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.

As far as I can tell every party has thrown women under the bus on this issue.

All the parties are the same, in theory. In practise, I don't think the SNP have given any women's officer's roles to trans women yet.

Can you mandate belief?
Can you codify into law the idea that some people can mind over matter themselves out of material reality and into the opposite sex, and must be treated accordingly?
It is like transubstantiation. A belief that no one actually believes.
Will you allow people to drug and mutilate children based on this belief that no one believes?

I left Labour because of this and contributed to your campaign. Where is the democratic in democratic socialism, labour falls at the first hurdle. the first time labour is challenged to defend democratic values- epic fail.
Right-wingers-specifically Jordan Peterson -say socialism inevitably leads to the gulag. I'm beginning to believe it! Momentum appointing 16 male regional officials doesn't increase my confidence in the labour party. Without democracy and free speech the LP is dead to me.
But thank you Jennifer for fighting for our rights.

JJ get a clue phone. Women are more and more disillusioned with this man. He has put a tiny group's invasive interests in destroying half the population's rights. That's patriarchal and it's insane that you pretend that he is unaware of the vast threats to women's safety and our right to have female only sports teams. It is now getting to be a joke in our family to read the news--on a daily basis there are more and more males on girls sports' teams, males over representing the trans community in every way. You are treating Corbyn as a god, not a politician. And your OP stinks and it is quasi delusional. The right is not positioning anything here. Corbyn has made his bed let him toast in it.

"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." You should be a comedian.

Our job - yours and mine - is not to "hold the Tories to account".

The Tories are not the natural party of England, that we must somehow soften. No.

We take power. We take it together.

Then we eradicate misogyny. We stop this growing inequality in its tracks. We change the world.

Placards in drizzle serve a purpose.

But to truly change things we must take power.

Do you want to change the world? Or are you happy with our current situation?

I haven’t Rtf yet but wanted to comment before I go back and read it. Apologies if it’s moved on and my comment is irrelevant.
Firstly, thank you for speaking out on this. I fear what will happen to me professionally if I post anything gender critical anywhere other than here. I can only imagine how stressful it’s been.
Secondly, as an outsider to the LP I am worried by what I see and hear. I am a natural Labour ally, agree with much of what JC says and voted Labour at the last election. Given this I am finding it hard to be able to reconcile myself to voting Labour again with all that is happening- Lily Madigan, Linda Bellos, Owen Jones and the general behaviour of Momentum. It increasingly seems like LP are purging itself of any dissidents from JC/Momentum’s view and while I am no Blairite (in fact disagree with him on a lot of issues) I worry JC through his inaction, as well as actions, is making himself unelectable.

Right - my first post on Mumsnet - I am precisely one of those lurkers made aware of self-ID by the threads here.

I am not a Labour voter, but donated to the Gofundme campaign because it seemed like something could be done to draw attention to the issue, so that we don't as a country just sleepwalk in to a measure that could have permanent and serious consequences.

I am really sick of the attitude of Jennifer James here and on Twitter. To have any chance of success, opposition to self-ID has to reach out to ALL women in this country, left/right/centre whatever.

This 'comrades', 'sisters', 'wonderful Jeremy' crap sounds as mantra-drone like as 'Transwomen are women'
No wonder comments after sensible articles by people like Janice Turner are so often along the lines of "Ha ha! The left is eating itself".

I don't need Jennifer James to Momentumsplain to me how to be a feminist. Her lefty-pals do that quite enough. If she doesn't want the contribution of all women to an issue affecting all women, just the right kind of socialist woman - then I will email to ask for my donation back.

Oh and an MP opposing self-ID is Margot James apparently, but of course maybe that doesn't count because she's a Tory and maybe Jennifer, like Laura Piddock, doesn't actually want to speak to Tories.

Secondly, as an outsider to the LP

Join us! Change us!

We can be whatever you want us to be!

Goodness, this thread is weird.

I was happy to donate to your fundraiser, Jennifer and I think you're astonishingly brave to be taking on this fight. But the debate needs to happen at a higher level than "Blurgh, you're such a Tory" when people don't entirely share your politics. Your OP was about not letting this debate be weaponised by people who want to divide us - so don't do the work for them!

We are your allies on this fight. Absolutely. But being a centrist isn't a character flaw, and supporting Corbyn isn't a prerequisite. I would give up my vote and never vote ever again rather than vote Tory, but I simply cannot vote for Labour under Corbyn because the authoritarianism mixed with the cult of personality repels me.

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader.

Don't like him? Let's vote him out!

I don't for a moment believe that the Labour would listen to women's concerns once they are in power if they don't listen to them while they are in opposition.

Comrades is this a Russian thread?

Agree this is an interesting thread. Looks like a thread designed to divide and weaken.

@LittleLebowski

Well said.

I’ve also contributed to the crowdfunder, even though the thought of JC in power scares the bjesus out of me. Happy to reach across the aisle and support leftie and Labour women in getting this crap out of their party. Pretending that we’re all comrades and believe in the godlike powers of JC to save women from poverty is going to do immense harm to WOMEN’S work against self-ID.

Glad you’re ok JJ and not having a go. I guess I just wanted to express that this is bigger than the Labour Party, and labour women who leave over it aren’t necessarily wrong to do so.

We are very divided on this issue and it will only get worse if Jeremy doesn't listen.

"We take power. We take it together.

Then we eradicate misogyny. We stop this growing inequality in its tracks. We change the world."

The thing is mate, women have been told this bullshit for years. That after we give our time, money, physical and emotional labour to a cause. After we support men taking power then, out of thanks, they will start taking out concerns seriously and stop treating us like shit.

Thing is it's bollocks though. And I'm not going to hang around for the scraps from the patriarchy table anymore. This is the hill I'm willing to die on. This is the single most important issue to me right now. I have always been a lefty, I've always voted labour except when it was tactical not to. But I can't vote for a party that doesn't believe I exist.

Labour needs to sort this out. Please listen to us.

By the way I was thinking about the 12 million unique users thing.

So there are approximately 33million women in the U.K. approx 7 million are under 18 so 26 million voting age women. So 12 million women represents 46% of the female, voting age population.

Now I don't know how many of those users are male or based overseas. A random guess but lets say 1 million of each so 10 million female, uk based users. That's 38% of the adult women in the country visit the site once a month.

There are a lot of us and we are pissed off.

Talking of support across the political divide maybe our next step should be to reach out to netmums too!

By divide and weaken I meant divide and weaken the solidarity of gender critical women. This issue cuts across politics as it affects all women.

The idea that anyone who doesn't think Corbyn is the solution to all our problems is a Tory is ludicrous. I'd like him a lot more if people would stop treating him like we were in the Matrix and he was an older, bearded Keanu Reeves! I'm still hoping he'll come around on this, because it would be a lot easier to sort this mess out if he did, but at this point my trust level in everyone in politics is at an all time low given the way things have played out on this issue so far and I have a lot more faith in a coalition of women being what stops it.

Could MN HQ invite a web chat with every party leader/spokesperson for women, ideally along with a gender critical party member?

I would very much like to see a bunch of women force Maria Miller to explain why she unleashed this shit on all of us in the first place. Justine Greening too, though she at least seems to be backing down a little.

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.

Wait, WHAT?

That is the exact same argument that TRAs use to guilt-trip bright eyed ideologue students. I'm not a bright eyed student any more and I recognise it for what it is.

Yes, the Tory party does some epically bad things, which is why I don't vote for them, but let's face it so does Labour. I resigned my membership after Labour's sustained legislative attack on asylum seekers (continued with enthusiasm by everyone else). I don't recall Labour putting an embargo on arms sales when they were in power. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the Lib Dems who pursued a misguided war in Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq.

I do care about all women, and this is an issue which affects all women.

Jennifer, I am a floating lefty voter. I’ve voted Labour, Green or Lib Dem over the years, currently a WEP member, voted Labour in the last general election. I donated to your crowd funder as this is such a key, cross-party issue. I don’t really care either way about Corbyn but I admit I find the personality cult disturbing.

I think you have done an amazing job, you’ve bought this issue out into the daylight, increased awareness exponentially, and triggered debate not just in your party but more importantly in the media and amongst people of all political colours. The fact is that Labour cannot get into power without convincing floating voters to support them. You have to be cleverer than just writing people off because they’re not Corbynistas.

I follow you on Twitter, and your posts there and here are beginning to sound quite concerning on a personal level. Please consider taking a break, I hope you have some friends/family/support around, we all have to prioritise self-care and our own mental health when we step into these arenas. Please don’t take this as a personal attack or criticism - I admire you enormously and applaud your courage to stand up. We - women - need you to be able to keep doing that, for all of us, not just Corbyn worshippers. Solidarity, sister, but please, look after yourself, you can’t carry on the fight if you’re unwell.

Yeah, what she said. "Put your own life vest on first" is always solid advice. You got the ball rolling, Jennifer, it's OK to take a rest now if you need it.

I haven't RTFT yet, just wanted to say, I'm a lifelong Labour supporter but I left the party at the end of last year and will not vote for them (or anyone else) while this is an issue. I would have loved to be able to stay and change things from within, but as it's apparently not open for debate that is impossible. The only way I could register my opposition was to leave and to write explaining why I had left.

Suggesting that women should just stuck it up and vote Labour anyway, is suggesting that they should vote not only against their own best interests but against those of half the population. I can't imagine any other group of people be told they should do that.