Lib Dem’s Equalities R4 now

[PaleBlueMoonlight]

Right now

I remember when the LibDems started out and having a row with a friend who said that she would vote for them. I think the exact phrase was "They are a bunch of clowns!".

I take it back, at least clowns are (sometimes) funny although I almost peed myself laughing at this carcrash.

Nauticant, I agree. Instead of having a set of political principles or a political philosophy, they merely hook themselves up to whoever is screaming loudest on Twitter. It’s quite contemptible

MissLawls Like Luciana I too am Jewish. She will know, as I do, that there are people who pretend to be Jewish in order to defend Corbyn from claims that he is antisemitic. An entire group was set up in 2016 called Jewish Voice For Labour that is purely there to protect Corbyn from claims about antisemitism. Many of its members aren't Jewish. Twitter is often full of #asajew hashtags which has swelled our tiny population to at least twice its size!

So.... how Berger of all people can calmly say that any man who wants to call himself a woman must be treated as a woman, by law, when she knows as well as I do how much this identify-as-I-please nonsense has hurt us Jews is beyond staggering.

That makes her capitulation to this dangerous dogma more shocking and difficult to comprehend. Have you mentioned the above to her on Twitter as well as your other questions?

Datun and Arnold, I agree that they should definitely be saying those things about safe guarding sex segregated spaces in hospitals and prisons. But they, like so many others, are probably frightened of being accused of ‘dog whistle’ hate speech

Lib Dems are horrifically anti-women. They are pro-prostitution and pro-pornography. They even opposed measures to prevent children - yes, CHILDREN - from looking at violent, misogynistic pornography. I would never, never vote Lib Dem as they are a misogynistic party, and seem to regard men's sexual rights as a 'liberal' civil rights issue

@RedDogsBeg

That makes her capitulation to this dangerous dogma more shocking and difficult to comprehend

Indeed it does. It's very upsetting.

Have you mentioned the above to her on Twitter as well as your other questions

Not yet no I'm sort of saving it up. Just wanted to keep it to one issue at a time. But I will do.

Lib Dems are horrifically anti-women

I've had a number of LIbDem men on Twitter call me vile names and say they don't want my vote. This was before election was announced. I reported them to the party. Nothing happened.

I would never, never vote Lib Dem as they are a misogynistic party, and seem to regard men's sexual rights as a 'liberal' civil rights issue

Agreed

I've raised the issue personally with

a) the radical association because of the incident with forcing out someone
b) LD complaints over their LGBT twitter account.
c) a senior LD. Who I warned that Aimee Challenor would come back to haunt the party and there would be another scandal involving them. They said that they were aware that the party had a problem with bullying and they'd been a victim of it.
d) local party members who are friends and intelligent types. One has told me I'm a bigot and then made extremely actually transphobic comments when drunk. One who said they weren't interested as Brexit was more important.
e) The local candidate to be an MP who at the time was already being lined up to be the prospective candidate but had not yet got the nod (and I specifically meantioned Challenor to as well as said that the same about them being a scandal waiting to happen).

In every case they were men. Locally they had said they wanted to get more women involved in politics and it was hard to talk about diversity as they were all white middle aged men. I've said that part of the problem was the condescending attitudes and outright sexism I'd directly experienced. I said that having a young son and partner with a heavy job made it particularly difficult as I had certain barriers that men didn't have.

One who was the previous candidate to be MP has told me in the past he has never met anyone who is so politically aware, politically able and engaged and ahead of the curve on issues.

It's not like I've not had these conversations with people. They are not interested and don't want to explore the issue as it's not their pet project and regard it as a I quote "fringe issue". The idea that people like Berger aren't up with the subject is one I find difficult to grasp. I refuse to believe that she's not had correspondence on the issue which is good quality and reasonable in tone.

The fact is I just don't think they are interested and can't be bothered with double checking what they are being told as it's too easy to dismiss.

It's either to pat women on the head and say 'be nice'.

The whole be nice thing is a reflection on how how far removed they all are from this being an issue that has any ramifications for them.

I despair over it.

As others say if they aren't interested over this, then what else do they just shrug and say its unimportant just because their world view isn't coming into contact with a problem.

I might add that I'm not sure it's any different for any other party. I have closer connection with the LDs than other parties due to my circles of friends.

I do feel that it's part of a wider problem and part of institutionalised sexism within politics.

The Conservatives should be trying to woo feminist voters by articulating a strong defense of sex

Unless you see feminism purely as a matter of individualistic personal self interest, then I can't see voting conservative as being any solution to the many of structural issues women face as a class of people in society.

Margaret Thatcher may have been a woman, but she did next to nothing , and even worse ( positive damage), for other, poorer, disempowered or marginalised women.

Child care, maternity leave, Sure Start centres, all manner of local facilities on which on which many women & mothers rely, and which provide necessary life-lines, are always decimated by Conservative policies

*I am always amazed at politicians who appear not to have followed this debate at all given its prominence on social media and the coverage it's had in the Times, Mail etc8

I think most people, and especially many women, see it as a side issue to other policy issues. Up until now they may not have much consciousness of what is going on; and may never have experienced anything 'untoward', troubling or uncomfortable themselves. There must be a tendency to think because they have not encountered any issues then the 'problem' does not really exist.

The Conservatives don't need to attract the feminist vote.

Since more women vote LD or Labour, they can take a different approach.

They can stress the hypocrisy of the LDs and Labour and still act like sexist arse holes because they only need to suppress the feminist vote and demotivate feminists from voting at all. It was the tactic in the US trump election; just deter women and ethnic minorities from voting for Clinton.

Tbh that's really where I'm at though. Because I can't excuse homophobia and sexism anymore than I can justify Islamophobia or Antisemitism.

Women didn’t vote for Clinton because many female voters didn’t like her. She was the establishment candidate in a change election

I think this could be an opening for the Conservatives who have, after all, kicked self ID into the long grass.

It could be good for them except of course Johnson has such a bad track record with women and that, rightly, puts a lot of women off.

Corbyn is very pro self ID or maybe he just doesn't care all that much. For sure Labour gives off an aroma of a boys' own club which to some extent it always has. Women are welcome so long as they're Corbynites. He likes women so long as they're agreeing with and worshipping him.

Greens are a dead loss.

If we had a Monster Raving Loony party candidate standing here he or she would get my vote.

There's research been done on the Clinton loss. They found that more socially Conservative leaning women who otherwise liked her had a problem with the trans issue and it affected their vote.

Trump won in places which were more socially Conservative not just because of the anti establishment feeling but because 'soccer moms' who might have had an affinity with Clinton otherwise were put off by this change which horrified them.

Given Clinton's seeming reversal, I think she is aware of the issue with the militancy and how that hasn't placed well with some moderates.

To characterise the 2016 election as simply a change election isn't fully reflective of the situation.

Some people didn't like either of the two versions of change presented to them.

Which is why it's very similar to the dynamics we have for this election.

This is the comment I put under the Radio 4 Today tweet about it. I will probably get banned again as it's bound to have attracted the haterz. Sigh...

Replying to @BBCr4today @lucianaberger

"Anyone who declares themselves a woman should be treated as a woman by law." Anyone? Convicted rapists, paedophiles? Perverts who want access to young girls in women's changings rooms? Anyone Luciana? If Jimmy Savile was alive would he be allowed to identify as a woman?

On PM on Radio 4 they are asking for people to contact them if they have issues which will affect the way they vote in the election - yesterday it was a woman in her early 60s who's been badly hit by the pension rules changing. Shall we all write in and explain what's affecting our votes?

@artisanparnsips

Shall we all write in and explain what's affecting our votes

Absolutely!

Fantastic, just listened to it.
Peak trans.

Q:So I should be tested in law as a woman?
A:Yes
Q:Why?

My tweet below the Today programme one thus far has 222 likes and 28 retweets. I also posted this:-

What about women who identify as men? Do they gain male inheritance rights to titles? For entry into male-only clubs such as The Garrick? Members of Masonic lodges? Why is this always couched as men who want to be treated as women, not women who want to be treatead as men by law

Which has had over 100 likes and 12 retweets.

I can't see anything hateful nor threatening about either tweet but the TRAs do love to mass report.

And I posted this beneath Nick Robinson's post about it.

Nick are you aware that thanks to this policy which all parties support many women feel politically homeless

That's had 144 likes.

I am definitely for it!

@missLawls I've sent my email just now, the more the merrier.

FWIW I have also said that I don't want to give my full name as being doxxed by the trans brigade is an experience i could live without.

I have also said that I don't want to give my full name as being doxxed by the trans brigade is an experience i could live without

Quite understandable. I don't worry about being doxxed as my whereabouts are very easy to find. Fortunately I live in the kind of place that you'd REALLY have to want to get to if you wished to hunt me down. Never been a problem. Been threatened with reporting me to an employer I don't work for. And even the police once!

My greatest fear isn't doxxing or abuse. It's being hit by a mass report. I haven't broken any rules but that doesn't necessarily save you!

No one could fuck that up. Make your opponents claim that men should be competing against women, and that rapists should be given access to incarcerated women as part of their punishment.

Ha ha ha ha. I mean, that's a brilliant idea and I would love to see it happen. But I can't help remembering it was the Tories who introduced this whole idiotic idea of reforming the GRA in the first place, and when I wrote to my Tory MP about it the reply I received was as woke as if it had come from some blue-haired undergraduate from Goldsmiths.

If they're going to turn it on their opponents, they'll have to rely on people having short memories.

It dawns on me that of course the Lib Dems have decided on this policy without even waiting for the outcome of the consultation or suggesting that we should have the results before deciding policy/legislating.