Labour's Ben Bradshaw on the attack

[CysticMeg]

twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1607991584234115072?t=cBmrw2vp-ik9Q-5oSqyJow&s=19

So disappointed to read this tweet and the very clear direction of his follow up.

Interesting to read the overwhelmingly challenging replies though, with so many people feeling able to state their concerns. Another demonstration of the own goal nature of the Scottish ruling?

So mystifying to see see a gay man who is otherwise open to listening (or who has given that impression over his career) be so absolutely defiantly resistant to acknowledging the concerns of female constituents.

Depressing to think that surrounded by Tories in the SW, Labour are prepared to do nothing to listen in an effort to represent and engage with their electorate.

😂😂😂 good one - I hadn’t heard that before!

Oh do sit down and shut up. Women are saying no to you.

All your claptrap and flat out lies won't change that.

Thanks for the links, @DaughterOfPsychiatrist I’ll wait until I have a stronger stomach for this!

Ooo will go looking!

'gatekeeping your vagina'

I only hang around here on a sparodic basis so I've missed this. Surely, surely it can't be a term used in any context except jest?

Surely not with any sort of sincerity? No. Really no.

No?

Sorry. Yes. For some reason the original tweets regarding this seem to be deleted now, but lesbians scolded for 'gatekeeping their vaginas' from male people self identifying? Yes, definitely a thing. 'Gatekeeping' is a bit of a beloved term to those not into female people being allowed autonomy or sexuality of their own.

She handed it out in 2017 when she was PM.
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/18/theresa-may-plans-to-let-people-change-gender-without-medical-checks

Thanks, I didn't know that.

“Gatekeeping our vaginas”

How dare we!! It should be a case of “Open Sesame!” when any male of any identity or sexuality or otherwise commands.

It's very encouraging to see people drawing a line.

I wonder if he's read and reflected at all.

I actually feel quite disturbed by the spin off threads - where people are STILL arguing that if women feel threatened in single sex spaces they should "just report it" but when it is pointed out what actually happens ie WiSpa - there are still those who vehemently judge the women who complained? About a convicted sexual offender with convictions for exactly the same sort of indecent exposure? It makes my head hurt.

And surely people like Ben Bradshaw MP can read that and see what it is and what he's part of? Blanket defence of convicted male sex offenders and their rights to offend in women's intimate spaces. Beggars belief.

Yes, anything that these men want, lesbian sexuality, female identity, women's groups, is positioned as something that should not be 'gate kept'.

Nasty really.

I am old enough to remember one of the campaigns in the 1980s for gay rights (as it was then termed) included the legal recognition of lesbian relationships. They did not exist in law because of a desire not to offend Queen Victoria when sex between two or more men was criminalised. Finally in the 1990s (?) lesbians were recognised in law.

It seems to me that the Bill passed by the Scottish Parliament if it becomes law and the UK government does not intervene will be one step towards almost de-recognising lesbians in law at least.

I wish you wouldn’t begin sentences with “Like” - it makes you hard to understand.

Like it is something I used to say in the 80s. Maybe it is fashionable again???

I wrote a long reply but the very concept made my sentences look absurd. It still sounds ridiculous.

Essentially you're saying, men think women's vaginas should be available at their disposal whenever and however they want and if you refuse to have PIV sex (or any sex fullstop) and aren't attracted to male bodies or penises as a lesbian or otherwise, its prejudicial 'gate keeping.'

So...your vagina should be a permanently 'open gate' to all who feel they have a right to it or else you're using your vagina as a vehicle for transphobia?

Cheers to 2023! 😥

I think you've picked up all the key points, yes. Including that homosexual females can 'learn to cope' with straight sex if they try hard enough, (enjoyment of sex not being something for females, who are after all as we all know just walking therapeutic sex aids who one shouldn't have to pay or anything for services demanded - incel beliefs ahoy) and should strive to overcome their 'genital prejudices'. As a social duty. I believe Riley Dennis was prepared to allow victims of trauma a short period of grace in this before they were expected to get over themselves and provide services to males in need.

I mean anyone, of any sex and any gender, who wishes to treat another person like this is not relationship material and frankly you should run a bloody couple of hundred miles from. But yes, that's the rhetoric. I think my first encounter with all this was in the article from the individual indignant that lesbians 'resist the penis!'

🙄

I'm actually laughing! Cold, incredulous laughter! I can't fucking believe what I'm reading.

So I get it now. I'm been thinking why the hell do so many feminists keep referring to the bloody handmaids tale (a fictional weak sci-fi novel at best), as if it's even ever a possibility. But I get it now. Sorry.

Omg I see it.

Isn't gatekeeping one's vagina generally a good thing? Rather than just letting everyone in?

Just a comment on TM and her shifting position. It would be nice to think that having started the process of consultation on the GRA, and then seeing the response she changed her mind.

Or she is just being good and going along the current Tory narrative.

This is the worry though, as we cant rely on Labour, and I wouldn't put it past the Tories is they thought it would win votes to fudge challenging Scotland's new bill.

As a social duty. I believe Riley Dennis was prepared to allow victims of trauma a short period of grace in this before they were expected to get over themselves and provide services to males in need.

Oh yes, I remember that. That women who have been raped and were suffering from PTSD would be allowed to spend a bit of time not having sex with men, even the lesbians. But then they need to get a grip and stop gatekeeping their genitalia.

In sane terms, yes, you'd think so.

But I think you're supposed, according to this political view, to provide access strictly according to social policy. Your feelings, identity, reciprocation, yada yada, are of no interest to anyone. The 'learn to cope' comment came from the at that time Rachel McKinnon, well known cyclist, stated on radio 4. It actually went unchallenged too.

It is extremely funny in a very sick way. This is not the relationship strategies common to the healthy and functional, and the relationships board would encourage any woman to run a long, long way from a partner who viewed them in this way. It's also quite exceptionally homophobic as well as misogynistic.

I wish I could find the article with the rant about lesbians selfishly prioritising their own orgasms when there are male people in desperate need.

If Ben Bradshaw is opposed to the "cotton ceiling" then presumably he is completely fine with giving oral sex to an unmodified trans man? After all, it would be gay sex wouldn't it?

I find it really baffling how gay men can be the most fervent supporters of denying same-sex attraction. OJ, BC, now BB. Because surely they understand how homophobic that is?

I really do think it's part of not seeing females as fully human.

Particularly female homosexuals who are neither the property of nor serving any useful purpose to biological males. The sex based thinking is always rigidly dimorphic at the root of all this.