Dammit, just read the Plaid Cymru manifesto and now I have no-one to vote for

[Littlecloud19]

I'm in Wales and had been hoping I could vote Plaid Cymru, whose manifesto contains excellent statements and policies to support women.
But, like the other political parties, they don't actually know what a woman is, and have undermined all the positive steps they'd take with this:
"Plaid Cymru will support the reform of the Gender Recognition Act to
introduce a streamlined, de-medicalised process. We will support efforts to reform the Equality Act to include ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic and to remove the use of the terms ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘transsexual’ from the Act."
I'm afraid mine is going to be a spoiled ballot paper, with "Woman = Adult Human Female" written on it.

Stunning and brave

It's such a shame. I had been hoping the gender critical Helen Mary Jones would have been able to influence this, but it seems not.
At least Labour has made a half-witted attempt to say they'd keep sex-based exemptions, but there's not a word about that in Plaid's manifesto. (And the Labour one is meaningless).
I hope the Plaid candidate knocks on my door.

So Plaid want to make things easier and less discriminatory for trans people/those transitioning and that’s a problem because.....???

I still don't have a clue who to vote for because of this issue. I really don't want to vote Tory but on this, they are the only ones who might protect women. But then I start thinking about the NHS and austerity and I'm back to square one.

That's a problem because it lets more male-bodied people into the female-only spaces that women have fought hard to gain.

Tragic that you would spoil your vote at this important time

What Everard says, spaces including refuges, changing rooms, toilets, competing equally in sport (where women and girls are still under-represented), bursaries and the like to encourage more women and girls in STEM occupations and so on.
'Gender identity as a protected characteristic' really worries me.

Why Guarva? I'm spoiling my vote. Women's rights are an important issue for me and as such I have no one to vote for.

Yes, it is tragic.
The Labour candidate has a big majority, so my Plaid vote wouldn't make much difference anyway, but my conscience won't allow me to support them now.

If you change gender reassignment to gender identity it means that transwomen can be discriminated against as long as biological women aren't as far as I can see.

I agree with you Aderyn. There's no way I can vote Tory because of the NHS, Brexit, universal credit.
But I think they're the only party who might see sense over protecting sex-based rights.

That's a problem because it lets more male-bodied people into the female-only spaces that women have fought hard to gain.

How exactly will having ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic and removing certain words cause this? They aren’t saying anyone can use any space they want, they are putting in place legislation to legally protect trans people from bullying and discrimination.

The reality is that it will lead to anyone using any space they want though, and that's already happening.

With a few exceptions (and well done to Center Parcs), companies are already bowing to pressure to allow men who present themselves as stereotypes of women into female spaces.

Plaid Cymru makes no mention of sex, only gender, which many of us here argue is a meaningless concept which is and can be abused by men with ill-intent towards women. E.g. male sex offenders housed in women's prisons.

Because no party will be absolutely perfect and some are certainly more evil than others so spoiling a ballot is reckless - better vote for the ‘least bad party’ than for none at all

Is the fear of trans people so great that literally hundreds of people on here feel like they are about to be attacked by one at any minute?

Do you think a door with a picture of a lady on it is going to stop a man hell bent on raping or assaulting someone?

The prison situation is a very unique one which surely only comes up a handful of times? Perhaps put concrete legislation in place to protect in that situation only.

The vast majority of trans people peacefully exist causing no harm to anyone.

Oh, well if only a handful of women and girls are sexually or physically assaulted that's ok then @JPharm.

It happens anyway, we’d do better to put in a more robust legal process and legal aid for the victims of sexual assault so that we increase conviction rates and have them off the streets instead of this pointless crusade against trans people daring to want equality.

As I asked earlier, how exactly does a door with a picture on it stop someone who’s sole intention is to cause harm?

JPharm, why do you think separate ladies toilets exist in the first place? And separate women's sports?
Have you read any of the threads on here about women and girls attacked by men in unisex facilities?
Do you not realise that self ID means any man can simply walk into a women's changing room by claiming to be transgender, when he is nothing of the sort? How are the women in there supposed to tell the difference?
Women's rights are not yours to give away to men.

Your statement is incredibly callous JPharm. 'It'll happen anyway.' Are you that anti-woman?

If there's no point keeping men out of women's spaces because assaults happen anyway, why do trans women want to use women's spaces JPharm? They won't be any safer.

@JPharm, why don't you just read the many many threads about this topic on MN instead of asking people to keep repeating it?

I'm not going to go through all the evidence but here's plenty: www.facebook.com/groups/1722756661380462/

No-one is arguing that most transwomen will co-exist peacefully but the huge level of anti-female violence and misogyny in society means sex-based protections, sadly, still need to be high on the agenda for women like me, for the sake of our daughters if nothing else.

Yes, the logical conclusion of JPharm's position is unisex spaces, no sex segregation anywhere, ever. If that's your position, that's fine, but you'd save us some time by just stating it straight out.

How exactly will having ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic and removing certain words cause this? They aren’t saying anyone can use any space they want, they are putting in place legislation to legally protect trans people from bullying and discrimination

While they insist on using the same words for both, how can this possibly be the case?

It's a "womens'" toilet - I think that means sex = female. But if someone's 'gender identity' is woman, then it includes them no matter what their sex. The only way this could be made to work is if there were different words used for gender identity and sex, and that the gender identity gets the new words, so we don't have to fight all over again to get sex based provision where we need it!

pointless crusade against trans people daring to want equality.

Oh good god. They have equality. They are perfectly at liberty to use all the same facilities as anyone else - ie. those of their sex.

None of us has the right to go into facilities provided for the opposite sex, trans people aren't being singled out here.