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

Could you just say it's important to have proportional representation of 50% give or take of people with female biology who are currently underrepresented, probably for reasons connected to biology (getting Pg and bf or perception that they might) but also childhood socialisation.

If they want to campaign separately for representation for the 1-2% of people identifying as trans you'd be interested to support them, particularly if it includes FtM as well as MtF trans people. AWS are not a catch all measure for any disadvantaged group.

The case of Philip "Pips" Bunce peaked a nation.

Bunce, a married father of two, cross dresses as a woman at work sometimes. He received a Woman's prize last year.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6197705/City-workers-hit-gender-fluid-banker-works-days-Philip-Pippa.html

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-over-women-s-business-honour-for-cross-dressing-banker-h0gv3l7nw

Bunce was included in a list of Britain’s top 100 female executives compiled for the Champions of Women in Business awards.

Bunce was ranked Number 32 in the list, organised by the Financial Times and diversity campaign Involve, and material released to announce the awards shows him in both his male and female guises.

Bunce makes my piss boil.

A great example of how ‘trans’ women (thanks Stonewall for your fucking stupid ‘umbrella’) are lauded for their stunning brilliance. Meanwhile a trans man makes the papers for having a baby. 🙄

Should we just say trans women are “women”? Trans men are “men”? It still pains me, however. I’d prefer a return to transsexual either way. Self-ID is always the fundamental issue here.

See Equality Act 2010, Part 7: Associations

see Special provision for political parties

section 104: Selection of candidates

section 105 Time-limited provision

Forgot to include the link [sorry!]

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/7/crossheading/special-provision-for-political-parties

Thanks everyone. Got a lot of reading to do I don’t think anyone has said anything I would disagree with. It’s just a part of the whole debate that I hadn’t paid enough attention to and so I need to make sure I am able to talk about it more confidently. You’ve all really helped.

I was aware of Pip Bunce already. I won’t put down in writing what I think of that tube as I don’t fancy a ban from Mumsnet seeing as it’s taken me years to pluck up the courage to start actually posting and not just lurking!

I object to men in women's sports.

I object to men taking roles that are reserved for females
eg Women's Representatives in Students Unions, Trade Unions and workplaces

I object to the over-represented sex applying for a short-lists and pushing out the under-represented sex.

Should we just say trans women are “women”? Trans men are “men”?

Why? just call transwomen transwomen and transmen transmen seeing as that's what they are.

There are two issues.

The first is straightforward and easily highlighted if you ask why we have AWS and women's officers in the first place. Women are underrepresented in politics (as we are in all positions of power) and so these things are there to mitigate this. It makes no sense to create these opportunities and then open them up to males. It's not only about providing women with opportunities to enter politics, it's also about ordinary women having their interests represented by people who properly understand what it is to be female because they are female.

The second issue is more technical and is to do with the wording of the Equality Act and the wider implications of how this is allowed to be interpreted. All women shortlists are legal because part 7, s. 104 makes explicit and specific provision for them. It's not lawful for a political party to have a shortlist that is only open to people who share one particular protected characteristic unless the protected characteristic is sex. So you couldn't have an all black shortlist or an all gay shortlist or an all christian shortlist. The law makes very specific provision for single sex shortlists and nothing else.

To be legally female you need to be actually female or be a tw with a GRC. Self-ID tw are not legally female and do not share the protected characteristic of sex with women. Not even as a legal fiction.

If political parties are permitted to interpret the protected characteristic of sex as something anyone can claim, just by saying so, then this affects every other time sex is mentioned, anywhere in the Equality Act.

The protected characteristic of sex becomes utterly meaningless. We no longer have any sex based rights. This is why everybody should care about this even if you think AWS are a bad idea.

Relevant current thread

UPDATE: Gender Critical Women vs Labour Party, Court Claim Filed
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3569603-UPDATE-Gender-Critical-Women-vs-Labour-Party-Court-Claim-Filed

You should maybe also look at the fundraiser page for the court case against the Labour Party. Need to work your way back through the updates if you have time! uk.gofundme.com/fighting-for-female-representatives

Also (cant find the original post about this) but 300 women resigned from the Labour party in protest #LabourLoosingWomen - this is BBC version of the story www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43962349

Again if you have time (and not all totally relevant) the thread #LabourLoosingWomen twitter.com/hashtag/labourloosingwomen

Decisions are made by the people in the room.

All-women shortlists are a mechanism designed to get more women into the most important room where decisions are made.

We are 50% of the population and we need to be represented by our people who actually understand our needs - see the recent ‘Invisible Women’ by Caroline Criado Perez for a whole book of problems we face when decisions are made by men.

Someone who is male bodied and male socialised but presents ‘as a woman’ (whatever THAT means) cannot correct this imbalance.
How could they?

Thank you, Pencils. Your answer has given me the exact answer to the claims the guy on Twitter was making. I’ll feel much more confident to speak about it next time I come across that particular claim. Cheers!