Has anyone else been forced to become Conservative after all of this?

[ponderingsoul]

Probably the wrong wording, but I'm curious - after always considering myself fairly left wing/ liberal and generally voting Labour (or tactically Lib Dem when I was in the SW), I no longer really consider them a valid option for me because of their gender views/ inability to take a view.

Has this happened to anyone else? Never thought I'd be a Tory, but now feel like I have no choice as this issue is so important to me.

And you genuinely think that the Labour party is going to do much that is different? They keep talking a good talk but always dodge the issue of what they would actually do instead. Most Labour party members dislike Starmer intensely, and expect little from a government led by him. They see him as a sell out.

Where I live the Labour party is corrupted: full of toxicity, bullying and intimidation, and currently under government over-sight. The best thing would be to be rid of them

Absdolutely not. Everyone esle is a shitshow on gender but the Tories are a hateful and dangerous bunch and nothing would make me vote for them in their current form.

@Fukuraptor
detransitioning is an issue, but there are so many other trans people whose transition is permanent and makes them feel better

Ther's quite a bit of hate emanating from the Labour benches too. Have you ever heard Lloyd Russel Moyle speak? Have you seen how Lisa Nandy and others classified women's groups as 'hate groups'? Are you aware of how many Labour party women have been cast out and how the 'Labour Women's Declaration' was refused a stall at last year's conference.

The Labour party has stood by and said nothing as their own MPs and members are abused.

I cast my first ever vote for the Communist Party way back. It was in Tower Hamlets where they usually weigh the Labour vote.
I'm glad they still focus on improving the Material conditions of working class people.

Then there's the SDP. They were basically Right Wing Labour in the 80s. Which means Starmer would probably expel them - so Tory Lite has he become. They are also sane on women's rights.

I don't class spoiling the ballot as not voting per se. You are still making your point to all parties.

The figures sweeem to suggest that 10 years is the period after which many people come to regret transition, or to realise that it has not proved to be the magic bullet for all of their emotional and mental heath isues.

The possibility has crossed my mind for the first time in my adult life. I'm in an area that went from red to blue at the last election. I was horrified at the time, but I now have an openly GC MP and I'd have second thoughts about voting him out. On the other hand, I agree with previous posters that whatever noises the Tories make are currently politically expedient rather than indicative of a true commitment to preserving women's rights.

My parents leapt from Tory (aspirational working class people) to SNP in protest at the sale of council houses, and one of them has been an enthusiastic whispering advocate and envelope stuffer for them. They ditched their SNP membership last year over the GRA and may well go back to voting Tory because the alternative is Alba and they're not convinced about independence.

I don't think voting strategically necessarily changes you into a supporter of that party per se. I remember (aeons ago) strategically voting for the Lib Dem in Richmond. The Conservatives were the only other contenders. I was a supporter of neither party.

This did not turn me into a liberal Democrat. Indeed, I would not vote for the Liberal Democrats (even strategically) today. They seem to support policies which (in my opinion) increase the opportunity for potential paedophiles, and sex offenders, to to access their victims. So, my voting previously voting strategically did not turn me into a Liberal Democrat, or make me ok with their current policies. If I had to choose between Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats today, I might even regard the Conservatives as the lesser evil. The Liberal Democrats' misogyny and (what appears to me )uncritical disdain for proper safeguarding, not to mention reality or Science, would repulse me.

Yes I’ll be voting Tory, the other parties have got to understand that women’s rights are a vote winner.

I'm still a Labour member (just) but I have generally gotten less partisan politically. I'll see who my local candidates are and how they are on this issue before deciding how much/little of my time to volunteer and who ultimately to vote for and whether to stay a member.

Of course I care about the NHS and all the rest of it.

But there is something about how politicians are handling this issue that deeply disturbs me. It's not simple open disagreement about how to best balance the rights of women and transpeople. It is the denial of reality, the lack of concern for children and young people, the lack of concern for women under the care of the state, authoritarianism, the scorn for people who disagree, the refusal to be clear.

I don't want to be gaslit. If they are willing to lie about this stuff to our faces...

I still hope they'll come around, hopefully they'll hear more from detransistioners and rethink the whole thing.

I agree with just about everything you say except for the opening - I'm no longer a member and, even if they come to their senses, I think I've seen too much of their authoritarian underbelly to ever consider rejoining.

I think the most revealing thing about Starmer's '99.9%' comment wasn't how stupid it was but how truculent he sounded about being forced to talk about something so (in his world) unimportant. It's told me a lot.

Sympathies Rose. Is he standing again next year?

I think it's possible for your personal politics to differ from who you vote for.

I would vote for the SDP if they stood a candidate in my area as they are closest to representing my views but I don't think they will.

Labour, LibDems and Greens don't want my vote because I understand basic biology so I will not demean myself by supporting them. I have spoilt my ballot whilst I waited for one of them to come to their senses but I can't see that happening.

I will almost certainly vote Conservative for the first time at the next election. The contest locally will be between the LibDems and the Tories and despite being a life long LibDem voter I want him out. I can hardly believe this is where I am but it is what it is.

Clearly I am very stupid for being a single issue voter who must hate poor and disabled people and obviously I would like to see refugees drowning in the English channel and the complete collapse of the NHS.

I have fuck all patience for people who think that if I prioritise one thing then I must have no interest or concern for anything else. Women's rights and self ID are the hill I'm prepared to die on. Vote according to your own conscience and fuck off judging others.

What is trans? According to the left anyone who says they are trans are trans, no drugs or (horrendous) surgery required.

Do you think there would be as many men claiming to be women if they knew they couldn't access female only single sex spaces and services? I don't.

I also don't think there would be as many confused kids (especially girls) if gender ideology wasn't being pushed in schools, and while I admit this happened on the Conservative's watch, they are now taking steps to change this nonsense being taught to vulnerable kids. Unfortunately the SNP/Greens here in Scotland are happy to keep spreading nonsense and teaching it as fact.

Here in Scotland it was the Conservatives speaking up during the self id horror show that unfolded before Xmas and it is the UK gov that have stopped self id being passed, I'm thankful for that.
I don't want my daughter growing up thinking she has to trust a strange man in her changing room or that he is somehow not dangerous because he is wearing a dress. I want her to be able to trust her instincts and be able to live without lying or being lied to. No one can change sex, no one has to either, not unless you believe sexist stereotypes are what make a man or women, I believe in biology, not gender ideology.

No, never.

God no.

Crispin Blunt
Penny Mordaunt
Amber Rudd
Nicky Morgan
Theresa May
Maria Miller
Caroline Nokes

They have led us to the brink under 13 years of Conservative rule, and thousands of women like me have fought back at often great personal cost to get a debate to even begin to take place.

I'd rather vote Communist or spoil my ballot paper.

There is no long term data on that. You cannot know this to be true.

I thought detransistion was about the rapid adolescent onset transistion of vulnerable teenage girls who in previous generations would have just been tom boys or butch lesbians who had been wrongly assimilated into the trans cause.

But I have since heard detransition stories from what we might call old school transexuals - effeminate gay men with persistent cross sex identification who fully medically transitioned. One of whom transitioned back in the 70s or 80s when it was a much longer process trying to be sure it was the correct path.

I appreciate that adults can pay to have permanent body modification cosmetic surgery whether I like it or not - but I can think the doctors who perform these surgeries as solutions to psychological disorders are charlatans breaking the Hippocratic oath whether they perform them on women wanting to look younger or men who want to be women. But absolutely they should not be done on adolescents nor on the NHS.

It is harmful.

This.

The way I see it is that I've become distinctly more untribal. I'm now interested in ideas and policies which can be good or bad irrespective of which side(s) of the political spectrum they come from.

The trouble with this is that, in several past elections, I've looked at Tory manifestoes, pledges, promises and policies, and thought to myself, "Actually, a lot of that doesn't look so bad… maybe I should reconsider my attitude to voting Conservative…?" and then reminded myself that this happens EVERY TIME. Every time there's an election, I have this little conversation with myself, then I give myself a shake, vote for a non-Tory, the Tories get in, and they do exactly the Tory shit you'd expect a Tory to do.

Not that it makes any difference what I do, or at least, not in general elections. My Tory MP gets in with an absolute majority. Forget pig with a rosette, round here they'd vote in the mummified body of Chairman Mao if the ballot paper said (Conservative).

Hell no.

I would never vote Tory, the only exception being if someone had a gun at my head and even then I'd still consider not doing it!!!!

I am tea

No way. The Tories are hopeless on climate change and appear to be actually going backwards on net zero.

I am not tea! In trying to correct a spelling error I pressed “post” instead! Trying again:-

I am really sad that for the first time ever I won’t be voting in an election. I’m a fan of many of Labour’s policies, but I can’t vote for TWAW nonsense. The Conservatives know what a woman is - thankfully - but I can’t vote for them for many other reasons. Lib Dems seem equally confused about what a woman is. I feel like I’m really letting down Emilia Pankhurst and all the suffragettes, but realistically I can’t see that any of the current parties align closely enough with my core beliefs to get my vote 😑

TooBigForMyBoots · Today 15:08

I believe he is standing down. We had a very good Labour woman before him.

They 'clarified' a huge amount of things before Brexit too...
Can't believe people falling for more lies from them - they just say what they think we want to hear.
This thread is so depressing.