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.

I donated to the crowdfunder under my real name. I think this issue is critically important. But I've never voted Labour, and I don't intend to unless Corbyn or whoever replaces him someday is willing to say that a woman is an adult human female. That this is even controversial shows how far we've come from the realm of sensible debate. I'd vote for any party willing to take a reasonable view on this.

I'd describe myself as a social libertarian. All the libertarians I know believe not only in individual freedom but in rationality and objective reality. It is the height of irrationality to say that a penis is female. It's postmodern nonsense. It also harms women. I differ from American libertarians in that my economic views are more centre-right - I considered voting Tory in the last election, but couldn't do it due to their dreadful education policy and attitudes towards disabled people claiming benefits. I'm pro-Brexit.

All that is to say that I'm not your natural ally. But for this one issue? I'm happy to have 'comrades' from all across the political spectrum. Gender-critical women don't need to be divided based on whether we support Corbyn or not, or whether we vote Labour or not. It doesn't help.

And I won't be voting Tory (what a weird assumption, that Labour members would suddenly turn blue), I won't vote at all. As it stands I plant to go and spoil my ballot paper. I have never not voted but at the moment I can't because there is no one for me to vote for.

I’d have more faith if the ‘list makers’ had been suspended and the not so secret group taken down.
As for the Unions, given the fact that Kiri Tunks, Ruth Serwotka and Paul Embery have been speaking out for months, why should others be scared of voicing their opinions?

These are not arguments. Formulate an argument or sit tf down.

To be fair, your 'arguments' have not been particularly well thought out on this thread, so you've a bit of a cheek tbh.

This: Do not try to manipulate women with authoritarian abuse tactics. is a prescient comment - you are doing exactly what the TRA & wet lettuce MPs, trade unions & party 'leaders' are.

LittleLebowski's post at 07:04 - I recommend you take all of that on board Jennifer - your current approach is alienating, at best.

And FURTHERMORE I have nothing but contempt for right wingers from any party (especially those in Labour actually) who are happy to put their boots on the throats of the working class if it will help them cosy up to the business class. I'm glad to have you as enemies and I don't want your approval or your support

To everyone else - solidarity

Hang on one fucking minute.

Did anyone else just catch a huge whiff of TRA?

Did anyone else just catch a huge whiff of TRA?

No, that's a Momentum tactic - if you aren't in full agreement with them you support fascists. It's all a bit Rik from the Young Ones, but nastier and more likely to punch you.

I say if you don't like it:

Change it!

Togethef we can win.

Apart we lose.

We know this to be true.

JJ, I hope you're still reading.
This is bigger than Corbyn, bigger than Labour or Tory, bigger than where people are on the political spectrum.
This is a female fight, and most of us outraged by this are female, with some trans and male allies.
If we divide over over our political leanings, then they have won already.
We need to speak loudly, and with one voice, how this is fucking unacceptable to all women.

I have great admiration for you, and I think you have been unbelievably brave sticking your neck out on this.
We need to work together

*I say if you don't like it:

Change it!*

How are we supposed to change anything if the people who have the power to bring about the change refuse to even allow any discussion of the thing that needs to be changed?

Wow, great publicity for MN. I notice how busy the feminism threads are these days.

I have a lot more faith in a coalition of women being what stops it.

Me too. This has gone way beyond party politics.

Surely the question should more be: why is the left-wing press NOT tackling this issue as it should be? I think the focus of criticism should be here, and not picking apart and finding fault with the motivations of the right-wing press that does cover it.

Another bigger question is: why has Labour moved so comprehensively away from class-based analysis and embraced identity politics so thoroughly?

As has been said, Corbyn needs absolutely no help in ripping apart the Labour party. The Labour party stance, and his stance, on self ID is clear for all to see. Frankly, I find it patronising and arrogant in the extreme for him to 'allow' women debate and to campaign against self-ID. None of us need his permission to do this.

It's not just self-ID - it's the way women are treated more widely in the party, particularly at the hands of Momentum. It's his support for full decriminalisation of prostitution. It's his and his party's inability to handle antisemitism. Self-ID may be the main issue for some of us, it may be the straw that broke the camel's back for others, or it may be the latest in a string of objectionable occurrences in the Labour party.

I am glad that these issues are being discussed in the wider press and if at the moment that is predominantly the right-leaning press, so be it. It is the left-leaning press that needs to wake up to these issues, not readers of those articles that do exists who need to 'de-code' the 'real' motivations behind those articles that do exist and then discount what they have read.

JenniferJames If you ars who you say you are then your last 2 posts absolutely stink.

I would love to be able to vote Labour. I cannot vote for a party pro self ID, let alone actively and complicity silencing women.

The best chance of a Labour that wins back women's vote on this is to crack the transphobia bollocks and have a proper open debate.

There is space to do this on the Tory side. They are saying they see it is complex and divisive. They have mentioned guarantees for women's rights. If they shift, that puts pressure on Labour to do the same.

Every 'normal' person I have spoken to about what self-ID means thinks I'm joking and can immediately see the issues.

Tell your friends, make a fuss, make it clear why this matters and that your vote rests on it.

That is the only route I see to a Labour Party I can vote for, or that can win.

And yes, it smacks of the crap that women and POC have been told for decades by the left: stop whining and look at the bigger picture!! Look at the real prize!! Put your own concerns to one side and just focus on the REALLY important stuff!

I think it is possible and important to be female, feminist and care about and fight all forms of oppression.

I don't however trust a party telling me that I need to stop worrying about my rights because other people are also suffering.

I do though really agree with staying in the party to try to change things from within if you can.

I was reading Emmeline Pankhurst's autobiography the other week, in it she talks about the left wing politicians who - when in a room of only women - would talk brilliantly of their support for the suffrage cause and encourage the women to vote for them, but once they had the opportunity and power in Parliament (which they got partly due to those same women working to help them get elected) they did a complete u-turn and threw the women under the bus.

We've done this with women's rights over and over and over again.

And this is men who claimed to support the women's cause.

When they aren't even pretending then why the fuck should we support them?

I think of it this way JJ

The suffragettes wanted a vote. They didn't infight about where that vote was going once they got it, they stuck together til they achieved their aim.

Infighting and insulting people, calling them Tories for any view even towards the centre, and claiming feminists on mn don't care about women is not the way to achieve a common aim.

I understand you believe in JC and the Labour Party and want self ID sorted without losing the "proper" old labour leader. But you need to understand that women - even Tory voting women - want it sorted too. Even those right of centre voters aren't evil women-haters, they are just people who believe in a different approach (and I write that as a disabled woman terrified of austerity).
This political divisiveness and tribalism is not helping anything.

I don't however trust a party telling me that I need to stop worrying about my rights because other people are also suffering.

This.

It's funny how the "other people" are always men too.

Left wing priorities, like right wing, always seems to put women last.

I applaud Jennifer's efforts in bringing this issue to light but I'm not going to be lectured with the idea that I'm a fluffy headed woman too dim to see a right wing conspiracy, that is extremely patronising and sounds like something out of a Mike Lee drama ('bollocks to the Poll Tax').

I have never supported Jeremy Corbyn or his Cabal. I think Momentum are the most politically dangerous thing to happen to this country since Militant Tendency. This has not come as a shock to me, far from it.

My position has always been that he and his cronies are white, male posh boys playing at communism and it was never going to end well. Jeremy Corbyn is a MILLIONAIRE, what the hell did we all think was going to happen.

I have never voted Tory in my life, not once, never. I'm acutely aware that all parties are chucking women under the bus on this issue, the Greens and their 'non men' and Maria Miller and her 'purported feminists' and the WEP supposedly fighting for women's equality with no idea of what a woman actually is. I am politically homeless and I'm pretty ticked off about it.

This issue goes WAY beyond party politics, it's a cross party issue and imho THE most pressing issue of our generation. You cannot fight for social justice without basic class analysis, you cannot fight for a better life for people if you cannot define who those people are. This is the bedrock of social justice.

Anyone, no matter what good work they have done heretofore to highlight how much the Labour party, or any party, don't give a shit about women who starts banging on about 'glorious futures' and hectoring women that we are blind to a right wing conspiracy is either drunk or in need of a mental health break. This is cult speak.

One glance at the history of women's liberation and you would be have to blind as well as stupid to think that 'let's sort the big things out, then we'll get around to women' is anything other than a truly disastrous policy for women's rights. And my answer is NO! The big things at the moment pretty much rest on women's unequal treatment, by any statistical measure. Women's healthcare is immeasurably worse than men's, women's housing, women's employment security, homelessness, you name it, women and kids are getting the shitty end of the stick. I mean, FFS, even the Labour party's stance on sex work is shameful. Sex trade survivor Rachel Moran, has said in response to white liberals who claim paying for sex is defensible because it provides an income to poor women: “Wouldn’t you say, if a person cannot afford to feed themselves, the appropriate thing to put in their mouth is food, not your c*ck?'"

Anyone telling me that I've got to vote for THIS and then wait for scraps from the master's table perhaps ought to consider not presuming to speak for me.

The implication that I am being hoodwinked by some conspiracy when I can absolutely see what's what is insulting, and I'm not having it.

Self ID is a TORY policy and project (a rather cynical move to remove healthcare from a vulnerable population, to earn 'progressive' points as a sticking plaster on this disastrous administration, giving no shits about what it does to women and children (WE ARE STERILISING OUR KIDS!!)), that Labour are aggressively waving it in is not a bloody right wing conspiracy.

I'm really cross and really disappointed and suggest that Jennifer has a nice cup of tea and a long hot bath and stops running her mouth off all over the internet nicely undermining what is a united stand by women on this issue in defense of yet another mediocre posh white man.

The first party that says 'women's rights first, then the other big stuff' gets my vote. If none of them do that I will spoil my ballot and keep agitating until they do.

Men are ruthless this is why they run the world, the Tories are ruthless this is why they keep winning elections, Momentum are ruthless, which is how they've taken over the party. 'Women be nice' is a catastrophic and dangerous position for us to take on this, and anyone saying so should pipe the F down.

(Oh and I've emailed my labour mp this morning - follow up to an earlier email - to see how onside they are given recent developments. They were at least not the kind of mp I have seen many examples of who replied to my initial correspondence with "terf diaf!", so I'm hopeful...)

I'm a Labour party member and a lifelong Labour voter.

I don't like being told what to think. Yes, of course the right-wing press have gleefully latched onto this as a way of attacking the Labour Party. but if the Labour leader backs a policy that is absolutely ridiculous, then whose fault is that? All Corbyn has to do is say that he supports women's right to single-sex spaces and he doesn't support self-ID. That would immediately take away the right's opportunity to attack Labour on this issue.

If Corbyn chooses not to do that, then we can draw our own conclusions.

While Linda Bellos is ignored in favour of a narcissistic teenager, Labour will not get my vote.

Because the sums.

Together we win.

Apart we lose.