Helen Belcher no longer Lib Dem candidate for Chippenham

[ElizabethJaneHenchard]

I have name changed for this, as it identifies where I am from.

I noticed in our local paper this morning that there is a new Lib Dem candidate for Chippenham!

My issue with Belcher is not their being trans, but their refusal to sit on a panel with Janice Turner, among many other anti-women actions.

I have no idea if the new candidate will be any better, and is obviously Lib Dem so I will not be voting for her unless she has outward GC opinions (v unlikely I know) but will hopefully not have such an obvious hatred of women.

Our current MP, Michelle Donelan the universities minister, has been quite good on free speech in universities, but is unfortunately a total toady to whoever is leading the Conservative party.

I would really like to be able to vote in the next election, rather than spoiling my vote again.

How interesting.

I have told the past two Lib Dem doorstoppers that Belcher's influence on their approach to women's rights means I will definitely not be voting for them. I doubt I am the only one. But I doubt it will be signalling a reverse anytime soon though, sadly.

Why did Belcher step down? Any statement?

Nothing in the article but they did lose 2 elections.

The new candidate is Sarah Gibson. She was mayor of Bradford-upon-Avon until last month.

hmmm

twitter.com/4sarahsthoughts/status/1539237211316662274
Sarah Gibson
@4sarahsthoughts
Seb Coe will surely regret pitting "fairness" against "equality"

Not sounding good 😕

Does that mean:

1. Sarah thinks that women and girls shouldn't have the same right to fair sports as men and boys do?


2. Sarah thinks that women and girls should have the same right to fair sports as men and boys do?

If the former, I hope Sarah is busy campaigning for Lance Armstrong to get back the titles he was stripped of because of doping. All the dopers (and alleged dopers) should be free to be who they are. Inclusion innit? If that magic word 'equality', should have precedence over fairness. Otherwise Sarah would be a bigot, n'est ce pas?

Ah, I forget; although it affects many people and many more sports than LAs unfair advantage did, nobody gives a shit about fairness or equality when it comes to women.

Ah, I forget; although it affects many people and many more sports than LAs unfair advantage did, nobody gives a shit about fairness or equality when it comes to women.

Helen Joyce's latest is good on that.

The right way to think of age, weight and sex categories (and the Paralympics) is therefore as inclusion measures. Without them prime-age males would push everyone else out. This is why the common framing of whether to allow males to compete as females as inclusion versus fairness has started to set my teeth on edge. I have used it myself many times, though at least I have always spelled it out: inclusion for males against fairness for females. But I’m not going to any more. Fairness and inclusion are aligned, not opposed. You need a female-only category both to include women and to be fair to them.

So that’s the argument for having certain categories and not others, and for why it’s “fair” to have certain natural advantages in your category, but not to identify into a category that was specifically set up to exclude people with your categorical advantage.

Paywall: www.thehelenjoyce.com/joyce-activated-issue-11/