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)?

I don't trust any of them. None of them are honest and they haven't been for years.

I don't think being able to say what a women is makes someone honest. Do you?

It's why I said it's a Litmus test. If they fail it you know for a fact you can't trust them.

And don't you think something is going awfully wrong if people vote for politicians they automatically assume are not trustworthy?

What are you doing? Use that vote for either someone else or a protest vote instead of contributing to a sick society.

None of these politicians will improve migration policies or the situation for the poor. They will make it worse as they have done the past years.

And don't you think something is going awfully wrong if people vote for politicians they automatically assume are not trustworthy?

I do yes but for me it is either that or don't vote at all. I am considering spoiling my ballot but it seems a bit pointless.

You could vote for the Party Of Women next time

Do you mean Women's Equality Party? I thought they were fully TWAW

No Kellie-Jay Keen is starting the Party Of Women (POW) to run against Keir Starmer

I thought she was just standing in Keir's constituency but I did some Googling and found the tweet. I deleted my Twitter account a while back so I don't always see these things.

If I am honest I am not sure I trust Kellie-Jay Keen to run the country either but might be a good protest vote as she is unlikely to win. Let's see if it comes to fruition.

I don't think anyone expects her to win including Kellie-Jay herself. This is to put attention to the issue and like you said it's a great option for a protest vote.

In the unlikely event that Kellie-Jay won she wouldn't be running the country. One requires a Parliamentary majority to form a Government.

What she would do, if she won or even diverted enough votes to allow another party to take the seat, is decapitate the Parliamentary Labour Party and provide evidence that voters do care about this issue.

[Tories] don't give a damn about women. They just want the GC vote. It beggars belief that so many people on this thread can't see that.

Saraclara, it's not that people don't recognise the Tories as a bunch of lying thieving shits. It's that the harm which will be intentionally inflicted on women and children by other parties is a deal-breaker.

What about the harm I flicked on women after running down the justice system so the rate of conviction for rape are abysmal?
Or them implementing this system where a rape victim has to hand over all their electronics devices devices and can be prosecuted if they find SOMETHING ELSE whilst ‘investigating’ said rape?
What about all the decisions of benefits that have negatively impacted women - but not men so much ?

I mean if you want t to look at the harm intentionally inflicted on women , the Tories are quite high up for their success rate….

You can’t judge a party on only ONE decision whilst ignoring all the itger stuff they are doing….

Quite.

Besides, some Tories do genuinely give a shit, Miriam Cates and Jackie Doyle-Price are just as serious and committed to this issue as Rosie Duffield and Tonia Antoniazzi are. The Tory Police and Crime Commissioners are pretty good too, IIRC?

Other Tories care about free speech and just plain old material reality. Some probably care about the ticking time bomb that is the NHS compo department paying out to all the sterilised kids.

I bet there are more than a few ROGD kids in the families of MPs in all the parties (see the recent news story about Stephen Kinnock’s young adult child).

And no Tory has fawned over an abusive trans identifying teenage boy the way Angela Rayner did.

The clash of sex based rights with trans rights is a mixed bag across all the parties, innit?

Other Tories care about free speech

Which ones?

All the moderate Tories with some experience in politics have been kicked out by BJ.
A lot of others have said they will not stand at the next general lectionary.

Where are those moderate Tories that care about women, the freedom of expression etc…?
Im really wondering who you are thinking about….

What about the refugees who are women that will be shipped off to Rwanda? Surely Stella's policy is a direct and intentional way of harming women.

Charities have always plugged the gaps around state provision, for example Rape Crisis plugging the gap between the PTSD therapy the NHS can provide and what victims of sexual violence needs. Such charities can expand if the state shrinks further and we can donate to them to enable this expansion, but they cannot meaningfully support women if the Equality Act's single-sex exemption no longer exists or has become unworkable.

I didn't make the point clearly enough.

It's not that people don't recognise the Tories as a bunch of lying thieving shits. It's that the harm which will be intentionally inflicted on women and children by other parties, specifically by enforcing gender ideology and enabling erasure of women as a sex class is a deal-breaker.

1. I don't trust Labour to revert that policy, any more than I trust Labour not to push gender self-id through. The problem with having a leader who uses weasel words about "women's rights" without defining a woman, and a policy founded in reality denial is that I don't trust any other things that the Labour Party says.

1. The deporting of refugees to Rwanda hurts all adult refugees without children, male and female. Destroying the single-sex exemptions hurts all women, including the "no recourse to public funds" migrant women helped by Southall Black Sisters, who rely upon single-sex exemptions to do their work. Why are the rights of women who reside in the UK less valued than the rights of men who come as refugees? Could that be... sexism?

1. There are more women in this country than refugees coming to it. a) We should do the most good for the most people. b) Why are many UK resident women worth less than one refugee? Could that be sexism, again?

1. Women born in the UK had no choice about that. Refugees have a choice of safe countries to go to and many make a deliberate choice to come here, passing through other safe countries to do so. The UK is unusual in deporting asylum seekers and most other countries would (rightly) provide a safe refuge without the threat of deportation. Why should I prioritise preventing harm to someone who chose to come here over preventing harm to someone who did not choose to be here?

Please don't interpret the above as meaning that I support the deportations to Rwanda. I don't. Growing up, the word that followed "Rwandan" in news reports was "genocide" and we should not be sending people there. But, when forced to choose between a relatively small number of people who can avoid harm by seeking refuge in, say Spain or Germany or France, and all the UK's resident women and girls, I will stand with women and girls.