Tory heartland in open revolt against self ID

[IdaBWells]

I took a couple of weeks off the feminist boards so I am not sure if this has been covered.

I took out an online subscription to The Times as they seem to be the only institution in the UK supportive of women’s rights and against self ID. Well their on-line poll is currently running at 98% against self ID and today The Times was reporting that a large contingent of Tory backbenchers are against self ID and in revolt against the party leadership! Fantastic! I think this is down to three factors:

1. The Tory Heartland are genuinely incensed that the Tory government is supporting this issue without any meaningful consultation with the grassroots. As an issue if the leadership had thought about this for 2 minutes they would have realized how incredibly unpopular it would be once the effect upon women were realized. They are definitely on the wrong side supporting a tiny fraction of the population against 50%. The majority of voters are against self ID, but if anything the Tory voters would be more likely to be against as they as a party are the supporters of conservative and traditional values. Throwing grown men with penises into changing rooms with young girls is definitely not conservative and traditional.

2. The publicizing of this issue nationally and internationally thanks to Posie Parker, Fair Play for Women, ManFriday, A Women’s Place and other activists. Thanks to them the way this issue was being slipped by the public, quietly and almost by stealth has been halted.

3. The very good analysis by The Times journalists who are the only national media outlet to have covered this issue thoroughly and consistently while it has been virtually ignored by the national press and especially by the BBC. At least a typical Times reader seems to be a Tory voter and the Times has enlightened their readership about this issue.

If Penny Mordaunt is getting serious pushback within her own party that could be the strongest and most positive result from everyone approaching their MPs in person and by email and letter. If you haven’t done so, especially if they are Tory please make contact this week before the consultation closes.

Sadly many commentators at The Times are saying that they had been considering Penny for future leadership but now think she misjudged this very seriously and of course is alienating supporters, especially women who may have supported a leadership bid.

I am clearly not a Tory although I am in the political wilderness, unable to vote for anyone. I would be very interested to hear from female Tory supporters to ask if this issue is being discussed in your constituency.

I'm in a swing seat and am usually a proper floating voter. I have a conservative MP who has links with my DPs church community, and she's been a bit of a chocolate teapot, but I'm fairly damned certain there are real mummurings of concern building among those of my acquaintance who are more conservatively minded.

I have friend who is chairperson of her local party. I gave her leaflet on Saturday, she had no idea about it and was furious!! I think there may well be some loud complaints coming PM way.

Appalling that this has not been raised with party members. I think certain people and pressure groups, thought it was all going to slip through under the radar.

Penny Mordaunt has a poor sense of judgement - from getting into some serious cahoots with Boris, to unquestioning allegiance to self-ID. Her partner until recently was a grassroots local Tory councillor, according to wiki. All very odd.

What is so infuriating is how women voters are completely taken for granted. Really though I think we are just not even considered, not even by a female politician such as Penny. I don’t think for a minute she thought “How will this effect women?” No women’s groups were consulted, not even Tory women!

•IdaBWells• it is shocking, isn't it, just really unbelievable. I"m not a Tory voter, but I'm never going back to Labour.

Im still encountering loads of people who don't know.

I'm so grateful to the women here. Integrity and persistence is winning.

Yes I spoke to some local Tories recently and they were unaware and suitably incensed. Perhaps we should write to local councilllors as well as MPs

mnobody4 yes good idea! I wrote to my local Labour Party when I left and said I was leaving because of self ID, never heard a sausage from them.

Anyway, family member heavily involved in local Lib Dems also no clue. This is a massive change that the politicians have been astonishingly arrogant about.

Yes massively arrogant is exactly what it is

My sis sent me this. Tory Mps appear not to be in side with this at all!

www.politicshome.com/news/uk/social-affairs/discrimination/news/99030/overwhelming-majority-tory-mps-oppose-transgender

If there was an honest poll of Labour and LibDem voters I wonder what percentage would be opposed, if they were guaranteed that their identities wouldn't be leaked to the party Stasi.

I'm a Tory party member and I can confirm there has been no discussion of it within the constituency as far as I'm aware, unless on an informal basis. We don't seem to have meetings as such.

I raised it with my local Tory councillor in person in May and got him to get the council to change the wording in the LA's equality guidance, so I know he knows (and is GC)

I tentatively contacted my MP (also Tory) in April, and then gave him a bollocking by e-mail last week.

I've always said there would be no support for this amongst Conservative voters, so I'm bemused at why Tory MPs are being so hesitant to knock this straight into touch. I think there will be tweaks to the current arrangements, but that's all.

The Times has been outstanding in all of this. I hope people will take out a subscription to support their investigative work.

DH and myself went to see our MP, Liz Truss, some time back about this and she said 'There's already been some push back' from MPs. She was pretty unrepentant about the fact she'd been in the press for speaking up, I think in favour of free speech and saying women's voices should be heard rather that against self ID, which is surely what anyone in a democracy would be expected to say, but was actually controversial when she did it.

I left the Labour Party over this issue, as you might expect people I know locally were sorry to see me go (although with no understanding of the issues) but the National party barely registered it.

DH has been a Tory voter all his life and is equally incensed that his party have gone mad over this. Sadly, I don't think Labour are capable of change, so I hope the Tories kick it out. There could be some conscience voters among Labour MPS if it's allowed, but the party has bypassed the membership and is imposing this from the top down, which is another reason why I'm deeply alarmed and suspicious about them. If they do it with this madness, they can do it with anything.

It's looking a lot more positive for women due to the hard work of a few women making their voices heard, and what we know all along: the vast majority of people won't be told to believe something that is palpably untrue.

The front-bench female Labour MPs don't seem to have a brain cell between them. I don't believe for a moment that this has support amongst the majority of Labour voters either.

The Lib Dems and the Greens, on the other hand...well, nothing surprises me there, tbh.

(My money's on Sajid Javid to replace May)

I would vote Tory for the first time in my life if my MP publicly opposed this. Despite strongly disagreeing with the Tories on almost everything else. At times like this we need small 'c' conservatism to put the brakes on.

It is such a fundamental issue of free speech. Not to mention protecting the rights of 50 percent of the population. I never for a minute thought that women's protections could be rolled back so quickly and effectively. Or that we might be compelled by the government to feign belief in something with no provable basis in fact.

I think you'r seeing what you want to see.

Nearly everyone I know take the approach of 'just don't do it in the street and frighten the horses' Which translates as very inclusive, with an utter refusal to let the main tolerance be undermined by fringe groups. Firm determination to clamp down on crime and antisocial behaviour however it emanates, and that does not require change to self ID policy, preferring instead to deal with what (if any) actual offending results.

I took out a temporary subscription to the Times to read their coverage of this issue, and have allowed it to turn into a permanent subscription because that coverage has been so excellent.

Moggy your comment is somewhat confusing to me, can you clarify? Are you saying that nothing needs to change and therefore throw out the idea of self-ID as unnecessary? Or are you a supporter of new legislation?

Firm determination to clamp down on crime and antisocial behaviour however it emanates, and that does not require change to self ID policy, preferring instead to deal with what (if any) actual offending results.

This seems to be the latest set of TRA talking points, following the Karen White debacle. Now it’s about individuals being responsible for risk assessments, being blamed if their crystal balls are not 100% accurate, and for police and others to mop up the mess afterwards, because who cares about the collateral damage - it’s only women and children.

Whereas those of us who actually work in safety and safeguarding know that the point is to design systems which absolutely minimise the risk at source. It’s a system issue, not an individual issue.

I’m my line of work I’ve actually been reviewing some major safeguarding failures from the 90s and 00s, and before. A major common thread is that someone in authority relied on their own judgement and ‘risk assessment’ of an offender or potential offender rather than there being systems in place to prevent offending. This meant that a good liar, which psychopaths are by definition, could easily pull the wool. Then there was a major incentive for cover up once the offences became known, because said authority person needed to protect themselves.

We learnt as a society, slowly and painfully, that relying on individual judgement to protect the vulnerable didn’t work and we needed systems and risk assessments on a population basis.

So no, relying on prison officers and psychiatrists to use their individual judgement on who is and isn’t a risk won’t work. We know that. We need systems in place (in this case, no men in a women’s jail) so that such incidents can’t arise. And a major part of the safety of these systems is a no blame culture for raising concerns. If a junior, or any, member of a team can’t raise safeguarding concerns for fear of being told they’re a transphobe, then this is also an abusers’ charter. Look at all the grooming gangs where people couldn’t raise concerns for fear of being called racist, and then tell me why we shouldn’t raise concerns about people with penises being locked up with vulnerable women.

AngryAttackKittens who knew there's money to be made when you uphold the rights of 50% of the population? 👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭👭

Potplant2
It's not a new argument it was one of their first.
"Just wait until crimes been comitted against women first, then let the police/authorities deal with it afterwards" with no analysis of why certain things are sex segregated in the first place

Potplant2 agree 100%. With our current laws probably every woman on this thread has been harassed or propositioned, cat-called or a lot worse from random men and total strangers. The idea that what we need is to loosen ANY boundaries where women encounter men when women and girls (in a bathroom maybe alone, changing, sleeping, having a medical procedure etc.) are in a vulnerable situation is clearly dangerous and ridiculous.