“Green Party : handful of people” in the party are undermining trans people’s “right to exist”

[letterem]

From Amelia Womack : She says tackling “all forms of discrimination and bigotry” within and outside the Green Party is “essential”.
In particular, she argues that “a handful of people” in the party are undermining trans people’s “right to exist”. This is in reference to a long term struggle in the party, where a small, unrepresentative group of members have opposed the Greens’ policies that support trans rights.

On you go , handful of people .

Denying our right to exist is such bullshit

That is all

Yes, bullshit.

”Denying our right to exist”

What drama llamas.

Emotive overstatement.

I'm politically homeless :(

Well actually I misquoted, she said undermining our right to exist. It's still bullshit though.

Anyway, carry on Handful.

Beatrix Campbell has written a really powerful piece on all of this. Completely eviscerates this idiotic determination to frame women with legitimate concerns as denying anyone else's right to exist. It's dishonest and manipulative and frankly rather sinister, the determination to recast women saying, hang on a minute here... as a denial of humanity.

"There is a fundamental problem – already evident in politics, in the institutions, from banks to publishers, in the voluntary sector, in sport, and in schools and universities – if a man is a woman because he says he is, then the category woman is emptied of meaning. How can we address the fact that women everywhere in the world are put upon, discriminated against, oppressed, under-paid, unpaid, raped and disrespected because they are women?"

I wonder if I think really really hard about undermining my horrible next door neighbours’ right to exist, will they disappear? Is that how it works? Or is it just an absolute load of bollocks, that doesn’t actually mean anything other than trying to make people feel guilty?

In an interesting coincidence a former SNP women's officer who has now moved to the Scottish Greens also went public with claims of transphobia today.

archive.li/67LLo

Emma Cuthbertson, a former Women's Officer in the party's Motherwell and Wishaw branch, has told of how she feared almost daily for her safety and was the victim of attacks by councillors, MSPs, MPs and unelected party members due to her being transgender.

Ms Cuthbertson, who left the SNP earlier this year, has now joined the Scottish Greens and is a Co-Convener of the party's LGBT+ wing, the Rainbow Greens

Ms Cuthbertson, along with her fellow Rainbow Greens co-convener, has called on an independent inquiry to take place into transphobia within the SNP.

Mr Ingerson added: "We have known that an issue has existed for some time with lots of transphobic and homophobic behaviour witnessed on social media and in rising hate crime statistics. Recently we have seen an influx of LGBT+ and young people from the SNP, and Scottish Labour for that matter, now joining the Scottish Greens. As much as we welcome these new members wholeheartedly, it is disturbing to hear of their horrendous experiences. With a recent poll showing a possible SNP majority, it is even more worrying just how prevalent these views are becoming within Scotland's current governing party."

It would be handy if they all went to the one party and that party became the party of identity politics and the oppression olympics and the other parties just got on with real issues

It will be terrific if they try to make an issue of this in the next election. Just imagine the debates.

Green speaker: Also, you should vote for us and not the SNP, because they refuse to accept that some women have penises!
SNP speaker: That is a complete lie! Of course we believe women have penises!
Audience: WTF?

Honestly, people are going to have to start calling BS on this "fear for my safety" and "right to exist" nonsense. It's not just nonsense, it's weaponised nonsense, and it is being weaponised by dreadful, unscrupulous people.

Does anyone know enough about crime statistics to do an FOI on the "rising hate crimes?" I don't think "bullshit" is a technical term in criminology, so I don't know how you'd go about finding out how many of them are bullshit. I haven't forgotten the transwoman who got the cops to log a hate incident when turned down for sex by a straight man.

@2Rebecca

It would be handy if they all went to the one party and that party became the party of identity politics and the oppression olympics and the other parties just got on with real issues

That would be nice. It would be great if it could stand alone as a movement instead of latching onto other movements for its life-blood. The LGB movement (cos straight men claiming to be lesbians isn't offensive at all...), or the feminist movement (on International Women's Day, "Trans women are women!" and "Sisters not Cisters!"), and Black Lives Matter ("Black Trans Women Matter!").

It's the movement equivalent of that friend who spends half an hour going on about themselves, and then when you try and tell them something that's just happened to you, it immediately gets twisted back to something much more important that happened to them.

I haven't forgotten the transwoman who got the cops to log a hate incident when turned down for sex by a straight man

I hadn't heard of that! It's rare that straight men get the brunt.

But denying my right to exist as a woman = adult human female is absolutely fine.

More idiocy.

It's the movement equivalent of that friend who spends half an hour going on about themselves, and then when you try and tell them something that's just happened to you, it immediately gets twisted back to something much more important that happened to them.

As we've just had a thread on Shirley Valentine, this reminds me of Shirley's description of her neighbour with the vegetarian bloodhound as the kind of woman who 'begrudges you the breath. If you've got a headache, she's got a brain tumour'. It's not the first time this connection has occurred to me

I have a friend who was kicked out of the green party without any process because of his GC views.

The best part of 30 years supporting them, and doing unpaid legwork, thrown out for politely disagreeing with one thing.

Absolute insanity.

The whole fearing for their lives thing is part of the fetish. They see themselves as tiny vulnerable women, unlike people with eyes.

@wrongsideofhistorymyarse

The whole fearing for their lives thing is part of the fetish. They see themselves as tiny vulnerable women, unlike people with eyes.

Although this is a very serious subject, that comment did make me laugh. Nail on the head.

Members are trying to push back and ask why the environment doesn't seem to have so much importance, but there is probably still a silent majority who are thinking WTF and don't know where to start. The leadership are a shambles.

@2Rebecca

It would be handy if they all went to the one party and that party became the party of identity politics and the oppression olympics and the other parties just got on with real issues

That party would never win an election. Instead, what is happening is identity politics has colonised all the political parties to a greater or lesser degree. What is curious about this is that politicos capitulate to Twitter storms and adopt the latest slogan du jour. A vanishingly small number of politicos have the integrity or courage to resist. No matter how deranged the dictate.

Why does the phrase 'right to exist' trigger thoughts of the Lebensraum push into the Sudetenland and the Austrian Anschluß?

If your right to exist involves trampling others' rights and wholesale linguistic reform leaving over half the population without words to describe themselves, you have to wonder whether mere existence is actually your goal.

Although this is a very serious subject, that comment did make me laugh. Nail on the head.

Yes, for me too.

@EverardDigby

Members are trying to push back and ask why the environment doesn't seem to have so much importance, but there is probably still a silent majority who are thinking WTF and don't know where to start. The leadership are a shambles.

This has been going on for years. I joined the Green Party several years ago. Because, you know, I have concerns about what we are doing to the environment. I got my membership details and logged into the members section of the website. The whole thing was dominated by transactivists demanding that certain motions be passed the conference. I was totally clueless about the trans debate back then, but it was clear to me that this was a party which had been hijacked by people who had no interest in the environment. I left pretty sharpish.

The whole fearing for their lives thing is part of the fetish. They see themselves as tiny vulnerable women, unlike people with eyes.

The first memorable encounter I had with a transwoman revolved around precisely this desire, and what happens when it's confronted with reality. If you are a small woman don't let your male friends pick you up when they hug you or otherwise do anything to draw attention to the fact that you are both female and pint sized around a person who's consumed by that desire, would be my advice.

Everyone has the right to exist, but unfortunately there's really no way to provide people with the right to be seen as they'd like to be seen. Nobody seems to be able to figure out what to do about people who insist that the former and the latter are the same thing.