How can we prevent the trans issue from being a gift to the right wing?

[TheTERFnextDoor]

I'm really worried about the direction politics is taking, not only in the UK but globally. The right wing is on the rise almost everywhere for various reasons.

Sadly, the gender debate will undoubtedly be a gift to the right wing over the next few years. It's the Tories ace card at the next election; the left as they are at the moment can't win this debate.

What can we practically do to prevent this? I have tried speaking to my local Mp (Labour), and he basically told me to "be kind".

Exactly @BlackForestCake "you're am evil right wing Tory evil bigot, what do you mean you're voting Tory? Haven't I just told you how despised and stupid I find you?! Why aren't you doing what I the pure and righteous tell you idiot?!"

I trust Starmer actually. He's turned labour around. He did loads for women and children when he was DPP. And he has had a career as a barrister.
I can see no evidence he is a liar or can't be trusted.

Always comes as such as a surprise to them, doesn't it?

Adam, I have no trust issues with Starmer the individual man, it's Labour that trouble me. I actually like caution in a person, I like the ability to look both ways at once, I like consideredness.

I rate his backstory (father a true working class dad who always put family first at personal detriment, and sad story re his mum and her illness, which threatened to tear the family apart).

I actually think we need Starmer's version of calm and uncomplicated after Tory roulette wheel amoralism in last few years.

And I look at his fortitude in rooting out Corbynista/Momentum cult of personality leftism and anti semitism, and see a deeply serious and principled man.

But I'm hugely, hugely troubled by the trans mania on the left, worst in the nationalists and Greens, but roots deep in the Labour Party as well.

I first couldn't work out why a cautious, normal, old school fellow like Starmer couldn't also root out activist radicalism of TRA in his party like he's done with anti semitism.

But I think I have a handle on this, and it's just made me lose respect for the guy. Whereas I look at the comparison with Badenoch and see a calm principled attitude in her job, and wish Starmer could combine his seriousness and unfussiness that hugely appeals to me, with her principledness to put girls and women's sex based rights first.

It grates with what I know about the rest of Starmer that would make me happy for him to be PM.

Keir starmer knows damn well what a woman is - but he says some women can have a penis. I’d say that makes him a liar - or a deeply cynical man who could say “oh but yeah but GRA says legally some women can ”

I don’t despise starmer as much as many ppl do here. I do recognise all the good he’s done in the past - that only makes my disappointment in him all the greater. He’s stood up to some seriously big organisations - but he can’t stand up to TRA? Come on! He could if he wanted to but at the end of the day he thinks they matter more than women.

I don’t rate Starmer that highly as I think he will say anything to get elected.

That makes him untrustworthy

So one minute using green in a tag line, the next having a go at Khan for ULEZ

He’s is woeful on women’s rights and has come out with some absolute clangers

You don't rate him cos you are a Conservative voter and have kids at private school

I always laugh when invested posters think they know more about me. They do get rather attached. And are usually wrong.

I have Dc in state school. Great state schools too, lucky us.

On the flip side you rate him as a Labour diehard. Go figure.

See I think he's where most of the population are. He wants to find a way to support trans people and balance womens rights. That is not easy.

I don't think most GC feminists actually would call a trans woman a man to their face and refuse to use their pronouns. I think most of us are live and let live. But the debate is so heated now it's become polarised.

I like Labour's statement today. I think most people are happy with the status quo - self-ID is the threat and labour have now ruled that out.

Wasn’t it you that did that long private school thread

I said there the dc were in state. Laughing at how bad you are at remembering if that invested

@GodessOfThunder

I find the GC feminism is an alt-right gateway drug argument much more compelling.

It is compelling to you.

This is because you choose to ignore the many women here telling you it's not true, from their own personal experience that they do not fit this argument, and from the well known GC women who also do not fit.

In other words, it's compelling to you because it aligns with your preexisting prejudice not because it's in any way an objectively compelling argument.

I have never voted Labour in my life actually. I was a lib dem member but left over trans issues.

I'll vote for starmer because he is centrist, and I trust him.

I'd consider lib dem again but I don't really think Ed davey is very convincing as a leader.

The conservatives are law breaking liars who put wealth over everything and have damaged the country to the point I'm ashamed to be English. Brexit was a disaster. Boris was a liar who rewarded his friends. Truss crashed the economy. Why on earth would anyone think they are a good bet???

Oh sorry, the pro private posters all kind of blended into one...

Do as you wish but if you’re going to try to keep tabs on posters at least get it right..

You trust him, great. Not everyone does.

The status quo is stonewall law in the police, the NHS, education, the civil service and the vast majority of the private sector

the status quo is men being able to self identify into women’s sports, I to women’s refuges & rape support services, into programmes designed to increase women’s representation in STEM or politics

Women have lost so fucking much because stonewall have misrepresented the law & the majority of the public haven’t a clue. This ‘status quo’ is one Labour want to keep and it’s not one I want.

Sure. Backtracking nicely

Update that spreadsheet.. 😬

That's a loaded statement. Women generally are respectful, won't go looking for a fight. For some that'll mean exiting the room when a transwoman walks in, some will bow to the pressure of pronouns to be, y'know, a nice woman. Indeed the vast majority of GC males might do the same.

What's interesting is that said transwomen didn't repay the same courtesy. They still joined the WI, and maybe took over many of the talks and management duties.

They still insisted on going into women's prisons, changing rooms, sports, rape refuges, plain ol' lesbian literary clubs and dating sites/clubs.

The power dynamic is all on the one foot. And as we see on the Women Won't Wheesht thread, that foot is used constructively.

There is no "both sides" here. More zero sum game, where girls and women lose every step of the way.

To your point about Starmer, yes he'll be hoping the women of the UK agree with you.
I've seen people slice onions finely, but this is a whole other world.

I remember welcoming Starmer as a centrist right at the beginning. I actually said a Starmer v Sunak race would be no bad thing

I remember posting positive stuff on him

That was before the crazy stuff and funnily enough they’re both up at GE

He could have been good, but has managed to be such a dubious policy, flip flopping fence sitter it’s irritated too much

There is no way to balance trans right v womens rights.

I will not put myself in danger by calling a trans woman a man to their face, except miranda yardley maybe.

The debate might be heated, but not from gc womens side. We dont go to events and yell to punch tw in the face. We dont go into toilets brandishing a sword etc etc ad infinitum. We use humour in fact, hence the many threads that are funny as fuck.
Yes anyone can live as they wish, they cannot use the wrong sex facilities/sports/prison/hospital ward etc. Other than single sex staying single sex, I give zero fucks what others do.

Whilst labour have a thing about women with a penis I cant vote for them.
Saying safe spaces rather than single sex spaces is a fudge ( yes we are back to that damned sex fudge again)

And as much as randoms post they know my voting patterns I’ve voted for both major parties.

Labour have lost my vote, it’s their own actions

Which they can never admit to.

He's a lawyer who doesn't interpret the Equality Act as drafted.

That's enough for me NOT to trust him.

What has he done to gain my trust as a woman?

Give it up, mate. You're flogging a dead horse. Or, to change the idiom slightly, you're trying to flog a dead horse & nobody's buying it.

I had a bit of time, so I dug around the main political party websites. Labour has 5 missions, Tories have 5 bullet points, the Lib Dems have a lot of detailed campaigns at local level, the SNP talk about their current manifesto and the Greens are a mess.

It's summarised upthread (I hope!)

I think most people are happy with the status quo

You think most people are happy with rapists in women’s prisons? Because that’s the current status quo.

I think most people are happy with the status quo - self-ID is the threat and labour have now ruled that out.

You are very much mistaken, most people are very unhappy with the status quo and as for the threat of self id being ruled out we have de-facto self id at the moment because no-one can ask about whether or not someone has a GRC because it is such a super secret. Furthermore, TW with or without a GRC are blatantly and relentlessly forcing their way into single sex spaces for women and girls caring not one jot how that makes women and girls feel. No, the status quo is not making people happy, people are very angry.

The status quo is that live and let live and be kind does not apply to women and girls.