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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Emily Thornberry's Statement About Hate Groups/Trans Rights/Labour Pledge

67 replies

ArranUpsideDown · 13/02/2020 00:02

It hasn't clarified matters for me, I don't know about anyone else.

I have signed the pledge by Labour Campaign for Trans Rights. Here's my full statement:
#TransRightsAreHumanRights #Newsnight

twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1227733218494906369

Emily Thornberry's Statement About Hate Groups/Trans Rights/Labour Pledge
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BritneyPeedOnALadybug · 13/02/2020 17:23

Interesting comments on The Guardian, as usual.

Goosefoot · 13/02/2020 17:30

How do you see comments on stories like that?

BritneyPeedOnALadybug · 13/02/2020 17:59

Sorry @goosefoot I was being sarcastic. The Guardian has a whole section entitled “Comment is free” but they don’t allow users to comment on articles relating to the trans issue.

Evenquieterlife33 · 13/02/2020 18:17

Another plank for the pile. Labour isn’t for me anymore. Or anybody I know well. They are deluded. I’m eager to see what new labour movement emerges from the ashes.

Goosefoot · 13/02/2020 18:18

Oh, right!

Yes, they and the CBC are the same, comments on certain subjects not allowed. Somehow they know which ones those will be - I always wonder, do they tell themselves trolls are just especially attracted to those topics?

BritneyPeedOnALadybug · 13/02/2020 19:16

What/Who are the CNC?
And considering the begging for donations at the end of each Guardian article, at this point I think they’d be grateful for trolls for the clicks for ad revenue. (Although not actual trolls of course, just a readership that don’t generally agree with their editorial - it only takes a look on their Twitter feed linking to such articles on this issue where people can leave comments... and the majority are NOT in agreement with what they are saying.

Comment is free but if the comment isn’t right then you don’t have the right to comment. Does anyone else think that is a much more appropriate slogan for them?

BritneyPeedOnALadybug · 13/02/2020 19:17

CBC, sorry

ErrolTheDragon · 13/02/2020 23:34

Comment is free

Don't they mean, 'valueless', if only assent is tolerated?

ArranUpsideDown · 15/02/2020 00:21

Thornberry may be ruing her lack of clarity on the one hand and her abandonment of the right to women to uphold their rights without being accused of ignorance on the other:

Emily Thornberry was last night knocked out of the Labour leadership race.

The Shadow Foreign Secretary failed to garner enough nominations from local Labour branches to go forward to a vote of party members.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8006059/Emily-Thornberry-drops-Labour-leadership-contest.html

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Datun · 15/02/2020 00:30

As far as I know there is definitely official criteria applied to a group designated a 'hate group'. You can't just describe groups like that willy nilly.

Like others I am desperate for WPUK and/or LGBA to sue.

CharlieParley · 15/02/2020 01:43

There is currently no legislation that would allow a group to be designated as a hate group anywhere in Europe. The UK has legislation in place to tackle extremist violent groups under terrorism laws. A group so designated (to which parliament must agree) is proscribed. Membership and support of and for a proscribed group is a criminal offence.

There have been discussions for a number of years now to tackle right wing extremist non-violent groups by designating them as hate groups. They would not be proscribed, but their activities extremely curtailed and related offences were suggested to be civil rather than criminal.

One thinktank defined a hate group thus:

nonviolent extremist groups that demonise specific groups on the basis of their race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality

Under this proposed definition neither WPUK nor the LGB Alliance would be designated as hate groups.

Anyone who has ever attended their meetings, watched their videos or read their writings would know they do not demonise anyone. They always express the need for equal rights for all groups, including the trans community, and acknowledge that the latter must be protected. They simply adopt a different approach to doing so from those accusing them of being hate groups.

Their insistence that we can protect trans people while upholding women's sex-based rights does not constitute hate and would not see them designated a hate group.

Datun · 15/02/2020 11:20

So Charlie if there isn't anything official (sorry, I thought there was), to define a hate group, does that mean they WPUK couldn't sue?

Or could they sue on the basis of what is generally understood to be a hate group, as you say, by think tanks, etc?

Aesopfable · 15/02/2020 11:35

Emily Thornberry was last night knocked out of the Labour leadership race

Ah, but will it be put that down to her questioning whether campaigning for woman’s rights is hateful rather than declaring it to be so? Will they think she wasn’t woke enough?

DickKerrLadies · 15/02/2020 11:43

Comment is free

War is peace, freedom is slavery...

ArranUpsideDown · 15/02/2020 11:44

there isn't anything official (sorry, I thought there was), to define a hate group, does that mean they WPUK couldn't sue?

I was relieved to see CharleyParley say that there aren't because I did a fair amount of Google searching the other night because I was wondering about this. I couldn't find anything but had put that down to not knowing the magic terms to find the information.

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CharlieParley · 15/02/2020 19:06

As this would be a defamation case, and it would indeed be looking at what is commonly understood to be a hate group. You don't need to have legislation defining what a hate group is to be able to sue for defamation.

However, it's difficult to prove defamation. Because it is about the actual damage your reputation has suffered. Which is difficult to quantify in these cases. And you could have the kind of crazy outcome you saw in the Kezia Dugdale vs Stuart Campbell case, where the court found that no, he wasn't homophobic but she had her own definition of what homophobia is and therefore it wasn't defamation.

This is my inexpert summary, of course, but this case illustrates how difficult things get when the definition of what constitutes any phobia of this kind is up to the person feeling offended and not to the much more objective definition of what a reaonable person would consider it to be (like with self-defence cases) or even straight up strictly delineated, objective definitions (like what is theft).

PermanentTemporary · 15/02/2020 20:17

I just feel a bit lost.

Im a social democrat, not a leftist. I thought Emily T's original sin of that tweet of St George's flags in her constituency was crass and snobby, and my main motivation for thinking that no sensible politician should actually tweet or have a recognisable active account.

I am just wondering what it would be like to be a woman - or, God, a man either - and read that pledge and not think 'shit that sounds extreme'? What would it be like if your antennae weren't sensitive enough to pick up that it's offensive and authoritarian in tone, even if you basically agree with it? I mean, the first two sentences are perfectly fine in their own way, but the rest of it?

What's happening that they're not telling us? Who is talking to them and saying 'ooh this is a good idea, jolly good bunch this, rainbow/smiling coppers at Pride/youth vote' about THIS pledge? This batshit outpouring of insanity?

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