A response from the CLP Women’s Officer and the
Secretary of the Women's Forum to the recent
statement on behalf of Lewisham Deptford Labour
Party LGBT Forum, which was also shared with this FB
group;
Dear colleagues,
We think women members will be concerned about
the central premise of this statement: that women
need to consult with men before holding or
promulgating an opinion. This is best exemplified in
your statement ‘we are disappointed that neither the
proposer nor the seconder of this motion (our motion
defending Ann Henderson against unwarranted and
unfair attacks) sought to discuss this motion with us
first’. Would you address other Forums in the same
way? We would be astonished if, for instance, you
were to send a similar statement to BAME Forum
about a motion on a subject of their choice. This was
a motion proposed by women, in support of a woman
elected to very senior office in the party, a woman
who had been nominated for the NEC by our own CLP.
It was not a motion about trans rights. Contrary to
misreports Twitter users may have seen, it was
debated in a respectful, comradely and informative
way at Women’s Forum on Sunday. Kat Fletcher,
Deputy Regional Director, was present throughout the
meeting. A suggestion that we should invite the LGBT
Forum (overwhelmingly male) to meet with us for a
discussion was not accepted by the meeting.
Women from the LGBT Forum are welcome to initiate
further discussion within the Women's Forum. All
women, are of course, invited to every Women's
Forum. However, we are not comfortable about a
meeting with men, who have widely advertised their
strong opinions, and now appear to wish to tell women
what they should think.
Your statement makes similar comments about not
being consulted in advance by those women (and one
man) who have put forward amendments seeking to
clarify those aspects of a GC motion on transphobia
which appear misogynistic and sexist, in order that
everyone should feel comfortable in supporting it.
Perhaps we could consider the provisions of the
Human Rights Act? No woman can be compelled to
believe, or say that they believe, something they know
to be false. It appears, and we hope you will correct
this impression if it is wrong, that you have defined
transphobia in such a way as to transgress that Act.
Many women members have indicated to us that they
are frightened to voice their opinions in other
meetings of the party for fear of being labelled as
transphobic. We believe that it is appropriate that
Women's Forum provides a safe space for women to
speak up.
Members of the LGBT Forum who have worked with
us on various campaigns over some years will know
that we are not transphobes or homophobes and that
we support the rights of Trans people to live their lives
free of harassment and discrimination.
However, the demand for self-identification of gender
and the adoption of sexist assumptions about gender
and sex, that underpin that demand are, in the view of
many, taking us back to the 1960s and threatening
hard-won women's and gay and lesbian rights.
In that light, we see no need to justify to men, our
support for organisations, like A Woman's Place UK,
who oppose the self-identification proposal in its
current form; but in the context of supporting the
broader principal of equal rights, and solidarity with,
all LGBT people, including Trans people.
You are right to question whether disaffiliation from
LGBT Labour might send the wrong message. The
wording of the motion did not actually call for this,
rather that it should be debated. These things do
require care. Perhaps LGBT Labour might have
considered that before embarking upon a highly
personal, vindictive, and ill-judged attack upon such a
high-profile feminist within the labour movement?
We are surprised that you repeat common slurs about
an association with the far right in the USA. Either you
know those assertions to be false, or you have
mistakenly accepted what you've been told. We are
surprised that you think that we, or the left wing and
Labour/Marxist women who take a critical view of
aspects of gender theory, would knowingly have
anything to do with them. Describing this as ‘very
sinister’ smacks of David lcke and conspiracy
theorists and warrants an apology.
Women are leaving the Labour Party, or dropping out
of active participation, over this issue. Stonewall has
haemorrhaged its women's membership. Only
yesterday, fourteen high-profile Trans women, some
of whom were instrumental in achieving the original
Gender Recognition Act, very publicly left Stonewall.
We see no sign that you appreciate the
disappointment that women who campaigned for gay
rights, including campaigning against Section 28, not
for a few minutes, but for decades, feel about the
continued vilification of feminists that some of the
new generation of LGBTQ activists (primarily men)
participate in, day in day out. Your silence on that is
deafening.
In sorrow and in anger.