Why is Wales jumping on the self ID bandwagon?

[MoirasSaggyBundles]

The latest discussion from the people of Spiked Online, including the excellent Ella Whelan, who was so good on Question Time the other week. Wales is seeking permission to pursue its own gender reform to bring about self ID.

I really don't understand how any political party is pursuing this policy in good faith, now that everyone has seen in real life situations the logical conclusion of allowing bad faith actors access to female spaces via self ID. Nor do I understand how any devolved government thinks this policy helps them to sell independence, after the clusterfuck brought about by the SNP's GRR Bill, and the ensuing trigger of section 35. And on top of that, it's leading to huge ideological rifts within parties, leading to women like Rosie Duffield feeling unsafe within her own party - how is that giving voters confidence in their politicians?

Any Welsh posters here? Is there widespread, grass roots support for these policies? Why? Just Why is the Welsh Government - why are any politicians - pursing this?

We are digressing from the original thread - but in rural Wales you don't really see such a wide diversity of English people...
It seems to be generally well off retirees (there has been a huge influx since covid), so you are completely right, it is not representative of the whole English population.

But there is a deep rooted tribalism, because there have been traumas. Older Welsh peoole remember being forced not to speak Welsh, or remember Tryweryn - when they flooded a Welsh town to create a reservoir for England. So yes there is a sense of tribalism, but it comes from somewhere....

The tribalism is totally understandable from a group that have been historically persecuted. Welsh people are a different ethnicity to English people, something not apparent visually as we are the same colour, but it is there within us and our history. Without the “tribalism” there would be very little Welsh language left.
Anyway, back to the point of the thread - I found Wales on the whole generally pretty tolerant of other minorities, when I was growing up. There was a culture of accepting and supporting other minority groups. I think this plays a part in what is happening now. As a country we like to see ourselves supporting the vulnerable.
I can see that Drakeford might see this as progressive. The way it has been tacked onto gay rights etc . I don’t understand why he doesn’t also see the conflict with Women’s rights though. Is this because many women in his party are supporting it ? Is it because he sees transgender males as feminine gay men, who he thinks are no threat to women ? I find it hard to understand why anyone doesn’t grasp the fundamental problem. He isn’t unintelligent so what is going on ?
I argued about the issue of single sex spaces with the local (female) Labour candidate, some years ago now. She couldn’t give any rational answers and was really rude. My MP (Conservative) in contrast was actually very responsive and respectful, he listened and sent me a follow up email. I am a natural Plaid voter but Plaid seems to have been totally captured by this. Weird when I live in a rural area with lots of farmers who certainly know what biology is.
This isn’t new though, the “Lost” consultation document was quite a while ago. I have been hoping for a more rational take on this now. Depressing what is happening.
Re Adam Price, I thought his children were adopted, but it says upthread that he used a surrogate ?

@SirVixofVixHall 2 surrogate children , boy and girl

I remember Tryweryn and I'm not even Welsh. Plenty of blow ins here in Cork and most are great tbh. Agree the second homes are a major problem though.
Back on topic - you'd wonder if Self ID isn't a displacement activity and a cheap win?
So much easier than fixing schools , housing , transport etc etc .

Llandysul way?

I don't think it's helpful to speculate or point out where any of us might be based if we're not revealing it ourselves, @pattihews.

From the Wikipedia "Queer Ecology" piece, the first line reads:

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk

No kidding! It's absolute rubbish.

Queer ecology, according to Morton, emphasizes a perspective on life that transcends dualisms and distinctive boundaries, instead recognizing that unique relationships exist between life forms at different scales. Queer ecology nuances traditional evolutionary perspectives on sexuality, regarding heterosexuality as impractical at many scales and as a "late" evolutionary development.

Is that not just… regular ecology?

In The Feminist Plant: Changing Relations with the Water Lily", Prudence Gibson and Monica Gagliano explain how the water lily defies heterosexist notions. They argue that because the water lily is so much more than its reputation as a "pure" or "feminine" plant, we need to reevaluate our understandings of plants and acknowledge the connection between plant biology and models for cultural practice through a feminist lens.

🤣 I think I get it. It’s regular ecology rewritten in gobbledegook to include whatever the opposite of anthropomorphism is. I assume “queer ecology” is the origin of the clownfish meme.

This rejection of heteropatriarchal norms and acceptance of multispecies intimacy makes the home into a queer ecology.

🤨Is generating conveniently elastic categories from innocent examples a common queer theory game? “Multispecies intimacy” is quite the phrase.

Isn't "multi species intimacy" just a posh name for bestiality?

No thank you, we've had quite enough of the sheep shagging "jokes" in Wales

Hi Pattihews, where I live, almost 100% of incomers are English so that's all I meant by 'English eyes' (which I think somebody else said first). It sounded a bit rude though, sorry about that. I'm well aware we are all complex people though with varied histories and experiences.

For the whatsapp group examples, it's things like how they see land use, public rights of way for walking, rewilding versus farming, an expectation that there will be as many things happening in a rural valley as in the large town or city they grew up in, approaches to pest control, how they see stuff like pheasant shoots etc, a complete lack of understanding of how language and culture are tied up in the land and therefore if a 'local' perceives an position as being against his way of life, that goes much deeper than just saying 'I don't agree with you on this 1 contentious topic', people feel misunderstood and get defensive. This queer ecology business (I would bet money that nobody 'local' has signed up to the workshop), yes, pronouns all over whatsapp, being extremely authoritarian with language use in certain contexts.

I spent many years living in another country, and, as anybody who's even been on holiday anywhere else, you notice differences. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes just different. But something I would never have dreamt of doing was going on to local whatsapps and slagging off the local town hall, council, market gardens, farmers or whatever without any analysis or awaremess of how that comes over. A lot of the incomers don't do this, but some do - maybe it's a question of age, or personality?

I have family members from different cultures too. They would agree with a previous poster that the huge majority of Welsh people are welcoming and open-hearted. There is some tribalism, but I haven't seen much of it since my teens (although perhaps I don't notice or look in the right places).

Don't worry about speculating where I live by the way. Anyway, it's not Llandysul, which makes me feel a bit less recogniseable. I reckon there are lots of pockets like this all over Wales, and probably the rest of rural UK too.

Lots of your post resonated with me SirVixofVixHall
Same experience with my conservative MP but the labour candidate was ok a few years ago, I'm not sure she agreed with me but she certainly listened. And the labour door knocker didn't say whether she agreed with me or not but did recognise the issue and said the way round it is to join the party and campaign from within!

*I do actually think I know EXACTLY where you live!

I think (potentially) that exact same 'non-binary' couple which you refer to are the ones that peaked me....*

Oh, BlessedKali, if only there was only one 'non-binary' couple around here...

Isn't "multi species intimacy" just a posh name for bestiality?

they were talking about cat ladies, in context, but I suspect if a queer theorist coins a phrase like that, it’s because he intends to use it to blur some boundaries.

"A female friend of mine from the Labour party says that all the older women agree with us and not to worry, but I know a load of the young ones and they're all TWAW."

Look what happens to older Labour women who are gender critical though. A FB friend of mine writes about a certain Labour councillor as if she were a witch.

"of course that's not going to work if you've got regions just being deliberately different from one another for points-scoring purposes."

For one thing, neither Wales nor Scotland are regions.
Secondly, I'm amazed at this argument. If Wales were so desperate to do everything different from England, you'd expect a few more differences to have been created in 20 years of devolution!
Thirdly, the whole point of devolution is to be able to differ when we want to. Attacking devolution itself is not a valid argument. Attack the pro-trans beliefs if you have proper arguments.