Spectator article: Don't fall for it people

[JenniferJames]

Comrades,

The framing of the self-id debate as 'Corbynistas vs. Mumsnet' is a deliberate tactic by the right wing propaganda machine and done to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party and paint it as hopelessly divided. We're not.

It is important to remember that only a Corbyn gov't will lift women out of poverty, build homes, invest in the economy, make tuition fees free and stop invading the Middle East. Jeremy, though he doesn't hold our position, is the only Labour MP who has not only come out and said that women are entitled to a debate and to campaign against self-id, but that we have a right to raise money to see if the Equalities Act 2010 exemptions are being misused by AWS.

Hope everyone is well. Mumsnet you are indeed mighty.

MN is not a corner of the internet, it is fully representative of all women from all walks of life.

Not only this, but perhaps what JC (and maybe you, too) don't realise is that there isn't a day that goes by without swathes of women posting on here about a disastrous personal experience of this issue.

It's not about a principal anymore.

Women whose children are coming home confused and crying because they think they should be the opposite sex. Women whose lesbian teenage daughters are being relentlessly abused online for not considering sex with men. Women who are competing against men, and their daughters competing against boys.

Adult lesbian women who can no longer meet publicly. Women who are married to transwomen autogynephiles and being relentlessly dragged into a nightmare of epic proportions. Whose children are confused because daddy is wearing a mini skirt and has changed his name.

Academics, a whole host of them, who vehemently disagree with the ideology but are petrified of losing their jobs. Doctors who are signing men off to go to female prisons, knowingly breaking their oath to do no harm.

Dozens of women whose children are coming out as trans, self harming and becoming more isolated and depressed as they get further through the process. Women whose children are autistic and are being sucked into the ideology. Looking at a future of lifelong medication, loss of sexual function and permanent sterility.

Women whose businesses are threatened and employers called. Being doxxed and sent despicable rape threats.

Guide leaders, youth leaders, teaches all floundering in a sea of misinformation and being forced to breach child safety protocols, willy-nilly, in order to accommodate this ideology.

And every other post starting with I can't say this at work because I'm too terrified but...

Why?????

Because a handful of men have a fucking disassociative disorder!!

And the other half are sexual fetishists.

This is a scandal of such epic proportions it's difficult to verbalise.

You've done a brilliant job Jennifer. I'm not blaming you.

But ANY politician who doesn't take ownership of this should be, and will be, utterly ashamed of themselves.

Lifelong floating voter, so I don't think your OP was really written with women like me in mind, Jennifer. But I have followed, and admired, your campaign.

The Lib Dems are as bad on self-ID I suspect? And Tories won't get my vote (austerity and bung to DUP). So there better not be a GE anytime soon, because like many others, I would have to spoil my ballot.

I want to see realistic Brexit policy, especially that preserves the GFA, and an end to women's rights being at the back of the queue.

If Jeremy tells his MPs to stop smooching up to Lily Madigan and inviting them to the House of Commons, I might start to think that he is supportive of women.

Until then, and while the whole Labour Party seems to be on board for men self identifying as women, I'll form my own views on the Spectator article thank you, Comrade.

Jennifer I've seriously considered voting tory after watching JC's declaration on Marr. Now I think I will vote Independent, even though my Tory MP has really fought hard for my community. But there's no convincing me to vote Labour again as it is. The Labour Party as it stands is a mob of misogynists.

I care about ALL females. Here and on every continent. Labour contradict themselves when they say they are the party for women. It's crap, actual bollocks.

I’ve got no intention of voting Tory just because I’m not voting labour. Not a bit of it.
Greens lost me with Non-Men
Labour with the self ID madness.
Libdems are lost and self ID too.

I’ll either vote independent or write why I’m not voting on the ballot. Only votes for or against will make the policy makers listen.

This thread is heavy on Labour, and I have no problem with that, what with me being a floating voter in a solid Labour constituency, so it doesn't matter what I vote

Just to ask - what are the other parties' stances on women's rights, though? I don't think it is as simple as "Labour are opposed to women's rights and Tories are braving this!!"

What I've seen so far is that none of the three major political parties are taking women seriously (Labour or Tory or Lib Dem)

Like Labour, the Tories and Lib Dems aren't taking women seriously either because of Brexit lunacy (however you voted and however you support)

Yes, I despair too, and if there was a Mumsnet gender-critical candidate, then I would vote for them.

It's a Tory policy. But I have no doubt that Labour would be proposing the same thing if they were in government. Unfortunately.

Jennifer - I want to offer my support and thanks.

But unfortunately many of us feel let down by Corbyn not only because of the self ID issue but also because of issues like Brexit and anti-semitism. You will see on so many threads here that there are large numbers of former female Labour members feeling incredibly sad because we simply have nobody left to support. Corbyn (and Momentum) have not really been a friend to women - this latest development is not a huge surprise to many of us.

But, more importantly, thank you for all you have done. I desperately hope that there are some in the Labour Party who will listen, and start to create the real alternative to the Tories that we so desperately need.

If you care about women, you care about ALL women

Yes, and that caring has been monumentally taken for granted, manipulated and subverted.

It's not enough any more for Labour (and the Lib Dems, Greens and WEP) to point to the Tories. I want LABOUR to stop fucking with women's rights.

This is a TORY policy, remember, let's not pretend otherwise

Tory policies have bugger all to do with Labour Party own rules which have seen a transwoman elected as a CLP Women's Officer (complete with lots of pouting photos with JC himself). And has transwomen on a party programme to increase female representation at Westminster

Tory policies have bugger all to do with JC declaring on national media that a transwoman is a woman

This isn't about party politics, but the Labour Party has it entirely within its gift to lead the way on this issue, but chooses not to do so - worse, it chooses to push women firmly under the bus. At least senior Tories are saying that the government is taking time to pause on the previous proposals and consider what the unintended consequences might be. At least one senior Tory (Amber Rudd) has given an assurance that they intend to keep the exemptions on sex in the GRA regarding women only spaces.

From the Labour party....? With only a couple of honorable exceptions (Caroline Flint, thank you for what you do), silence or silencing of dissent.

Jennifer, it stinks. And asking women to just hang in there for JC to finally get round to reading up on what the problem is smacks of asking turkeys to just wait until December because the farmer is bound to realise that something unfair is on the way

Brexit. Anti-semitism. And now this shit.

I'm a former dyed-in-the-wool Labour voter. But no more. I could weep.

Please do pass the message on :

Jennifer, it stinks. And asking women to just hang in there for JC to finally get round to reading up on what the problem is smacks of asking turkeys to just wait until December because the farmer is bound to realise that something unfair is on the way

It's a false dichotomy to present this as a choice between the Tories or Labour. The Tories don't care about women. Their policies have shown that time and time again ...
but Labour are throwing women under the bus in the most fundamental way and they have no right to expect women to wait for the party to decide if 'women' as a sex class are worth saving.
Failing to define women impacts everything from education to representation.
Labour had an open goal here. They're the ones that have turned it into an own goal. It's not women leaving Labour. Labour left women.

@JenniferJames

So much I disagree with in your last post I don't know where to start.

I know that socialism offers the best hope for women, even if we lose the self-id argument.

Err, no. If we lose the self id argument it's definitely not an ideology I want to support or can possibly think of any argument that would mean I could suggest that any women could see any "hope" in a movement/party/philosophy that throws half the population under a bus.

We cannot pretend to fight for women and ignore that women to improve things for all marginalised groups.

Struggling with the grammar here but, essentially supporting marginalised groups should notbeat the expense of those also oppressed and marginalised. As to your point about "ignoring that woman" do you mean men here?

Yes to fighting for equality. Yes to the Trans community being free from prejudice. Yes to them having their own safe spaces.

But no - you can't even pretend to fight for women when you refuse to acknowledge what a woman bloody well is .

Think on. And don't mention Blair.. he was a tory, too.

Ahh the new party line...I can hear the cries of Blairite, but frankly I'm immune having been called out on this repeatedly because I am left of centre...Blair wasn't a Tory FFS, he was a moderate and that's considered heresy in this day and age...

Here's the thing though - I'd much rather have an electable left of centre Labour Party than the Tories in power.

There's this mass delusion in certain ranks of the party that an ultra left Govt is a possibility. It's not.

We just have many years much akin to the Foot/Kinnock leadership to wait for someone actually electable to come to the fore. It's going to take a while though when the last election lost was considered a victory

It is important to remember that only a Corbyn gov't will lift women out of poverty...
Don't you mean a Corbyn government will lift men who identify as women out of poverty by displacing women? That seems a recipe to drive women into poverty rather than lifting them out.
Corbyn needs to wake the eff up because we are way past wanting to debate with him whether or not males who identify as women are entitled by law to unfettered access to women in various state of undress.
That sound you are hearing is women saying no.

My take on this - I'm a lifelong leftist, and I want to be able to support the Labour party. I have no personal attachment to Corbyn and find the whole Dear Leader thing a lot of people are doing about him a bit weird, but if he was to come out against the self ID shit tomorrow he'd have my full support. Post Grenfell he looked like the kind of political figure it would be possible to rally around, and wish he hadn't decided to piss away that goodwill over this issue.

However, I'm also a feminist, and if the party makes me choose between socialism and fighting for the safety and privacy of women, I will choose women. I don't want to have to make that choice. The fact that I'm being backed into that corner makes me very angry. I want the misogynists and the cowards within the party who're playing along with this shit to stop and to act like women matter. But, again, if the choice is support Labour with the party leader having promised to implement self-ID or to withdraw my support, then withdrawing my support is what I will do. And I won't be the only one.

Be smart, Labour party, and don't force us to make that choice.

Unlike the pp, I think an ultra-Left government is a possibility. But then, I stopped voting Labour under Blair.

I understand how frustrating it is to see certain factions in Labour use self-id against Corbyn. However, those factions are deluded if they think women will blame this policy solely on Corbyn. We know all the Labour politicians who have failed to speak and who have failed women.

What concerns me is that, in my mind, all this Self-ID stuff is straight out of the right-wing neoliberal / libertarian handbook. The idea that we're all little bubbles of identity, which we can define for ourselves, to suit ourselves, irrespective of the impact that has on society.

I'm soft left, barely a Labour voter at all really (I have voted Labour, but not for at least a decade) and find it depressing that so-called socialists have adopted this libertarian position in the name of appeasing the youth vote. The young people of today, even the lefties, have a vein of Thatcherism running through them, and that is what Momentum are exploiting.

It says to me that Corbyn's socialism is all about exploiting whatever the political flavour of the month is, because once they're in power they'll be able to do whatever it is that they really wanted to do in the first place. Self-ID is a means to an end, Corbyn doesn't need to understand because it doesn't make a big difference to his grand plan. If women get thrown under the bus? Women are acceptable collateral damage for an old-school socialist like Corbyn.

But for Momentum? I'm very concerned with this mix of right-wing libertarianism and left-wing authoritarianism. No Brexit debate at the Labour Party Conference. No debate anywhere about Self-ID. Momentum turning Corbyn into a charismatic leader (e.g. at Glastonbury). The talk about increasing democracy within Labour is purely to ride the wave of populism and get socialists into positions of power in the Party. Antisemitism is downplayed, but transphobia is unacceptable. Give the youth their libertarianism on Self-ID, but not their liberalism on Europe - pander to the Leave xenophobia instead. It's hard to see where the idealism begins and the hypocrisy ends in their quest for power.

JJ, I respect your dedication to the cause, and I hate the Tories as much as you do, but I don't see this as the honourable and just fight that you do. The way I see it, Momentum trying to play both ends against the centrist middle (and so defeat the Blairites in the PLP) has opened the door for the Brexit-supporting right in England, and that in turn has opened the door for the hard-right in the Tory party.

By pp, I meant Darth .

If you vote for a tory government which sells arms to a murderous Saudi regime, deliberately starving Yemeni families. A gov't which supports apartheid Israel. Which sells arms to IDF soldiers who shoot teenage girls at the checkpoints on the way to school. This is your choice to make. But don't pretend to care about women. If you care about women, you care about ALL women.
How effing dare you frame this as women don't care about women if they refuse to support an abusive party and vote for a different abusive party.
Do not try to manipulate women with authoritarian abuse tactics.

Blair was a total capitalist cuckoo in the nest - no doubt about it - and
we are suffering from his policies.

But even Blair did not propose that men who "feel they are women" are actual women!

Corbyn and the momentum-led Labour Party are offering no real alternative to the Tories. Even if the self-ID issue wasn’t there, Corbyn is pro-brexit, and wants to leave the single market.

All his policies on the nhs and public services will be a complete waste of time when the economy tanks after a hard brexit. Which he supports. Where will the money come from to save the nhs?

It’s a shambles on both sides of the house.

Well I’m in Scotland so Jeremy Corbyn means heehaw to me and I’d rather set my self on fire than vote Scottish Labour, they are a joke. But, never in my lifetime will I vote Tory. I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hopefully the SNP will open their eyes and not continue down there current road to self-ID.

I can’t even vote Scottish Greens either as their leader is a misogynist twat. I think the only hope for Scottish women who are pro independence is the Women for Independence Party, they are doing great stuff for actual women and have avoided trans infiltration so far.

Does anyone else on the team this thread/lurkers sense the OP is either being manipulated by Labour or is not JJ?