So, serious question. Are any of the Labour leadership candidates GC?

[DeathByPuppy]

I’m considering joining the party (deadline Jan 20th) to have a say in the leadership but the GRA position of the candidates really bothers me.

Phillips, Thornberry, Nandy & Starmer have all declared their pro-GRA stance. What about Long-Bailey? Does anyone in the running give a shiny shit about women’s rights or are we just political cannon fodder? Is there anyone who stands out from the crowd?

Long Bailey would be a disaster. I don't care if they are "gender critical"

I'm looking for a candidate who is not a Momentum member , Marxist idiot.

I think, if they were, they'd be keeping pretty quiet about it. Sadly.

Of course not.

Exactly what I feared

Silly, that would require one of them to be in favour of the rights of women, even when it upset men! Of course not!

If any of them are, they’ll do well to keep their mouths shut about it until after the polling. Otherwise the anti-women brigade will have them kicked out before you can say Jill Robinson.

I'm hoping AnyOldPrion is right. If any of them say anything openly GC now, they'll likely have to deal with a JK Rowling style backlash and risk losing the election. Especially since there are still a lot of people who read the headlines and dont know the full story.
I think it's worth listening carefully to their phrasing around the issue.
I've joined up to vote but haven't decided on who yet. I think there are a lot of women who've also done so.

I wonder if that’s the case, @AnyOldPrion. It’s sad that speaking up in favour of the protection of women’s rights is something that now has to be closeted.

Well we’ve had enough demonstrations of how power can be taken by stealth from transactivists. I suspect the most likely way a reality understander might make it to the top of the Labour Party right now is by pretending to be a woke believer.

A truly outstanding person might raise sufficient passion in non-believers to overthrow the gods of wokeism, but I don’t see anyone of that calibre on the horizon at present.

I live in hope (with frequent bouts of eye rolling).

There have been two interviews with Jess Phillips in which she expresses regret for retweeting WPUK as she didn't know it was a "hate group"! (Not sure if she used those words but the woke interviewers might have added this handy description so that readers will know just how badly she failed to follow the party line.

I think most of them have been purged in the past two years. Any who are left are keeping it to themselves.

I saw a recent online interview with Jess P in the Pink News where she was basically tying herself in knots grovelling to the TW journo. There was a lot of alluding to ‘notorious anti-trans organisation’ without specifically mentioning the evil TERF bogeyman.

Whilst some of Jess Phillips’ actions have been a bit (not related to gender issues), I thought she was on our side. I still think (hope?) she might be. Is that naive?

Is that naive?

Very

Are there even any backbench MPs who are? Liz Kendall always struck me as quite sensible, shame she's not running.

No idea about Long Bailey but her CLP passed an extreme TWAW motion by a staggering majority (35:5)

I think the Labour Party has been so thoroughly captured that, even if any of the candidates are secretly GC, I cannot imagine them putting their head over the parapet, or even having the nerve to whisper their concerns to James Kirkup. Nor do I have any reason to believe they would suddenly find their courage once they're in charge - they would then be beholden to the people who put them there.

I saw a recent online interview with Jess P in the Pink News where she was basically tying herself in knots grovelling to the TW journo.

Thread about that interview.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3797841-Jess-Phillips-throws-GC-women-under-the-bus

Thanks for that, @OldCrone. Reading now.

Following JPs web chat today, I think we can safely say that JP is in the twaw camp.

Fucksake, just read the webchat, and came over here to see if there was a specific thread about it.

I think Jess nailed her colours to the mast there didn't she? And the free speech/inciting hatred veiled reference. Honestly, bloody hell.

I think there must be a distinction between the candidates who are saying this stuff because they actually believe it and those who don't believe it but fear the backlash if they don't pretend to. I don't know which is worse, really.

Keir Starmer is an intelligent man and I don't think for one moment that he actually believes trans women are women. And even if he will pretend he does for the sake of expediency, he is also a lawyer so can easily see the terrible consequences of enshrining self-ID in law. So sadly, from a feminist point of view, I think he is probably our best hope.

None will admit to it.

@theunknownknown, quite. What a clusterfuck.

Yep deathbypuppy
I was never going to vote for her anyway - I don't believe Labour should have a female leader just for the sake of it (although some of them would categorise males in that camp anyway so not quite sure what the hoo ha is).
Starmer was always going to have my vote.
But still, galling to see a biological woman throw 51% of the population to the kerbside when it actually seems to not matter to her if one of her opponents was a biological male claiming to be a woman.
ffs - I'm so over this shit.

ffs- I’m so over this shit

It’s such a mess. I can’t believe it’s gone as far and as long as it has.