Boris Johnson on Sky

[tabbycatstripy]

Johnson “sad” about the reaction from LGBT groups, says he’s 100% committed to a ban on gay conversion therapy, but there complexities and sensitivities about the area of gender, and he thinks there are things that need to be worked out.

Determined to tackle prejudice.

Re. trans conversion therapy, it wasn’t something he thought he would have to consider in great detail. These are novel concepts. He doesn’t think it’s reasonable for kids to be deemed Gillick competent in trans treatments. He doesn’t think males should be competing in female sports. Women should have spaces which are dedicated to women.

That’s as far as his thinking has developed, and if it puts him in conflict with others, he wants to work it out. Is sympathetic to transitioners. But these are complex issues and it takes thought to get it right.

Should have said - vote for him.

@ResisterRex absolutely agree. I'm a Remain voter. Not every leave voter is a bigoted swivel eyed loon. You can't assume everyone concerned about self ID or de facto self ID is either

"Providing safe spaces for women and safeguarding children takes money and investment. They won’t do it. They’ll say it but they won’t actually do it. "
Keep male bodied people out of the ones we have now. That's a start.

@Iggly

Under the conservatives, we’ve seen cuts to the NHS, cuts to mental help, cuts to SEND funding in schools.

Providing safe spaces for women and safeguarding children takes money and investment. They won’t do it. They’ll say it but they won’t actually do it.

What what they do not what they say!.

Please don’t fall into the trap of Boris Johnson uttering the right words.

Cuts to SEND funding and CAMHS also affect me directly.

Which is why it is APPALLING that KEIR STARMER has put me in the position of having to vote tory for the first time in my life.

Stop blaming Boris Johnson for the failure of Keir Starmer to meet the needs of labour voters.

Jeez I am so anti-this govt for so many reasons but this is such a breath of fresh air after the Labour stance right now. What to do eh.

@Iggly cuts to the NHS. The same NHS that sanctions rapists on women only wards.

I have spent the last few years utterly furious with the Tories for being so corrupt. For deliberately lying. For lying so much that it no longer bears any resemblance to the truth. And for getting away with it. And for not even giving a shit to try and cover up their corruption.

And now I find that they are the ONLY party in Westminster who are willing to safeguard women and children.

If self ID comes in, it will never be reversed. Once we go fully down this rabbit hole, we'll never get our rights back. The result of the next election will be pivotal in women's rights for the future.

How the FUCK has it come to the point that the only party willing to say that biological rights matter is the bloody Tories?!

I'm not stupid. I'm well aware that they've latched onto it as a vote winner. I doubt they care about women any more than they care about trans rights. But as it stands right now, they are the only party who are saying they support women's right to be away from bodies with a penis when they're in a vulnerable position.

I don't know whether to celebrate or cry right now. Who knows - maybe Labour might notice the swell of support and switch their allegiance but with Rayner banging the drum and Starmer terrified of upsetting the (male) voters, it seems unlikely. Fuck.

@Iggly
Surely what matters here is not the left/right divide, but the fact that the PM, for whatever reasons, is talking sensibly about these matters. This can then be built upon in whatever way possible. We shouldn't let ourselves be derailed and divided on party political lines at this stage. We should all be pulling together.

If Labour can't see how this is so hurtful and disrespectful, it's on them. Absolutely on them. I will do a deal with the devil to keep women and girls safe. If I have to.

@MalagaNights

We've got the prime minister saying this.

Which is vital no matter who that prime minister is.

And is the result of the persistent hard work and dedication of individual and groups of women often at great cost to themselves.

Boris saying this out loud is due to them.

Yes. To all the brave women and girls who have challenged, and continue to challenge, gender ideology, often at immense personal cost, thank you

Labour made this party political.

Some people do think it’s fair - it’s been happening on his watch!?

And the Tories are starting to put the brakes on by not going ahead with legislation (GRA reform and conversion therapy for trans). Labour would go full steam ahead with both of these actively dismantling women’s rights. At least the Tories are starting to be clear with language. It’s not just Boris it’s a lot of Tory MPs and they aren’t all liars.

If it's a vote winner and labour don't like it, then they can change their mind tout suite, cant they.

If they think most people agree with Boris, because if not it wouldn't be a vote winner, then what the fuck are they doing disagreeing?

I struggle to say this about Johnson but...well done that man!

If self ID comes in, it will never be reversed.

This is the crux of it for me. Perhaps another 4 years of a Tory government will force Labour to acknowledge that women exist and they aren’t bigots for wanting spaces/services/sporting competitions separate from men. They really need to get a grip.

@bellinisurge

And the same in the USA. Trump or his acolyte will get back in unless Biden stops this stupid shit. But he won't. And the US is doomed to Trump #2

This is in part the fault of Trump derangement syndrome. The left wing (such as it is) media in the US could not for one moment look with any kind of objectivity at Trump's presidency, which, if you strip away all the weird tweeting and showmanship and bizarre speech patterns, wasn't particularly worse than those of most presidents, and had some real successes.

There is a failure to realize that a lot of the time, people don't vote for a president or PM because they think he's a great person, or like him, or believe he's a moral person even. It's because on balance they think the things his government do will be better than the things the other guy's does, and take the country forward or at least not take it back.

I keep wondering, looking at Biden's presidency, do the voters who were mostly interested in getting rid of Trump ever think, maybe this isn't better so much as I thought it would be? Maybe those other voters weren't so completely crazy after all?

But there can be no perspective because they can't look objectively at the things that actually happened or are happening now.

This is a pure win for the Tory party.

The kind of people who will tantrum and yell ‘transphobe/bigot/nazi’ at the PM for this (shockingly) balanced and reasonable statement are the kind who would never vote Tory anyway.

However, he may very well have attracted some of the many disenfranchised left leaning women to vote to make a stand on this issue alone.

I certainly will be.

I think that Boris believes in what he has said - just like 95% of the population. I was watching the coverage of Harry Billage this morning and lots of people were coming out in support of what he has done.

Do you honestly think those people would think self ID is the way to go? Who does, some blabber mouths in trendy London I suspect (and I am from London myself!). People who spout off complete rubbish until it affects them. Want a self IDing man in with your 80 year old Mum in M&S changing room? Would you like after many years of your DD training for swimming at the highest level to be pushed into 2nd place by someone who was once a man.

No - I didnt think so!

What a risk to take for something so important

Given you agree it’s important are you concerned about self ID being implemented if Labour win?

Or a reversal of the T being treated differently for this law?

To some extent it adds fuel to the ‘only right wing bigots think this’ nonsense.

Yeah. Frankly at this point, if wanting children to have access to therapeutic support when in distress, not criminalising parents and therapists trying help, not wanting children to be unquestioningly galloped into lifetime impact decisions, wanting female people to have access and equality without being excluded from women's spaces and not to be raped in the name of a male person living their best life and mattering more than them makes me a 'right wing bigot'?

Sign me up. Call me whatever names you feel you have to, I'll put that on a t shirt. And I'll be too polite to equally name call and label what I think of people who think women and children should be subjected to all this without conscience.

What is so enraging is that OF COURSE Starmer knows what a woman is. He is just too frightened of aggressive Twitter ranters to say the truth out loud.

I actually prefer the MRA misogynists who are clear that they don't think women deserve any particular rights. At least they're honest.

I really don't understand this question of why they aren't doing anything if they really believe that. That feels very naive to me.

The situation on this issue has been changing really rapidly over the last five years. It was for the first several years of that, and before also I suspect, activist driven. Almost everyone was swayed by their influence including all of the political parties, in a general kind of way. And many different kinds of institutions and organizations, schools, prisons, NGOs, the police, even the civil service, were very much affected by the activist groups that began to push these ideas. Not least SW because of its huge influence and reputation, like the Vatican of the secular humanist Labour voting crowd.

And political parties across the board started to craft legislation on this basis. Right up until they started to get all kinds of pushback, largely though not exclusively from women. And despite all the attempts of activists to shut down any disagreement or attempts to discuss the issue.

And all along, when it was only a few people in politics listening, they tended to be Tories, not Labour or LibDem or Green. Similarly the political figures who really went to bat. Worse, the LP, LibDems, and Greens went all out trying to shut down differening points of view, right up to trying to kick them out of their parties.

It's only in the last month, or last few weeks, that there has finally been a real hard political statament at the highest level by Conservatives, culminated in the last few days with these statements by BJ. There is every reason to think that this represents a significant consensus by the party members overall, and what that means is they are now in a position to begin working to change some of these things that have gone through on the sly all over the place, largely due to bad advice from lobby organisations.

It's now possible to wield political influence on this given the weight of perspective in both the CP and among the public, and we should expect to start to see actual changes and hold them to that expectation.

If Labour were in, right now there would be self id and psychologists would not be allowed to offer kids in therapy anything but affirmation, and SW would still be offering their flawed indoctrination to public and political institutions across the country, and they would be actively suppressing any discussion of gender issues.

And who is your 'flag bearer', Disgusted? Jamie Wallis?

Sign me up. Call me whatever names you feel you have to, I'll put that on a t shirt. And I'll be too polite to equally name call and label what I think of people who think women and children should be subjected to all this without conscience.

Yep. Name calling no longer works.

@Artichokeleaves

To some extent it adds fuel to the ‘only right wing bigots think this’ nonsense.

Yeah. Frankly at this point, if wanting children to have access to therapeutic support when in distress, not criminalising parents and therapists trying help, not wanting children to be unquestioningly galloped into lifetime impact decisions, wanting female people to have access and equality without being excluded from women's spaces and not to be raped in the name of a male person living their best life and mattering more than them makes me a 'right wing bigot'?

Sign me up. Call me whatever names you feel you have to, I'll put that on a t shirt. And I'll be too polite to equally name call and label what I think of people who think women and children should be subjected to all this without conscience.

Yep, I'm in too.

Frankly it's the absolute vitriol that comes from the left towards anyone who votes differently, along with their stance on women's rights, that has made me cancel my Labour Party membership and I will not be voting for them again until they can start speaking some sense.