What have you written to your MP about?

[Purpler5]

I want to write to my MP about various of the feminist issues I have been educating myself on here, eg:

• the census stuff and erasure of the correct definition of sex etc
• TW being allowed in women’s sport
• TW being allowed in women’s prisons
• crimes committed by TW being recorded as being committed by a female

However, as I don’t have personal experience or a personal story to tell of being affected by these issues, and I don’t feel like I have rock solid sources and evidence to quote, I am finding it hard to compose something that I’m happy with.

Can anyone share what they have contacted their MP about and ultimately, what the point of the correspondence was - what were you asking of your MP?

I wrote to my MSP to say I wouldn't vote for his party (or any party) that didn't commit to supporting women's rights as set out in the Equality Act. Obviously my comments were somewhat Scotland specific and included re-definition of the word "woman" to include males, lack of support for female politicians receiving threats & increased misogyny online, Hate Crimes Bill & Forensic Examination Bill (Scotland). I also mentioned Nicola Sturgeon's video in support of trans rights but her lack of support for women.

I work in a sector which has a very poor gender pay gap and I want him to explain if he thinks it would be fair for a senior male to identify as female and improve our pay gap. I also want to ask if he thinks he should be able to identify as female and stand on an all woman shortlist.

He has said he will call me to discuss so waiting to see what happens.

This is my latest email to my MP. She responded to me regarding the wording in the current Bill for Ministers' maternity rights. The use of 'pregnant person' apparently derives from the requirement to draft Bills using 'gender neutral pronouns' so as not to imply 'the job can't be done by both sexes':

Many thanks for your response. I greatly appreciate the time you have taken to reply.

I am sure there are many instances where the use of neutral pronouns is entirely appropriate rather than the use of gendered terms where, let’s be honest, the default will be ‘he/him’.

In this case, however, ‘the job’ can only be done by a woman and it is therefore nonsensical to substitute the noun ‘person’ for ‘woman’. In many areas of our society, women are losing the ability to name their specific experiences due to an aggressive trans rights lobby led by Stonewall who are actively campaigning to have single sex exemptions removed from the Equality Act and for ‘gender’ rather than ‘sex’ to be the preeminent consideration in public policy and legislation. The attempt to unshackle the word ‘woman’ from the defining biological reality of being female is deeply misogynistic and so it is to be hoped that the Ministerial and Other Allowances Bill, welcome legislation to be sure, will use clear and correct terminology.

I asked my Tory MP not to support Boris Johnson as Tory leader (reply I got made me think of them as brainwashed because they did support the misogynist), and a few years ago raised concerns about Sunday trading being extended (to be fair, broad agreement).

Not sure my experience is of much help to you, OP.

I've said this before but it bears repeating. I know that my MP didn't see letters I'd been sending for two or three years. When I finally managed to have a Zoom surgery with them it became clear that the Labour Party-funded assistants had been quietly disposing of gender critical correspondence. The assistants sat there, furious, while I delivered my speech and asked my MP to represent my views.

I have campaigning friends in Wales who have had reports that something similar is happening at the Welsh Assembly. It's scandalous that democracy is being subverted by assistants (many of them young and Stonewall-trained) and that hundreds, possibly thousands, of communications on this subject have been binned. Imagine if you're a quietly GC MP with woke staff who'll stitch you up given half the chance. It must be like walking on eggshells.

Sorry, meant to add that I'd recommend meeting your MP. You should be able to book a Zoom chat with them. Just be vague when booking — talk about a housing issue or something. Then hit them with your GC views straight on so that they can't avoid a response.

Good work Purpler, writing to your MP is a great move. They are a) accountable to you, a constituent and b) often ignorant of/very far removed from the issues. I saw writing to my MP as a way to educate him on the realities of self-ID. I used real life examples of women's sports, prisons and hospital wards. I emailed him just before the last election asking whether he could reassure me, a lifelong Labour voter, that he took women's rights seriously enough to allow me to vote for him (a Conservative). My advice is to keep your language as neutral as possible but don't be afraid of being explicit where you need to. I mentioned cases of I'd read about (in prison newspaper) TW parading erections in women's prisons, about an individual playing on both men's and women's sports teams etc. All real life cases and highlighted the fact that most TW retain their penises - something that my MP, like most people, likely wasn't aware of/hadn't thought of.

I got fobbed off initially with an email about how the law already protects vulnerable women but I replied challenging some of his platitudes, and then got a much better and more engaged response.

Needless to say a similar email to the Labour candidate yielded no response. Not even to a chaser. That told me all I needed to know.

PS don't think you don't have a personal story to tell - if you're a woman you have skin in the game - you may need treatment on an NHS ward in future, you want to be able to use single sex toilets, changing rooms etc. If you're male you may have female relatives whose rights you want to protect.

Best of luck, I hope you get a response!

@Purpler5 you’ll need to give your name and address or they probably won’t respond- thats standard as they want to check you live in their constituency.

Don’t make it too long- and use paragraphs!

Do ask specific questions, so that if they send you a bland response you can go back and say please answer my questions.
Be prepared for a generic response. Also be prepared for them not to have heard about some of the issues.

They may reply being very ‘bland’ and to get their actual thoughts you might need to ask for a meeting (virtual). They may be very carefully be trying not to say what they think.

But DO write. The more sensible people who write with concerns the better.

I work for an MP.

Thank all. I do have experience of writing to my MP on other issues (unrelated to feminism) and have had mixed responses - sometimes very helpful and with a lot of thought and effort, other times less so. But I’ve had a more personal reason to write.

I’ll spend some time on this tomorrow and write regarding the main issues as I see them. Like someone said, I still very much have skin in the game even if I don’t have a personal story to tell.

I have written to my MP (female Labour) a number of times re: women's rights issues and education issues. She has not replied once, even when I do a follow up emails.