The Upcoming Election

[TerfTalk]

I guess we will get the manifestos in a few days, which should be interesting...

All I remember from the previous elections was far too much: "I am in the X party. There are tons of people in the X party that are gender critical, but they can't say anything because of A, B, C."

Personally, I am spoiling my ballot unless any of the parties (other than UKIP) take a gender critical stance. I am in a Labour safe seat, so it won't make any difference to my area.

I do hope so.

you like what the cons are doing to the nhs, to immigrants, to the disabled, to our schools, to the economy, spoil your ballot and they will do it more and harder.

Will the party leaders do a mumsnet Q&A?

...yeah. If they do, it will be as the last couple of significant people who've dared risk it, mostly it will be pre prepped responses to selected pre submitted questions and HQ will limit anything around women's rights/GC issues to one or two questions only. No leader will come here and actually let women talk to them.

Emotional blackmail based on lies and misinformation. Labour were keeping UC and the associated cuts in their last manifesto. They may have paid lip service (again) to change but it'll probably be forgotten about yet again and their 'solution' is another new system aka fuckup. Brexiteer Corbyn has also explicitly spoken against immigration so that doesn't wash either. Interestingly, the level of NHS funding promised by Labour last time was significantly below what the Tories gave. There's the racism as well. Now I wouldn't vote Tory anyway but don't pretend Labour are any better.

However, all this is derailing. What matters is women's rights. We have seen what Labour will do to us. Remember the baying mob outside a women's meeting and the absolute silence from the so-called leadership? I do. Either they remember that 60% of their voters are people too or they deserve to be annihilated. I'm out of patience.

a party that recently at conference booed a speaker for saying that women have the right to meet safely without harrassment.
This bears repeating. The Labour Party in 2019.

Even now, a little shame and embarrassment at that episode might go a long way. But if all you've got is a telling off and moral blackmail then I would save your breath - you're likely to do more harm than good.

An election will not sort out the Brexit mess - we're stuck in this for years to come.
I will not vote for anyone without a guarantee that they will enable respectful open debate about women's rights and the safeguarding of children. One mention of bigots and they can piss right off. And if that means spoiling my ballot, the so be it. Women's rights and the safety of children are being comprehensively trashed by all political parties - yet people expect that women will then meekly line up and vote for them? Stop the gaslighting and guilt tripping of women.
You want my vote? Then stop calling women bigots for not colluding in our own erasure.

I'm a Labour member but not happy with what I saw at Conference. At any rate it doesn't matter as my Constituency swings between Tory and Lib dems who will most likely get in as it's a solid Remain constituency.

Have emailed all my candidates asking how they will protect women's sex based rights. I won't hold my breath for responses!

Women, right now, are being raped and sexually assaulted in mixed sex spaces that used to be single sex.
Girls are getting urinary infections rather than use mixed sex toilets in school.
Labour support these policies plus Universal Credit and austerity.

I can't believe anyone would think its ok to 'put that aside'. Its just another day of other people are more important so women must put them first.

It's an easy one for me.

All available parties are shit on women's rights. If I let that determine things it means not voting, which I can't do because it feels like spitting in the face of my feminist foremothers.

So, naked self-interest it is.

My vote will therefore be determined by who will commit to ditching universal credit and ending benefit sanctions - as these are highly likely to force me into a survival sex situation in the not-too-distant future, and if I go down that road I'll be in no fit state to fret over anything else relating to women's rights.

Yes there are lots of issues other than the GC one - but GC issues are the canary in the coalmine for me.

Because if a political party blindly espouses TWAW with all that that implies, what does this mean about that party?

That it is anti science.
That it has contempt for the concerns, fears and realities of ordinary people.
That it can’t / won’t engage in rational thought and discourse.
That it doesn’t care about the physical safety, dignity and privacy of people outside its privileged ‘in group’.
That it is prepared to adopt aggressive tactics to shut down debate (because this is what we’re seeing already, and if any party really wants to push a TWAW agenda it’s going to get a lot worse - there will be a huge amount of opposition to suppress).

This is an unpleasant and frightening package.

So I’d say, if a party is pushing a TWAW agenda, that’s a sign that it would be dangerous in power- irrational, oppressive, and trampling over the rights of people who disagree with it.

My local MP is gender critical, so despite being a previous member of the Labour Party, and coming from a long line of labour activists, I’ll be voting for him. Labour as it is now seems to me to bring with it a very strong whiff of totalitarianism. It’s attitude to GC issues is a symptom of an underlying malaise which has corrupted its commitment to reason, freedom, and rights.

Totalitarian leaders gain power after a period of social upheaval and uncertainty. They seem attractive to people who crave order, a sense of security, and leadership.

The conditions for this are being deliberately created now.

If you asked a single mother suffering from domestic abuse whether is more affected by welfare cuts or by removal of safe refuges from domestic abuse,

You’re setting up a false dichotomy there. It’s very unlikely a woman will come across TW in a refuge. There are still safe places.

by being denied access to leisure venues because of lack of safety and privacy when she gets changed,

Some women can’t afford to eat or heat their homes never mind even think about leisure venues.

At the moment I'm torn between spoiling and lib dems (who I was fine with getting behind until I saw they'd chucked sex based rights under the bus too). The Tories have fucked things up IMO, Corbyn (and his pronouns and his women's officer and not a single word against the WPUK meeting harassment) can fuck right off, lib dems and greens are on the same hymn sheet when it comes to sex based rights and Farage is a hateful man who I'd never EVER vote for in a million years.

I just want the whole brexit furore over and done with (when I think of the money they've thrown at the whole thing I could despair), Universal Credit should get the can, sex based rights and when my daughter goes to school to not have someone pay a visit and tell her if she doesn't like barbies she might be a boy.

I dont think we should set GC concerns aside.

I think because all the parties are not GC that isnt decider in an election. The conservatives have policies that actively damage women. So if you are feminist you are better voting to remove the Conservatives than spoiling your ballot.

I hope conservatives and labour both lose vote share in this election. Then they will start to take self ID moreseriously as they want to win voters back and women are most likely to be swing voters.

In the meantime not voting on GC grounds has precisely no impact because there are so many myriad other reasons people wont vote (December, brexit, apathy)

Excellent post Knewmee

We are a democracy. Those who refuse women the democratic right to discuss the removal of women's rights and who collude in threatening and intimidating women are not fit to govern a country. Demanding that women close their ears and eyes to the level of abuse aimed at us from the Lib Dems / Labour party is an abuser's charter.

GC issues are extremely important to me, but as a disabled woman who is struggling for the moment to stay working FT and may need to be reliant on disability benefits in the not-too-distant future, I can't fight the GC fight if I'm dead or homeless so my vote will be tactical to best keep the Tory candidate out.

So if you are feminist you are better voting to remove the Conservatives than spoiling your ballot

I don't disagree with you @QuentinWinters but the Conservative candidate is outspokenly gender critical. I don't know who the Labour candidate is but there is enough evidence to suggest the SNP candidate is conspiring to unseat Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry. No way is he getting my vote!

Can't vote for Greens or Lib Dems because of their policies. So it's Labour or spoiled paper for me.

I'm in Scotland so it'll be a choice between SNP or SNP, I expect.

I wonder if my SNP MP is a fan of Joanna Cherry? Will ask.

I’ll be voting labour.
They are the only party I trust with the NHS.

All the parties are rubbish on sex v gender, so I am voting for properly funded public services and a benefits system that doesn’t leave millions dependent on food banks.

I’ll continue to fight on the gender bollox post GE.

Yes I know none of the mainstream parties are gender critical, and before Brighton that might have been enough for me to hold my nose and vote Labour. But they crossed a line at their conference - not just the behaviour outside the WPUK meeting but the way they jeered a speaker for daring to speak up for women trying to discuss their rights.They crossed a line that day.

The depressing is, they don't even seem to realise how much damage they've done. The same goes for some of the posters dropping by to scold us.

I think this thread epitomises just why a GE at this time is so dangerous.

Many people are treating it as a 2nd referendum whilst others are voting on one important to them issue. Why aren't more people thinking about who is the best party to govern our country, on all issues, post GE? I don't understand voting for say a party who is GC if they'll have simply no idea how to run the NHS,national security or education.

What mess are we going to be in post GE?

Issues such as the NHS and education and anything else that involves women and girls will be stuffed anyway if the legal rights of women are removed. It isn't one issue. I can't put aside the prospect of females being stripped of their legal identity and sex based rights - which involves making females a subordinate class again - and care much about any other political issue. It will be a country run by men, for men.

And yes, this is a ridiculous point to be holding a GE. But really at this point it is short term thinking because it's trying to find a government that will sort out this unholy Brexit mess one way or the other as opposed to this endless stalemate. At the moment governments and leaders aren't lasting long.

Well I’m voting for the party that is going to reform the secretive family courts that insist on women who have escaped dv and da having to hand over their children to the abuser, the abuser, the paedo.
Or at least enforce contact otherwise they are deemed to be emotionally abusive.

Now which one is that?

The Labour Party is the only anti austerity party around. Having a disabled son who is about to have his benefits cut, it is more important to me to have a Government that will revoke this rather than gender pronouns.