Carly-May Kavanagh

[NitroNine]

There are rumours circulating on Twitter that Carly-May Kavanagh (the one who screams at babies: Daily Mail) has, despite her “apology” been suspended from the Labour Party. Presumably such a suspension would have an impact on her job as Lloyd Russell-Moyle‘s head of policy?

Apparently if she is suspended it [probably] won’t be made public. Given the reason for her [potential] suspension; if Labour actually do take action, you’d think they’d want to reassure people that they expect their members to uphold certain standards. I mean, “not screaming abuse at infants” is less upholding a standard than it is failing to trip over pebbles of basic decency…

Clearly one cannot put too much weight into Random Person Says Unevidenced Thing. However, it would be a foolish rumour to start without cause, so I thought it was worth starting a thread here to see if there are developments to follow.

Should Kavanagh face consequences for her behaviour it will be a watershed moment: Labour acknowledging women have rights all their own, including the rights to assemble & to speak on issues of concern to them, such as their need for single sex provisions.

This might be the biggest derail I've ever seen

This is a pretty good point. I do think Posie sometimes says stuff that can be misconstrued, and she is strongest on women's rights. She will have this kind of thing happen even more if she does stand for parliament.

Four years ago JCJ was stating that "we" saw Fionne as a woman, a sister. I understand she has changed her mind since then, all of us change and refine our ideas over time.

Broadly speaking I agree with most of what KJK says. I am really disappointed that more feminists didn't accept her invite to speak to us "ordinary" women in Brighton.

Of course. Critique the feminist activism of the Brighton feminists all you want. I'm all ears.

So far the only criticism has been that they criticised Posie.

Scrutiny is fine, bullying is shit.
It’s the sharing around and using the list in attempt to get Posie shunned that’s the bullying, not talking about of her opinions (we’re over here, having discussions about Posie’s opinions! Hence the detour around reproductive technology and BigFertility). I’ve seen that list go round various private GC FB groups and the reason it was shared wasn’t to facilitate info sharing and discussion it was to try and convince people to shun Posie.

I accept your loyalty to your friend (and your unwillingness to see that lefty-bullying is now an ingrained part of the left) won’t let you recognise that your friend is simply behaving like a bully, rather than providing any useful analysis of Posie as a politician.

Loyalty is a nice thing, but you’ve invested it in the wrong place before.

(funnily enough, I actually know your friend way better than I know Posie, who I only know of and have never had any interaction with. I recently muted your friend on F/B because of all the angry posts about Posie. Which is kinda sad because your friend was a key part of my trudge up the Mountain of Realisation)

Saph, I’ve seen your trudge on the same journey, it’s way more dramatic than mine and I actually feel quite, I dunno, protective? Worried? Because you’ve out of the frying pan’d with the TRAs and you might just be putting yourself into the fire (metaphor!) with other people on the left who are behaving awfully like them.
I seem to remember us trying to convince you that the TRAs were bullies, but you wouldn’t believe us until you saw them go for Nicola Roberts.

Anyway -back to the thread title, has anyone heard anymore re Carly May’s suspension?

Presume she wouldn’t be allowed at Labour conference while suspended?

Of course. Critique the feminist activism of the Brighton feminists all you want. I'm all ears.

So far the only criticism has been that they criticised Posie.

Can you really not grasp the general principle here? How would you feel if in future someone did that about your friends? Or you?

Of course. Critique the feminist activism of the Brighton feminists all you want. I'm all ears.

I think the point Ereshkigal was making is that it would be horribly destructive to do that! Do you really think it would be reasonable behaviour to go back through everything public your friends have said to look for maximally uncharitable interpretations,
and maybe look through all their photos to find every time they’ve stood in the vicinity of a Bad Person and then collate webpages about our findings? Do you think it would be a helpful thing for the cause?

And even if you are in favour of that being done to your friends I don’t think you’ll find many takers. The thread was almost united in thinking this is not a good way to do things.

ok this is starting to feel like a potential pile on once more so I’ll not post again, but please consider whether your animosity to Posie or perhaps your proximity to TRAs, is influencing your perspective on what is acceptable behaviour.

Correction: Nicola Adams!

Adams is the boxer who danced with Katya on Strictly.
Roberts is from Girls Aloud

🙈

I still don't understand what is the cause of the animosity, to be honest.

That day, the behaviour of the TRAs was way worse than anyone else's. Those oak man are even connected to a prominent TRA. The shouting, the determination to silence, the blatant intimidation. The lot.

But it's the alleged views of the woman hosting other women who is the focal point for Sapphos.

it's unreasonable. Totally. And yes, looks utterly personal.

Four years ago JCJ was stating that "we" saw Fionne as a woman, a sister. I understand she has changed her mind since then, all of us change and refine our ideas over time.

Yes, she was wrong to say that, and I quite like Fionne. But I don't see any male as a woman. She has a tendency to assume she can speak on behalf of the GC feminist movement as a whole, which is why some people use the term "head girls" to describe this group of journalists and academic women.

But it's the alleged views of the woman hosting other women who is the focal point for Sapphos.

Yes it's all a bit of a deflection. This thread is about a young Labour activist who is so blinkered in her genderist views that she lost it in public in a bad way, making her a laughing stock around the world, and getting her into trouble in her job.

Would it be too much to ask that in the last hundred odd posts of the thread that we return to the subject of the OP, rather than attempting to smear the woman who organised the meeting, which is not the point of this thread?

Yes I can certainly understand wanting to defend your mates and feeling angry when it feels like people are attacking your mates so yes I do get it.

For the same reason I can also have some empathy with Carly May Kavanagh. She will have felt like the trans community was under siege.

Well yes, I for one am interested in your perspective on that, as a former TRA.

For the record, Kellie-Jay isn't my mate (though I've met her several times and I like her as a person) and I don't agree with everything she's ever said. I think she is phenomenal at raising awareness of this issue in the media, much more so than many of the people criticising her, and I think constant sniping at her is counterproductive and divisive, and comes across as "People's Front of Judea" stuff that people outside the bubble don't care about.

KJ is not my mate (not even a social media contact) but I am profoundly interested in purity spirals on the left because it’s destroyed the political party I belonged to and now Britain has no viable economic left wing which is really worrying in a recession.

I’ve seen this kind of ‘separate off and shun’ happening on the left in my own social groups (up North) and my best friend of 30 years has just moved from Hove back to London because Brighton has become like Portland (rearranging cycle lanes that go nowhere useful and funding endless flags and posters about Diversity and Inclusion while other public services fall to shit, education, police, libraries, bin services, provision for SEN kids etc etc)

I think there's a strong argument that PP is the very opposite of a politician - she is a single issue campaigner who studiously avoids the wider world of politics.

It is perhaps indicative of your mindset - that who you stand next to in a public place is the most important thing - that you can't even comprehend that she does not care about the politics of it, she just wants to get the message out.

I think holding bad people to account is good. But when you try to hold good people to account you look bad.

A woman organised a peaceful meeting in a public place for other women to talk about issues which concern them.

An angry mob turned up to protest at these women being allowed to speak, armed with smoke bombs, knives and glitter(!), and one of the angry mob lost it because she felt it was these violent people who were 'under siege'.

100%.

Your post made me think - there is no-one I have ever met who I agree with everything they've ever said - imagine living your life such that everyone is your enemy unless you agree with them completely? Even if you grossly oversimply your thoughts and allow yourself to be lead by groupthink you'll still end up with almost no friends.

And the few friends you have left will the most boring parties known to womankind.

Everyone dancing in the exact same way to the same song.

Drinking the same wines from identical glasses.

in matching outfits.

shudder.

A woman organised a peaceful meeting in a public place for other women to talk about issues which concern them.

An angry mob turned up to protest at these women being allowed to speak, armed with smoke bombs, knives and glitter(!), and one of the angry mob lost it because she felt it was these violent people who were 'under siege'.

YY. It's absurd, when you put it like that. Carly May could have spoken. She is a woman. Why didn't she ask? She would have got pushback from the crowd, but she really cares about this issue, so I'm sure she would be able to cope with that, no?

YY. It's absurd, when you put it like that. Carly May could have spoken. She is a woman. Why didn't she ask? She would have got pushback from the crowd, but she really cares about this issue, so I'm sure she would be able to cope with that, no?

I wondered that too. She should've just taken the mic and spoken if any woman was allowed to speak.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

If Carly May had done that we would’ve admired her ovaries of steel while vehemently disagreeing with her.

Which is why many of us are so perplexed that various left-wing identifying (but neoliberal in practice) feminists can’t do the same with Posie.

Are you blaming women for men’s actions?

sounds like one of the rules of misogyny…