Why do Labour women make this so much worse than it need be?

[Pluvia]

I've come under pretty aggressive attack on another platform twice today. Once because I linked to Hadley Freemans's article The Week the Trans Spell was Broken:

unherd.com/2022/04/the-week-the-trans-spell-was-broken/

and once because I linked to an old Times article, which I won't link to here because I don't have a share token.

Each time I was shouted down and bullied by women of the left telling me I shouldn't link to Unherd or the Times because they are right-wing puppets of the Tory party. The women concerned — a group of about six of them — are the kind of hard-line Labour supporters who demand total purity. They have only fairly recently started expressing GC ideas, while I've been out there plugging away for years (and have been shunned as a Hateful Bigot by at least half the people I once counted as friends). Now they've crossed over to the GC side and they're patrolling it with the same ferocity that they do everything else.

I struggle to get my head around it because I have always been a Labour voter, am currently an active member of my Labour CLP trying to beat off the woke bros, and here I have Labour women telling me I can't post a Hadley Freeman article — Hadley Freeman of the Guardian — because the platform she's posting on was founded by a Tory and hosts people with right-wing views.

I've responded very firmly about women being blocked and banned and bullied from posting on left-wing sites. But ffs, if this goes on for very much longer it's going to drive me into the arms of the Tories.

The Guardian spouts harmful gender ideology myths, other woke stuff and Corbyn is Evil relentlessly, but they have no interest in women's rights at all. So what else can you do

Linguini - I thought the Guardian was pro Corbyn?

Just ask, do you think absolutely everything from the left/left wing sources/believed by left wing people is 100% correct, right in every way, unarguable, beneficial, unable to be critiqued and there is only a single opinion shared by those in that political affiliation, and absolutely everything from the right/right wing/right wing sources/right wing people is 100% incorrect, wrong in every way, baseless, not worthy of being true and one opinion is representative of the whole political affiliation? Is the world really split into right and wrong like that? Is that how it works?
Awareness of sources is good when reviewing content, but you've stopped half way if you're only judging something on the source. Ask them what they think of the content? Ask them why this content isn't currently found where there affiliations lie? Why is it not ok for some.opinions to be shared by those across the political divide?
Hearing others viewpoints (especially novel ones) is hardly ever a waste of time when looking at an issue. Listening is not the same as agreeing and widening your worldview is not hateful. It's not what you click or read that is the measure of your values but what you do and speak and write.

@Pluvia

I've come under pretty aggressive attack on another platform twice today. Once because I linked to Hadley Freemans's article The Week the Trans Spell was Broken:

unherd.com/2022/04/the-week-the-trans-spell-was-broken/

and once because I linked to an old Times article, which I won't link to here because I don't have a share token.

Each time I was shouted down and bullied by women of the left telling me I shouldn't link to Unherd or the Times because they are right-wing puppets of the Tory party. The women concerned — a group of about six of them — are the kind of hard-line Labour supporters who demand total purity. They have only fairly recently started expressing GC ideas, while I've been out there plugging away for years (and have been shunned as a Hateful Bigot by at least half the people I once counted as friends). Now they've crossed over to the GC side and they're patrolling it with the same ferocity that they do everything else.

I struggle to get my head around it because I have always been a Labour voter, am currently an active member of my Labour CLP trying to beat off the woke bros, and here I have Labour women telling me I can't post a Hadley Freeman article — Hadley Freeman of the Guardian — because the platform she's posting on was founded by a Tory and hosts people with right-wing views.

I've responded very firmly about women being blocked and banned and bullied from posting on left-wing sites. But ffs, if this goes on for very much longer it's going to drive me into the arms of the Tories.

OP the behaviour you describe is exactly the same behaviour I have seen from the left too. I suspect it’s very common for intolerant ideological left wing activists to behave this way.

I was a lefty decades ago and I think I probably behaved a bit like this too if I’m honest. I see their behaviour and I think to myself was I really one of them and did I really behave like this. I think I probably did.

Once this debate is finally resolved politically I think some people on this site will likely go back to behaving that way themselves. Once this is resolved they’ll be able to start demanding a no platform for GB news, sneering at daily mail readers and re-subscribe to the guardian like it never even happened.

I didn’t realise how nasty some leftists groups were until I found myself on the wrong side of them. Then I realised I was once part of that myself.

@Andante57

The Guardian spouts harmful gender ideology myths, other woke stuff and Corbyn is Evil relentlessly, but they have no interest in women's rights at all. So what else can you do

Linguini - I thought the Guardian was pro Corbyn?

Graun has always been anti Corbyn. They are really a Libdem paper. Always have been. Of course they have the odd piece by socialists. And Tories too for that matter. Got to have balance eh?

People on the left of politics and people on the right of politics are all people. Some people are arseholes.

@lovelyweathertoday

You're not wrong Mackerson, this whole situation has made me rethink some of my previous views.

Same here.

Both sides are as bad as each other because they are made up of people and people can be cold and analytical (I like those people) others can be disingenuous white knights, evil greedy bastards, kind and generous etc.

each side left and right will attract its percentage of these people, they will ebb and flow in personality traits depending on the leadership of the party and their conduct and policies.

but ultimately the left is left, the centre is useless, the right is right and if you go too far left or too far right you end up in the same place, fascism. dictatorship, authoritarianism etc.

at the moment the right is bloody awful and the left isnt far behind.

I was a lefty decades ago and I think I probably behaved a bit like this too if I’m honest. I see their behaviour and I think to myself was I really one of them and did I really behave like this. I think I probably did.

Same, and I know I did - thankfully I confined it to twitter though.

For me, the GC awakening came first, then the awareness of purity spirals as people I'd previously held in high regard dug in their heels and became nasty and illogical. It may be the same for your friends, OP. Although I totally understand your anger - it's not bloody fair at all is it?

I was a lefty decades ago and I think I probably behaved a bit like this too if I’m honest. I see their behaviour and I think to myself was I really one of them and did I really behave like this. I think I probably did.

Has anyone who did this to people that they still know apologised to them? If you don't still know them but could locate them, would you apologise?

You have to give them a bit more time I think.

I was the same. Unless a miracle from the heavens smacks Labour in the face, I’ll probably be voting Tory at the next election.

The slowly dawning realisation that the ‘good’ guys were either silent or actively taking part in the verbal abuse/ rape and death threats towards me…because I didn’t agree with 100% of their views. And then just as shockingly, that the selfish ‘evil’ side were being reasonable, and we’re starting to listen to women, publishing the stories and condemning any who didn’t allow free speech.

I have to admit that before all of this I just considered ‘free speech’ to be a racist/ignorant dog whistle.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

I was a lefty decades ago and I think I probably behaved a bit like this too if I’m honest. I see their behaviour and I think to myself was I really one of them and did I really behave like this. I think I probably did.

Has anyone who did this to people that they still know apologised to them? If you don't still know them but could locate them, would you apologise?

I did a general tweet about how my eyes had been opened, that I'd been wrong about some things and I was sorry I'd been a dick.

I thankfully never fell out with any real life friends.

I have to admit that before all of this I just considered ‘free speech’ to be a racist/ignorant dog whistle.

Ah yes, freeze peach as they sarcastically call it.

Oh I've just remembered that I unfollowed Glinner for being 'transphobic'. I did apologise directly to him.

I admire people like you, Pluvia, who have spoken up on social media and persisted despite all the abuse. Well done especially for finally converting a bunch of hard cases.

It must be galling to have these dimwits now toeing a new line and telling you how to do GC properly. But I am seriously excited to hear that GC is becoming the new position to take.

To me what's important are actions. Johnson may say these things but the guy is hardly honourable is he ? Levelling up ? Still waiting. End to austerity ? No way, still happening. Help with fuel bills ? Turns out to be a loan. Lockdown rules ? Nah, not for the likes of us. And then you've got the shit show that is brexit, the lies, obfuscation etc
I'm just incredulous at the number of women falling over themselves to want to vote for them on the basis of one comment so obviously designed to stir things up. Women convinced that this time 'Boris' really means it when history shows he rarely does anything without some underhand motivation.
Why do intelligent women suddenly believe Johnson has acquired a moral backbone but labour can't ? Wes Streeting has made several comments indicating a possible change in direction, as has Starmer and Rachel Reeves. They may not sound as convincing as Johnson but then he is an accomplished liar and doesn't give hoots about dropping women in the shit.

For the umpteenth time:

Saying you don't want to vote Labour =/= voting Conservative!

And even if some people do, that's their choice, which they are entitled to, and if you're annoyed with anyone, be annoyed with Labour for fucking up and fucking people off.

@Tangerinedreamisatheme this thing is, it doesn’t really matter whether Boris DOES anything.

All he has to do, is throw a few sound bites out and keep the law exactly a sit already stands.

The ‘sound bites’ make it more acceptable for everyone to talk about fanatical gender ideology, and exactly what it means. It also makes it less acceptable to ostracise anyone, particular women for holding those views. How can you lose your job for saying something that the prime minister himself says on television?

They are also easy for Johnson to stick to (we KNOW that he know exactly what a woman is) and simultaneously make him look honest, as he is taking the side of reality and fact, and make Labour look like lunatics.

He doesn’t have to go to any effort re: legislation. He can just leave the law as he is and organisations, when they see where the wind is blowing, will start to fear legal/financial reprisals if they keep trying to magically think the law away.

It’s a win/win for the Tory party.

So no, I don’t think Boris will suddenly ‘U-turn’ and start pretending he believes men can become women, this is far too good a thing to hold over Labour at the next election:

‘Look, how can you trust Kier to lead the country. He thinks women can have a penis, men can grow a cervix, children should be sterilised and rapists should be put in prisons with women’.

Actually...did you mean to post that in this thread, tangerine. It seems to have little to do with the OP. Unless you are giving us an illustrative example of Labour supporters being puritanical bullies? If so, good show.

@DelurkingLawyer

Seriously, fuck them. Some of the best reporting on trans issues has been in the Mail, and some of the best opinion pieces in the Times. I have never read the Guardian much because I found its tribalism so pedestrian. I’d rather be challenged than have my left wing preconceptions endlessly validated.

See also James Kirkup in The Spectator

@TedsFederationRep hello fellow GC Tory woman who can get along with people of any political persuasion if they're reasonable and respect womens rights 🙋‍♀️

I like unherd! I think it has a great mix of opinion. I think Freddie Sayers is a great interviewer too. He has an interesting video on the site atm with a Ukrainian national in Shanghai currently and in the expo centre there due to the covid lockdown. She’s been there 10 days already and no clue when she might be able to leave.

@ScreamingMeMe

Actually...did you mean to post that in this thread, tangerine. It seems to have little to do with the OP. Unless you are giving us an illustrative example of Labour supporters being puritanical bullies? If so, good show.

Yes not the best thread for more of the same

@Pluvia

The Conservatives here are doing a good job of herding me back in a leftward direction. Whinging about people being rude to a party that in the last 15 years has done nothing to prevent the slide of more and more people into poverty isn't a good look. Just because I'm furious with the hard left of my own party doesn't mean I can't see the utter corrupt elitist shit show of the current Tory government.

Hear hear!

when I say the tories are scum I am talking about tories, mogg, johnson etc.

if your a voter who gets offended I would be looking at myself hard in the mirror and asking why I identify as a tory?. your a voter, thw tories wouldnt piss on you if you was on fire, your get shafted if your poor by their polices same as the labour voters.

your a voter, perhaps a conservative voter, but while I shout the tories are scum, it would not cross my mind how you identify, I identify as a socialist, I have voted labour, I also voteed green and lib dem, monster raving loony, yogic flyers etc as the fancy takes me depending on what the offereing is when its time to vote and how they are all behaving at that time. which aligns closest to my socialist views.

if your a live long tory voter whos never voted anything else, I'd question how engaged in politics you are that you just blindly follow like a football supporter.

I remember years back seeing university debate in the UK that got deplatformed and so they held it off campus. The two speakers were Julie Bindel and Milo Yiannopolus, and the lefty students union were more upset about Julie than Milo. And the debate, which is up on YouTube, is a bit rowdy but Julie gives a good account of herself and gets a few laughs too.

Point being that GC women tend to be formidable people who can look after themselves, so they aren't worried about going into hostile spaces and fighting the good fight. That comes from having the courage of your convictions.

The loony left, which the TWAW lobby are part of, do not have that. Even when supporting GC views, they act like this is just the new fad that is just as untenable as the TWAW position.

So this is going to degenerate into the same old arguments, then. Siiigggghh

As I’ve become more interested and involved in the issue of gender identity politics and the trans overreach into erasing women’s rights I’ve also had a shift in my own political prejudices and assumptions.

I see people throwing labels like ‘Tory Scum’ again on this thread and I wonder how that really differs from having labels like ‘bigoted TERF’ thrown at us. It’s as bad as throwing ‘racist anti-Semite’ at all Labour voters too.

I’m learning to be more intellectually curious about other peoples opinions and motivations. I’m learning to apply critical thinking to all sides of an argument, not just those I immediately disagree with. I now question all information sources, including those I may have trusted in the past.