Julie Bindel & Sharron Davies can't believe women centre their politics around the trans issue

[ImpossibleDrum]

Julie Bindel

You may hate me for this (well, some of you at least, but I cannot BELIEVE that many of you on here are deciding who is good or bad for PM because of the trans issue ALONE. I mean, I KNOW it is an urgent issue, but so are a million other things right now!!

Sharron Davies

I agree with your too Julie. There’s a bigger picture right now with people potentially unable to feed or keep their kids warm this winter. We can keep bringing the sunlight to other issues.

How can we fight for those issues if the leading party can't define what a woman is?

The issue is fighting against the savage cuts that the Tories have made.

Yes they do. Which is why I'm horrified by current Labour shadow chancellor Reeves' repeated statements of intention to clamp down on welfare claimants and we've already seen Labour would have provided far less help in the cost of living crisis, £90ish compared to £1200. There is no evidence whatsoever that Labour will be better on disabled people's rights or welfare, it's no better than a fairy tale. I wouldn't vote Tory anyway but I certainly have no reason to vote Labour.

“I'm not telling anyone to put women's rights aside. For some women, the big issues include adequate disability and welfare support though.”

If disability becomes a matter of self identity then it may suffer similarly to the protected category of sex. Once anyone can say “I identify as disabled” surely that is going to have impact on people who actually are and on resources and services for them. Reality apparently doesn’t mean anything to Labour, nor do concrete definitions. If everything becomes floaty and fluid then how will they make any difference to the material reality of the lives of ordinary people who are struggling?

If disability becomes a matter of self identity then it may suffer similarly to the protected category of sex. Once anyone can say “I identify as disabled” surely that is going to have impact on people who actually are and on resources and services for them.

That hasn't happened and is pure speculation.

I wouldn't vote Tory anyway but I certainly have no reason to vote Labour.

I totally agree with you - but I also think that there is more chance to find a place inside Labour than with the Tories.

But don’t you think that people could? Why should gender be the only characteristic that people can identify as?

Self-ID is already happening with autism spectrum conditions and DID.

I used to be a Labour Party member and was invited to some particular event if “I identify as BAME” which seemed to me to be inviting self identification into that category much as events for those who “identify” as women do. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if disability were treated in the same way. Already certain conditions seem to be becoming trendy and displayed on social media bios just as is the case for LGBTQ+. For some people identifying into any minority, marginalised or other group seen as oppressed gives them a feeling of being of greater value or more interesting or more worthy and an entitlement to be prioritised and listened to more than “boring normies”.

I used to be a Labour Party member and was invited to some particular event if “I identify as BAME” which seemed to me to be inviting self identification into that category much as events for those who “identify” as women do.

But that's different. I actively choose not to identify as such even though one parent was - it's not clear cut.

Plus, disability is very harshly screened and often to the extent of erring on the side of no impact on life (as posts on MN more generally attest).

Identify as is used for disability. Some people who are technically classed as disabled don't think of themselves as disabled. For example diagnosis with MS means you are classed as disabled but certainly when I was first diagnosed I wasn't disabled by it in any significant way.

And you can self identify as dyslexic when applying for jobs.

This is about something Rachel Reeves said.

I posted it on another thread too.

Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator
www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues-

On the other hand, Rachel Reeves managed to say something about single sex spaces in public which might have been taboo before. So that is a small sign for the better.

People just don’t understand though the extent to which this is an issue about the safety and well being of women and children, and also about resisting the trans activist authoritarianism complete with ideological indoctrination that has even been infiltrating schools.

^Is Labour Is Labour changing its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues- its mind on trans issues? | The Spectator^

www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-labour-changing-its-mind-on-trans-issues-

Apologies, I had meant that last post for another thread.

I agree with them too. It infuriates me that I'm left in this position, but given a choice between someone who expressed a commitment to act on the climate crisis and the cost of living crisis but who was a dyed-in-the-wool genderist, versus a gender-critical climate-denier, I'd bite my tongue and give my vote to the former. I'd find it hard to door-knock on his or her behalf, mind you.

Tbh, I'd vote for anyone who was willing to say "people have different views on this issue, as on any other, and it's important to reach a compromise", whatever that person's own views.