If WEP decided Sex Matters would you join?

[womanhuman]

By which I mean continued protection of women/girl-only spaces (physical spaces, services, organisations, stats, programmes) on a sex-not-gender basis.

I would.

Because nearly everything else follows from maintaining that distinction.

I'd consider it.

Possibly, mostly what Lang said. However I don't know if I could ever really trust a party allegedly set out to specifically champion women's rights that so early on refused to differentiate between women and trans women. To start such a party but not be GC makes you wonder why they even bothered to put the word WOMEN in their party's name in the first place. Maybe they should've been called simply The Equality Party.

I feel so disappointed by them. When I tried to get into discussion with them about proposed amendments to the GRA they refused point blank to even acknowledge that the proposals would ever happen. Total swerve on the issue completely, and wouldn't discuss it with me further than inviting me to join the party.

'other' than inviting me to join the party.

I would vote for them in the coming local elections if they adopted a position similar to the Fawcett society www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/fawcetts-position-on-gender-identity

Until they do I can't vote for them.

See Toots I don't think the Fawcett are actually saying anything helpful there. All I read is that they focus on women's lived experiences and are inclusive. They recognise that gender is socially constructed but aren't really saying that biology must come first before gender.

If they would push forwards women's interests in the self-id debate (or lack of) then I would support them for the duration. The same with pushing forwards a Nordic model for prostitution, and also with human trafficking and modern slavery.

I would also want them to stand up for child protection in the current mess of gaslighting that seems to be going on behind the scenes with 'trans rights', and more help for mental health issues that teenagers suffer. And more research into why this is happening.

I am not sure they can do that with so much TIM influence that has been shown so far.

No. I don't trust them. SW might well be feeling that a party bollock has been dropped and is attempting to ameliorate a situation which, as a Women's party, should never have occurred. The party's thinking around Woman is flawed. The treatment of HBE was appalling.

Yes

what white handled said

I would be cautious in the light of their treatment of Heather BE but yes, I would consider it - or at least voting for them if not joining as I am desperate to avoid spoiling my ballot.

Like others, I would not trust any rhetoric coming from WEP unless it was fully backed up by formal party policy/manifesto documents.

No me neither.

I would certainly consider voting for them, not sure I could bring myself to rejoin. As it is I’m more likely to vote Tory. Shudder.

It is possible for a party to be inclusive, intersectional and for equality without ignorantly demanding that "TWAW" and disciplining GC spokespeople like the WEP have been doing so far.

I would only join again if they publicly apologised to H.B.E. and made a statement that sex matters.

Yes.

No. Partly because it won't happen. They have been very clear that their definition of 'woman' is 'anyone who identifies as one'. Sex matters is wholly incompatible with that stance, their actions this far including HB, and their current supporters and policy creators. The most they could hope for is a very muddled middle road. To go to a meaningful, genuine sex matters stance would mean to tear down the party and start it again from scratch.

Its sad they derailed so early and so entirely. What was probably meant as a genuine effort to be modern and inclusive has actually created a party that can't really represent women politically at all.

Yes.

But I don't believe it'll happen.

Yes

Doubt it. I would be suspicious of any party claiming to represent women who can get their biology so fundamentally screwed up. Do they know their arse from their elbow?

In any case it looks like it would be a case of political expediency. So no, I don't trust them. I would rather have a party that stands for all human beings, female, male and trans but is properly aware of the differences between them.

Do they know their arse from their elbow?

I seriously considered joining but was holding back to see where they would go with this and the treatment of HBE seriously put me off. Trans rights/issues massively dominate LGBT discussions and organisations like Stonewall and they have also massively dominated women's discussions and organisations like WEP.

I think if WEP said they welcome everyone irrespective of where they are on the political, sexuality and gender identification spectra but that sex matters and this is a party pushing for women's equality and that the reason we still need to push for this - when we have laws in place to protect equality - is because of our reproductive roles, which have a massive impact on equality of pay and opportunity etc. then, yes, I think I would join. As a woman of child-bearing age, it makes no difference that I am struggling with fertility and may not have children - my CV still reads as "potential child-bearer" and perhaps I would have started trying to conceive earlier (and therefore had a better chance of positively resolving fertility issues) had the employment situation in my role, and for self-employed women, not been the way that it is now.

And it is one - and just one - of the most infuriating aspects of hearing transwomen saying "but many cis women can't have children". We get the double whammy of disappointment of infertility/ constantly having to explain ourselves if we don't want children ON TOP of being treated as if we're going to have them and so potentially undesirable employees etc. during a certain age range.

Yes (male, fwiw)

It would help. But the fact that they took a stance where they basically punished a woman from speaking her truth about a matter she saw as affecting women and girls, still appals me. If a woman's party isn't about raising up women to speak and protecting women's right to speak in the public sphere, then why on earth is it a women's party? It doesn't matter if they agree or disagree with the view expressed. A women's party should not be silencing or punishing women when they engage in public discourse.
So they need to address that in the party too. They really need to rethink what they are about and what they are for at a very fundamental level.