Rayner on the Isla Bryson case

[ResisterRex]

It's like they don't want to win.

Angela Rayner: ‘I overshare. Keir Starmer undershares’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a243ac9c-a7d0-11ed-999f-64d8c8a46b78?shareToken=bb096ff7b4ffc77b62d8a23af42fefd5

"Is Isla Bryson a woman? “The recent case?” Looking slightly thrown, she starts talking about guidelines, processes, safeguards, circumstances. “So from what I know about the case, I would not have been putting that person in a women-only prison.” But that wasn’t the question, so I ask again.

“Well, that person’s identifying as a woman now. But they’re right at the beginning of a transition — that they believe is right for them, however, and that’s fine. We respect that. That doesn’t mean to say by respecting it you instantly say, OK, well, that person then goes into a vulnerable space.”

Rayner keeps saying Bryson is “at the very start of the process” of becoming a woman, and keeps citing this as a reason why she should not be in a women’s jail. But Bryson began gender reassignment therapy back in 2020, shortly after she was charged. The SNP’s new Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which Labour voted for, would grant a gender recognition certificate (GRC) to any adult who declared they had been living in their acquired gender for just three months. In other words, had the law Rayner’s own party supports been in place when Bryson began her transition, she could by now have been legally female for more than two years. Even under the existing legislation, brought in by Labour in 2004, Bryson is by now eligible to apply for a GRC, although as far as anyone knows she does not have one. The Scottish Prison Service still remanded her to a women’s jail, though, because several years ago it quietly adopted a de facto self-ID policy — the very policy Rayner supports. By the logic of Rayner’s own stated beliefs, Bryson is categorically a woman.

Bryson, 31, claims to have known she was a woman since she was four. Does that mean she was a woman when she raped her victims? Rayner looks puzzled."

Continues at link

Starmar will always put men’s interests first. Almost every photo of him feels like it’s with men, he doesn't seem to actually like women as people at all. Angela Rayner is delusional if she thinks she’ll last five minutes in any of those positions if Labour get into power. She’ll be out and replaced by a man

I’m trying to adjust to the idea I might actually have to vote tactically and Tory rather than spoil my vote. I hate everything about them but I can’t vote for a party that will destroy women’s rights

It is only an X on a piece of paper. Voting Conservative gets easier. I say this as a former Labour party member who resigned when Corbyn was elected Leader.
The embrace of genderwoo and real risk of Labour granting the SNP another referendum, are both steps too far for me to ever switch back.

Really? I might have to start listening again, then. I stopped in utter disillusionment when he dismissed anyone who wasn't beeeiinngg kiiinndd as old gammons who'd die soon (paraphrase but only just).

I wrote a rather exasperated mail pointing out I was considerably younger than him and if he felt his age disqualified him from having a pertinent view it wasn't coming across. No reply, naturally.

Like Rayner and Starmer - if you haven't bothered to think properly about this, what else have you skimmed over?

I'm done with it. Campbell and Stewart out-of-hand dismissal of womens' concerns peaked me.

This kind of stuff is what stopped me worrying that I might really be a transphobe.

Even the people who think they believe it all don't actually believe it - hence why they fall apart at any sort of questioning. You see this all the time in articles that try to use the "correct" language - at some point people always reveal their knowledge of the reality of male/female whether they know they're doing it or not.

You're either honest about the fact gender identity is nonsense or you're dishonest - either to yourself or to others. "Bigotry" or "transphobia" has nothing to do with it.

I am starting to genuinely think that this is going to really be a problem for them at the ballot box next year...I can only hope so. Everyone is saying that a Labour govt is a foregone conclusion but I am really not sure. KJK will bring further sunlight to this issues as she stands against Starmer and male trans people who offend against women/girls will have a spotlight shone on them like never before. People are awake now, no more 'no debate', no more deals in back rooms and no more hoodwinking the general public.
Women and girls are worthy of respect and I shall be fighting for it.

As I mentioned he has made public and published statements, and has also come out in support of JK Rowling. It doesn't make headline news, though.

I'm sure there are others in the background of the party who are advising caution or to pull back from the brink too. Quite why Kier Starmer persists is the question. I suspect it is something to do with keeping the Corbynites on board. What else can it be?

I think it's about placating the hard Left who are wedded to this misogyny. He doesn't mind tackling their anti-semitism but tackling woman hate is clearly a step too far.

I really hope Starmer is the transition leader away from Corbynism and then we’ll get a capable centrist Labour leader to take power and use it effectively for the good of the whole UK. I’d happily vote for Yvette Cooper or Rachel Reeve.

I hope so. Nicola Sturgeon had good polling and was fine (even though governing was poor) people backed her. Then they didn’t.

We’ll see I guess. I’d like them to drop all gender stuff before getting in power and if that means losing, then that.

I don’t think they’ll tackle it though as they’re going for ignore and hope it goes away rather than admit an issue.

Labour party conference this year will be another opportunity to 'up the anti'.
Will the party again refuse a stall to the 'Labour Women's Declaration' as they did last year?

Since 2016 the Momentum Left of the party have been running a totally separate event to main Labour party conference. It is called 'The World Transformed' and regularly features Owen Jones, Novara Media people, Nadia Whittome, John McDonnell, Jeremy Corbyn and many of the other TWAW campaigners. It is fully immersed in Intersectionalism:

"Feminising politics doesn’t mean ‘more women’ - it means prioritising care, collaboration, healthy conflict and anti-oppression; it means building collective forms of leadership and participation over the hypermasculine, undemocratic modes of organising valourised across the British Left. It's also not just a 'nice thing to do' - it's a more strategic way to organise"

Well, yes! Her partner Sam Tarry was recently deselected as an MP for the Labour party for attending a picket line - counter to Keir Starmer's edict not to. That she stayed quiet and is still in place besides Starmer suggests that position rather than principle is what really counts for her.

I had hopes of this too but not any more.

Yvette Cooper is a trans supporter, her daughter is a transman.

I thought that was a great article by Decca Aitkenhead and very fair. I'd heard sanitised accounts before about Rayner's 'chaotic' childhood but I hadn't realised how horrific it was. It's made me regret my trite comment way back upthread, when I'd only read the extracts and not the full article. For Rayner to get from there to where she is now is an incredible achievement and I think derogatory remarks about her intelligence are not only unnecessary, they're completely missing the point.

That said, I think Rayner's wilful blindness about gender self ID is reckless, irrational and presents a danger to women and girls, and because of it, I dread to think of her in a senior government role.

I also think the way DC nails her is brilliant journalism, especially as DC pretty much admits she really didn't want to do it.

Fair points, Floisme. I've not read the article about Rayner's childhood and it was unnecessary to comment on her intelligence. I recant.

She's still not someone I want anywhere near power.

Same. But I think it's a terrible shame.

Sigh, not the "this is going to cost Labour the election" stuff again!

As just one example this is a poll where people were asked the question "What most worries you about X party winning the election". The % of people mentioning trans rights was 6%. And it was 4% for the Tories implying that people didn't trust them either.

samf.substack.com/p/is-everyone-fighting-the-wrong-election

Every time I see a poll which asks people to list issues of importance to them it's way down at the bottom - miles behind cost of living etc. You aren't going to change that in just over a year.

For a group of people committed to reality we do seem to have a strange blind spot over this. Could the Conservatives win the next election? Suppose there's an outside chance if by some miracle the economy picks up and NHS waiting lists drop. But that's the only way it's going to happen.

I doubt that. Starmer is ' inviting ' members of the Campaign Group of leftwing MPs to leave the party. That's about 40 to 50 MPs so he must be confident he is going to win big and they have nowhere else to go.

Surely support for gender nonsense is much stronger about liberal and 'green minded' voters - and MPs - middle class fauxminists and even some Tories? These are the parts of the electorate Kier Heineken wants to reach and detach from the Conservative party at the next election.

Having said that , Neil Kinnocks Labour was 25 points ahead of the Tories after the Poll Tax Riots. They still managed to blow it. As for Angela , yes Starmer might use her to brandish ' his hint of a tint ' of social democracy credentials. . He may even keep her on if he wins - a sort of mudguard on his left front wheel. A crap John Prescott.

I wouldn't write her off yet but neither would I expect much from her.

Sigh, not the "this is going to cost Labour the election" stuff again!

What was the polling on it for SNP before NS stood down?

Or polling on antisemitism for Corbyn

Or whatever meant Ed Miliband lost his lead

and Penny Mordaunt didn’t match the polls she thought were solid

These posts re polls seem to ignore that Nicola Sturgeon is now out and many cite transgender issue. I mean that sighing might help her but not much.

I think the trouble was that people did polling to try and present a certain argument, rather than drill down into what people actually genuinely thought.

Bit like when Sturgeon declared the consutlation on GRR was going to 'educate' people, getting hte whole point of a consultation arse-backwrds.

We’ll see but I’d say Sturgeon leaving is pretty real, and the impact on Mordaunt too

So I don’t get the can’t you see reality jibe.

Sounds like Labour aren't even doing focus groups with this as a question, or any polling, from the Times article. So they will remain wilfully ignorant.

And here's another case:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11771209/Transgender-killer-strangled-cellmate-identifies-baby-says-fears-mens-jail.html

Is the "person identifying as a baby now...<stumble stumble>"? Is that the Labour policy??

It's almost impossible to cast the trans issue in left/right terms , although the TRAs try to do this. Framing themselves as leftists , almost as the vanguard of some revolution.

For example, Kenny MacAskill of the Alba Party is quite leftwing. He led the Can't Pay Won't Pay campaign against the Poll Tax and was regarded as a leader of the left wing of SNP. When Sturgeon took over she sacked him from his cabinet position. He is quite vocal about being GC and women's rights.

Then you have many Tories and Liberal Democrats on the TRA side if the argument. I'm going to sound like Millie Tant now - but I don't think many people who claim to be socialists have ever read Marx or understand dialectical materialism.

Of course they could fall back on their five senses. Get out of Westminster. Visit a farm and learn the difference between sex and gender - however you define the latter.