Would Margaret Thatcher be a TERF?

[DJLippy]

If Margaret Thatcher was alive and still running the country would she oppose the trans rights juggernaut?

I mean many have pointed out that gender identity ideology is end stage neo-liberalism. The ultimate expression of an individualist ideology that totally separates the individual from society and broader social connections. Maybe she'd be all for it.

Then again she was a bit no non sense wasn't she?

What do we reckon women. WWMTD?

Then again

Margerate Thatcher was a very nasty bloke in a dress
It's exactly this sort of thinking that leads to all the "powerful influential leaders can't be women" shit. Or if a woman is one of the most powerful people in the world they must really be a man. FT.

Actually I wonder if the TRAs would have labelled her a trans man as she wasn’t simpering, dressed in frills or felt any need to be nice
Yep. They'll probably find a way to posthumously trans at some point her because no way do they accept women can be in power (unless of course the woman has a penis).

I can't see her taking it seriously, but that is what I expect of almost any woman of her generation.

Not sure what you mean by this. "Not taking it seriously" as in recognising it is ludicrous and simply ignoring it and allowing it to fester unchecked, or not taking it seriously in that she would have thought it's not a problem for men to self-ID and invade women's spaces?

My mother was of her generation and would have been apoplectic with outrage. So would almost every woman of that generation that I know. They were a pretty feisty lot!

Let’s not forget what Margaret Thatcher did to this country- much of which continues to this day. Yes, she was a woman, but her policies were never pro-women. She would not be gender-critical or pro-feminist. We know what she thought of gay people and she would have lumped trans people in with them as ‘freaks’ or ‘immoral’ if this had taken place in the 1980s.

If she was in power today, she would no doubt have chosen the option that gave her the most votes regardless of her actual beliefs. For instance, i don’t think for a moment that Theresa May thinks people can change sex and her voting record for LGBT rights has been dismal. Yet she knows it will win her votes to appease them and she doesn’t particularly care about the impact on women. No doubt Margaret Thatcher would have been the same.

I’m not sure what she would have concluded but I think she would have characterised it as an irrelevant spat between two rather disgusting, overly-entitled and shameful social groups who should better live quiet lives at home.. if she had ever even heard of it or taken the time to notice it.

Then she would have worked out if it could inconvenience men or not, or if it could cost the state anything financially, or if it could potentially save the state on any costs financially.

Then she’d have worked out if anyone of political value to her would want her to take a particular stance on it, or if it would chime in with her other social policies she wanted to push and she would then act accordingly. If she were alive now she would have to factor in that churchgoing was vastly reduced with a corresponding weakening of grip on Parliamentary debate and voting)

If she were alive and in power now, the NHS as it is now wouldn’t probably exist by.. so assuming all of the medical hormonal and surgical interventions or any psychological support would be privately self funded, spending from the public purse wouldn’t be a factor there.

Indeed this area could be seen as a potential growth industry for UK pharmaceutical companies and UK private medicine and so maybe seen as something to be supported on principle?

Agree, Chatty.
Also, it’s no coincidence that Tories love self-ID. It will save them huge amounts because people don’t need two years of psychiatric care on the NHS- you can just tell them to complete a form online. It also makes them look progressive without having to do anything progressive.

That’s why I think self-ID will actually harm trans people long-term. It will leave many totally unsupported to deal with a disorder where they loathe and despise their bodies to the point of wanting to mutilate them. Won’t harm the ‘lady-penis’ crew though as they never had GD in the first place.

I don't think Margaret thatcher liked regular women very much I doubt transwomen would be on her radar she wasn't known for her feminism.

MT wasn't a feminist, but nor was she a fan of namby-pambies.

I don't think she would have thought much of TW and I'm pretty sure she would have said so.

A woman who didn't wear nail varnish, because she didn't want to spend time repairing chipped nails, would take a dim view of insta-TWs.

Does anyone seriously ask themselves WWMTD?

Lamaha

I meant I think she'd have thought it was bollocks. She was born in 1925, I think women that age just saw too much of the biological reality of womanhood to really buy into this idea. I think gender ideology in general could not exist without widespread access to birth control.

I should have said, very effective birth control, but you get the idea.

Goosefoot no tories actually believe that you can change sex or that trans women are women. It’s a vote winner and a way to make themselves look good.

That may well be true. I think few people really believe that, Tories or otherwise. Some think they do, but they are wooly-headed.

That’s why I think self-ID will actually harm trans people long-term. It will leave many totally unsupported to deal with a disorder where they loathe and despise their bodies to the point of wanting to mutilate them. Won’t harm the ‘lady-penis’ crew though as they never had GD in the first place.

I think you’re exactly right- it’s really worrying for people genuine medical need and distress which will just go untreated.

Snobby Roberts was very comfortable in the company of woman-abusers such as Cecil Parkinson, Alan Clarke and Nicky Fairbairn.

She wouldn't have cared either way.

If she'd thought that taking one position or another would have benefitted her overall agenda in some supporting role, she might have taken a stance. It wouldn't have mattered to her if she actually believed it - either way. Margaret Thatcher was a calculating pragmatist, whose politics I despise and whose single mindedness I admire nonetheless. She was a high-priestess in the cult of neoliberalism and didn't, so far as I can see, ever feel passionately about social policy beyond it being a means to an end.

Margaret Thatcher wasn't a feminist. But she's a feminist icon in that she was precisely what a man in her position may have been. She was a horrible, power-obsessed human being and a woman. More power to her for this, and burn the witch if she weren't long dead for pretty much everything she ever stood for.

She wouldn't have had time for any special snowflakiness or attention seeking non binary shit, as for people with gender dysphoria they would have had to take their chances along with the rest of us.

Why this glorification of Margaret Thatcher? It’s the same with the Brexit-lot- ‘Maggie would have sorted this out’. Should we hypothesise what other dead people would have said about this as well? How about the Queen Mother? Churchill? JFK? Would they have been T*RFs?

Pota no one's glorifying her, it's just a discussion, quite an interesting one in my opinion. She was an interesting character.
Should we hypothesise what other dead people would have said about this as well . Well if people want to then why not?

For all the up yours Delors right wing tabloid headlines, they are kidding themselves if they think she would have got a better Brexit.

MT followed the money. We wouldn't be having Brexit.

Analysis of her as a female icon is valid. She held an iconic position and is worthy of discussion as a leader. Like many on here, I don't think she was a feminist. She was out fir herself, not other women.

I don't believe for a minute she would have believed TWAW, Remember section 28? That's about as unwoke as you could be even in the 80s.

I couldn’t stand her but she wouldn’t have given a shit about that. She didn’t want to be liked. She brought in the Poll Tax, FFS.

I think some people assume that because TRAs hate women anyone who hates women would be a TRA. That’s not how it works. That’s the same logic that says that, because feminists and religious fundamentalists both oppose TRA ideology, feminists are religious fundamentalists.

Have people watched the recent documentary about her on iplayer? Michael Heseltine said that men of his class and generation didn't know how to talk to women like people. She was not the first iconic woman* to not support other women, I suppose it's very much like 'Belle' in Beauty and the Beast: I'm special and different from those other women. It was maybe the only way to survive and be a successful first female PM. Her iconic status is without despute though and despite her policies the number of female MPs in parliament have increased since she was PM because she refuted all the reasons men thought women couldn't be PM.

As far as being a TERF, well she clearly wasn't a radical feminist but as PPs said she was not socially liberal and so would never have allowed self ID.

*worth mentioning though that Marie Curie did not follow this model, she was publicly friends with prominant feminists and her labs were full of female postdocs.

She would have been called a TERF .

Because it's a slur and a term of abuse, not an actual or accurate descriptor.

I don't think she'd have believed that TWAW, no.

And as LangCleg said, TERF is just a terf of abuse now, so she probably would get called them by the Legion of Dangerhairs.