That's my Green candidate out - what next?

[FusionChefGeoff]

I was briefly excited by a leaflet focussed on women's healthcare and a focus on women's rights as the candidate in question is an obs and gynae (male) Doctor.

I emailed yesterday including the following;

•	How will you protect young people from making irreversible decisions on their health and legal status whilst they are still under the age of consent and to vote?
•	How will you protect young girls from male bodied ‘youth’ who are using Self ID in their sex segregated spaces eg. toilets / changing rooms?
•	How will you create safe spaces for young girls and women who, for religious reasons, require sex segregated spaces and social groups? 
•	How will you ensure young girls and women who are uncomfortable with male bodied medical professionals – particularly when dealing with intimate exams eg. cervical smears / breast exams – have a right to be treated by a female bodied HCP?
•	How can you protect women and children in sex segregated spaces when a male born person can simply say “I am a woman” and be allowed in?
•	How will you protect the most vulnerable of women and children in refuges and rape crisis centres when the same can apply and they could be forced to share spaces with male born people who may or may not be transgender?  Of course, with Self ID as law or policy, predatory and abusive men will use this to access women in previously sex segregated spaces
•	How will you record instances of misogyny and other male on female violence and crime when the self ID statistics will record crimes as being committed by ‘women’ even though they may only have decided to Self ID as female very recently (or even, for the purposes of being housed in an ‘easier’ women’s prison.

He did not answer a single one of those questions - just repeated that he backs Self ID and that Transwomen are Women.

I sent a polite reply thanking him for his time but that his lack of answered suggested he didn't care or didn't understand.

Sigh.

What do I do now?!

How frustrating.

It would be so tempting to ask him how many transwomen he has seen / expects to see in his role as a gynae...

I saw a good rationale on here recently, it went something like:

“While it’s essential to me that single sex spaces are respected in places such as hospitals, first I have to make sure there is a hospital available”

A crude retelling of it, but the sentiment of working out which party fits your other values best and choosing them, as none of the parties are doing what you want on women’s rights seemed sensible to me.

Then you work on them with questions such as the above once you have who you want in power.

Do you mean like this?
''While it's essential to me that women's rights are protected, first I have to make sure that the meaning of the word 'woman' is understood.''

So frightening to hear all these allegedly qualified doctors parroting TWAW.

A gynaecologist that thinks women can have a penis. It’s fucking dystopian.

A crude retelling of it, but the sentiment of working out which party fits your other values best and choosing them, as none of the parties are doing what you want on women’s rights seemed sensible to me

Sounds a lot like ‘women’s rights are not important, so why don’t you spend your time worrying about more important issues’ to me...

Spoil you ballot, don't vote or hold your nose and vote for who you don't support on this issue but broadly meets with your values.

It's shit OP but it's where we are, for this election at least.

I'm sometimes undecided but generally always come back to spoiling my ballot.

A gynaecologist that thinks women can have a penis. It’s fucking dystopian.

Or that an opening fashioned out of other body parts is a vagina.
A gynaecologist. FFS.

Presea I agree that’s what it sounds like. The more I worry over it all the more I come back to women’s rights being of greatest importance to me. I was a vocal remainer but I’m at the stage of feeling like I no longer care what happens, because without women’s rights being a priority either option is shit for half the population. I’m pretty sure I’m spoiling my ballot again. There can be no party that is ‘broadly in line with my views’ if they are decimating sex based protections. Remaining/soft Brexit, well funded nhs/schools et al means fuck all if it’s all just for men.

A gynaecologist that thinks women can have a penis.

Any word from the GMC?

Women’s rights are incredibly important to me. But equally as important are human rights, and I think that letting people die as a result of benefit cuts and other policies needs to be addressed.

No political party is addressing women’s rights how I want them to. So I choose the party addressing human rights in the way I want, as that is half the battle won.

If there were a party addressing women’s rights how I wanted but not human rights, same situation but reversed.

Sounds a lot like ‘women’s rights are not important, so why don’t you spend your time worrying about more important issues’ to me...

Nope. I pick the party that solves the most of my issues. Doesn’t matter which. They are all equally important to me.

People dying from benefit cuts have legal human rights protections. They may fall short in practice, and personally I’m still hugely outraged at how all mps and media ignored the UN finding us guilty of violating the convention on the rights of people with disabilities, but legally we all still have human rights, even the shittiest Brexit outcome will still have some form of a UK human rights convention. All these can fall short, and clearly have, in practice, but wiping out all women and girls right to sex based protections is wiping out all legal protection of our human rights. That’s something that can’t be come back from.

God it's fucking awful.

And a even more fucking awfully high percentage of the population don't even have a clue what's happening.

I have no one I want to vote for at all.

Each party has a MAJOR turn off policy.

I'm going to see if there are any independents in my ward.

Nope / just the 'big 4'

Christ it might have to be Labour. I wonder what their candidate thinks about TWAW etc.