You have articulated this very well.

The problem is that people complaining about books like Grandad's Pride (spoiler: it's not just about someone's nice grandad being gay) or that one with the diagram of a girl's body which labels her breasts as "fatty lumps that need to be cut off" will have been lumped in with people who don't believe gay relationships should be represented in literature.

I don't think people are worried about their children being sympathetic towards trans people, more that these books glorify self harm.

You're so tribal it's funny really.

Truth is, neither side has been good on women's rights in the face of the trans activism.

Let's see what happens on Wednesday after the FWS judgement is handed down.

IF Labour can find it within itself to accept that the GRC was a god awful piece of legislation which has enabled men to alter their birth certificates and become legal women and pledge to overhaul it and the Equality Act to protect women then I might be able to support them again, I voted for them in every election bar the last one when I actually abstained because there was no suitable candidate.

That being said being the mother of vulnerable disabled teens I've got other reasons to be pissed off with the current Labour government. Small wonder that FIVE of our local Labour councillors (including the leader) have resigned their Labour membership in the last month because Labour no longer follows its core values.

I don't want to derail into a political thread. But I can't leave your comments unchallenged.

Labour have work to do on this issue. I suspect you are just ideologically blind to it.

Read about the most banned books in the US

https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2025/

You know what's #1?

19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult about the time leading up to a school shooting and the aftermath.

You're so tribal it's funny really.

There's nothing funny about what the last government did to women. We are a Sex, not a Tribe.

Blimey the NRA has some influence.

I mean't politically tribal but you've actually just proven my point.

It would be absolutely lovely if a government would put women first wouldn't it?

Still waiting.

Why am I not surprised to see The Handmaid's Tale on there?

Politically tribal? What are you talking about? Are you talking about my utter disgust at what the Tories did to women? I don't think that's "tribal", it's ubiquitous amongst feminists.

If people can't think for themselves the US is not to blame, are humans retaining less brain cells as they get older?

And I'm talking about the fact that Labour are not much better. Best leave you to your rose tinted specs Too Big.

Never had a female Labour Prime Minister.

Labour introduced the GRC and said no amendments are required to the Equality Act to protect single sex spaces.

Labour have introduced a raft of policies, many turning their back on Labour core values since the election which disproportionately impact females who take on the bulk of the caring responsibility in this country.

As I said before I would love a political party to actually give a shit about women.

Labour has a chance. They are in Government now so the spot light is on them not the last Government. I hope they take it and revoke the GRC and amend the EquA and then start to actually think about the disproportionate impact of their policies on women.

Fingers crossed but I doubt it.

If you come back to harp on about how awful the Tories were, don't bother, I know.

What interests me now is looking forward not backwards.

You mean that the Gender Recognition Act that Labour were legally required to inact, following a ECtHR decision?

And you're not being tribal?

ElbowsUp

What instances of women advocating for their rights have been "shut down ferociously" by the UK government?

She didn't say the Government, she said "the left." Alison Bailey, Maya Forstater, Kath Stock and Jo Phoenix, among numerous others have been bullied and hounded mercilessly by trans zealots - usually seen as being on the left.

There are libraries which refused to stock, or hid copies of Stock's "Material Girls," as well as other feminist books. Trans zealots in publishing companies refused to let them publish etc.

Zealots at the Guardian drove Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman out, rather than let them express their free speech.

It's not just one side, it's extremists on the left and right, which are a problem.

And I'm talking about the fact that Labour are no better.

You should check out FWR. They have threads about what this government are doing. They're doing better than the last one wrt women's rights to single sex spaces.

You should also check your political tribalism. I'm a feminist, my tribe is women.

So I read the article… it seems a bit light in evidence that the US is meddling. Did I miss it or was there something pointing to US involvement?

Do you have a source for that?

Either way I don't believe that ECtHR prevents Labour from amending the Equality Act to confirm that woman (sex) is different from woman (legal - aka men) when it comes to single sex exemptions or provisions?

If they were to do so there would obviously be the anomaly of the legal fiction of false documentation such as passports and birth certificates BUT women's single sex spaces could be protected. The GRC was never intended to remove sex based rights in the equality act otherwise there would not be two separate pcs of sex and gender. Obviously it is well publicised that Labour rejected calls to amend the Equality Act saying they were unnecessary which is why the outcome of Wednesday's judgement will be so important.

At the time afaik it was a work around for the fact that gay marriage was at that point illegal.

I feel like this is a thread derail but I wasn't aware of that fact and I'm always interested to be corrected or told I am wrong if that turns out to be the case.