Jess Phillips says no constituent has ever raised this issue with her?

[Femnisaurus]

So Jess says, in this live debate, this is not an issue which is ever raised by her constituents.... I find that hard to believe 🤷🏼‍♀️

Any constituents on MN?

twitter.com/intelligence2/status/1456250442925678597?s=21

@Skysblue
What you do is change your name ever so slightly. Let's say you are Joan Smith. Use Jean Smith. Or use your partners surname. I get addressed to me as my husband's surname sometimes even though I've never changed my name.

I'm no longer on Twitter, but I will ask family member to see if she will contact Jess again, using the original letter and email correspondance to find out why Jess has openly lied about this.

This makes a mockery of the constituents' concerns if Jess is denying ever hearing about it.

She’s an egregious coward -how she has the brass neck to call herself a feminist I don’t know. You’d have to live under a rock atm to not know Kathleen stock is

@IvyTwines2

I am also utterly fucked off by the way some people unthinkingly call this a 'progressive' issue. What's progressive about pushing children back into the sort of rigid sexist stereotypes my mother's generation fought to burst out of, and telling children who don't fit the behavioural template laid out by the pink and blue toyshop aisles, 'reality tv' and porn, they're nature's mistakes and need surgically fixing? Turning young people at the most vulnerable, impressionable age into lifelong dependants on big pharma and the surgery industry in pursuit of a Tumblr-induced fiction? What's progressive about stripping women and children of safe spaces in so many areas of our lives, and even our own language? Jess should pause and think why it is that actual progressive, left-wing adults are leaving the party and polling booths in droves over this issue. It's not because we've all suddenly become right wing conservatives.

I totally agree with this. Progressive my arse.

I wrote to JP when Charlotte Gerada, the Labour Party Women’s Officer was promoting Samo, a trans man artist whose “art” incited violence against women. I got a standard reply rejecting my concern because I was not a constituent. I live nearby and wrote to her, rather than my MP, because I thought she’d be interested. I’m not sure if she ever saw my email though.

I remember a woke bloke who was doing telephone canvassing for Labour before the last election complaining that he had spoken to "So many transphobes", which of course probably means people concerend about self ID. Labour are blatantly ignoring people.

Oh dear.

I don't feel sorry for her. She stands on a platform of 'feminism' and makes quite the song and dance about reading out the names of murdered women, collected by other women for her to read, and then behaves like this when living women plead with her to address this issue?

She's a self-serving careerist who doesn't have the integrity to live up to her self-billing. She is performatively and deliberately dismissing it, because she knows that she doesn't have the courage of Duffield, and she doesn't want to be Kathleen Stock. I, and many other women, would be happy to stand with her if she did stand up, but she's not interested in that, because Brand Feminist Phillips is about what serves Phillips.

I'm not interested in supporting the career ambitions of self-centred women just because they're women. That'd be like calling Margaret Thatcher the first feminist prime minister. That's not how this works.

@PronounssheRa

She didn't even know Kathleen's name

I kind of feel a bit sorry for Jess Phillips. We knows she's lying, we know she knows what a woman is.

I don't, it's nauseating that she uses work around domestic violence as a sheild to protect herself when her hypocrisy is called out.

Agree. Using abused women as a human shield. She is the lowest of the low.

@Redshoeblueshoe

How can she not know who Kathleen Stock is ? I'm certain she will have received a copy of her book.

I find lack of general knowledge and reading a variety of newspapers in MPs very troubling...

This is the preceding clip of what Ella Whelan said.
twitter.com/intelligence2/status/1456249333465030656?t=WOHISvAAuoz5ICrRJSXHyA&s=19

JP just rants in a dismissingly 'frustrated at the idiocy of people' way. It's pathetic.
The debate was 'Is Labour unelectable?'
At start

The numbers from our opening vote are in!

Is Labour unelectable?

42% Yes
25% No
33% Undecided

Stay tuned to see if our speakers can change the audience's mind for the final vote #iq2

At the end

The final vote is in!

Is Labour unelectable?

52% Yes
41% No
7% Undecided

A big swing to No from our audience! That's all for tonight - Goodnight from London!

Talking to a young woman who works in a constituency office, I asked about whether emails are regularly dumped by MPs and the answer was yes. Letters less so.
However Jess knows.

I imagine if pressed she'd say what she really meant was that she'd never received a letter written with a Parker pen on Basildon Bond stationary about it. She must feel very precarious up on that tightrope. Imagine the Vertigo.

I'm a big quivering cowardy custard in my own work so sometimes I do think I should be a bit more sympathetic towards her. But then I remember how I've never tried to carve out a career for myself as a plain speaking representative of the people.

" Yeah. Sorry, but this was just ignorant"

Wilfull ignorance

Completely rude and condescending coming from someone in power

Lammy did that too didn't he, he shut up an upset woman on her doorstep by saying something like 'Labour will look after women', and then denied that it had ever been raised.
It's very gaslighty to play something down as irrelevant by saying no one else is moaning about this.

I'm inclined not to believe her. In this thread alone we've had one person who has directly contacted her.

But I think as someone said upthread MPs get a lot of correspondence and for those who delegate the filtering to an assistant it can create a situation where what is considered important to show to the MP is decided by office staff.

Many years ago I interned with an MP and this is how it worked. The junior assistant would go through correspondence, anything that didn't already have a standard reply template for it would be passed to the senior assistant who would either create a reply themselves or if deemed very important pass on to the MP.

That didn't mean though the MP wouldn't be told indirectly about issues raised. In one to ones with the senior assistant they would be informed that X number of people have written to you about X issue this month.

This system falls down of course if someone has an ideologically driven assistant as many people seem to believe now that suppression is justified if it's at odds with their own political beliefs.

Obviously all MPs have their own way of doing things. My current MP seems to read and respond to all his own emails but I suspect he doesn't get anywhere near the volume someone like Jess does.

Did she not mean that no constituent had specifically mentioned Kathleen Stock to her?

She is aware of Kathleen as she retweeted a link to the woman's hour interview the previous day

Open letter to Jess Phillips, as a female constituent and a rape survivor.

I know we share a lot of the same concerns, about poverty and injustice and VAWG. I have a friend who knows you personally and likes you. I admire your speeches in parliament, which cut through a lot of the bullshit. For all these reasons I want dearly to continue to vote for you, and I don’t need to agree with you on everything to do so. (There is probably no-one on this planet who I agree with on everything, and I disagree with purity spirals.)

But I consider sex-based protections a fundamental necessity for the safety of women and girls, and an essential part of safeguarding children and the vulnerable. I know this, because being able to request female medical professionals is the only way I can access medical care, since being raped many years ago. I had a panic attack recently, when a male dentist had to step in due to his colleague’s illness; I couldn’t cope with the vulnerability of being prone in front of a male. I had further toothache for a week until a female dentist was available. This was nothing to do with his “gender presentation” or any feeling in his mind about whether he is a man or a woman, just like it was nothing to do with his conduct or bedside manner or whether he had a clean DBS. It was about his sex, which is encoded in every cell of his body, and which I observed in a split-second, despite his full PPE.

Since I know all too well that sex matters for my privacy, dignity and safety, therefore how much more so for women who are vulnerable, and often without resources, support or education, like female prisoners?

The obfuscation of the basic biological fact, that there are two mammalian sex classes and that humans cannot change from one to another, has to end. Politicians dodging the issue by sticking their fingers in their ears has to end. My votes for politicians who ignore me has to end. So I would like to request that you please stop denying my existence, as a constituent with the these deep-seated concerns.

(Feel free to have someone PM me for an email address, via which I can then confirm my name and address in your constituency.)

@IvyTwines2 you have summed up how I feel about it all perfectly.
Instead of celebrating that we are all indeed different, we are encouraging people to change in extreme ways to match their 'correct' gender. I have no problem with a man that wants to wear dresses, make up, whatever it is that supposedly makes our gender female. Everyone should be able to express themselves however they feel most comfortable.
But I cannot get on board with a lifetime of drugs and surgery.
I don't understand why we all need to be defined as something other than individuals.
It feels like the definition of woman is narrowing back to the bloody 1950s and I don't see how that is helpful for anyone

I first contacted my MP about this issue during lockdown. As she was not doing surgeries i made a telephone appointment to speak with her - the first thing she said was that she was so glad to read my email. She had dreaded opening it when she saw the subject matter (Amendments to the GRA ACT) because anyone approaching her on this issue is usually very aggressive. She told me she had huge concerns about Mermaids and Stonewall; she was going to a parliamentary meeting on the GRA issue that week ; i told her about how i was concerned about students in the school i work in and she was very sympathetic and frankly, seemed to know what i was on about...... it definitely appeared to be a subject she had been approached about before. She definitely knew about it, and the key issues.

More recently, i wrote to her about the Helen Joyce book Trans, and i said:

'Despite what David Lammy said recently, this IS an issue that is coming up on the doorstep - i will be raising it with every politician that knocks on my door in the next round of elections, and i will not be voting for anyone who supports self ID, the experimental medicalisation of children or the erosion of women's safe spaces such as shelters, changing rooms, and our sports. I shall be asking each candidate where they stand on this issue.

The best prepared will have read this book and be ready to engage with the issues it raises. Here, you will learn that despite what David Lammy says, transwomen do not ever have cervixes. Despite what Dawn Butler says, rapists do not belong in female prisons. Keir Starmer has said he will introduce self ID - i will never vote for a labour candidate whilst this is on the table. I will vote for the candidate who supports Liz Truss and Baroness Nicholson.'

In her reply she said:

'You raise extremely valid and important points and I do agree. A construction that denies the existence of biological differences between the sexes has led many women to express serious and legitimate concerns about what it means for their dignity and – when it comes to single-sex spaces - their security. You may be aware that tackling violence against women and girls has been my priority since I entered Parliament and I will always champion women’s rights. Furthermore, expressing a view that women have cervixes is protected in law under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights and was confirmed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in June. I don’t believe that this view is inconsistent with a commitment to trans people that they should be able to live freely, with respect and without discrimination. '

So, how come my MP - a young Tory woman MP - knows all about this issue, has obviously been approached by her constituents about this issue, and has what is obviously an informed opinion after having researched this issue, and Jess Philips doesn't?

How come people from my constituency are approaching our MP about this in obviously significant numbers, but not Jess Philip's constituents?

And i thought Jess was also supposed to be prioritising tackling violence against women and girls? How on Earth can she claim she does not know about this and her constituents aren't bothered?

It hurts me to say it, it really really hurts me - but i will be voting Tory for the first time ever at the next election.

@Redshoeblueshoe

How can she not know who Kathleen Stock is ? I'm certain she will have received a copy of her book.

Sex Matters distributed copies of Helen Joyce's book (not Kathleen Stock's) to MPs etc. if that's the initiative that you had in mind.

That's at least two people on this very thread who have written, and also two canvassers who've been spoken to.

And I'm sure Jess Phillips was bumped into by a mumsnetter a few years back and told them to keep going keep at it. She absolutely knows.

And yes, of course it's a copout. She appears to be saying that as no one has raised it with her, it's either not important, or not on her radar.

It should absolutely be on her radar. She should be raising it with them for fucks sake.

The reason why this has blown up into such mammoth proportions is because it has been done on the sly. And when women find out, they are livid. Yet she seems to be calling it progressive? The complete erasure of women's rights?

That clip is awful. This air of being oh so sensible and down to earth about women's issues, but being entirely unaware of who Kathleen Stock even is? Despite the issue being splashed across the papers on a daily basis. If she doesn't know who Kathleen Stock is, it's unforgivable. And if she does know but pretends not to, it's worse.

That's a very damning piece of film, in my opinion. She's either completely ignorant about the situation, or she's pretending to be in order to minimise it.

And, as other people have been given the very strong impression that what she does is very deliberate, I'm going with the latter.

@Thingybob

Did she not mean that no constituent had specifically mentioned Kathleen Stock to her?

She is aware of Kathleen as she retweeted a link to the woman's hour interview the previous day

Quite possible, someone would have to ask her.

I do sympathise on the name thing, I have a total mental block with names, I can't even get my own kids right as they would tell you.

@FloralBunting

I don't feel sorry for her. She stands on a platform of 'feminism' and makes quite the song and dance about reading out the names of murdered women, collected by other women for her to read, and then behaves like this when living women plead with her to address this issue?

She's a self-serving careerist who doesn't have the integrity to live up to her self-billing. She is performatively and deliberately dismissing it, because she knows that she doesn't have the courage of Duffield, and she doesn't want to be Kathleen Stock. I, and many other women, would be happy to stand with her if she did stand up, but she's not interested in that, because Brand Feminist Phillips is about what serves Phillips.

I'm not interested in supporting the career ambitions of self-centred women just because they're women. That'd be like calling Margaret Thatcher the first feminist prime minister. That's not how this works.

This in capital letters.

@Datun

That's at least two people on this very thread who have written, and also two canvassers who've been spoken to.

And I'm sure Jess Phillips was bumped into by a mumsnetter a few years back and told them to keep going keep at it. She absolutely knows.

And yes, of course it's a copout. She appears to be saying that as no one has raised it with her, it's either not important, or not on her radar.

It should absolutely be on her radar. She should be raising it with them for fucks sake.

The reason why this has blown up into such mammoth proportions is because it has been done on the sly. And when women find out, they are livid. Yet she seems to be calling it progressive? The complete erasure of women's rights?

That clip is awful. This air of being oh so sensible and down to earth about women's issues, but being entirely unaware of who Kathleen Stock even is? Despite the issue being splashed across the papers on a daily basis. If she doesn't know who Kathleen Stock is, it's unforgivable. And if she does know but pretends not to, it's worse.

That's a very damning piece of film, in my opinion. She's either completely ignorant about the situation, or she's pretending to be in order to minimise it.

And, as other people have been given the very strong impression that what she does is very deliberate, I'm going with the latter.

I know who Kathleen Stock is, but if you ask me her name in a couple of hours I probably couldn't tell you. I could tell you about her case but her name probably not. I'm bad with faces as well and even worse for men with beards which is unfortunate as my husband has one.