is our aim protecting our sex based rights or is the issue our political leanings?

[vivariumvivariumsvivaria]

I've been confused by the falling out on social media by some women against other women and have been following the discussions online.

I am not very well informed politically - I think my opinion is that the important thing is ensuring that sex remains a protected characteristic and that "woman" means adult human female and not gender so that our rights to safety, privacy and dignity are protected in law and safeguarding follows that.

However, I can understand that it is difficult for left wing women to collaborate with women who are right wing, or for working class women to link with middle class or upper class women, because their politics and priorities are varied.

I think it is a strength that there are different approaches and different women speaking up because we desperately need to raise awareness because the majority of women are unaware of the threat to our sex based rights. That means we need a variety of voices, and everyone, as far as I can see, wants the same thing - our sex based rights and protections for children.

Maybe I'm being simplistic to think that "play nicely" will prevail. I hope so, though, because what I am watching looks like a big waste of energy and goodness knows this stuff is exhausting enough.

What can an ordinary woman like me who doesn't have a youtube or a book or a column do to try and help move things along? I'm worried we will land up with a GC purity spiral and nothing good will come of it.

The interesting thing is that I think very, very few feminists who would describe themselves as GC are teaming up with the far right. There have been a handful of instances where someone has spoken to someone else on a podcast or on the same panel, but this idea that GC feminism is aligning with the far right doesn't really have much of a basis in reality, certainly not for the vast majority of women.
The UK doesn't really have the same kind of far right base that the US has
In fact, in the UK I feel that trans activists themselves are the ones behaving like you'd expect the far right to behave.
Here, when a feminist org like Womans Place held their meeting on reproductive rights in Bristol recently on the eve of Roe vs Wade being appealed, it wasn't far right protesting outside, it was trans activists.
And that goes for pretty much every other large scale feminist meeting in the last five years.
It's been trans activists who've been protesting women's rights meetings, same sex rights organisations, reproductive rights meetings etc.
So I find this whole 'GC aligns with far right' to be quite ridiculous. It has no basis in any kind of reality. In fact, its quite the opposite

Yep. The list is very long. Labour isn’t the party going after “wholesale destruction of womens rights”, but Tories are definitely the party doing “wholesale destruction of human rights and the environment and the economy and the NHS and our international diplomatic relations and our universities/education systems and our food production and….etc”

But even if we ignored all that and focussed on who is best overall for just women and children….still not the Tories imho.

On the womens issues list, Tories cut the funding for domestic violence shelters…so more women trapped with abusive men= more women being killed by partners than would have been….
www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/23/council-funding-womens-refuges-cut-since-2010-england-wales-scotland

If you read my previous post you would see that's exactly what I aim to do.

It's the same old trap "if you agree with this person you must agree with everything they stand for".

The Suffragettes had a common cause but they all had different political beliefs.

The fact that people would rather go on about someone being left or right wing rather than debating the actual issue is telling.

Labour isn’t the party going after “wholesale destruction of womens rights”

Yes they are. By supporting self ID, and by endlessly repeating the mantra that anyone who opposes it is right wing.

That’s one right though, that’s not multiple womens rights.

It matters to me that single mothers get sufficient benefits to keep children out of poverty. It matters to me that young women keep the abortion rights I had.

That matters deeply to me too. How do we turn to a party to stand up for that when they won't acknowledge that those people are mothers, that they are female, when they're too busy placating that 1% of people? We cannot protect people when we're not even allowed to name them or identify them or notice them without screams of protest and accusations of hate. You cannot protect any vulnerable group if you are not allowed to admit they exist or provide anything for them. It's not rational to believe that a party who believes in this insane ideology will do anything to recognise or protect these groups; they won't. They are too afraid to even call them 'mothers' at the moment. The people whose rights are being buried are these most vulnerable groups of females, and these parties are busy swearing to pretend that there's no such thing as sex.

Abortion rights have been waved over women's heads for decades: don't argue too much or try to stand up for your rights or wouldn't it be a shame if you lost your right to abortion? It didn't work for the women of America, they were all very good girls about this, it didn't save them. And again: you cannot protect the rights of people you're not allowed to name, or identify as the one single group of people who need abortions. If you're a party busy fogging up that abortion is an issue that can affect anyone of either sex and yes absolutely men have abortions and its very important to talk about men and abortions then oh look.... now we're into the ground where men have abortion rights and there's the open door to women not being able to make choices about their body without the consent of the father involved to abort.

I understand your frustration, but this attitude is so very dangerous to women on every front, it is not a case we can let go of a few loos and oh well some vulnerable women might suffer and disappear from public life, but they're the price we're paying for women's rights. It's all women's rights. All of it.

This entire gender mess isn't some rising triumph of the right, although the right is definitely starting to notice and try use it. It's a massive failure on the the left.
I'm left wing, always have been, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be quiet when I see an enormous issue arise on my own 'side'. Calling that out doesn't suddenly make me or anyone else right wing.

Self ID is not 'one right'. Sex based rights are fundamental to many rights; I listed some. Gay rights. Safeguarding. Anything sex based. There's a thread by KPSS about DBS checks and how they have been undermined by it.

Self ID has been a disaster for women and for data collection everywhere its been introduced and yet Labour are determined to impose it on us. Why is that?

I am aware of the impact of austerity and the rape clause and, and, and, and. I'm old enough to remember the Thatcher years. Despite that, I keep returning to that all rights, services and benefits rest on begin able to define who they are for.

You can't provide e.g. abortion services if you can't define who needs the services. So, in order to argue for funding you need to start with knowing what a woman is.

And so, @ArabellaScott yes, you are right, this is a niche issue but that's only because the general population are unaware. Which is why I'd prefer it if the women with platforms could concentrate on speaking to their own groups of newbies instead of taking swipes at each other, well, maybe it wouldn't be such a niche issue?

The thing is. I really really want to be able to vote for Labour. I have voted Labour all my life and my beliefs have always aligned with them, but I just can't.
I feel massively betrayed by them, the speed at which they are prepared to shove women under the bus to pander to a small minority of men, who stamped their feet and demanded special treatment and got it.. has opened my eyes.
For decades women have supported Labour and got crumbs in return with promises of looking at our issues once they had dealt with the 'more important' issues, the men's issues.
I am old enough to remember being denied a lot of rights women have taken for granted, I,ll be damned if I allow a party to undermine those rights and take us backwards.

@ImherewithBoudica
No sorry you don’t need a classification label of mother or father or woman or man to be able to protect or help people in need. The benefits system when applying for UC doesn’t give a shit what sex or gender you are or think you are, it is what it is and the support you get is entirely independent of this.

That’s why I disagree with this hyperbole, that the trans issue affects all womens rights. It really doesn’t. It doesn’t affect abortion rights, yes? Because who gives a shit if the person needing an abortion writes down woman or man…don’t care…and you don’t need to demand you can only write down woman to get an abortion for abortion rights to exist. And I disagree completely that this opens a door for the sperm donor to have rights over whether the human carrying the fetus has a say in abortion.

It’s hyperbole it’s trying to make one issue into the mother of all issues.

It’s one right. Yes it impacts on other rights, but it’s still one right.
Still not worth trading a bunch of other rights for imho.

More to me too it's the principle of it. Once you have a party who has decided that instead of actual equality, equal care for all, impartiality, they believe in creating a hierarchy of people where the currently fashionable groups get more and others get subordinated and have their rights removed in favour of others? That it's fine to have a party that believes in religious intolerance and enforced one true faith with punishment for those failing to enact it convincingly enough? That they believe that public institutions should righteously deny service to those not of the faith? That 'inclusion' should only apply to the currently popular groups and not mean 'equality of all'?

That way total madness lies.

Think about it. A few years ago Labour for example were allllll about the ethnic minorities and religious tolerance and helping women come out of their homes into public life in the name of better community cohesion and reducing disadvantage. Now those are the women whose swims and groups and access to public spaces are being hurled aside because there's a new and more fashionable group to virtue signal with in town. It's ridiculous to have faith that this won't equally freely apply to the currently fashionable groups when a new publicity grabbing virtue signalling group turns up. The TQ+ fashion will pass, the new fad will turn up, and unless we live in a country where no one's rights get removed or affected and no one group matters more than others, they are going to find themselves treated in the same way they are treating women and children and homosexuals.

Any party operating on these awful principles are going nowhere good for anyone, they are fundamentally unfit to do the job.

It may already be too late. I don't think women's rights to single sex spaces will even exist at the end of this Tory term.

you don’t need a classification label of mother or father or woman or man to be able to protect or help people in need.

If you read the post I was replying to, the discussion was how do we help single mothers in the coming poverty, because as you illustrate, it's currently very unfashionable to admit that the massive, massive majority of those caring for children and worrying about where the next meal is coming from and the even more massive majority of single parents are female. There are specific issues affecting females. But we're not allowed to say that, because not naice.

That's the pettifogging that is doing the exact damage I'm talking about.

I'm afraid it's about 5 years too late now to talk about 'hyperbole', women were accused of dramatizing all this from the start and it's all happened plus a whole lot worse. If we've learned nothing else from the unholy mess that the GRA is, it is that you have to look, and look and look some more for unintended consequences because we live in a time when someone will exploit it as far as it is possible to exploit.

To be clear, I am an independent voter and usually vote Green or LibDem. I’m not a loyal Labour voter by any means. The fact I don’t agree with the Tories and probably never will, doesn’t mean I’m a Labour voter. They have serious issues as a party as well that I also cannot get past.

I am just concerned at the narrative encouraging women that voting for Tories is good for us as a class. It really isn’t. Labour isn’t either, but that doesn’t force anyone to vote Tory.

@ImherewithBoudica
it's currently very unfashionable to admit that the massive, massive majority of those caring for children and worrying about where the next meal is coming from and the even more massive majority of single parents are female. There are specific issues affecting females. But we're not allowed to say that, because not naice.

But we are allowed to say that…otherwise why are there dozens of published articles saying just that with zero outcry or whinging to the media outlets by TRAs to take down the articles or change the language in them?

it’s trying to make one issue into the mother of all issues.

<Shrug> YMMV.

This isn't a group think unit, we're all going to have different views on this. But to me, I can see how very plainly this is the mother of all issues for women, for homosexuals, for child safeguarding, it extends into disability rights and access, it extends into equality and inclusion law, it extends into way too damn much and it is part of a fundamental corruption I find terrifying.

I am a floating voter, unaffiliated to any party. I'm politically homeless, but will vote for the party I see as least dangerous.

Yes, arguing back against it. Fighting against the tide, while the captured institutions including the NHS are removing the word 'mother' and 'woman'. It's currently like turning a speeding tanker around, and the message those arguing back are being told is 'you can't say that'. 'Its wrong to use that language'. And yes, there is much whinging, it's perfectly obvious on a daily basis in articles, comments, Twitter, Fb..... it's widespread pressure to change the language.

This is the 'wait until it's absolutely certainly definitely proven to be a problem before acting' argument. We've lost a hell of a lot of ground due to this kind of well intentioned thinking unfortunately.

I’m a Tory, I’m appalled at the last budget, Kensian trickle down economics didn’t work last time and they won’t work this time. I email companies with Gender Critical views. I think Tony Blair and John Major’ were excellent Prime Ministers. I wish Rishi was PM as he has good economic sense. I strongly support abortion at all times and have had two. I support Sex Matters , BPAS and the Trussell trust. I’ll never become a socialist as it seems to narrow minded and caught up in philosophical arguments about a non existent rather than dealing with the world as it is.
Am I a baddie or a goody?

This is the 'wait until it's absolutely certainly definitely proven to be a problem before acting' argument.

Thats not my argument. My argument is a don’t throw the baby out with the bath water argument. And also don’t trust the Tories. They may promise you they will over-turn self ID, but their track record especially in recent years has been a trail of broken promises.

It isn't just the NHS who are removing the words mother and woman. When the HoL returned the new Maternity Bill to the Commons, Penny Mordaunt (then a minister, now The Leader of the Commons) criticised the proposed ammendments at the Despatch Box and declared TWAW and TMAM.

This wasn't Twitter or IG, this was Penny Mordaunt, Conservative MP, speaking in Parliament on behalf of the Conservative government.

Yes well your party has betrayed you if you look at their manifestos vs what they’re doing. I don’t blame voters, I blame the MPs who are abusing the trust they were given.

Self ID is a human rights disaster that undermines equality law, erases womens rights, undermines safeguarding, and
enables homophobia.

I am v new to GC thinking, and this, + clinics like Tavistock GIDS' appalling practice are the primary reasons