Anyone else left wing and gender critical?

[Kendodd]

I'm to the left politically.
Support BLM and was at anti apartheid demos even back in the 80s
Fully support gay rights and again, have marched in the street for them from back in the 80s.
Strong feminist, attend feminist meetings.
Support refugees.
Very anti Brexit.
Feel ashamed of the levels of poverty in the UK.

I'm also gender critical and although I do support trans rights, in that, wear what you want, TWANW and have different needs and don't belong in women's sports, prisons etc. When I look around and see who I'm standing with on this though, I feel really uncomfortable.

When it comes to voting, no way would I vote for someone with Farage like views just because they were anti self ID.
Anyone else with similar views?

I'm fairly sure that their Spads are on here; but if Rishi Sunak's recent performance was anything to go by, they were reading the wrong threads - got stuck on weaning and pram parasols, never made it to the politics and feminism & women's rights.

He couldn't even say anything sensible about Food Banks, to which women contribute greatly in terms of supermarket donations and volunteer time.

I think it’s basically all of us.

i can’t bring myself to vote Tory. I might spoil my ballot

Your OP seems very disingenuous- FWR is chock full of left leaning voters who are now politically homeless.

Such as myself…I had to hold my nose and vote Tory this morning because I can no longer trust Labour to protect women and girls. I’ve never voted conservative before. I’m not ashamed of my vote today - it is the Labour Party who should be ashamed for driving me away. This is on them.

Such as myself…I had to hold my nose and vote Tory this morning because I can no longer trust Labour to protect women and girls.

Well, I sincerely hope that you get what you wish for. The Tories may talk the talk but they certainly don't walk the walk when it comes to women's rights. They might just do so I suppose if a few more of them put on dresses, high heals and slapped on the make-up - but then it would be men's rights they were supporting.

Better I think to spoil your vote. Easy for me, because we don't have elections.

Here you go today's example of the Guardian drinking the Kool-Aid

Some points to make - no one objects to birthing partner as a term, because it can either be a husband/boyfriend or mother/sister/other female friend.

Someone who has had a double mastectomy for whatever reason won't be able to breastfeed - so obvious it ought to go without saying.

Transman - yep, well biologically he's still a woman. OK s/he had a CS but so do a lot of women.

And would you know, no comments opened on the article.

Well, I sincerely hope that you get what you wish for. The Tories may talk the talk but they certainly don't walk the walk when it comes to women's rights.

Exactly.

I vote Tory.

Interesting thread. Nice to see how many of you despise anyone who doesn't share your lefty ideals.

Oh and for any of you who have voted SNP in the past- I hope you're pleased with yourselves. You supported one deranged ideology lacking any shred of common sense and well, look what we've got in Scotland now.

Some of us aren't 'lefties'. I suspect if I had been old enough when MacMillan was around I could have voted Conservative. But I can't conceive of voting for them as they have become now. I feel sorry for candidates in local elections who are much more in the MacMillan mould, decent and hardworking, who want the best for their communities. But decent and hardworking aren't words which can be applied to Johnson's Government.

Mrs Thatcher was elected Conservative leader in 1975. It's half a century since a One Nation Conservative had any influence on the party. Might be worth voting for an Independent in locals ? If you can find a sane one.

I don't despise anyone, Kimiko. I just don't agree with Tory political principles.

I do actually despise Tory principles.

So who are we meant to vote for? SNP want self ID and Labour do t know what a woman is.

You can vote Alba in Scotland if you're indy inclined.
Who to vote for in England, I have no idea.

This.

Strange kind of "predominantly left wing" forum that gets much of its source material from rabidly reactionary Tory media, spends most of its time attacking the left for its "identity politics" and extolling the virtues of voting Tory.

I get it. Many on the left have got it wrong on this particular issue. There needs to be conversation, there needs to be respect for science and there needs to be a drawing back from kneejerk politically correct views towards more considered and nuanced appreciation of the facts. At the same time, that doesn't erase EVERYTHING that the "woke" left have fought for and achieved over generations, often against the brutal resistance of the very Tory status quo that people seem happy to embrace as the alternative - from gay rights, to racial equality, to feminism itself which is the very point of this board.

Fifteentoes

What’s interesting to me is that I am ‘the woke’ to most of my friends in real life (at university). Most of them are right wing or centrist.They roll their eyes at me/ look bored when I accidentally go on one of my lefty rants. But they’ve all bought into the ‘trans women are women’ mantra hook line and sinker. The only people I’ve met who are knowledgable about this and GC are socialists or communists.

I have idea why it’s predominantly the right wing press who report on this stuff (although kudos to Private Eye and the Observer who are pretty good on this stuff and could hardly be characterised as right wing).

There are a lot of people on the right who are GC, but not necessarily for the same reasons as us left wing GC feminists. It can make it uncomfortable when you see people arguing for the same as you (eg same sex spaces), but for the “wrong” reasons (discriminatory rather than safeguarding, privacy, dignity). Unfortunately it seems to create heat in the online debate as the argument then focuses on the discriminatory rationale, which I can’t defend. I think this is doubly true if you talk to people in America and Canada where GC positions seem to be much more strongly associated with the right, with the left lumping together homophobia, misogyny and transphobia as faults of the Right. The idea that Trans rights are in many cases in direct conflict with Women’s rights, and a third way needs to be found, just doesn’t seem to have gained traction over there.

Why would people on the left accept identity politics? It's not leftist.

This isn't the only area where the left has changed its thinking, there is a reason all across the west workers are alienated from the parties that traditionally represented them. It's not because they've all become nasty right wingers, it's because they don't see their interests reflected there any more.

Political parties have flipped roles regularly, in many countries. It happens.

I have come to the conclusion that the left are terrified of us talking to Conservative women.

I’m not surprised it scares them because, when you do talk, you realise that, for all your many differences, you share a sex.

It’s a powerful lesson to learn and no amount of finger wagging and emotional blackmail can ever undo it.

There are a lot of people on the right who are GC, but not necessarily for the same reasons as us left wing GC feminists. It can make it uncomfortable when you see people arguing for the same as you (eg same sex spaces), but for the “wrong” reasons (discriminatory rather than safeguarding, privacy, dignity)

Do you have any idea how self-righteous you sound?

I've never seen BLM criticised on here.

With XR I think people have an issue with the way they choose to go about things, not their concerns about climate change.

"Wokeness" seems to have devolved into a whole heap of nonsense, encompassing queer theory and gender ideology and thr bullying and deplatforming of people who won't get on board: it's now so far removed from it's origins and therefore worthy of criticism imo. Same with social justice.

I don't like this check list of social justice things you must be on board with to be left wing approach - it's caused a lot of this mess in the first place.

I've never seen BLM criticised on here

I have and if it's the Marxist/ anti- capitalist/ de- fund policing version of BLM I don't see why it should not be criticised.

EVERYTHING that the "woke" left have fought for and achieved over generations

It was the genuine left that fought for those things. Wokery is not the genuine left, it is a trojan horse designed to divide and disorient the left. And it has been far more successful in doing that than anti-communism ever was.

True. "Woke" wasn't even a thing back then, and it's wrong to retrospectively give left wing activism that label (which started off as a term used by Anti-Racism activists in the US anyway).

The GC posters on here all seem very right wing, slagging off the 'woke' by which I mean TRA but also BLM and XR etc. I don't feel I fit with the GC posters on here.

BLM and XR have also taken the TWAW stand, though I don't know how much this is nationally or internationally, and how much it's various local groups.

I haven't noticed a rightwing bias in FWR. When party politics are discussed here, it's mainly by lefties, liberals, or non-aligned women. Most are mourning the parties they used to vote for: Labour, LibDems, Greens, all now solidly behind the misogynist TWAW line.

I'm one of the many socialists who is now politically homeless. I would vote for a communist or even an SDP candidate, since those parties support women's rights. No matter how bad things get under the Tories, I can no longer vote for any party that supports self-ID, which = abolition of women's right to single-sex spaces.

Exactly right. 'Woke' is a very recent invention, and has never achieved anything of value to my knowledge. The generations who fought for and achieved essential rights were trade unionists, left-wingers, feminists. People with a real cause and real commitment.