Shaking after explaining why I couldn’t vote Lib Dem to a canvasser

[moggiemonster]

Not entirely sure what advice I am after. I have been lurking on this board and commenting infrequently. Have local elections coming up (we are a very blue area) and Lib Dem male canvassers knocked. Politely told him I could not support the candidate and was asked why. Explained about changes to GRA, self-I’d and spousal ‘veto’. He was very polite, very incredulous that this was sole reaction I couldn’t support them even on a local level.

I was actually shaking as I spoke to him. Was so worried I would be seen as a bigot and was made to feel that actually self-id wasn’t a big deal. Probably felt vulnerable as was discussing on my doorstep. Would it have been better just to have shut the door?

How do I get my view across without being made to fell stupid and a bigot? I am all for accepting those who go through the process but not the idea of there being no distinction between the sexes so no boundaries.

Sorry, I feel very isolated with this topic, friends ignore it or tell me I should be accepting as there are no need for different categories based on sex. My family just think I am over-reacting.

Doubt I will see hide or hair of Labour canvassers.

Well done OP. I also had a Lib Dem canvasser phone me recently and spent a while talking to him about their policies on prostitution and trans issues, and why I was unable to keep supporting them at the moment. Poor guy was new to it all and sounded rather taken aback (said he wasn't really aware of those policies), but seemed to agree with a lot of the points I made, was surprised at the policies and said he would do some more research on the issues. He sounded like an older guy and said it was his first time canvassing so it hadn't come up before; but he finished by saying thanks for the info and he would give them some feedback on my concerns. So hopefully I opened his eyes a bit, if nothing else.

I've done canvassing myself - I prefer it if people are polite but other than that they have a right just to say "No thank you" or to give you a reason if they prefer.

Personally I don't think this issue ought to be so important that it overrides everything else. I don't want the government to be given free ride to do enormous damage solely because people want to not have self-ID. But that's just my view.

Well done OP! It's really hard to talk calmly about the things we feel most passionately about.

It's emotionally draining to keep having to go over these arguments, but each time we speak up it helps get people thinking critically.

I had a WEP committee member call me asking for money (I know, I know, but we have to assert our rights, we must not roll over) and I said, NO, you can't just farm members for cash when you won't listen to us, we are sick of it!

Personally I don't think this issue ought to be so important that it overrides everything else.

Personally, I don't think that the determination of something like 0.01% of the population to access same sex spaces by Self ID should override the safety and dignity of 51% of the population.

I too would like to see a functioning Opposition, a credible government-in-waiting that would challenge the government and hold its feed to the fire. Our democracy depends on it.

However, any party that is prepared to throw women and girls under the bus - see Lisa Nandy who is on record as being quite happy for vulnerable women in prison to be locked up in the same cell as rapists (as long as they self-ID, of course) - is never going to get my vote. Ever.

I just said ‘people with penises shouldn’t be in women’s prisons’ to another MP, the second time in 2 days, this time in person!

It's been said for some time, by quite a few of us, that the main reason this has got so far, and in fact it's only power, is fear. Yes, there has been plenty of subterfuge, but the silence as scrutiny began was kept in place by making people, and especially women, scared. If they can keep you so scared you don't speak up even slightly, that is all they need to railroad everything through.

How many times has a male come on these threads and announced that no woman has challenged or questioned him, as proof that there is no problem with his actions? And yet every one of us knows that women will most often keep silent out of fear - silence is not automatically agreement.

So you were, my dear, bloody brilliant, and each time you speak up, the fear ebbs, and eventually you begin to see it was just a ridiculous trick designed to keep you compliant. And you shake it off entirely. xx

Well done, OP. «Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.» That’s the best way of getting through to politicians - let them know they’ve lost your vote. The more of us who do that, the more they will realise what they are throwing away.

@HPFA

Personally I don't think this issue ought to be so important that it overrides everything else. I don't want the government to be given free ride to do enormous damage solely because people want to not have self-ID. But that's just my view.

This is not just about self ID. Not even close.

This is the single most important issue to me. I will absolutely vote on it and make no apology for doing so. I've been Labour all my life, and would always vote on health, education, welfare state and environment in the past. I'd love to be able to do so now. But women have been pushed down the list in favour of "more important" issues since time immemorial - every right women possess only came about when women stopped accepting that dismissal, and pushed back - and I have had enough. We are 51% of the population. We are now being denied a voice at the fucking table over our own rights and demonised for daring to protest, and I have had enough of it. They are misogynists. I won't vote for misogynists. Why would I?!

The intention, clearly stated by all activists on the trans side of this, is to erase women as a sex class altogether. It will make it impossible to work together for our rights. Men, identifying as women, will speak across us, and for us, and mansplain womanhood to us, and be heard instead of us because they are men. It's already happening. Are you aware that the acknowledged aim is to completely redefine 'woman' so that there is no legally recognised sex-based difference at all? That both Labour and Lib Dems are committed to that? Rape Crisis centres and domestic abuse shelters will be compelled, by law, to employ and serve any male who defines as a woman? Sports the same? Statistics defined not by sex, but by gender? Equal pay, crime, impact of maternity, representation in senior roles, in politics, media? Women have already lost jobs simply for saying sex is real and has real consequences. And the courts held that those views - views that female oppression matters, and must therefore be identifiable - are not worthy of respect in a democratic society. Well, this is the thing about a democratic society: we can vote. And I'll vote for my mothers and sisters and daughters, every damn time.

We are being erased, while those denied access to our spaces and provision (because their male biology proves a huge statistical risk to us, however they define) claim our refusal to accept that erasure erases them. Our right to exist as a sex class was until this month not being debated at all, thanks to the decree of a small number of (terribly marginalised and powerless and vulnerable, you understand) males - we are having to argue that it be debated at all, while those stealing our rights squawk indignantly that it's wrongmeanbad to fucking include us even in a consultation?!

Politicians telling women that they are to allow even rapists into their spaces, on their say so (because rapists leave prisons, and start accessing changing rooms and youth hostel dorms...)? Good luck with that. I hope Opposition benches are comfortable. I'll vote for whichever party protects women's human rights. That simple. Women can sway any election, if they stand together in sufficient numbers. We're a majority. And every single survey shows that this is the majority view. Women are already being raped and sexually assaulted in prisons across the world because of this. And that was an intentional step, because trans activists strategised that prisons were the toughest sell with the least popular women, so if they quietly snuck that in, we couldn't argue effectively against anything else. They literally planned a strategy that put women at horrific risk, and didn't give one single shit, just as long as it aided males. And they say they are women?! This is indeed not a drill. Misogynists aren't going to take over with the assistance of my vote.

Sorry, OP. Got a tad cross there!

You are brilliant. Thank you. Each chipping away counts.

In the run up to the election my local MP brought Keir Starmer to my door and I raised the GRA/Labour trans problems with them. He mumbled something about it being popular with young people and looked like he couldn't get off my doorstep fast enough. Bloody fool.

My MP was more supportive and agreed the protest at the Women's Place Labour conference fringe event was a disgrace. I also made a complaint about the lunatic rantings of the constituency lgbt officer at the conference the following day.

Thanks to my MP I did feel heard, but I shook like a leaf while I said it and worried for the rest of the day that I might be regarded as a bigot. Makes me bloody furious how effective the cries of transphobia and stfu terf have been in closing down debate. But the time for niceness is long past.

"Personally I don't think this issue ought to be so important that it overrides everything else"

I was planning to vote LD in last GE despite their self-ID policy because I reasoned it was one of many issues, until I heard Jo Swinson say that she didn't want votes from those who didn't believe that trans women. Really I'm not going to vote for a party that doesn't want my vote, over a reasonable point of view I hold.

I think it's the parties who have let this one issue override everything else by not allowing any room for differences of opinion. Going forward I won't vote for any party that is so absolute on this issue.

Great post, wellbehaved and well done for speaking up, OP. Not had any canvassers but I'd probably be bit trembly too, I find it so hard to be dispassionate. I work in an important industry for this issue and I'm getting quite vocal at work. My GC colleague helps remind me when to rein it in a bit and is way better at detaching and politically influencing on the subject. My DH's best mate is a SHL so if I get sacked I hope he's on my side

what does is matter if people call you a bigot or a terf

It matters insofar as the minute people hear those words, they start ignoring what you say. Whereas if it is framed differently (take McKinnon and Sports for example) the reception is very different.

@GaraMedouar "A good tactic I find is to show people pictures of sports people such as a nice pic of the cyclist Rachel McKinnon next to 2 female competitors"

Please feel free to use this pic I made which really shows the lie of it.

Personally I don't think this issue ought to be so important that it overrides everything else. I don't want the government to be given free ride to do enormous damage solely because people want to not have self-ID. But that's just my view.

The safety, privacy and dignity of my daughters is at stake. Everything else is secondary...

wellbehavedwoman 👏👏👏

I would say that you had watched the recent Labour leaders debate on TV and the 3 candidates were asked their views on men in women's prisons. Then throw it right back at them and ask what their views are?

Good for you. Canvassers take what is said to them on the doorstep very seriously.

@BuzzShitbagBobbly - that is very good - not exactly hard to spot the XY competitor there. I showed my DD and DS - they looked confused as to why it should even be a question!

This is what has been happening to women under a Conservative government.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/20/men-killing-women-cuts-refuges-legal-aid

I appreciate that for some of you the trans issue overrides all this. But if we keep putting it before everything else then every other problem affecting women will get worse.

And labour would give a shiney shit about women - when they won’t even explain what one is and are prioritising Kent’s rights whilst promising to dismantle women’s?

Labour used to be a party for the grown up workers - it’s now just for the students and the wokes.

@HPFA - do you imagine we're all too ignorant to know this? That all the little ladies just don't understand? I've got two disabled kids and am on long term treatment for cancer, ffs. I worked for the CAB, helping women sanctioned for missing buses to appointments, or whose zero hours contracts meant they had constantly ricocheting support in benefits. You think you can teach me what is happening to this country after ten years of austerity? Please. I STILL think - know - that this matters more. Despite having been a staunch supporter of the original GRA, and having actively campaigned against Section 28 alongside my mum. You think I'm ignorant? Well, I'm afraid I think you are, for swallowing this misogyny down as a worthwhile price to pay. This is so much worse for women than Section 28 ever was for the gay community. Not even in the same damn ball park, in fact. And it's not great for gay women either, who won't be able to have any groups or orgs at all for lesbians now without transwomen (attracted to women - so heterosexual males, in old money) insisting on their inclusion. What a brave new world, indeed.

If Labour want women to vote for them, then perhaps they could reconsider their choice to pose an existential threat to feminism, and to remove the ability to identify, in law and in data capture, what a woman actually is, and how structural oppression affects us. The FACT women like me would currently vote for them when hell freezes over is not evidence that we don't get it. It is evidence that THEY don't get it. And their determination to focus on educating lost sheep, instead of recognising that just perhaps, the electorate may have their own ideas of what needs to happen in this country, is what is keeping them utterly unelectable. They lost to Boris fucking Johnson, for crying out loud, with Dom "The Dementor" Cummings as the puppeteer. Lost by an 80 seat majority. How much clearer does it get that they need to stop dictating, and start listening?

Labour's present trans-rights-filtered attitude to women and rape: for the many, not the few. They can fuck off if they think I'd soil my hands with their campaign literature, far less give them my money or my vote.

Yes, I'm angry. Betrayal does that.

@wellbehavedwomen - um, can we vote for you?

We don't get canvassers here, so thank you, @moggiemonster, on my behalf.

I appreciate that for some of you the trans issue overrides all this. But if we keep putting it before everything else then every other problem affecting women will get worse.

Karen Ingala Smith, the founder of Counting Dead Women, the source of much of the information quoted in that link, said elsewhere:

"Many of the women and children we work with are terrified of males. And yes, this includes males who identify as transgender. One of the most important ways that we can contribute to creating a ‘safe space’ for women who have experienced men’s violence is quite simply by keeping men out. It’s partly about the psychological benefits for women created by women only spaces but also about statistics – as I outlined earlier, most sexual and domestic violence including prostitution is perpetrated by men against women and there is no credible evidence to suggest than trans identified males commit crimes of violence against women, girls and children at rates any different from those of other males and these is plenty of evidence to indicate strong links between trans activists and sex trade supporters.

This is not about lack of compassion with male victims or people who identify as trans – it isn’t about people who identify as trans at all –it is about women; it is not about denying anyone’s human rights, anyone’s privacy and dignity. Of course not. But it is about fighting for women’s human rights. Our right to safety, our privacy and our dignity, for some of us, our right to life itself. It is about recognising that women have sex-based rights and protections for a reason."

If women's refuges become mixed-sex refuges, they won't be women's refuges for long. Women, and girls, will be at even greater risk.

That's the point Karen Ingala Smith is making. And I agree with her.

The "trans issue" - in fact, let's call it by its proper name, "the erasure of women issue" - overarches everything to do with hard-won sex-based rights.