Lib Dems choose trans rights over Fair Play for Women

[Thethiniceofanewday]

• Young Liberals tweet a photo of a Fair Play for Women leaflet being put in the bin, commenting "Putting transphobia in the bin where it belongs @fairplaywomen . Spreading this vile discrimination at Lib Dem conference, a place where we 100% fully support trans rights, is a disgrace."

• Lib Dems LGBT+ account tweets that 'female' is a misogynist term and shouldn't be used.

• Sarah Brown tweets "I have never felt so accepted and supported as a trans person, and as a woman, than at this Lib Dem conference. Feels like lots of people have realised how bad the abuse is and have really come out for us, for all of us."

For those who don't know Sarah, she's the TRA who told a woman to suck on her pickled formaldehyde balls.

Also at conference, it is announced that Sarah has been nominated for the Women Lib Dems Patsy Calton award. The award is given to a "woman in the party who has been nominated by her peers for the outstanding contribution they have made. The award is meant to showcase the obstacles that women have overcome, and their journey to get them to where they are now."

So that's the Greens, the Lib Dems and Labour all fully on board the trans train. Who am I supposed to vote for?

The Lib Dems can fuck off

Sorry that's what I meant to say

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

I also knew Patsy Calton and she would have had no issue with them being nominated.

But this thread is eye opening seeing so many make sweeping generalisations about people they have never met based on tweets taken out of context.

I have no idea what Pasty Calton would think, I do know there are many people within the Lib Dems who are concerned about the misogyny coming from the LGBT twitter feed. The tweet putting woman's rights in the bin didn't go down well at all. There are quite a lot of mutterings within the Lib Dems at the moment.

There are quite a lot of mutterings within the Lib Dems at the moment.

For the Lib Dems, it is a case of too little, too late. They have a long way to go before they have any credibility at all.

I agree but it's worth being aware of. I think it's indicative of a slight rocking of the boat.

I don't like 'female' as a noun applied to women or girls either. I do think it's a bit dehumanising, like we're subjects of interest on a nature documentary. As an adjective obviously perfectly fine. MRAs and other Reddit misogynists are particularly fond of talking about 'men and females'. Personally I find this even more objectionable than 'men and girls'.

But I'd certainly rather be called a female, or even a girl, than a ciswoman.

Not having this. They take away women, we resort to female, they object to female, we are forced to say chromosomes, they say chromosomes are reductive, we end up with penis and vagina people, they say stop reducing people to genitals. It's all their fault in the first place. Fine, we will have 'woman' back

'Female' is a specific biological definition referring to the reproductive potential of one of two sex classes in sexually reproducing species. 'Woman' means an adult human who belongs to the female sex class. We need both words.

I agree with Tallulah. "Female" denotes sex; "girl" and "woman" signify age.

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

Well done those two. Doesn't make them have any true understanding of the very different battles women have to fight to make headway in politics.

I think all Mumsnetters understand that life is tough for people with gender dysphoria, but it's a completely different set of battles to the ones that female Mumsnetters go through.

FFS. Where do the Green Party stand on rights for women? That's Labour and Lib Dems ruled out. There's not much left.

Do we need to canvas Posie Parker to start an XX Party?

Join the rest of us who have already decided to vote for the 'none of the above' party.

And you'll spend the rest of time moaning about the election results.

You have to decide which party is the lesser evil & vote for them, even if it means gritting your teeth.

The Lib Dems won't be bothered if they lose votes through attrition.

They will be bothered if their votes move to another party though.

From another thread:

'Women in Cambridge were silenced within days of the Equality Act of 2010 becoming law. Sarah Brown a Liberal democrat (Then a Cllr) who co-runs the Liberal Democrats LGBT twitter account, removed sex as a protected characteristic within days.

I understand then went around other local authorities and encouraged them to do the same, so females lost out from the start. (quoted from a threadhere

Sarah Brown is fantastic? Really? Someone having had a tough life doesn't make them the opposite sex or deserving of a platform or a woman's award.

And [[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3263172-Andrew-Gilligan-Latest-bullying-transgender-complaint-swiftly-rejected-by-parliamentary-standards-committee#prettyPhoto here] is an eye-opening thread about Zoe

I don't expect the LibDems could predict how powerful the image would be. It neatly summed up how women feel about the political climate and about political parties.

Safeguarding - in the bin
Women's voices - in the bin
Women's rights - in the bin.

Thanks, Lib Dems. The image summed up all a woman voter needs to know about your party.

*I know and like both Sarah and Zoe. I have taken time to chat to them and understand their journey. They are both fantastic and their lives have been tough. They have overcome a great deal of hatred and abuse.

I also knew Patsy Calton and she would have had no issue with them being nominated.

But this thread is eye opening seeing so many make sweeping generalisations about people they have never met based on tweets taken out of context.*

I've never met Zoe O'Connell but I've always found Sarah Brown to operate in one of two modes - completely disengaged or bizarrely aggressive. Brown was a poor councillor even by the generally low standards of Cambridge (though admittedly not as bad as the former Lib Dem who refuses to stand down even though he's gone to live in Fife), and her attempt to gain electoral advantage earlier this month by claiming that 'transphobic hate literature' was being circulated in the ward in the run-up to the by-election was utterly pathetic.

Brown was worse on Twitter than in person - her old account was deleted not long after she lost the 2014 election so can't be read now, but it was an absolute car crash. The context for the 'pickled balls' comment may not be available (because she removed it) but it's completely fair to take it as typical. That said, the spat between Brown and the blogger was very entertaining for people in Cambridge who had encountered both of them - like the Neil Hamilton-Al Fayed court case, where you wanted them both to lose.

It’s one member of the party - not somebody officially speaking on behalf of the party as a whole.

The majority of the party are quite unaware of the issue. The Lib Dem leader on Liverpool City Council was asking what a TERF was on Twitter the other day. Nobody was really talking about it at conference. Most people adopt an “obviously we’re against transphobia” position and don’t think any more about it.

Ironically it’s one of the frustrating things about being a member of a progressive party. OF COURSE you’re not sexist, racist, etc - you’re a Lib Dem! So you don’t actually have to examine your own attitudes and behaviour. I think we’re seeing the same phenomenon here.

I know and like both Sarah and Zoe - you lost me there.

I don't like men LARPing as lesbians.

They could be the nicest people in the world, but I still find their being nominated for an award intended for women to be offensive.

If we’re recognising their ‘struggle’, there needs to be an award for activists/nominees/councillors who have difficult lives.

'though admittedly not as bad as the former Lib Dem who refuses to stand down even though he's gone to live in Fife'

What the what Father?! Tell us more!

Safeguarding - in the bin
Women's voices - in the bin
Women's rights - in the bin.

Actions speak louder than words.

Thank you for showing us who you are Liberal democrats.

They could be the nicest people in the world but it doesn't mean that they don't have an agenda. Which they do.

And that agenda is throwing women under a bus.

So they can go on my list of people and organisations that can fuck off.

The thing with the "suck my balls" comment is that I have never in the vile depths of Twitter heard a woman use violent sexual threats against anyone . Never. Women can be rude, and nasty, but it seems that we don't use violent sexual language because forced sexual activity is not a joke for us nor a concept to be invoked lightly.

I read a blog of Sarah's where she explained that she was under a lot of pressure when she lost her temper, her MH was suffering etc and I do get that. However, I feel that her choice of language shows how deeply she has been socialised as a man. Shows that she doesn't think or feel like a woman IMHO, however much she wants to think she does.

QuilliamCakespeare

The Green Party refer to women as ‘non-men’ they also allowed their safeguarding policies to be influenced by an individual who hired a sadistic paedophilic rapist as their election agent. Google David Challenor, then really wish you hadn’t.

Yes I was going to say to Quilliam don't get your hopes up about the Green Party because you're going to be disappointed.

Although perhaps Caroline Lucas can still open up the conversation so that rights for women and girls can be discussed alongside rights for trans people too...

does not hold breath

"Are the Lib Dems able to offer a home to disaffected women voters? The deputy leader of the Lib Dems, @joswinson, explains why she thinks so"

twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1041976024551043072

Has there been discussion of Jo Swinson's attempts to woo disaffected women voters elsewhere?

I think the antics of the Lib Dem LGBQT Twitter gang are not going to work in her favour.