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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

labour party. please can somebody read and think for me?

40 replies

nolurkynolighty · 20/11/2017 14:21

should i cancel my labour party membership? genuine question. was pro corbyn..... and until very recently would have said i was pro trans.

i am currently having to limit the amount of reading i do around TRA stuff because of the amount of sexual abuse in my past. i am dealing with this stuff but slowly. what i read keeps making me physically terrified when in reality my actual day to day life, stuff is pretty good.

please help. in all other areas i am less spineless i promise! and i usually like to form my own opinions. it is just i have realised i need to look after my self for a bit so am stepping back. but i need to know if the labour party should be getting my support and money or not.

OP posts:
PigletWasPoohsFriend · 20/11/2017 20:31

I left when Corbyn became leader.

LassWiTheDelicateAir · 21/11/2017 00:27

I meant to leave but forgot to cancel my standing order in time and as I pay yearly in advance it would mean nothing if I left now and there might be things I can vote in coming up.

I voted for Anas Sarwar for Scottish leader. I am on the right of the party, basically a Blairite. I don't trust Corbyn an inch. For all Scottish elections I will be voting Conservative and for Westminster, Lib Dem.

Mumsnut · 21/11/2017 07:04

That 19 year old man has now been put forward for a Jo Cox scholarship.

wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool · 21/11/2017 08:25

I’m also politically homeless at the moment and it feels awful. I don’t know who I will vote for next time. I’ve always voted either Labour or Green, depending on local or national and what constituency I lived in. Both of those parties have thrown women under the bus.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give up your membership but you should probably say why you re doing it.

A side note is I’ve become more interested in Anarchism over the last few years but of course anarchists have some terrible problems with trans activists, however they also have Helen Steeleand I think the idea that I can contribute to society though mutual aid and through my own individual efforts makes more sense to me at the moment.

I am right off party politics. I’ve long thought the old categories of right and left had become meaningless anyway.

TheCopyist · 21/11/2017 08:32

I left the party after giving Corbyn a bit of a chance. There were many reasons for my decision but a lot of it was around the issue of antisemitism. It hurt a lot of my Jewish friends and, as I consider myself an anti-racist, I couldn't stay in the party. I did however join an affiliated group in order to still play some part.

The decision is clearly ultimately up to you but you don't need to be a member of a party to be active.

Good luck with making the right decision for you

Elendon · 21/11/2017 08:33

I personally don't think you should let them know the reasons why you are doing it. You will just be labelled a bigot and a terf and they will think 'well rid'.

Make it a silent protest. No more money, no more time for campaigning. No reason why. Just leave.

Refuse to give a reason why if asked. Your decision is personal and confidential.

Elendon · 21/11/2017 08:40

Oh and if anyone wants to see a documentary then I suggest you watch this. It was on last night. Available for the next 29 days from today

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09gtywy/labour-the-summer-that-changed-everything

It had the famous conference speech from Neil Kinnock about a Labour council going around in taxis to deliver redundancy notes to its own workers - very apt now.

Also the family who named their daughter the Russian form for Princess (because she is a little princess). Ugh!

Elendon · 21/11/2017 08:41

redundancy notices

ArcheryAnnie · 21/11/2017 09:11

nolurkeynolighty what's your local MP or candidate like? I'm a natural Labour voter, can't abide the Tories, and this has shaken my confidence - but I'm also in a constituency where the local MP (centre-left Labour) is reasonably good and willing at least to listen to me on trans issues, isn't throwing women under the bus, etc etc, which has enabled me to carry on supporting him.

unplugmefromthematrix · 21/11/2017 09:38

I think we have to fight the issue from within - clearly (given the misogyny) a women's party would not gain enough support from voters (male or female and would only split the vote that they would get. Labour is what we make it and we cannot give up.

Walking away would only allow the bastard post modern gaslighters to win - clearly no one cares what women think when we say it loudly, so no one will care if women walk away and do something else ineffective by ourselves. They would actually be happy if we did!

On donkey's (I think) point about organisation (and infiltration) - it could be said that the organisation strategy employed is one that is inherently not open to women;

Transwomen are less likely to be tied down with childcare/ default parenting than many women are (if the transwomen even have children),

Just gaining an audience is easier for TW - TW are trendy/ scary and so must be seen to be addressed if nothing else - womens groups? ah well same old same old, in the end they will just go away and do the washing.

Do many men still see TW as (still) more man than woman and thus (unconsciously even) take them more seriously than women.

Combine this with the vigour of youth and male privilege in asserting their natural (male) right to be heard and taken seriously (and the funding), well, how do women actually have a chance to be as effective?

So if the trans supporters have got this far by infiltration and persistence then women need to not walk away from Labour.

DonkeySkin · 21/11/2017 11:01

So if the trans supporters have got this far by infiltration and persistence then women need to not walk away from Labour.

Unplug, yes, this is part of my point. I don't know what women have to gain by exiling themselves from all the major political parties, although I absolutely understand why they'd want to.

I had an interesting conversation with my dad the other week about political organising (he has been active in the Australian Labor Party for more than 40 years), and he made the point that the political direction of any party or organisation is shaped by those who turn up to meetings, press their friends into going, form voting blocs, etc. It doesn't necessarily reflect the will of the majority of party members - just the most persistent ones. He was saying this as part of a larger point about how extremist movements, on the left and the right, gain power.

I realise that I'm speaking as an outsider to UK politics, but I wonder if it would not be better for Labour women who oppose gender identity doctrine to organise and strategise rather than leave. Like, say, form a bloc ('Fair Play for Women'? SexNotGender'?) and put pressure on local branches and the party at large to recognise the legal and social importance of bio sex, oppose the medicalisation of children, etc. Arrange private meetings with MPs who might be sympathetic. Hold public meetings like the one at the Labour conference (We need to talk about Gender). Of course TRAs and their supporters will try to shut all this down, have women expelled, and will get very, very nasty in their tactics against individual women.

I'm not underestimating the risks the people's livelihoods, safety and emotional wellbeing at all here. And I realise it's not my place to lecture anybody about what they should do. I'm just musing over tactics. Women are losing SO badly here, and one of the reasons is the TRAs are highly organised and completely ruthless in pursuit of their agenda, and we are not. At the moment the UK is at the centre of resistance to gender identity ideology. It's the only place where there is ANY mainstream public debate happening. If UK women are able to stop the passage of the GRA, this will represent a huge shift in momentum against the worldwide march of the trans movement steamrolling over women's rights. It could change the conversation in all Anglophone countries, and others as well.

Transwomen are less likely to be tied down with childcare/ default parenting than many women are (if the transwomen even have children)

Yes this is a HUGE part of why women are losing too. Most women are too busy with care work, be it child care, housework or elder care (often all three) to match the huge number of hours that obsessive men can dedicate to this issue. Hell, most women are too busy to even NOTICE that this is going on. (As I type this, my toddler has woken up and is calling for me!) Incidentally, that's one reason why I NEVER refer to trans-identified males as 'gender non-conforming' or say that they are 'living as women' or taking on the 'feminine gender role'. Because they don't. Like most men, they are oblivious to the fact that 'living as a woman' in every society involves shouldering the burden of care for others and putting others' needs before your own, and the fact that NO ONE expects them to shows that no one really believes they are women, either.

Elendon · 21/11/2017 11:33

But Labour don't care about winning now. So long as the ideology is in place winning comes second.

They have their pensions in place and the grasp of those who think they are their saviours. Let's be clear about this.

The only way Labour can win is to be attractive to all members of society. The many, not the few.

Meanwhile a highly incompetent Conservative government is in power. I despair.

wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool · 21/11/2017 11:45

Fantastic comment Donkey skin, thank you. Yes Fair play for women is a good example of organising and is having an effect. It’s difficult for me to be out as gender critical at work but I am talking to people face to face and I am proud to have peaked at lest 5 people so far. One of them a local Labour Party organiser, so that’s great.

Walkingtowork · 21/11/2017 12:51

I'm staying, if only for my votes in the internal elections.

unplugmefromthematrix · 21/11/2017 13:20

Excellent thoughts and words donkey. You are so articulate, as are so many of you posting on this issue. I wish it got us further, but then logic and reasoning does not seem to be held in high regard any more :( men just moving the goalposts again

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