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.

There's a difference between individual Tory MPs being TRAs and it being the position of the whole party with all MPs being pressured to agree (Labour).

I've written before about why I don't think the Tories are particularly great on upholding women's rights given the open goal Labour have served them but at least they allow their MPs freedom of thought and speech on the topic.

Agree Ova and Sleep

That’s my position too. I understand there are TWAW Tory mp’s. It would be weird if there wasn’t as it is a valid position to take ( even if I disagree). I don’t want to shut them down at all. But there are also a growing number of TWANW Tory mp’s free to argue against gender ideology without being physically threatened like labour mp Rosie duffield.
Tory’s are generally a more grown up party imo and they allow diversity of opinion.Labour are authoritarian and not deep thinkers like all authoritarian movements. You outsource your thinking to your leaders.
Now that Boris has spoken of the rights conflict, other Tory mp’s can say “ I agree with Boris” ( or don’t agree) but the debate is out there.
Labour will get stuck on this issue come election time like Russian tanks in Ukrainian mud. It’s inevitable. Hence why I don’t understand their position on this and can only assume they are full paid up supporters of gender ideology.

What concerns me a lot is how much more this could be taken by Labour

Once you buy into the ideology language gets lost - women as a term gets dropped and spaces to talk about it too

It seems crazy we get drum stuff we do but I remember being very emotional re HoL speeches on maternity bill and importance of words and rights

Without a push against it Labour could take it much further

Next election I'll be voting Tory for the first time. Purely for their stance on this issue.

Rosie Duffield is almost certainly in broad agreement with Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch on this issue. But equally certainly, as a Labour MP, will disagree with them on others.

The big difference is that Rosie is not likely to be made shadow equalities minister any time soon.

The Labour Party policy consensus on this issue is clear and the Tory one is evolving fast. They are quite different. Drilling down a bit it feels like Labour policy, and their approach to Rosie, is driven by young activists. Sort of student union politics. In contrast Tory policies will tend to reflect the preferences of voters in the shires. Grown ups, albeit conservative grown ups. The choice then is - who would you prefer to run the country.

I'm not convinced Boris and his cronies give a shiny shit about any of that

Not do they care about other feminist fights. I suspect some of them think women's suffrage was a bad move

Voting Tory as a feminist feels very much like wanting to stay with an abuser because he buys flowers sometimes

Agree with all of this and I'm still voting Tory.
Even if labour came out right now and said women are ahf and they need and deserve single sex spaces in some areas of life, I wouldnt believe them. It's more likely though that labour will come out with this a few weeks before the election, hoping to gain our vote, then let us down if we vote them in.
I want an end to this madness and I doubt boris will bring it to an end, he will see that he can keep us on a knife edge for some time and I won't appreciate that at all. But in the short term it will give labour a kicking and maybe then they will sort there shit out.
Until that time I'll vote Tory.

But in the short term it will give labour a kicking and maybe then they will sort there shit out

If Labour do get a kicking, the chances that it will be attributed to this issue alone (or even as the main issue) are realistically nil. So all you will achieve is to give the green light to a party which will carry on with its current misogynist policies.

@EthelTheAardvark

But in the short term it will give labour a kicking and maybe then they will sort there shit out

If Labour do get a kicking, the chances that it will be attributed to this issue alone (or even as the main issue) are realistically nil. So all you will achieve is to give the green light to a party which will carry on with its current misogynist policies.

If the choice is that, or letting them continue in their delusion that it's a vote-winner, I'm going with option A.

So all you will achieve is to give the green light to a party which will carry on with its current misogynist policies.

Well that is what you are effectively doing by voting for labour. You are saying you condone men erasing women.

And objectively, yes there are misogynistic people in the conservatives, but as mentioned upthread many are not and are actually shining a light on this.

I think some people need to realise that Boris is not the party. No, he's not a man you'd generally trust to even water your plants when you are away, but he is one man.

And the Tories have not(as far as I know) produced any specifically misogynistic policies recently. Indirectly, yes, poverty impacts women disproportionately, but Labour have an actual wanting to dismantle women's rights which is a party line and objective.

And again, I see little evidence Labour are the party of the poor. Yes that is what their pr says, but when you actually examine both parties over a longer time period they have good points and bad.

Again. I have said it numerous times but I am not sure it's as black and white as 'bad guys, good guys'.

If Labour do get a kicking, the chances that it will be attributed to this issue alone (or even as the main issue) are realistically nil.

I don't understand this argument. People on this thread are saying that the only reason Boris is saying what he's saying is because he can sense there are votes in it. Are the Conservatives that much more politically aware and sensitive that they can read the political climate better? Because that's what you're actually saying. And if you believe that, then surely Labour need to get their act sorted rather than expect the electorate to sort their act for them.

I don't care if Labour see the issue or not. People who have so much contempt for women that they will trot out 'TWAW because the meaning of the word has changed but I can't explain what I mean by that - as nearly the whole front bench does - are not suitable people to be in government and never will be. They have ruled themselves out.

All I care about is keeping them out of power so my daughters have a hope of growing up safe and not being lied to about the nature of reality by their own government.

Labour need to get their act sorted rather than expect the electorate to sort their act for them.

This is it in a nutshell. There are people who seem to think that, despite labour not even entertaining their concerns and actively trying to silence them, they will still on an individual level somehow manage to convince labour of the harms when they are in power.

I admire the confidence in their individual power but I think they overestimate their power to influence once the deed is done.

Some people have short memories. The Tories won the 2019 GE with a landslide electoral majority bigger than Blair and Brown’s win in 1997. The Johnson government have a very comfortable 80 seat Parliamentary majority.

I can’t be arsed to look up how dismally Labour performed in 2019 but it was a complete fucking disaster. And I’m a Labour voter. So what do those two facts tell us?

1. the Tories should have the confidence and feel they have the mandate to do decent things that they feel strongly about. Oddly, women-friendly policies are nowhere in their list. Though, I will give them an interest in free speech, that is appreciated. But general rule of thumb with any government with a big majority is, if not now to make the changes we want, then when? What are voters waiting for? What will it take for the government to do something for women?

2. Labour have an absolute fucking mountain to climb to get elected again any time soon. They could use this time in the wilderness to listen to women about their concerns. Are they? Do they give a fuck about us? No. They’ve doubled down. So that’s very sad but it shows that women punishing Labour at the polls is having zero effect. They’re not listening. This one is a hard problem to crack because an alternative route could be for women to be involved in Labour as activists but that’s very risky and off putting for lots of women on this issue. So I don’t know what the answer is beyond contributing to money to crowdfund judicial reviews and writing to my MP. But I do feel the answer isn’t me starting to vote Tory. That’s just rewarding failure.

The sad fact is neither labour or conservatives care about women. A 2022 Tory government isn't going to change the patriarchy without a huge appetite for change and that isn't happening because women's rights and feminism in general (the proper kind, not the yay porn kind) has taken a bashing and there isn't an appetite for it.

And of course, whilst I accept that conservatives have largely made no changes for the better for women, labour are actively proposing changes for the worst.

No one said it was a good choice, but it's an exercise in damage limitation.

@Nightlystroll

If Labour do get a kicking, the chances that it will be attributed to this issue alone (or even as the main issue) are realistically nil.

I don't understand this argument. People on this thread are saying that the only reason Boris is saying what he's saying is because he can sense there are votes in it. Are the Conservatives that much more politically aware and sensitive that they can read the political climate better? Because that's what you're actually saying. And if you believe that, then surely Labour need to get their act sorted rather than expect the electorate to sort their act for them.

Because if Boris really cared he would have done something about it by now.

And because the reality is that people will know perfectly well that there is no way that the election would have been won on this issue alone.

A party that signs up to TWAW and transgender ideology concerns me

Changes could be sweeping and very hard to reverse. More than we’re seeing now.

So much so that I’m thinking of dd too when voting

But I do feel the answer isn’t me starting to vote Tory. That’s just rewarding failure

Absolutely this. And rewarding not only failure, but continuous lying, austerity, taking from the poor to give to the rich, breaking their own laws, breaking election promises, the list goes on. I won’t hand my vote to a party that behaves like the lowest of the low. Some of you are really drinking the Kool-aid.

'Some of you are really drinking the Kool-aid.'

Seems to be a choice between different types of Kool-aid.

Denying biological reality sounds as Kool-aid as it gets.

And when there’s political capital in something damaging to women? What happens then?

You get Keri Starmer saying TWAW.

Starmer loves telling us he was DPP. So he knows the sexual offences act. So he knows the legal construction of rape. He therefore knows what male and female biology is.

I'm not the one who's been at the Kool-Aid, here.

There is every chance that Boris won’t be leader of the Tories at the next GE, with Rishi or Liz tipped to replace him. I am confident that Liz knows what a woman is.

I am confident that Liz knows what a woman is

I’m equally confident that she’d say whatever was expedient in order to get elected.

They all know what a woman is. Every human being born does know. Some people in politics (from every party, and including some Tories!) just lie about not knowing the difference if it suits them, or if they are too scared not to lie. Or if they think it’s ‘kind’ of them to pretend that they don’t know
However politicians do know by now, that this policy position is to the detriment of women.
So it’s easy to know whether either they do care about women or that they absolutely don’t. And at the moment, taken as a whole and judging by their actions, it feels like none of the parties care about women.