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.

And to anyone trying to dismiss this as a 'small thing', I suggest you put that same question to the Labour Party (and indeed all left of centre parties). Why they are jeopardising the votes of so many women - many of us dyed in the wool lefties - over such a 'small thing'?

The way Labour treated and are treating Rosie Duffield is unforgivable.

Also because this issue means the labour party are asking us to deny actual reality and because the result is so catastrophic for women and girls resulting in enabling the breakdown of safeguarding and thus enabling rape and sexual abuse, it means I feel I have no choice but to vote Conservative. It's way more important than any other issue including climate change (all parties are doing something about this and none deny it's an issue). The breakdown of democracy itself is caused by accepting as fact that TWAW and the way it so strongly tries to silence all debate on it.

Another feminist party is a lovely thought but in reality it just splits the vote and risks a party coming in with the TWAW belief - more effective would be for those feminists to unite under Conservatives and to try to affect change and policy from within. At least until proportional representation is a thing.

I hate partygate and all the other Tory crap but none of the other parties are showing any ounce of being more honest or with any semblence of integrity so I feel there is no other choice.

Do you know what stops keeping it a marginal issue: stories of a woman being raped and disbelieved because her rapist masqueraded as a transwomen.

Also, the Tories have no doubt come to the conclusion that the loudest shouters for TWAW/Self-Id would never vote Tory anyway, if they ever bother to vote at all, so there is nothing to be gained trying to chase that vote. Plus, I think they've finally realised that Twitter is not the Oracle and the number of people as a percentage of the voting population actually on Twitter is low, whereas Labour appear totally cowed by Twitter activists and opinion. Labour fell into the same trap at the last election and clearly have learned nothing from it.

There are several parties promoting TWAW/Self-Id so the votes for that will naturally be split amongst them, one party saying 'No' will not suffer from that, a lesson they learnt from UKIP and their single issue.

Vote Labour and get rid. We can work with labour to change their batshitery on gender.

They have been publicly making fools of themselves on this issue since before the last election, they have tolerated bullying of a GC MP, they have threatened to expel women who won't toe the line, they think rapists should be housed in women's prisons if they identify as a woman, they have branded grass roots women's rights organisations as hate groups, no one on the party condemned Labour youth intimidating women trying to attend a WPUK meeting during the LP conference, a long standing LP member was bullied out of a CLP officers position by a TRA (Battle and Bexhill 2017) and the entire executive committee resigned in support of her, David Lammy thinks you can grow a cervix. I could go on and on, Labour are a lost cause for the moment.

An election victory would make them feel vindicated for their TWAW stance. I will not vote for a party when the Leader states its "not right" to say only women have a cervix. You cannot reason with willful denial of biology, they are ideologically driven which means there are no logical or evidence based arguements which can persuade them they are wrong.

Until that changes I would rather give my vote to a party who acknowledges biology.

@theworldhas

When it comes to election time vote for who you want. But if you think the trans issue will be anything but a marginal issue issue for the vast, vast majority of voters- male or female - you are very naive. Cost of living, wages, energy, house prices, overwhelmed health services + possibly climate change and any war related security issues. And besides, on the Trans/ Gender issue, the parties will simply say what it is they think their base/the electorate want to hear to get into office. The vast majority of them couldn’t give a shit either way.

See, I don't think that's true.

When ordinary people see Starmer - the actual leader of the opposition, and sensible women like Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper and (admittedly less sensible) Anneleise Dodds and Charlotte Nichol getting red-faced and flustered as they twist themselves in knots trying to evade the simple question 'what is a woman' I think most of them will just lose trust and wonder what they're trying to hide.

To the vast majority of voters the answer is obvious. Very crudely - let's say a third of voters won't be aware of the gender issue at all, a third will be aware and have a sort of neutral attitude of kindness and acceptance to those who transition, and the remaining third is divided into people who have strong feelings on either side of the debate. That means that only a sixth of voters would actively support the new religion of pretending to genuinely have no understanding of the unfathomably complex matter of what makes a woman. To everyone else it just looks slippery, mendacious and highly suspicious.

Which it is.

Nice. I'm still not voting tory though. Or for anyone else for that matter.

If Labour change their stance I would vote for them in all probability.

@Papayamya

But I don’t think they’re doubling down at all. You need to think of parties in terms of brand image/market position. Contrary to what they’d love to believe, the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph are not representative of the average British voter. The Angry News these days has 2 million odd circulation between them out of an adult population of 50 million plus. The average British voter doesn’t like identity politics stuff, but nor does it enrage them. And they consider the whole spat very minor in the scheme of things - ie stuff like cost of living, housing, jobs. Labours brand position is to aspire to be a progressive modern party which can be trusted on the economy. And that’s the brand they try to sell 50 million voters - and staying “neutral” or on a few niche issues is part of that. They don’t care what Daily Mail readers think as they won’t vote for them anyway.

Sad to say that the Tory candidate here will get my vote based on this. I have two young daughters and have only ever voted labour. But this is my hill. Labour is indeed losing women.

I don't know why people are surprised really. Obviously Boris knows what a woman really is (as do most people), and we already know Boris is frequently prepared to say what he thinks and hang the consequences. Expecting to disagree with Boris on every single thing just because he's a mop-headed Tory buffoon is ridiculous - he probably also likes ice-cream and disapproves of kicking puppies.

I really don't want to vote Tory, and will probably spoil my ballot paper. But right now I admit I really don't want to vote Labour even more than I really don't want to vote Tory.

If we're talking about vulnerable women (in terms of 'it not being feminist to vote for Tories'), here in Scotland, our 'left wing, progressive' Government has already ushered in self ID. The SPS has a policy of self id in terms of allocating transwomen (many of whom have been convicted of violent sexual offences against women) into the female estate, in contrast to England, where a GRC is needed.

Bear in mind that these women are generally in prison for repeated low level petty crimes and are vulnerable in many cases due to alcohol/drug addiction, or have mental health issues and 80% of women prisoners have suffered previous head injury, mostly due to domestic violence.

"Women with mental ill health in prison in Scotland – new report finds further concerns, and calls for major change | Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland" www.mwcscot.org.uk/news/women-mental-ill-health-prison-scotland-new-report-finds-further-concerns-and-calls-major#:~:text=Scotland%20has%20had%20the%20second,402%20were%20women%20(4.9%25).

"Four in five female prisoners in Scotland found to have history of head injury | Prisons and probation | The Guardian" amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/13/four-in-five-female-prisoners-in-scotland-found-to-have-history-of-head-injury

"The Status of Women In Scotland - Prisons - For Women Scotland" forwomen.scot/03/08/2021/the-status-of-women-in-scotland-prisons/

@WinterTrees
All politicians and parties appear slippery and untrustworthy nd suspicious! But we have to vote one of them into government!
And currently Labour are way ahead in the national polls and have been for some time. So your take on what the average voters sees on this issue may have some truth - but in terms of what the average voter actually cares about enough to get out and vote you’re probably way off.

@MyLittlePhonyPony

I'm do with identity politics. If labour get in they have committed to changing the law to self I'd. Much easier to campaign against self I'd before it's become law. Laws aren't undone easily- look at the gra.

I'm putting on my big girl pants and voting Conservative. Fed up of polarising politics. No they're not my first choice but if I continue to vote tribally nothing will change and labour will continue to expect my vote whilst they shit on me.
I just hope Johnson won't be leader for long and there's a shake up. There are moderate and competent Conservatives.

Just hope Gove is too busy snorting coke and clubbing to have a stab at it.

Exactly. Then we need to lobby the tories on the other things we don’t agree with. This subject is huge and when I heard about the waiting list of 5000 young people waiting to transition it breaks my heart .

I agree the subject needs to be handled sensitively but also with common sense .

@BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ

Honestly, I do not get this. I can see this side of the argument on the definition of a woman but this government are:

• corrupt and corruptible,

-lead by a man who lies like most of us breathe,

-don’t want to feed hungry children in poverty during the school holidays,

-have suggested that Ukrainian refugees fleeing their war-torn country come here on the condition that they pick fruit

-and are pretending that Covid doesn’t exist now just to save the arse of their Liar in Chief (and steam rolling us all into another bad winter with the potential for deaths rising and the potential of education being disrupted).

For me and many others all of that trumps this one issue, as it should.

It's SO hard when ALL of these issues, including the trans one, are vitally important in our society. Mind you, I live in Scotland where reason left the building ages ago on this. Here, under the SNP, it's a 'hate crime' to discuss this in a non respectful way in your own house. Not even in public. In your house. Madness!

Typo - repeated low level petty crimes

[quote theworldhas]@WinterTrees
All politicians and parties appear slippery and untrustworthy nd suspicious! But we have to vote one of them into government!
And currently Labour are way ahead in the national polls and have been for some time. So your take on what the average voters sees on this issue may have some truth - but in terms of what the average voter actually cares about enough to get out and vote you’re probably way off.[/quote]
I think that’s because a lot of people genuinely don’t know what is going on , because people have been too scared to speak up.

[quote theworldhas]@Papayamya

But I don’t think they’re doubling down at all. You need to think of parties in terms of brand image/market position. Contrary to what they’d love to believe, the Mail, the Sun, the Telegraph are not representative of the average British voter. The Angry News these days has 2 million odd circulation between them out of an adult population of 50 million plus. The average British voter doesn’t like identity politics stuff, but nor does it enrage them. And they consider the whole spat very minor in the scheme of things - ie stuff like cost of living, housing, jobs. Labours brand position is to aspire to be a progressive modern party which can be trusted on the economy. And that’s the brand they try to sell 50 million voters - and staying “neutral” or on a few niche issues is part of that. They don’t care what Daily Mail readers think as they won’t vote for them anyway.[/quote]
I disagree, a lot of comments across a range of news outlets and social media largely say how ridiculous people think it is. Whilst it might not be a deal breaker as such for the majority or perhaps they haven't heard labours view on it yet- I think more people than you'd think will take notice of it. And yes they are doubling down. And again, lots of working class people dont think labour represent them anymore either, whilst they might not be running to vote for Boris, I suspect they won't be running out to vote for Labour either.

To be fair it's the most sensible and measured thing I have ever heard Boris say.

Apart from wash your hands, but I am not sure that counts.

The polls are not relevant because of our FPTP system. That's why the Tories have won. Opposition is split
Except for pretty accurately predicting the result of every election for the last 50 years. Except for 2017 when they overpredicted the Tory vote and May lost her majority.

Cost of living, wages, energy, house prices, overwhelmed health services + possibly climate change and any war related security issues.
The majority of MN really don’t care or are in a position not to cate about most of these points. Cost of living, energy, houses prices and health services aren’t important to the rich folk here. There are folk out there who are literally scraping pennies together to feed their kids or put the heating on for an hour, this is what the rotors have done to the working class of this country. Shafted is into ruin and wreck. They don’t care. But call breastfeeding chest feeding and MN will froth and foam. It’s absolutely disgusting the lack of awareness and empathy thr vast majority of women on this site have for those struggling . They will of course say otherwise but simply put, they wouldn’t vote Tory if they did. The tori’s are simply carrying out eugenics on the poor people of this country and those voting them in are complicit

To add, I think people underestimate how much of a hill it is for many people, taking into consideration how people are harassed, threatened and targeted for speaking sense on this issue, the amount of people speaking about it publicly won't reflect the number it's a deal breaker for.

Good

Mind you, I live in Scotland where reason left the building ages ago on this. Here, under the SNP, it's a 'hate crime' to discuss this in a non respectful way in your own house. Not even in public. In your house. Madness!

Yep -

"MSPs back criminalising hate speech at the dinner table | HeraldScotland" www.heraldscotland.com/news/19077579.msps-back-criminalising-hate-speech-dinner-table/

As others have said it is very difficult to undo/repeal a law once it is on the Statute Books, that is the danger of voting Labour who have stated they are determined to make Self-Id Law. The Conservatives won't and there is more chance to get them to reverse the damage that has already been done, there would be no chance of doing that under Labour.

I earn less than minimum wage and live in a very expensive city with a young family.

What a privileged bitch I am.