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.

For me the issue is as others here have said: the position that TWAW is directly inimical to listening to women, who are explaining en masse that this is a category error. If they don’t listen to me about this, they won’t listen to me about anything, so why would I think they could represent me?

There seemed to be an underlying presumption that women had come to GC issues in a vacuum with no experience of poverty or other campaigning. All the women I know who care about GC issues came to it alongside their other campaigns whether that be around food poverty; women in prisons and the care system; GRT rights; single parent families; MH care and access; refugees; VAWG.

Labour moved away from prioritising and protecting the working class a long time ago. It's why their vote plummeted in Scotland. They went from conviction politicians to mealy-mouthed sycophants who don't understand or care about their core voters; from representing the working class to lecturing them; and from supporting union leaders to promoting mouthpieces like LOJ. It's not that women don't care about other issues, it's that Labour don't. KS has acted like a caretaker whilst the Tories oversaw one of the worst pandemic responses in the world. Labour has been moving deckchairs on the Titanic.

Everyone here knows who Julie and Sharon are. They don't know who we are. They don't know the issues, the campaigns, the points of deprivation that we're all working on or living in.

It's not for women to hold their noses. It's for any party that wants women's votes, to be a party of integrity. It's on the party to show how much it wants and values over 50% of the population. From Militant days to the present, lefty men have been dangling women's rights and poverty campaigning as treats for later - something they'll get to after the important stuff. Women are finally turning women's issues into a wedge issue. That's a massive opportunity for political parties. And if certain parts of Labour and the Tories would rather lecture us about priorities than admit they know what sex is - then that is on them. It isn't women's fault. It's not for women to fix. There is an open goal. We don't have to move it. The parties just need to kick into it.
And every party has a group of GC members and politicians and MSPs happy to advise on how they can do it.

No one said this

at all

why do you see the need to lie? And such a silly one that you can be proved wrong on

I think women should be able to vote for you they want for whatever reason they want, obviously

personally I won’t be voting tory or labour at this point, ive never voted labour so its not a ‘punishment’ vote. But i live in a very safe tory seat so labour won’t get in anyway

Oh I’ll never vote for the BNP because of their racism

it won’t happen…so i quite understand those women saying they won’t vote for labour because of their TWAW stance

My working class Tory MP is also pretty good. Last time they put a Labour candidate in the field here she was practically in college.

Yeah, I'm a bit tired of JB atm, her lecturing and her thinly veiled sneering at "mothers" or "breeders" as her cohort like to refer to us tbh. Let's face it both her and SD aren't as affected by gender ideology as most - not on a day to day basis, their financial security, age and status protects them. For me "What Is A Woman?" is the most fundamental question affecting mine and my daughter's lives and has been for the last five years. I don't have a RL security network and my daughter has had a very difficult time at school dealing with having additional needs and how gender ideology directly impacts on them. I read an article yesterday written by JB - moaning about the supposed criticism she receives for not having children. The tone and navel gazing really did remind me of how TRA play pretend victim and take pseudo offence at any kind of criticism. I like and respect her and that won't change though. On this though I do not agree with her. I will never vote for a party who have supported this ideology. They disgust me.

Wes Streeting did start to give a bit of hope a few months ago, I think he gets it.

Wes is very ambitious and sees the way the wind is blowing. Its naive to trust him, at least until he explains the extent of his involvement with the Labour against transphobia facebbok group which was sent up specifically to expel women guilty of wrong think from the party.

Yet the Conservatives changed tack after pushing the TWAW agenda, and you appear quite happy to trust them.

I’m just imagining Starmer actually in power, bringing forward legislation that dismantles all the progress we’ve made. He would undoubtedly introduce self-ID but he’d just be getting started. We’d go backwards on males in female sports. He would push the Cass Review into the long grass. Would he even match what little the Tories have done to combat intact males in female prisons, or would be (like Biden) push for an even more inclusive policy? Who would he appoint to the EHRC? What would happen to single-sex spaces guidance? How would he react to the Forstater judgment? It wouldn’t surprise me if we faced legislation on misgendering, and certainly they would legislate non-binary ‘identities’ into law. We would face ten years of shit, after the ten years of shit we’ve already had, and by then it might be irreversible.

‘Yet the Conservatives changed tack after pushing the TWAW agenda, and you appear quite happy to trust them.’

The Conservatives are a massive group with differing views. Starmer has said TWAW. He, himself, said this. He’s beyond the pale.

If parties or politicians are pretending they don't know what a woman is, it also makes me wonder who is funding them. Or blackmailing them. Or emotionally manipulating them. Because I doubt the priorities of those 'persons unknown' sit alongside mine.

My concern is that some parties that profess to stand up for women really don't. The current Tories love this issue cos its a way of doing 'back to basics' while crowd pleasing the old guard. Have no doubt this comes from the same place as section 28 and the Alton Bill for the Tories and lib dems - a basically small c christian /conservative stance that would have women 'barefoot, pregnant and chained to the kitchen sink' as they used to say. There will be no welfare or services under these parties for women who are not 'nice', successful and well behaved. Look at what they do, not what they say. At least labour and the greens are coming from a good place, where they believe we all have value and are part of a wider community. Tories are ostensibly saying 'only women are women' but for them its the modern way of saying 'get a suit and a haircut boy'

'Happy to trust them' where have I said that? I said I feel politically homeless.

This is where I always get confused, in Scotland if you're not full on IndyRef will save us! It's 'YOURE AN EVIL TORY' with no actual care or discussion as to why not, and here it seems if you're 'mmmm I don't agree with this TWAW stance' aha! YOU'RE AN EVIL TORY!!

Agreed Terfydactyl, I 100% agree there are also other critical issues right now but the implications of handing over the ability to define 50% of the population to the other 50% of the population and that will have a major impact on how I chose to vote. Especially as I don’t see other parties focussing on the other critical issues either they are so focussed on gender politics. Im so disappointed in Labours lack of interest in the cost of living crisis and the decades (including when they were in power) of under investment in decent social housing

I can’t trust any political party insisting I believe a lie

I find Bindel's attitude exasperating. Yes, of course this is the most important issue for a lot of us because if you compel the entire population to collude in a lie (which is exactly what self-ID is) how can you trust them on anything else?

Ditto, if you think that putting rapists in women's prisons or performing double mastectomies on healthy teenage girls is ethically acceptable, then you have no moral compass to speak of.

I just watched the Mr Menno video that someone mentioned on another thread (the one that compares Ricky Gervais and Nish Kumar) and he lays it all out so clearly.

Yeah! Go ahead and tell us we are thick... same old same old.

I am saying that their tweets lack nuance. Are simplistic. Are laughable.

I don't expect them to be prefect. I don't think much less of them for this. But I do think that maybe they need to take a small step back...

It's true that a lot of people vote based on single issues. Brexit being the most recent one. Enough Labour etc voters wanted Brexit enough to change their vote.

Tbh, I'm on the fence now. But chances are, the Tories will get in an electable leader and two years from now the country will continue to vote blue.

I’m never going to disrespect JB or SD - they’re incredible women and as entitled to their views as all the rest of us. I simply disagree about where this needs to go.

I'm not sure why JB thinks that people will hate her for having an opinion. She's an amazing activist and feminist and entitled to think and say what she wants and also to vote for who she pleases. I don't understand though, what's so hard to believe about women saying that they may reconsider voting for Labour due to their position on "trans issues". Attempting to shame people into voting a certain way because the care about specific issues is a tactic that some on the left continue to use despite the fact It doesn't really work. Also to reduce it to "trans issues" is dishonest. There is really so much more to it than that.

I want to vote for the Labour party but TWAW stops me since they are so extreme on some issues. However, they are great for people in difficulties and feel they would do so much more for poverty, families, childcare, and general society rather than the Tories.

Trouble is the TWAW, safe spaces, men in women's sports is a very slippery slope

@SamphirethePogoingStickerist I was referring to this post.
I don't think people are "thick" for disagreeing.
I do take issue with implying Julie Bindel doesn't understand the debate

Well they're right aren't they? It's like when people got obsessed with immigration. Look at your actual life - trans people have zero effect on me (there's one guy in work who likes to wear a skirt, he's a nice guy, good at his job, his clothing is totally irrelevant to me). What actually makes a difference is cost of living and the clowns in Westminster

@wellyelliebee

No, they’re not right. If someone is doing irreversible surgeries on confused children, that is an issue of profound and overriding ethical importance. It’s not about my life, it’s about theirs.