Boris has nailed colours to mast

[Ridcully82]

On gender transition at PMQs:" biology overwhelmingly important", preceded by urging respect for those feeling they need to transition. Sounded calm, respectful,and kinda where we were on course before the TRA actions.

Misogyny as a hate crime is a poisoned chalice if TWAW. Any woman disagreeing with TWAW will be legally guilty of a hate crime. There would be no recourse in law in the way that there is at the moment.

I think heknowsthat only women have a cervix, but is not strong enough to actually say so. I don’t mean strength as in fisticuffs, I mean intellectual strength. Someone has told him that Guardian readers won’t forgive him if he tells the truth. I won’t vote for that sort of coward.

This and a pp saying it. It's true, if Kier is too much of a coward to define a woman then he isn't fit to run this country. Running the country is about doing what is right now what is easy.

I'm also politically homeless.

'Someone has told him that Guardian readers won’t forgive him if he tells the truth. I won’t vote for that sort of coward.'

Where is the case for this? I'm not ruling it out, but why are people so keen to imagine that there are Guardian readers who really believe TWAW, but Starmer is obviously lying? Why can't he really believe it, if the Guardian readers do?

@Fluffymule

Is Boris a liar? Yes, we know this.

Are Labour MPs, including their front bench liars when they say that biological sex doesn't exist, that humans can change sex and that women (and men) who call this out are hateful bigots?

In my opinion yes. Liars.

Whether through fear, or lack of integrity I don't care. Liars.

Otherwise I have to summise they are stupid. Too stupid to be trusted with my vote.

Women and girls make up 50% of our population. All laws and policy impact their lives. If politicians can't even get the first, most basic, recognition of our right to be recognised by our sex, all other policies and laws start to crumble or be meaningless.

I don't yet know who I will vote for at the next election, but it won't be Labour.

Agree completely with this

I think he knows that only women have a cervix, but is not strong enough to actually say so. I don’t mean strength as in fisticuffs, I mean intellectual strength. Someone has told him that Guardian readers won’t forgive him if he tells the truth. I won’t vote for that sort of coward.

I wouldn't vote Labour even if I though KS did believe some of the things he says but he, like other Labour MP's, look really uncomfortable when they are asked about anything to do with biological sex. They know they are lying and they also know we know they are lying.

If KS could look me in the eye and tell me that when he and his wife decided to start a family they both pee'd on sticks and anxiously waited to see which one of them was going to gestate their child I'd have more respect for him.

'If KS could look me in the eye and tell me that when he and his wife decided to start a family they both pee'd on sticks and anxiously waited to see which one of them was going to gestate their child I'd have more respect for him.'

But this isn't what he means. He understands some people can gestate and give birth, but he thinks there is another group of women, some with penises, some who have had them removed, who can't gestate, but are nevertheless women.

(I don't get it either.)

Another one resentfully politically homeless. Very disappointed in Keir.

But this isn't what he means. He understands some people can gestate and give birth, but he thinks there is another group of women, some with penises, some who have had them removed, who can't gestate, but are nevertheless women.

I understand this. My point was about his denial of the importance of biological sex, he's clearly lying.

'My point was about his denial of the importance of biological sex, he's clearly lying.'

I'm not defending him (in any way) but where did he deny this?

So just done it
Written to the other three main parties in England about this (again).

Pink News take: '"biological facts" is rhetoric used by anti-trans organisations that are trying to prevent trans people using the correct services for their gender in the guise of "single sex spaces".'

So the conflict couldn't be clearer.

@lecreusetpeppermill

sadly if one does not vote labour, we will definitely get tory. Protest votes don't help our country, the growing authoritarianism, the selfish greed of the right.

I do not think for one moment that the tory party (Patel anyone?) give a furry fuck about women's rights, or any kind of equality. If people fall for that, then so be it.

Im not about to bite my nose off to spite my face.

It really is extraordinary what people will fall for, and how many times they will fall, the same way.

They fell for Labour Caused The Crash and the necessity of austerity.

They fell for Vote Labour Get SNP and Scottish independence (which now looks more likely than ever, thanks to Brexit).

They fell for Brexit.

And now they'll fall for the anti-woke culture war. From a government that gaily broke their own rules to enjoy convivial piss-ups while the rest of the country suffered one of the worst handlings of the pandemic in the entire world. While the ONS predicts on the back of Sunak's budget that we face the largest drop in real household income since the 1950s. While the processes, checks and balances of democracy itself are steadily disbanded to ensure one-party rule forever.

It's like watching somebody slowly torture themselves to death, explaining to them that they don't have to, and then watching them just carry on.

Ok, so many of you have vehemently refused to vote for Tory for years and have stated that every other stance they have taken has been completely in opposition to your own principles and beliefs - you believe that their views/actions have been amoral (at best), cruel, unethical, corrupt etc. Pretty much everything else they have done has been repugnant to you and your sensibilities and you will never ever vote for them.

This one issue though, you agree with them. You are aligned in viewpoints with the party whose views and actions you otherwise find abhorrent…that doesn’t give you any pause for thought?

It’s okay. I’m not expecting anything other than straw man arguments and hyperbole in response. Just maybe hoping to plant a seed.

'This one issue though, you agree with them. You are aligned in viewpoints with the party whose views and actions you otherwise find abhorrent…that doesn’t give you any pause for thought?'

I don't find all their viewpoints abhorrent. I have always been for political tolerance, free speech and freedom of conscience. I still am for those things. It's just that Labour stopped being for those things.

But regardless of that, is it impossible for you to understand 'single issue' voting? Impossible for you to understand that, to some, whether or not we let people remove the breasts from young women and tell them they are men now, is a deciding issue?

@Rosit

Ok, so many of you have vehemently refused to vote for Tory for years and have stated that every other stance they have taken has been completely in opposition to your own principles and beliefs - you believe that their views/actions have been amoral (at best), cruel, unethical, corrupt etc. Pretty much everything else they have done has been repugnant to you and your sensibilities and you will never ever vote for them.

This one issue though, you agree with them. You are aligned in viewpoints with the party whose views and actions you otherwise find abhorrent…that doesn’t give you any pause for thought?

It’s okay. I’m not expecting anything other than straw man arguments and hyperbole in response. Just maybe hoping to plant a seed.

Ah yes none of us had thought of that, stupid women eh!

Don't respect my sex, don't expect my X.

@Rosit

Ok, so many of you have vehemently refused to vote for Tory for years and have stated that every other stance they have taken has been completely in opposition to your own principles and beliefs - you believe that their views/actions have been amoral (at best), cruel, unethical, corrupt etc. Pretty much everything else they have done has been repugnant to you and your sensibilities and you will never ever vote for them.

This one issue though, you agree with them. You are aligned in viewpoints with the party whose views and actions you otherwise find abhorrent…that doesn’t give you any pause for thought?

It’s okay. I’m not expecting anything other than straw man arguments and hyperbole in response. Just maybe hoping to plant a seed.

I know it seems useful but trying to shame people won't work and is exactly the problem with modern politics.

How about I ask why you're on the side of history that gives children puberty blockers and mastectomies and agrees that the right place for rapists is in female prisons? Does that make you rethink anything?

@whitecreambluejug

Actually I see it completely the other way around. I see this gender ideology as an exercise in class privilege. The people promoting this don't give shit about the women from disadvantaged communities who are most likely to be most harmed by this - those that end up in prisons, homeless shelters, refuges and recovery centres. The privileged with degrees care not one crap about those women, who are far distanced from their lives. The privileged never imagine themselves ending up in one of those places so care not about what happens to those who do. One of the reasons this ideology has being able to take hold is that we no longer have a class analysis: all that has been replaced by individual 'identity'

This is a fair point and a common factor in the voting intentions of those who consider themselves underprivileged - resenting the cultural issues that divide middle and working classes more than the economic ones that divide the ruling class from everybody else. It was a huge factor in the Brexit vote.

But why does it have to be either/or? Why can't both cultural AND economic issues be indicative of class privilege?

When you look at it that way, then you can see why it's in the interest of those with economic power to exploit highly emotive cultural issues, to put huge effort and resources into stimulating anger and division at that level - and to ensure that peoples' attention is focused on those rather than on the structural economic privileges that they wish to maintain extactly as they are.

@bellinisurge

I won't vote Labour and my conscience is clear if the scumbag Tories win.

Channelling your inner Angela Rayner there? Insulting people who vote differently to you after due consideration, isn't very effective at getting them back on your side once Labour has 'seen the light' if it ever does.

You can say this

I know it seems useful but trying to shame people won't work and is exactly the problem with modern politics

And then follow it with this? Seriously?

How about I ask why you're on the side of history that gives children puberty blockers and mastectomies and agrees that the right place for rapists is in female prisons? Does that make you rethink anything?

Nothing trumps this issue for me. How can a labour government possibly help the poor if they cant understand what a woman is? Poor women are some of the most put upon in our society. Losing their status as women will have a bigger impact than any tax benefit from labour. Tories will now have my vote

To be honest I don't like the way people who vote conservative and ministers are villainised. It's this whole good versus evil narrative that is really unpalatable.

See for me, the seed this planted was that I was doing very black and white tribal thinking. I wasn't looking at the nuance of why people believed differently to me. Same with Brexit. I'm ashamed to say that I viewed anyone who voted leave as a rcaist ignorant. And I'm sure that was some people's motivation. But a lot of people had good reasons for thinking being put of the EU was preferable, and some of them were even selfless. Like people who wanted more control on foreign labour so people from other countries weren't explored into working for less than minimum wage in appalling conditions and English people weren't being overlooked as possiblities to be trained and do the jobs.

At the time I saw it as good versus evil but actually reading others' views without resorting to calling them gammons has meant I understand more that they are real people with real concerns and not evil selfish privileged prats.

And I have listened to gender ideology and I do get there's a sense of longing and sadness for wanting to belong; yet I can recognise this without wanting to harm the women who will be excluded by inviting gender ideology into policy.

Anyway, my point is, that instead of feeling sad that I can't vote Labour, I need to stop demonising myself or others for voting Conservative if they feel it's the right thing to do. I need to accept they are motivated by other things and not just simply evil.

Sadly, I can't come out and say any of this in real life because of the risk, which is a shame as I realised how intolerant I was in the guise of tolerance.

A wise women once told me we vote for the path of life we're on. At the time I dismissed her as a invisible middle aged woman.

I like to think I'm working towards being a little wiser now.

I'm not defending him (in any way) but where did he deny this?

Don't you think TWAW is denial of biological sex? Women are adult human females. Transwomen are adult human males.

@JoodyBlue

I don't want to get the Tories out - they are the only party holding the line for women. I say that as a person who has never voted Tory before.

Same. I'm centre-left, have never contemplated voting Tory, hate Boris and Brexit, but I cannot vote for a party that is committed to erasing my rights. And that's currently every party, apart from the Conservatives.

@MyLittlePhonyPony

To be honest I don't like the way people who vote conservative and ministers are villainised. It's this whole good versus evil narrative that is really unpalatable.

See for me, the seed this planted was that I was doing very black and white tribal thinking. I wasn't looking at the nuance of why people believed differently to me. Same with Brexit. I'm ashamed to say that I viewed anyone who voted leave as a rcaist ignorant. And I'm sure that was some people's motivation. But a lot of people had good reasons for thinking being put of the EU was preferable, and some of them were even selfless. Like people who wanted more control on foreign labour so people from other countries weren't explored into working for less than minimum wage in appalling conditions and English people weren't being overlooked as possiblities to be trained and do the jobs.

At the time I saw it as good versus evil but actually reading others' views without resorting to calling them gammons has meant I understand more that they are real people with real concerns and not evil selfish privileged prats.

And I have listened to gender ideology and I do get there's a sense of longing and sadness for wanting to belong; yet I can recognise this without wanting to harm the women who will be excluded by inviting gender ideology into policy.

Anyway, my point is, that instead of feeling sad that I can't vote Labour, I need to stop demonising myself or others for voting Conservative if they feel it's the right thing to do. I need to accept they are motivated by other things and not just simply evil.

Sadly, I can't come out and say any of this in real life because of the risk, which is a shame as I realised how intolerant I was in the guise of tolerance.

A wise women once told me we vote for the path of life we're on. At the time I dismissed her as a invisible middle aged woman.

I like to think I'm working towards being a little wiser now.

This is such a good post.