TUC Congress passes Motion 30 Gender Recognition Act reform, trans people’s rights and solidarity across the trade union movement

[stumbledin]

Congress recognises:

i. that transgender and non-binary members are entitled to be treated with respect and dignity in the workplace

ii. the continuing attacks on trans people within mainstream and social media largely led by groups who argue against the proposed reforms to the GRA seeking to roll back the existing rights of trans people

iii. the importance of standing up for the rights of trans and non-binary workers: a majority Conservative government is using trans rights as a wedge issue to divide working class people – myths and tropes about trans and non-binary people are regularly being promoted in the Murdoch papers

iv. the need to widely promote the message that trans women are women, trans men are men and that non-binary identities are valid – we must also encourage others to be trans allies and provide training to give them confidence to stand up for trans colleagues

v. transgender and non-binary people should be addressed by their correct pro-nouns and wilfully mis-gendering individuals is unacceptable

vi. that using sex and gender binary monitoring questions are discriminatory against non-binary people – non-binary people are thereby mis-gendered.

congress.tuc.org.uk/motion-30-gender-recognition-act-reform-trans-peoples-rights-and-solidarity-across-the-trade-union-movement/#sthash.AOf9xQ1z.uHA9viLH.dpbs

My username doubles as my comment

You have to wonder- do these people actually want Labour to ever be elected again!

What is so interesting about all these developments is that the clash of rights is completely ignored which means that the trans activists get everything they ask for.

This
"vi. that using sex and gender binary monitoring questions are discriminatory against non-binary people – non-binary people are thereby mis-gendered."
will make keeping statistics on sex-based discrimination extremely difficult. Ironically that will hurt nonbinary female-bodied people at least as much as women who are not bothering to find what identity they should declare.

It's a very clever way of avoiding dealing with sexism properly.

The book Invisible Women doesn't even begin to make sense if the smaller bodied type of people can't be recorded in statistics. Pay gaps disappear with a few men identifying as women.

If we can't name women as women we can't even begin to fight for women's rights.

This shit is so ducking annoying.

In iii) it mentions the Murdoch papers.. so the Sun, Times, Sunday Times? So the others are on message?
ii) makes that handbreak turn again, groups who argue against the proposed reforms to the GRA seeking to roll back the existing rights of trans people So which is it, the GRA needs to extend rights, or is it existing rights? Can’t be both?

Oh FFS! Do you think they "get it" but think it's "unwoke" to admit they get it?

Or do you really think they they really don't get it? If this is the case, how can anyone be that stupid?

Do they think that appearing to NOT get it will win them votes?

Trade unions remain hotbeds of sexism shock

@testing987654321

It's a very clever way of avoiding dealing with sexism properly.

The book Invisible Women doesn't even begin to make sense if the smaller bodied type of people can't be recorded in statistics. Pay gaps disappear with a few men identifying as women.

If we can't name women as women we can't even begin to fight for women's rights.

This shit is so ducking annoying.

This.

Trade unions are systemically, structurally sexist. This, yet again, allows a certain type of left wing man to posture virtuously while throwing women under the bus - which is where he's always wanted them.

The TUC is a shadow of its former self, with no massive target to rail against any more, so it has to try to validate its existence somehow.

They're 'chatting shit', as the saying goes, and with a majority right wing government in number 10 and a load of back-biting idiots in the Labour Party the best thing to do is ignore them.

Conservative government is using trans rights as a wedge issue to divide working class people – myths and tropes about trans and non-binary people are regularly being promoted in the Murdoch papers

WHAT.

I'm just so tired of all this nonsense.

WPUK wrote a blog about this motion.

womansplaceuk.org/2020/09/16/there-was-no-debate-tuc-2020/

Conservative government is using trans rights as a wedge issue to divide working class people – myths and tropes about trans and non-binary people are regularly being promoted in the Murdoch papers

I think the trans activists manage to do that all by themselves without the help of the papers. A single glance across platforms like twitter show exactly what they're all about.

I'm just so fed up and angry. Fuck off with this. So offensive. You can't identify as a different age or race. But as the opposite sex? Go right ahead (aka piss the bitches right off).

I think many just don't get it/haven't thought about it. I have a friend (lovely, kind, well meaning man) whose job has for at least two years heavily involved supporting and advocating for trans rights. It became apparent last week that he had never actually given any thought to what sex actually is or why it might be important. He has gone away to look into it...

Interesting that there was a WPUK blog. I did notice the event was a couple of weeks ago but the press release was only today.

The worst thing is I am no longer shocked when I see something like this. Despite a few small victories it seems the trans steam roller just keeps going.

And worse so many institutions have signed up to the rainbow agenda that they are highly unlikely to want to be seen in public to back track.

Not read the whole thread.

From what I have seen over the decades, the workers the main trade unions are interested in are the male workers.

Will have a read.

Point 1 is aok.

The rest? Erm.

1. dignity and respect..... yes it works both ways, women need to be respected too. It’s been shocking to witness the amount of abuse directed at women ...

2. role back the rights.... ??? Hang on trans reassigned people have the same rights they had previously

3] The misogynist woke minority have split labour to the point they don’t represent original lefties or females. Of course there’s going to be some fall out in the papers.

4. erasure of women’s rights through political capture

5. compelled speech v freedom of speech

6. not using sex gender binary monitoring questions is discriminatory against females

“iii. the importance of standing up for the rights of trans and non-binary workers: a majority Conservative government is using trans rights as a wedge issue to divide working class people – myths and tropes about trans and non-binary people are regularly being promoted in the Murdoch papers“

This is worrying. I despise the Tories and Murdoch but this is #nodebate writ large. “Myths and tropes”? You mean ‘the other side of the argument we don’t like’?

This tells us all we need to know. KS is not fence sitting, he is totally on board because he now doesn't have a choice. He just doesn't want to come out and say anything because it would cause a huge backlash from ordinary labour voters

You really couldn’t come up with a better way of destroying the Left, could you? Create a whole load of antagonism over an issue that is, when you look at it as a numbers game and with the best will in the world, actually incredibly minor, but plays well to a certain mindset.
This is what gets me about the whole trans rights debate. Trans people don’t lack any of the rights that the rest of us have in the UK, and there are really very few genuinely trans people. The whole ‘pregnant people’ thing is a good case in point, so much time and effort in using ‘inclusive’ language when the number of trans men in the UK who give birth in a year is so small they could share a taxi home. It’s just not important in the great scheme of things. How much energy is being wasted on this that could be better used tackling poverty, environmental issues, or racism? Yet here we are, constantly being told that it’s some massive priority...

Excellent post, @Vermeil

The fact that this is their priority when we're facing into yet more furlows, parents (predominantly mothers) having to juggle kids being sent home for two weeks on short notice with keeping their jobs, and probable mass redundancies says to me that the Tories have won already.

We are in a pandemic and workers (disproportionately women and BAME people in medical, caring and service jobs) are being put in lethal danger without adequate health and safety protections, people are struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads with the furlough scheme ending and with landlords demanding first share of the public purse before actual workers. We need a strong trade union movement now more than possibly ever in living memory, and the TUC wastes its time and our contributions on THIS? How utterly privileged must someone be to have their solipsistic ideas of identity promoted over actual life and death issues? Not even the working class trans people I know give a fuck about this either, they're too busy worrying about money and health to be that fussed about all this. This doesn't help anyone except the most well off trans people who don't have anything else to worry about.