New Statesman - Inside Labour's clusterf*** on trans rights

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www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour/2022/04/inside-labours-clusterfuck-week-on-trans-rights

Those at the top of the Labour Party believe that, despite the difficult media environment on trans issues, they are in the same place as the British public, who generally take a compassionate, “live and let live” approach to the question.

You can only think this is you haven't looked at the evidence in detail, of what is going on in gender clinics and school, with trans identities and gender ideology being affirmed, pushed and prioritised above anyone else's needs, and in workplaces and social media with bullying and threats and job losses for anyone who isn't on board, even if they simply state scientific facts and the actual law.

“Everyone wants it to go away, but it won’t go away while we look so scared about it,” one figure said.*

Ummmmmm how about looking at and applying the actual best, latest scientific evidence as a basis for statements and policies? And I don't mean whatever Stonewall tells you.

@Apollo441

They still don't get it. They are saying the access issues can be handled on a case by case basis. No they can't and they need to understand why.

That lept out for me too.

Case by case doesn't mean each individual person. It means each scenario - so one case would be "Can a women's refuge refuse entry to a transwoman?" Yes, that would be a proportional response. Case over - fully evidenced in the Guidance Notes.

That then allows every single refuge to remain single sex if that is what they choose to do.

And yet, despite having sent links to that Guidance and made that statement many, many times we (a refuge and crisis centre) have lost just over 40% of our funding over the last few years because, as stated specifically in one explanatory note, we do not include men or transwomen in our provision.

And this is why it is so fucking important that this is discussed and the idiocy stopped. It isn't just words to being nice. It has already had a measurably negative impact on the lives of many women and children fleeing DV.

Labour figures all say that the line of media questioning over the past week has been cheap and unpleasant — one described it as “rude and gratuitous to talk about the genitalia of trans people”. And everyone is aware of the competing tensions the party must manage: the squeamishness they feel talking about genitals, the concern they feel about causing hurt to the trans community and the desire to say something pithy and with common sense. They also see it as a diversion tactic when voters are breaking down in tears about the cost-of-living crisis in focus groups and never bring up trans issues in such settings.

There's not a single mention, by any of them, about how concerned they are that they've insulted and offended so very many women with their equivocating and debating about what we are. Not one.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Labour did get a grip and say that women's rights would be protected and they were going to push for separate, protected provisions for trans people. Would there be the posts complaining that trans people should stop moaning about their rights and focus on the economy and disabled people's rights? That they shouldn't be single issue voters?

No. Because that has never been what women fighting for women's rights have ever done. We have often said we would join in a fight for 3rd spaces.

But somehow they weren't all that acceptable... which is why we are still here, arguing about basic biology.

Women who suggest third spaces get told they're akin to 1950s American race segregationists, South African apartheid advocates, and nazis making Jewish people wear yellow stars. It's either complete capitulation or you're a fascist.

I'm thinking of the current thread about who people would vote for Samphire. Women are being told they shouldn't be not voting Labour over the issue of women's rights. They should put it aside for the greater good.
I was just wondering whether, if Labour came out with a supportable (for me) position that upset another group would they be being told to think of the greater good.

@Tiphaine

Women who suggest third spaces get told they're akin to 1950s American race segregationists, South African apartheid advocates, and nazis making Jewish people wear yellow stars. It's either complete capitulation or you're a fascist.

I agree we don't need third spaces. As it's mostly men in cosplaying roles, they already have facilities as they need urinals

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

They also see it as a diversion tactic when voters are breaking down in tears about the cost-of-living crisis in focus groups and never bring up trans issues in such settings

This perfectly encapsulates Labour's incompetence on the issue.

Firstly, the assumption that women's rights are a low priority nice-to-have, to be addressed once every other problem in the world is sorted, when instead, they are fundamental to the solving of those problems, as well of being an issue of equal moral value to poverty etc. We've been hearing this since the first campaigns for suffrage - 'Pipe down, Ladies - we'll get to you once we've solved the economy, war, famine, nuclear fusion and razor rash'.

Secondly, the lack of awareness about why the issue is rarely raised in focus groups. Labour has been at the forefront of the No Debate movement. Its flying monkeys launch at anyone who dares to speak up for women in the mildest way - as Rosie Duffield knows to her cost. What a fucking shock that women aren't going to volunteer for a public shaming for transphobia, at the hands of some green-haired focus group convener.

Unluckily for Labour, the ballot box is still private.

This.

It will be pushed that there is no time or patience with silly stuff like this when people are going hungry and freezing in their homes and can't afford their cars.

Except who will be the demographic most affected by this?

It will be women trying to feed their families and stretch the pennies and keep the kids warm and get them to school. It will be many many women trying to do this on no child support because the children's father has walked away to more enjoyable pastures and there's no come back on him doing so. It will be women dealing with this extra and awful strain on relationships ending in violence and worse, and trying to work out how to get away when there's nowhere to go and no single sex help. It will be women who go hungry and cold so their kids and others they care for can have more, and their health which will suffer.

Trust me, it will not be any exciting form of woman that all the crap happens to; it will be the type stuck with the biological burden no one in Labour can bear to talk about for fear of upsetting the opposite sex.

Disappearing us in law, making life less accessible and safe for women, normalising that being born female is shit and comes with a heavy price of being a kind of second class human to the better ones but you have to pretend no one knows what sex anyone is?

GTF.

Seriously.

If Labour seriously cares about women voters crying on doorsteps about how tough things are - and are about to get - then they bloody well have to face up to the fact that those women need help, not word games and being encouraged to be naice about subordination.

'Shut up shut up look at the squirrel and we'll do this quietly so by the time you notice it's done and over and too late to argue' is not a manifesto I will ever get behind.

I think when all this shit becomes clear to the general public (and it is happening) and political parties realise that they are onto a losing streak by capitulating to the demands of an ideology (I would dearly like to use another word here, but I'll be deleted), then the backtracking will begin.

It's already happening to a small extent - lots of articles seem to be talking about 'respectful debate' and 'middle ground' so I expect that 'inclusive spaces' (a rebrand of third spaces) will be the next big thing, along with lots of happy, clappy 'look! We can meet everyone's needs!!'.

The fact that women have been consistent in suggesting this and told in return that they were fascists (or worse) for doing so, will be conveniently forgotten and rewritten.

You see it quite often with newcomers to this board who always seem a bit baffled that it's not happening and suggest it as if the posters on here are unfamiliar to the idea. The general public are the same.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

I'm thinking of the current thread about who people would vote for Samphire. Women are being told they shouldn't be not voting Labour over the issue of women's rights. They should put it aside for the greater good. I was just wondering whether, if Labour came out with a supportable (for me) position that upset another group would they be being told to think of the greater good.

The problem is that there is no compromise. We have lived with one, again women were never actually asked. But now that unspoken 'truce' is broken, irrevocably. Women are saying no.

And the TRA response? Fuck you TERF usually.

3rd spaces aren't acceptable, only female capitulation is. In short, you are asking questions of the wrong people.

I would also like to see the 'isn't there better things to worry about?' question turned on it's head here in Scotland with the Scottish Government asked why they are so rabid about pushing through self id when 'there are more pressing things to worry about'.

If women's concerns can apparently be dealt with at a future, undetermined time, then surely it holds the same for trans issues?

maeveiscurious I think I may have miscommunicated. I would be in support of third spaces. I was trying to explain the reasons women are given for why suggesting them is unacceptable to some in the trans activism movement.

Does anyone remember when Adrian Harrop said that terfs should be made to use their own loos, while everyone else could share in a mixed sex pissy utopia? He was so pleased with himself until all the applause from women started rolling in. It took him a while to realise ...

The problem as I see it is that Labour feels that voters should be accountable to them rather than that they should be accountable to voters. This is why they can't quite comprehend why this issue is so important. Why can't the stupid women shut up? It's not important to us so it shouldn't be important to them seems to be the general attitude.

'Pipe down, Ladies - we'll get to you once we've solved the economy, war, famine, nuclear fusion and razor rash'...

Razor rash is an abomination. Total injustice and scourge on our society. Labour's going to sort it in no time. So fucking competent, the lot of them. War and famine? Borrow someone else's cash and waste it. Job done.
Dicks and/or vaginas?
Well, that's much, much more complicated. They're not biologists, for FS. Impossible to say. Very uncomfortable position to be in, as a serious party. Talking dirty is so inappropriate in a parliamentary setting, mind you.
So, yes.
I'm going to vote Labour as soon as it's humanely possible.
And then I'm going to declare myself a horse.
(Always felt this urge, you see, always felt so horsey inside).
Serves me fucking right.
TRANslogic.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

I'm thinking of the current thread about who people would vote for Samphire. Women are being told they shouldn't be not voting Labour over the issue of women's rights. They should put it aside for the greater good. I was just wondering whether, if Labour came out with a supportable (for me) position that upset another group would they be being told to think of the greater good.

I don't post on those threads any more. I'm an ex-Labour member and I'm a women on a lower than average salary in a household with lower than average income. I'm won't vote Labour because of this single issue.

I'm sick to death of the posters those threads attract bleating on about how harmful it is to prioritise women over whatever cause they happen to approve of, implying that women like me are stupid or ignorant, or must be middle class and privileged to choose to prioritise women over anyone else.

I used to be like them, used to talk down to people, lecture, and berate them too (see above, ex-Labour member). The thought makes me cringe with embarrassed horror now.

The problem as I see it is that Labour feels that voters should be accountable to them rather than that they should be accountable to voters. This is why they can't quite comprehend why this issue is so important.Whycan't the stupid women shut up? It's not important tousso it shouldn't be important to them seems to be the general attitude.

Absolutely this. We choose them on the basis of whether they represent our views or not. They don't get to choose what our views are. Labour seem to have forgotten this.

Anyone trying to claim that it shouldn't even be a priority for major political parties to even be able to identify what category of human being 51% of the electorate belong to, never mind to actually care about their rights, needs their head examining.

It's all very much 'stop talking about how you are affected you pesky, horrible women, just do what we are telling you and once we are in, we will talk about perhaps, maybe having a talk about perhaps organising something to discuss the possibility that at some point in the future we could look at discussing a meeting to discuss if we can chat about the fact there maybe something that you'd like to look at meeting to discuss'...

It's the professional politician/post democratic era of Mandelson thing.

The electorate still believe that politicians should be people who have come from among them, having lived real lives, and represent their views and issues on their behalf in parliament.

Labour (and the Greens and the Lib Dems) believe that they have a degree and think tanks and knowledge and understanding on a wider scale that a voter can't possible fit in side their little head. And it's their job to make the electorate do what is right and best in the view of the professional politician and their pet hobby horses, and this silly foot stamping and foot dragging and arguing back just goes to prove why democracy really isn't a good idea.

As pp said - 'it doesn't affect us so why do they keep harping on about it?' The voice of privilege. We have males of all identities looking baffled about why women in single sex spaces would be scared of strange males while passionately holding forth about the terrors of being a male in danger from other males, and why things like having a miscarriage in a mixed sex space is an issue - because unless it affects them it's just not relevant.

What baffles me is that those busy behaving like this would tell you how passionately aware and committed they are to fighting things like misogyny and colonialism. The self delusion is off the scale.

"Absolutely this. We choose them on the basis of whether they represent our views or not. They don't get to choose what our views are. Labour seem to have forgotten this."

Oh, no. They haven't. They just think, and strongly believe we have the WRONG views. At the moment they are simply incapable of indoctrinating and gaslighting a sufficient amount of voters to win.
Labour's views are the right ones here. They see themselves as too nice to be wrong. On anything.
We, on the other hand, are just some random transphobic/fascist scum who need re-education and re-formatting to "improve our ideologies". Unless we're bullied into submission, they don't give a fuck. Diversity & Inclusivity in action.
They simply got "the wrong kind" of society in the process. Tough shit.

The Sun dubbed the Labour leader a “todger dodger,” to the great amusement of those in his office.

It's to the great amusement of me too

They just don't get that we are human too.

And half of the people that put ticks in boxes.

Not one iota of understanding of what the problem actually is.

@SallyLockheart

Labour don't really get it do they. quote from the article the squeamishness they feel talking about genitals but Lisa Nandy and co are quite happy for female prisoners to be housed in the same cell as a TW with male genitals, with a high chance that TW with male genitals has been charged with rape.

I've heard Nandy et al argue that transwomen sex offenders should be housed on the female estate. Thats a big difference from having them sharing cells with other women.

Personally I will never forgive or forget Lisa Nandy's cruelty towards women and girls, and that of those who have enabled her for so long to spew her bilge about prisons.

Me neither. I'm annoyed at myself for previously admiring her. Now I think of her as an example of how low a politician will go in order to further their own career.