Respect my Sex - Mayor of Watford

[Magenta82]

Hi All
With the up coming local elections I wanted to get an idea of the candidates views on women's rights. In Watford we have an elected mayor, the position has been held by 2 people since it was created 20 years ago, both LibDems.

To get an idea of the candidates' stances I sent the following message to all 3 (as well as the local council candidates who haven't replied).

Dear Candidate

I live in xxx Ward and currently find myself politically homeless, having recently given birth to a baby girl I have come to realise the importance of women’s hard won rights and protections and the reasons they are needed. You may have seen the campaign ‘Respect my Sex if you want my ‘X’’, in which women all over the country are talking to local election candidates about women’s sex-based rights and single-sex spaces and services.

Sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act. Women’s single-sex spaces and services matter for the dignity, privacy, and safety of women.

Yet some local authorities, have begun prioritising the concept of self-identified ‘gender’ over sex. This filters down into Council policies with an impact on the provision of women’s single-sex spaces and services – for example public toilets and park facilities. Clarity about sex also matters for sports – girls and women need single-sex competitions to guarantee fair and safe competition. Clarity about sex matters for safeguarding children. Some schools have removed single-sex toilets and local authorities have endorsed materials which suggest that what makes a child a boy or a girl is whether they fit into masculine or feminine stereotypes.

I’m interested to know where you would stand on these issues and would be grateful if you would let me know how you would answer the following questions:

Can you tell me what a woman is?
Do you understand that the Equality Act 2010 allows for single-sex services and sports?
If elected, would you work to ensure that our local authority:
retains the concept of sex where it matters in language, communications, data collection, and policy development;
protects women’s single-sex spaces and services, both in direct provision, and where you have regulatory / partnership influence;
prioritises safeguarding the vulnerable, especially children, in the provision of all spaces and services where sex matters?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Many thanks

My Name

I have heard back from all 3 and will post the replies in the order I received them.

Local politics is more likely to be the old fashioned grass roots tories than the parliamentary party. Generally individual candidates are more important locally and the local council will have very little to do with Boris Johnson.

Based on those answers I would vote Tory.

This statement from Lib Dem shows that they have not listened to women's concerns at all 😮

We are committed to upholding women’s rights and trans rights, and do not believe that the two are in conflict

I think they will publish them after the elections, I'm not sure to be honest.

Tory its also a way of supporting the group conservatives for Women.

That Lib Dem link up thread is very enlightening. They see anyone asking about single sex spaces as hostile. And they certainly have a lot to say in favour of 'transing' children.

What does the letter mean, it talks of trans rights … Part way through the letter he talks of gender identity and this then morphs into chatter about the legislation around gender reassignment - which is very strange as gender reassignment is a more formal process involving professionals and far from casual gender identity

Binitas response is great!

I couldn’t vote libdem based on the information provided. However there is no mention of social care, only health in the conservative plans linked

Still not true though: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanne_Anderson

Thought the Conservative answer head and shoulders above the other two.
Lib Dems was awful.
I'd be voting Conservative

Still haven’t forgiven the conservatives for Brexit, but agree that the response to this was excellent. I don’t think I could ever support them as they are continuing to decimate public services, and nationally seem utterly incompetent and racist. In theory Labour should be better but not convinced either. And don’t even talk about the Lib Dems on this issue. No way. Spoiled vote I think.

Binita of course.

I left Watford in 2015, before gender ideology was even on my radar, but I always had a huge amount of respect for Dorothy Thornhill. This has got me wondering what her views are on all this (I had a very brief Google, but she doesn't seem to be on twitter)

For information- Dorothy Thornhill was the Mayor of Watford for best part of 20 years I think. Incredibly influential Lib Dem.

Labour

Did the Lib Dem candidate really need to use so many words to say, "don't vote for me"?

I would be voting for the Conservative candidate as she not only send to have a good, firm grip on reality but has managed to string together several sentences in her response to convince me of her stance rather than simply assert a bare "yes" in response to your questions as the Labour candidate has (which leaves me wondering, "do you really, though...?")

They needed all the words to covey (what they deemed) the appropriate level of condescension.

And to ‘educate’ the OP.

I’d vote Labour in that scenario (personally) but great response from the Conservative!

@Magenta82 , what does Daisy over in St Albans think? Does anyone know?

Based on that I would have to vote Tory.
id be too sceptical that the Labour rep wasn’t just ticking a box to get the vote. I respect the Lib Dems point of view, but I find it hard to believe there are hundreds of thousands of trans people in the uk? Surely if there were that many the hospital waiting lists would be full to overflowing with gender reassignment waiting lists and it would be more publicised.
If there truly is hundreds of thousands of trans people - then what’s causing it? Because surely that’s an explosion in numbers in recent times and needs further investigation…

@MarsFlower pretty much the same as Peter Taylor - a lot of the same lines

@WalkerWalking

I believe she may still be a fairly active member of the community. I had the pleasure of a chat with her quite recently.
I believe she is in support of Mr Taylor
(See image)

Well I did it, I voted Tory for my first vote and Labour for my second, I toyed with not making a second choice but thought it best that whoever wins is not Peter Taylor.

Apologies for the possibly stupid question but why have the Tories not acted to protect women's spaces or clarify the law? They're been in power for long enough. It's all words and no action.

In general the move from sex to gender has not come from the government, but from organisations and the civil service without direct government instructions.

The issue has only really started to get traction recently and the government has started to respond, for example by not going through with changes to the GRA and the banning of trans conversion therapy.

The impression I get from the other parties is that they would accelerate the erosion of women's rights.