Can anyone help? GC stance on trans women on women shortlists

[Afrojules]

Just that, really. Some guy on Twitter is moaning that women are against tw standing for women’s officers/women only shortlists and being fairly new to this, was hoping someone could help me out with a reply.

Feel daft asking but I don’t want to get jumped on on Twitter. Am hormonal enough as it is

I am absolutely against it. Transwomen are not born female and do not grow up a girl, living a girls life before entering womanhood where they live a woman’s life. They cannot accurately represent women’s viewpoints or have considered compassion for women’s needs through personal experience because they are not biological women.

Now I’m off for a snack.

The reason why women need women’s only shortlist’s is biological more than anything. Women mostly loose out because of child rearing. That said I completely disagree with women’s only shortlist’s etc because it masks inequality instead of addresssing the causes.

I would much rather trans men applied for AWS. I’d have no issue with that, but of course it won’t happen.

Because it’s about validation.

Thanks everyone. Does anyone know if this would even be relevant to the current issue with us defending sex based rights. Sorry again for the (probably) daft questions but I suppose asking questions is how we learn. Thank again

Being a biological female effects your working life in a detrimental way because even if you never have children it is assumed you will.
Though there is legislation in place to stop female bodied people (women) being discriminated in the work place in practise it happens very regularly that women are passed up for promotion/ a job because the employer doesn’t want to train someone up then they go on maternity leave.

Women’s only shortlists are there to address the imbalance between male and female people in leadership roles.

There is a legal case starting about the question of who should be on AWS

They say: "As socialists we understand class analysis and we know the most meaningful way to classify women is by sex. Women are classified as second class citizens because of our biology. None of us can keep our sex a secret and if we could there would be no pay gap and no #MeToo. Whereas no one can tell what another person's gender identity is (if they even have one) just by looking at them. Sex, along with poverty, age, disability and race, is one of the major oppressive hierarchies in the world today. Women's biology has always the basis for our oppression worldwide BY MEN. Feminism is defined as the movement to liberate all women from sex-based oppression. "

AW Shortlists are specifically allowed in the Equality Act for political candidates, but not for other roles (unless it is a genuine occupational requirement like you need a female actress) -- to try to get a better representation of the population in parliament.

Political shortlists are allowed to be limited to a single sex, but not allowed to be restricted on the basis of other protected characteristics (e.g. race, disability, gender reassignment)

The EHRC say that in the Equality Act under the protected characteristic sex "Women" means what it says on your birth certificate. This suggests that transwomen with a GRC (i.e. who have legally changed the sex on their birth certificate) should be allowed on AWS, but not transwomen who remain legally male.

...... that's the legal position ......but what the labour party & greens? have done is allowed self identified TW onto AWS.

so you can argue from a position of principle i.e. if the aim of the policy is to get a better representation of the population i.e the 50% born female, then 'gender identity' should be irrelevant. Females who identify as non-binary would not be barred from inclusion, why should males who identify as feminine be included...

-- or you can argue from the position of law that transwomen with a GRC can be on AWS, but the parties are breaking the law if they extend this to self identified transwomen

Post edited by MNHQ

They're not women. Simple as that.

Women’s only shortlists are there to address the imbalance between male and female people in leadership roles.

No, afraid not. Requiring women only on shortlists is NOT allowed as a general HR policy for leadership roles etc.... it is ONLY allowed in the specific case of shortlists for parliamentary candidates.

(just trying to avoid us tripping up)

I won't vote Labour as long as people with no experience of our biological reality are supposed to be representing women. I would rather they gave up on AWS altogether. If transpeople are under-represented in politics, then the men can budge over for once.

AW panels and shortlists should be all women - adult human females observed female at birth NOT males however they feel or present.

Female bodies are different to males and because of that we suffer. Whether as foetus being aborted, socialised to be more submissive and put the feelings of others first, physically weaker, child bearers...

Males on the other hand are the desired heirs, socialised to put themselves first, they are statistically far more violent, physically stronger... no one born and socialised in this class can ever be female, they can never truly understand what it is to be female.

"They're not women. Simple as that."

This, a thousand times over and more.
I had a discussion with a mate about this last week, and he said - "What if they feel like a woman?".
I simply replied - "How would they know, they are male bodied and have gone through puberty in a substantially different way to women"

Thanks all. Starting to wish I hadn’t engaged on that thread now. One of the pro-trans characters that always shows up for a fight has now waded in and I don’t have the knowledge to confidently engage with them. Am hoping one of the many incredible GC tweeters sees it and puts them in their place. I know my limits atm, sadly.

All your replies are really helpful though, so thank you everyone.

The Labour Party introduced the post of Women’s Officer years ago when men dominated all the elected positions in the party. Women’s Officers helped shape policy on things like affordable child care and organised events to encourage women to stand for political office.

That did improve women’s representation but it remained clear that very few women were being selected to run in winnable seats. Hence the policy of all women shortlists. They were an incredibly successful way of improving the number of women in politics - think Labour in 1997 and the Conservatives in 2010 after Cameron’s A list.

Most political parties have problems attracting enough volunteers so the reality was that most volunteers for being a women’s officer were elected. Being an officer means people are more ‘visible’ to members and so it’s a good role for anyone who wants to be selected to run as a local councillor or MP. There are rules that constituencies must include at least one woman on their parliamentary candidate shortlist and in certain constituencies Head Office stipulated that the shortlist was to be all women. Local members then vote from the shortlisted candidates.

Lily Madigan ran as Women’s Officer and this was agreed by a Labour HQ. Official Labour policy is that self identifying as a woman is the only requirement to hold a women’s officer post or stand on an all women shortlist.

Without getting personal or mentioning any names, being a women’s officer is often a stepping stone to being selected on an all women shortlist. Of course there are other routes - local Labour parties have youth officers or diversity officers as well as being the Secretary/Chair/Treasurer. The question is whether it would be fairer for a politically ambitious transgender woman to stand for one of those posts. This is why it has been controversial - women were already under represented and expanding the criteria to self ID candidates means that they may be even less likely to be elected.

The other point is that some candidates get the support of Momentum. They have many members and good comms so a candidate with their support is at a huge advantage in most constituencies.

Sorry - this is a long winded way to say the policy may place women ‘assigned female at birth’ at a disadvantage. The wider point is that women’s votes were widely held to have helped Labour win in 1997. This was because the party increased its credibility with women. Arguably, the policy does nothing to address the wider question of engaging 52% of the electorate.

Transwomen are Men, therefore they shouldn’t be on AWS, anybody disagreeing with this is gaslighting.

That’s the thing, I agree with all that’s been said here but if I say it on there, I’ll be looking at a ban. I could ignore the the others but I really want to reply to the guy who mentioned shortlists. I’m not sure if they are affected by sex-based protections so don’t even know if they are relevant to the discussion. Does anyone know if they are?

Yes there are exemptions for AWS written into the EA2010.

Thanks for the info. I thought I was getting a decent grip on everything til today. That topic (shortlists & women’s officers) just threw me!

Yes, I would rather see trans men on a women’s shortlist than trans women. Trans men face the same disadvantages that women face growing up but with the added stigma of being trans and gender non-conforming. Their transition to life as a man doesn’t always lead to them enjoying full male privilege, often the stigma of being born female remains throughout their lives and men do not fully see them as men.

Trans women, on the other hand, are already over represented in public life. The most vocal and obnoxious TRAs (Morgan’s Oger etc) are all trans women. They don’t need the support to enter public life that a women’s shortlist is designed to provide.

And also yy on child-bearing: one of the major reasons women need additional support to enter politics is because of family duties / maternity leave messing up their careers. Again, not an issue that affects trans women as - oddly enough - transition to womanhood never seems to involve taking on the shitwork that women are saddled with around the world for trans women...

The way I see it, the purpose of these, and other similar things, is to adress a specifically biological issue. I don't actually think that it matters in many jobs or careers if they are male or female dominated, so long as they are open to people who are so inclined.
I also think that it's inevitable that, apart from any other factors, women will have a different choice profile than men simply because they are the child bearers and will often be the early caregivers. That's just about childbirth and nursing, I don't think of that as a disadvantage in itself either - it's just different.
However, particularly in politics, I think it is important to try and have something much closer to representation by both sexes. Because of the nature of the job, and because of women's biological role, this can be a challenge, it will take some real planning and care to try and make this happen - that would perhaps even be the case if the various systemic and cultural factors were changed.
I think that is the most important purpose of those roles and shortlists, and it simply does not apply to transwomen, who don't get pregnant and nurse children.

AW are there to ensure representation for women as a sex; if there’s any reason at all why women should be represented as a ‘gender’ I am yet to hear it.

Childbirth and nursing will always put us at a disadvantage because it isn’t valued. It will always been seen as a lesser ‘choice’ until it is.

I’m completely against it. Women are discriminated against for being women and nothing else. Men do not become women by feeling or wanting. Insisting on inclusion in women’s spaces (including AWS) is entitlement of a sort that only undermines their argument. Take it to a logical conclusion and ask yourself if an AWS were entirely populated by trans women, would that be OK? Who would they be speaking for? Of course it’s not OK.

Apparently it is ok, apparently all the major political parties think so.

AWS are allowed because of measured , observable differences in the way men and women ( sex) are supported / promoted. There is no evidence that there is any similar systematic discrimination based on gender identity.

Whilst transwomen May claim that their gender identity affects their opportunities, women claim that their gender identity is irrelevent thus there is not even consistent anecdotal support for restricted shortlists based on gender identity . This is anecdotal evidence of a Male/female sex based split as to how gender identity affects opportunity

Restricted shortlists are in principle a bad thing, so should only be used where there is real evidence that discrimination exists, and there is also evidence that forcibly changing the mixture in the short term can lead to long term changes.