My husband

[Wildeheart]

DH thinks that a political party’s approach to trans rights is a small aspect of their manifesto and, while important, we should give more weight to their other policies on, for example, climate change when deciding who to vote for. This is in context of me saying that I would consider voting for the Tories for the first time ever instead of Labour if the Lib Dems were not the popular party in my area. How can I explain to him that trans rights potentially have a huge impact on women’s rights even though trans people make up a small percentage of the population (which is his argument)?

Men make up 49% of the population. They will all have access to all women's spaces.

I'm going against the probable grain here but the tories are as culpable for this mess as any of the others tbh.

Certain education policies have fanned the flames enormously. They have TRAs at the heart of the DFE.

I'm green in order to help the wonderful women in the greens I know who are fighting that shit to have extra votes. I may vote green, undecided. From what I've been told by Labour Party terfs and LGBA members, KS's recent tiny remarks about not making GRA reform a focus is a bigger deal than we think.

What's most important here is supporting key crowd funders and dealing with the universities who are guiding educational research amongst other topics. The fact that the ball has started to roll in medical science is good. The fact that the SNP fell on their face is good.

The main issue I have with labour is the lack of critical thinking and scientific research they seem to do.

I'm still not sure who to vote for. tories are having to move more to centre due to the cost of living, post brexit shite, post pandemic and the war as is KS.

There's a massive education crisis looming thanks to the tories and if I'm honest only labour can sort that out. I've been told by a consultant anaesthetist that only KS can sort out the NHS.

5 years ago I wouldn't have voted Labour, but I'm more confident now that the evidence is there to impact labour policy.

(I sadly don't think the greens will last much longer due to all the court cases.)

As far as I’m aware, and feel free to put me right, spoiling your vote won’t do anything. You’d be better voting Green or the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Again, I'd have voted Tory this time last year for this.

But the sports scientists are drawing their boundaries too.

I believe there's only Emily Bridges left in a big phd study into TW in sport, hence why the TW researcher wouldn't go on woman's hour against Sharron last week and they could only play a clip from last summer

so we are worrying about how less than 1% of people can affect women’s right to, for example, single sex spaces.

it's not the 1%, it's the loopholes that mean at any point, any man can declare themselves a woman for the short time they want to spend in a woman's toilet for example, then declare themselves a man again when leaving. All this pussyfooting around in the name of 'be kind' has left women vulnerable to predatory men exploiting it to their advantage.

Can I bring myself to vote for a Labour Party that expects to be able to lie to my face and use social pressure to force me to nod along with it?

I really don’t know

I voted Tory last time for 2 reasons

1. they were more likely to bin self ID
2. Jeremy Corbin

and much as I dislike a lot of what they get up to, I stand by that decision. Imagine Covid with Corbin at the helm. No thanks

dunno what to do this time

At least under the leadership of another party you will still have your right of free speech

If I can no longer call myself a woman but have to use womb carrier, menstruator, vagina haver and the rest then I dont have free speech.

If a potential leader of the country does know if I'm a woman, if he can lie about women having a penis, if members of his party told me to not to vote for them, then why would I vote for him or his party?
Worst of all he thinks he can run the country, but he cant even run his party, all the fudging around on womens rights to attempt to keep momentum sweet.

Per the 'Trans Day of Visibility' Tweet the other day, Labour also apparently wants to bring in 'hate crime' legislation which if it is similar to what passed in Scotland and which most (all?) Scottish Labour MPs voted for, a guest or family member to your house can report you for something you say at your own dinner table. The low bar is that the person is/feels offended.
The danger here is that your own 'TWAW captured/school indoctrinated' kids could report you for believing in biology. If that is not chilling for free speech I don't know what is. Rather like the STASI in East Germany.
The new First Minister (Useless) is the one who steered the Hate Crime legislation.
In any subsequent legislation against misogyny as a 'hate crime', the devil is in the detail of how 'woman' is defined.

No cases yet but there have been several uses of hate crime legislation by TRAs against those who accept the facts of Biology rather than genderwoo. Graham Linehan (Glinner) is fighting a case now and there have been several in Scotland.

If you live in Scotland and are in a seat the Tories have won before (12 seats under Theresa May, 6 under Johnson), there is also 'No to IndyRef2' as a reason to vote Conservative.

My DH is same as yours OP. He thinks self id is nonsense but he'll still vote Labour as least worst option overall. The thing that does bother him is freedom of speech.

It's all very well telling voters to hold their nose and vote Labour anyway but your vote is the one thing they care about. If you are in a safe seat you can make a protest vote on self ID issue. If you are in a swing seat (& mostly want to vote Labour) then ask your Labour candidate to define what a woman is before the election.

If you live in Scotland and are Yes to indyref2 then Alba has a clear anti self id stance on sex and gender.

There must be a way to use the hate crime law to our benefit. Literally everything the tras do and say online meets or exceeds the threshold for hate of women. Can all Scottish women start reporting every tweet to the police as they feel offended as a woman? Flood the police with this side? Is there an online form?

That's a good idea @Laladybird.

I'm a safe labour seat, one of the last in the NE. I could spoil.

I agree with all the pps who feel climate change is the biggest issue facing us.

But if a party can't grasp the scientific fact of binary sex, then I'd be worried about their ability to deal with the much more complex issue of climate change.

If we no longer have free speech then how can climate solutions be freely discussed and informed by evidence?

Green parties around the world have sold their souls to gender ideology. In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon handed the balance of power to the Green Party. Almost all green policies are disruptive, unpopular and require people to make changes So what did the Scottish Greens burn all their political capital on?

Women are not included in the Scottish Law. 'Useless' actually stood up in the Scottish Parliament and said sth like a woman is covered if it is a man cross-dressing!
They are proposing a further misogyny law but I am suspicious re the definition of who would be included as a woman and would rather do without such a Law in UK or Scotland.

Scottish hate crime legislation was careful to omit sex as a characteristic that could be hated.

I agree with your husband. There are more issues with women’s rights and issues than this one. I believe labour will do better with childcare and many more issues than the tories.

Plus since when were the tories so great? They just use issues like this for their culture war and don’t actually care about women. They’ve been in government for so long and over the time period look at what’s happened. Remember Teresa May saying she’d streamline gender recognition act to make it easier to “change gender”.

Asserting that men can be women (that biological sex is somehow a choice) means women as a sex class ceases to exist.

I am a woman. It’s important that my biological sex is recognised not least of all because government funding matters for healthcare and as a woman I have needed maternity services, cervical screening etc. There is no sexism or discrimination against women if you can’t define biological sex.

I have only ever voted Labour but don’t expect me to vote for a Party which wants to destroy the concept of biological sex: the political, medical, legal and social implications are too serious for women.

And stop waving the environmental flag at me and telling me I should care more about the environment than women’s rights. No. I refuse that choice. I won’t be made to feel guilty about a world that men have screwed up. I won’t vote for my own invisibility.

So I agree that the Tories are crap. I support a more left wing agenda but I won’t put women second which the Labour Party wants to do. The bullying and harassment of Rosie Duffield shows me what Keir Starmer thinks. I won’t vote for that. He’s starting to realise that women (and a lot of men) think he’s wrong on this. PUUUUUUULLLLLLLLLLLL.

Spoiling your vote has no productive outcome. Nobody counts the spoiled votes and thinks ohhh, they don't like us, we'd best change our ways then.

One moment of 'YAY, that showed them.' and then you are controlled by a party you can't support for five years. Isn't it much better to pick the party that most closely reflects your views then pester your MP and campaign widely for change during that five years? A lot can change in that next 5 years but if we have another Tory government we will surely see a continuation of this situation where the rich get richer, the rest get shafted and, because we'd have voted for more of the same, all the issues which are currently pulling this country down from the NHS to climate change to potholes will just continue to deteriorate.

If you don't vote you are absenting yourself from steering the future for yourself and your children.

Taking your point, if Starmer intimated Self ID ahead of 2024, you voted him in because "you know, NHS", and lo, Self ID came to pass, would you take some of the blame for the policy happening?

Because Leave voters certainly have taken flak from Remainers for their X in 2016.

Can I please urge all those who are thinking of voting Conservative or not voting at all on this single issue to think again. Please ask yourself how your life and that of your family has improved during the last 12 years due to policies and actions of this government? I can't think of a single one.

Labour have their faults, but when I think of what Labour did during their last tenure it makes me so sad to think of how those gains are being squandered. Labour gave us
the minimum wage, Sure Start, smaller class sizes, huge investment in schools, the shortest hospital waiting lists for 40 years plus 11 years of uninterrupted economic growth.

More innovations from the last Labour government

1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s.
2. Low mortgage rates.
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.
4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.
5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.
7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.
8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.
9. Employment is at its highest level ever.
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.
11. 85,000 more nurses.
12. 32,000 more doctors.
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament.
15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly.
16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.
18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.
19. Restored city-wide government to London.
20. Record number of students in higher education.
21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997.
22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres.
23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.
25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.
27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.
28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.
29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
30. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty.
31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents.
32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.
33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.
34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.
35. Banned fox hunting.
36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.
37. Free TV licences for over-75s.
38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.
39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70.
40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s.
41. New Deal – helped over 1.8 million people into work.
42. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started.
43. Free eye test for over 60s.
44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.
45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.
46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.
47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent.
49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.
50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.

They just use issues like this for their culture war and don’t actually care about women.

That. It sickens me that they'll be gaining votes based on yet another lie. They don't give a damn aboutt women. They just want the GC vote.

It beggars belief that so many people on this thread can't see that.

Yes RealityFan, I would take my share of the blame. But I already take against this and would continue to do so. I believe the conversation will continue and that sanity will prevail. But if it didn't I would have made my decision based on my judgement across a massive range of life impacting issues and would definitely put my hand up to it and stand by it.

By the way, it's easy to say, 'You know, NHS' but really free medical care is something we take for granted at our peril and I read Dr Rachel Clarke's comments with horror.

Should read
I already take ACTION against this and would continue to do so