Janice Turner thanks the LibDems

[TimeLady]

Great column from Janice today:

"Jo Swinson chose wokeness over women’s rights"

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jo-swinson-chose-wokeness-over-womens-rights-jm26ldx35?shareToken=1bb1b5a3e627aa308f03953a99c59666

I might send Jo Swinson a bunch of flowers. My card will read: “Thank you for making reform of the Gender Recognition Act a flagship Liberal Democrat election policy, thus finally giving journalists permission to expose the consequences for women’s rights and safety.”

You see it all the time on this board : they know the "I can't vote Tory..." scenario means those votes are non-Conservative ones, whether cast in despair or ballots spoilt. That's all that matters. Job done, thank you very much.

TimeLady, I think this is what they calculate. John McDonnell is an old school socialist. I don’t believe for a single second that he actually believes the biological impossibilities asserted by these lobbyists. But he demonstrated yesterday that he is quite prepared to chuck feminists under the bus because he is confident it won’t damage Labour. The arrogance is incredible

we had a lib dem canvasser on the door step yesterday. I (politely) sent him off with a flea in his ear. He did not know what to say about the self ID issue.

if you're going to major on it, why not provide the foot soldiers with some guidance on how to deal with the WTFs they're inevitably going to come across on the doorstep Jo?

A lot of Tories are as fetid on this issue as Swinson and Dawn Butler.

Remember Penny Mordaunt? She's on course to be re-elected in Portsmouth North

I know she was sacked from her ministerial role but she used to be close to Johnson, and has a habit of bouncing back. A bit like Priti Patel.

I am in awe of Janice's ability to package all that information in her column, she is such a brilliant writer.
And she has been shining a light on this for a long time. I hope other journalists who have now woken up won't lose their interest when the election is over. The whole thing is so undemocratic and has huge implications on a range of issues from young people's health to free speech.

I hope other journalists who have now woken up won't lose their interest when the election is over. The whole thing is so undemocratic and has huge implications on a range of issues from young people's health to free speech

I absolutely agree. This lobby and its cheerleaders are an existential threat to freedom of speech, freedom of thought, democracy, women’s rights and parents’ ability to protect children against being unnecessarily pathologised.

zanahoria: uh why shouldn't we debating human rights? Its an important issue, we have to argue out exactly what rights people have and what they do not have. I honestly do not know of any other group camaigning for what they perceive to be their human rights who would not be confident enough to explain precisely why their rights are being denied. Anyone who had a case should surely be gald of the publicity?

Absolutely spot on. Take abortion rights for example. Feminists typically take the anti-abortion argument of "but it's a human life you're ending" seriously, and argue against it - either by arguing that life doesn't begin at conception, or by arguing that it's a case of competing rights between "right to life" for the foetus and "right to bodily autonomy" for the mother. (See, for example, the classic essay by Janice Radcliffe Richards).

What they don't do is argue for "no debate" or no platforming. (They may argue for restrictions on where people can debate - parliament square, universities, columns in the press, twitter, TV, radio - all okay, screaming in the faces of women as they attempt to attend an abortion clinic - not okay.)

Thank you Janice!
Superb article.

And as much as I admire Jean Hatchet, we have to be careful. Some of that stuff is definitely conspiracy theory territory and risks undoing a lot of good work.

I wish I could vote for Janice Turner.

A lot of Tories are as fetid on this issue as Swinson and Dawn Butler.

Yeah, and another curious thing is what has been going on at the Equalities Office since 2010. Many Conservatives, including Theresa May and Dominic Raab, wanted to decimate it back when it was about women's equality and they thought the office had become too bloated. I think that is one reason why the genderists have managed to capture Whitehall.
The GEO has moved umpteen times (where is it now - under Cabinet Office?) and the portfolio has been passed around various ministries. And now it seems to have forgotten that sex is one of the protected characteristics

I know she was sacked from her ministerial role but she used to be close to Johnson, and has a habit of bouncing back. A bit like Priti Patel.

Yes, these people are yo-yos.

Mordaunt was the first one in to see Johnson in July. She was doing ok in defence by all accounts and pro-Brexit but still got the push. I'd put money on it being her refusal to back down from her TWAW position. I gave a cheer when I heard she was out.

The argument seems to be that if it's only a tiny number of women and girls that get harmed as a result of self ID, that that's ok.

How many transwomen would be harmed by the current GRA not being amended in the way the Lib Dems propose? Would that harm be as serious as sexual assault?

The reality is that a man not getting his own way and his feelings being hurt is of much greater significance than a woman being sexually assaulted.

"Tracey Loughran, a historian and dean in the Essex University humanities department said: “This speaker is part of the anti-trans platform. Free speech is one thing, but trans rights are human rights and we shouldn’t be debating human rights.""

This gave me the rage (the biological, peri-menopausal, kind). First, this oft- trotted out statement suggests that those who want to debate trans issues in any way are denying trans people are humans with rights. Second, it wholly ignores women's rights. I wish we didn't need to discuss those and that in 2019 they were taken as read, but because of the TRA agenda apparently we do need to fight to keep them.

University humanities department said: “This speaker is part of the anti-trans platform. Free speech is one thing, but trans rights are human rights and we shouldn’t be debating human rights."

Zanahoria, this tells you everything you need to know about this academic’s contempt for freedom of speech....

“FFS” 😂

but it is coming close to a straight choice between "five years of the poor being shafted versus a fundamental shift in our political process away from freedom of speech and democracy which may last a lifetime or more."

This. I was saying elsewhere earlier that I have never cast a vote intended to benefit me. Never. Not even once. My vote has always gone in solidarity with others whose policy needs are greater than mine.

Now, there is a political movement infiltrating multiple political parties that actually, genuinely, literally, wants to abolish me and all women as a nameable political category with policy needs. I can't vote for it. I just can't. I won't.

And that goes for both the Lib Dems and their you definitely don't exist, you're already abolished and Labour with their oh come on love, we're only going to abolish you a little bit.

No. I won't. I can't be made to. You can't appeal to my conscience. You can't make me put others first. I exist. A vote should be a positive thing and I will not cast another vote (beyond a ballot spoiling) until there is a political party ready to mount a full-throated defence of my existence within an important political category, and the rights it confers.

End of.

Now, there is a political movement infiltrating multiple political parties that actually, genuinely, literally, wants to abolish me and all women as a nameable political category with policy needs. I can't vote for it. I just can't. I won't

Lang, you know what I find so shocking? This is absolutely nothing whatsoever like a grass roots movement. It is nothing like a social change movement. Like the suffragettes. It is a deliberately secretive lobby which had immediate access to the people in the upper echelons of power. Civil servants, politicians, charities, state sector, private sector. And all of it done with zero media or public scrutiny. It’s unbelievable

but I cannot bring myself to vote for a party that is willing to throw women under the bus AND expect women to cheer them while they do it

Kit, the arrogance is absolutely incredible. There is something so regressive and conformist about the sex stereotypes being peddled by this lobby.

Fab powerful post LangCleg - thank you for articulating it so clearly.

There are some very good comments under the Times article as well.

Lang, you know what I find so shocking? This is absolutely nothing whatsoever like a grass roots movement. It is nothing like a social change movement. Like the suffragettes. It is a deliberately secretive lobby which had immediate access to the people in the upper echelons of power. Civil servants, politicians, charities, state sector, private sector. And all of it done with zero media or public scrutiny. It’s unbelievable

Yep. And transactivists may well be crowing currently because it's suiting them. If you ask me, they're just the useful idiots. This is about way more than genderism. If we don't look out, neo-feudalism is just around the corner. Cheerled by fools who think they're of the left.

If you ask me, they're just the useful idiots. This is about way more than genderism

Lang, I have been trying to understand who is the figurehead and what is the motive but it eludes me. I certainly think there’s a bunch of useful idiots. Many of them are politicians. But where you and I will disagree is that I think the fertile environment which has enabled this fricking outrageous regulatory, institutional capture has come from the left. This is a battle where freedom versus the end game of ‘equality’ The left are on the wrong side. But hey Lang, you and I might disagree about politics and I respect your position, but we’re on the same side in this!

if you're going to major on it, why not provide the foot soldiers with some guidance on how to deal with the WTFs they're inevitably going to come across on the doorstep Jo?

I think it’s because the entire agenda is shrouded in secrecy. So the party apparatchiks are relying on nobody asking. Because most of the public don’t know

Tracey Loughran, a historian and dean in the Essex University humanities department said: “This speaker is part of the anti-trans platform. Free speech is one thing, but trans rights are human rights and we shouldn’t be debating human rights." uh why shouldn't we debating human rights? Its an important issue, we have to argue out exactly what rights people have and what they do not have.

I have noticed this time and again, this claim that something is a rights issue, and therefor it must be accepted as presented (presented by whom, that doesn't matter!). It goes beyond this issue, I've seen it in debates about all kinds of questions.

In many cases I have come to the conclusion the people spouting this believe it - they believe that it is the case that anything that is a "right" cannot conflict with other "rights" so there is simply nothing to talk about. All the rights fit together neatly because they have a sense of rights as a naturalistic system with a kind of higher level metaphysical rightness behind them. It's like a cut-rate materialists version of Catholic natural law, without the nuance.
Because these people implicitly accept this idea, often without ever really thinking about it, they believe and behave as if the only task is to figure out what rights each person or group really has, to put them into law, and then it will all fit together in an easy, simple, and natural way.
They additionally seem to believe that once these laws are made, they will work without affecting the behaviour of people in general or causing institutional or systemic issues. There will always be individual criminal types to be dealt with but basically people will never use rights to try and create hierarchies or develop a power base.

I think it points to limits many people have in their understanding of systemic behaviours, institutional behaviours, and also maybe too little critical examination of the whole model of human rights. The latter is something that kids are taught, from early years, as basic, fundamentally true, not to be contested. They generally do not understand that it is a construct, what it is meant to represent, what it's limitations might be, or even how it came to be developed. All things which help us make judgements about how to use the model in a sensible and effective way.

And for raising again at the end the astronomic rise in trans-identifying teens and young people. It is not progressive or liberating to medically alter people who don't conform to stereotypes

I've just returned from a Christmas arts & craft market. I ended up purchasing a lovely, hand made 'super woman' dressing up outfit for my 5 year old granddaughter. The stall holder, a youngish American Mum, mentioned her 6 year old son twirling around, at home, in the superwoman skirt. I couldn't resist - and said:

ME: "It's great that boys can wear skirts without thinking they're girls"....

MUM: " But even if he wanted to be a girl that'd be fine, so long as he was happy".....

ME: " Surely not if it involved hormones and surgery"

MUM: " Why not, so longs as he was happy"

ME: " I don't think that would really make him happy"

Awkward silence.....it was just a Christmas craft fair after all....

But I so wanted to add that a 6 year old is not old enough to realise the consequences of such 'desires' and actions, and that it would be a failure of adult and parental responsibility to permit or encourage this.

What a mess we have got ourselves into...when loving parents think giving hormones and puberty blockers to children is as harmless as dressing up as superwoman.