Why are so many GC people clinging onto Labour?

[GeordieTerf]

I really don't understand why so many GC people are still in Labour?

Labour have made it very clear that they don't think biology exists. They have made it very clear that the subjective notion of gender is one that everyone must believe in. They have also made it clear that anyone who even questions these views should be either re-educated or thrown out of the party.

I will not allow myself to be treated this way. I know that I am right to be gender critical. I also know that I have science and the silent majority behind me. Labour don't want me, so I will happily go elsewhere.

Also: if the leaders are gaslighting us over this issue, what else are they gaslighting us with? Those leading are undoubtedly smart enough to see through this nonsense, yet they preach it anyway. If they're willing to lie about this, then what else are they lying about? I can't trust them.

I get the impression that many GC people are leaving but those who stay hope to eventually bring some balance.
I've previously been a Labour voter, but not member but am struggling to have any support for their current incarnation.

I don’t know 🤷‍♀️
I keep hearing these conspiracy theories about how Keir Starmer is secretly GC, but can’t come out about it openly until he’s elected.
It’s not even wishful thinking, as he’s made very clear he believes TWAW in more than one occasion...

Well - unless you are happy to support the Conservatives then it's not exactly clear which party is superior to Labour in GC terms - Lib Dems, SNP, Green? Even WEP has not taken a GC stance as far as I can tell?

Far from making it clear that biology doesn't exist, the 2019 manifesto contained a commitment in support of single-sex spaces. And the pledge threatening to throw people out isn't a collective statement by the party as a whole - and hasn't been signed by the frontrunner in the leadership race, so...

I agree it's a crap situation and respect your decision but for those unable to support the Conservatives it's unclear where else to go. As the expulsions haven't started yet, and it's unclear whether they ever will, there's a case for the gender critical remaining the party to argue our position.

I left 3 years ago.

Long standing member but now can barely vote for the party.

As to why people stay who are GC IME - some members I'm friends with hope to bring change from the inside (mainly women).

For others (mainly men) they say they look at the "bigger picture" and identity politics isn't enough to break their allegiance wrt "more important" Labour policies.

There’s no rules that you have to support a party

Don’t like any of them then don’t support them

I think he is our best hope currently of getting some sanity back into the party. He comes across as a pragmatic, 'political' person who knows when to tread the fine line but, once he's in place will be getting a firm grip on the party to try to make it electable.

Because we were here first. Because it's our party, or at least it used to be. Because there is no alternative and we're trying to turn this ship around..

@transdimensional Far from making it clear that biology doesn't exist, the 2019 manifesto contained a commitment in support of single-sex spaces.

They believe that you can literally change sex. They think that once someone has a GRC, they should be treated as female for all purposes.

Both pledges - the main one, and the one Starmer signed - make that clear.

So yes, they agree with single sex provision. They see that as including transwomen.

I've supported Labour all my life. But I can't and won't support a party that see rape as for the many, not the few. And that's exactly what these policies mean. No ifs or buts. Women will be raped.

They can fuck themselves.

God knows who else there is, though, agreed.

Totally politically homeless.

The wheels are well and truly coming off the genderology bandwagon. I give them 10 out of 10 for trying, good effort, you had a good go at the bullshitting and all that, but it's such fucked up nonsense that is now damaging children's lives wholesale that the game is up.

I volunteered and canvassed to get my Labour MP reelected in December. I spoke to her this afternoon and told her that she could no longer rely on my vote and that it was nothing personal, but Labour is making it clear that it's not a party that welcomes women like me. She's a good woman, really focussed on her constituents and I like her very much. She nearly cried.

She said she is horrified by the LGBT pledge. She'd been behind Emily Thornberry for the new leader and couldn't believe Emily and Lisa Nandy had signed it. She was lost for words. She gets it, she has gay friends who've been nadging at her that sexuality and gender are two different things for years. She told me to hang on in there: that Labour women are getting themselves together and that Blair's statement had hit home.

This is why some Labour women are hanging in there, but it's a close thing. If there was another party I could happily transfer allegiance to I'd shift but the Lib Dems are even worse than Labour and so are the Greens.

@transdimensional As the expulsions haven't started yet, and it's unclear whether they ever will, there's a case for the gender critical remaining the party to argue our position.

Yeah, I absolutely do agree with that, and admire you for having the stomach and energy to do that. Regulatorily capturing the fuckers right back is probably the intelligent and wise approach. But I am at the point where I need time to get over my rage and betrayal first, as the party that was for the ordinary working person, and for women and children and ethnic minorities and gay people, has been hijacked by people who just hate women and will manipulate the trans cause so that they can enjoy misogyny with the imprimateur of virtue overlaid.

In a year or so, when they're even more split and fucked up, I'll probaby have a second wind and quietly go back to Trojan Horse them in return. Meanwhile, I want no part of this.

Much as I despise him I'm also hoping that Blair's intervention will help others to realise how toxic this issue is for the party.

There's no hope for some though, as this staggering quote from Angela Rayner about Blair shows -
Ms Rayner said she was "absolutely petrified" that there were party members who "think somehow some elements of our Labour Party do not think they are valid or somehow there is a question about who they should be". She's not talking about women!

Yes, I think it's split between women who are leaving as a protest and who're now politically homeless - and GC women staying to fight from the inside. I think both are valid positions

Lumpy is right, it's my fucking party, that has been taken over by people who dont want the labour party in power. Where else should I go,?

Lumpy is right, it's my fucking party, that has been taken over by people who dont want the labour party in power. Where else should I go,?

Maybe we need to form a secret society of gender critical Labour people and take Trojan Horsery seriously! But we'd need to remain anonymous and collectively act online, because otherwise we'd be an expulsion database.

It's fucking Owellian. I don't want anything but good things for any trans people. I've reported things that are transphobic or might out a gender confused child. That's not incompatible with recognising basic factual biology, and understanding safeguarding, and the risk of male patterned violence and how that doesn't disappear if we all just believe in fairies hard enough. I swear this lot think they can ressurrect Tinkerbell. It's wild.

I suppose because there's nowhere else to go bar the Tories. Whilst many voters clearly made the switch at the last election I don't think many people who are actual LP members and involved at regional levels would defect in that direction.

I think this is why despite mostly voting Labour all my life I've never felt committed enough to join any party. They're all inherently untrustworthy.

I don't blame anyone staying and fighting from within and if they manage to turn things around they'll get my congratulations. I'm not convinced it will happen soon though.

This is what I have said on here before!
I have seen so many posts on this particular board and on this particular issue lamenting a Labour loss for these reasons, wishing they were stronger to serve as a credible opposition to Conservative and I think: but...

@womaninblue
I feel sorry for that canvasser you talked about in your post, it sounds like she gets it but is constrained. Unfortunately I don’t agree with her statement that “Labour women are getting themselves together”. You know as well as I do and that everyone does because Labour has stated it that if anyone at the top had heard her airing her views on this she would be expelled.

I'm staying in for the minute, even if to just mark hmm ha online vote in some way in protest.

In reality, I am totally and utterly politically homeless.

I left in 1990-somethingmumble and am thinking of rejoining to get expelled.

Bring on the show trials. One side is going to come out of these purges looking batshit and it's not going to be us.

The reason why people don’t want to leave labour is that the only other choice for election is the tories.

So the tories- the austerity party who cut legal aid for divorce, who cut benefits that so many single rely on, who have pushed people into such terrible poverty that they have killed themselves over it. And of course, also the party that started this self Id thing rolling, and were in power during the Karen White issue.

Or labour, who will get rid of women only prisons, refuges, hospital wards and other facilities, leaving the most vulnerable women in society in danger.

So it’s horrific life destroying poverty on one hand and horrific life destroying abuse on the other. If one of those parties doesn’t change, women’s rights are going slip further and further away.

And it’s not just the trans issue; it’s the whole pretence that the presence of men doesn’t put women at risk, that anybody who has an issue with say, men and women on the same mental health ward is sexist. And the women supporting those arguments are women who will never be on a mental health ward, or in a prison cell, or a refuge, and they don’t give a fuck about vulnerable women.

Both parties are just the wealthy playing games with people’s lives. At least the tories have another purpose - to conserve tradition. The Labour Party don’t. Their sole purpose is to deal with inequality and the vulnerable, and they no longer give a fuck. So why are Labour still here? What are they even for anymore? They may as well disappear.

Excellent question and one that I will put to my Labour MP who lost my vote some time ago. No party is perfect but everyone has their red line. This is mine.

They believe that you can literally change sex.

This is where I get stumped. I mean, nobody really believes that, do they? Not really....