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".

“It now seems that many prominent GCs have moved from a position of warning that the Labour position would alienate voters - which is fine - to using the issue to try and move people to support "anti-wokeism" generally and the Tory Party more specifically. Why would Keir Starmer make any further concessions to people who clearly are never going to vote Labour anyway?”

Revealing.

• Use of the dehumanising term “GCs”.
• Use of “prominent GCs” to create the impression there is some kind of leadership or co-ordinated campaign but without naming names, to avoid having to evidence the assertion / others challenging it by pointing out actual facts.
• Implied criticism of anyone using or who could be seen to be using this debate for political party purposes.
• Use of “concessions” - meaning that Starmer’s shiny new declarations of some small degree of support for women are nothing more than expediency, deployed solely to swing a few floating voters and in no way a principled or genuine commitment to women’s rights. In contrast, full approval of using this debate for political party purposes if it’s Starmer doing it.

Corbyn played the game as well. The Commons' most dedicated Brexiter, yet he betrayed the Leave vote to triangulate with Starmer.

Whatever you think of Starmer, he cut his teeth on the Second Vote gambit, and he's playing politics again, just this time with girls and women.

Now he's Parliament's most dedicated Brexiter. Go figure.

Corbyn was no friend of the working classes. His capitulation to Momentum student politics on identarian tropes of racialised and genderised politics, and total open borders migration policy made him absolutely unfit to run this country.

You are very entitled to your opinion, Corbyn was certainly a divisive leader.

We will never know how things would have turned out with him as PM, so our opinions have little relevance to this discussion. But as a working class voter, his manifesto addressed the issues we face far more than anything I've seen from Starmer or Sunak (unless you believe the Tories when they tell you asylum seekers are the biggest threat to British society)

He was absolutely signed up to Self ID, no doubt at all. Check all his Tweets on gendrr since he left office. And was proud to announce with Dianne Abbott a policy of total open borders.

In no way is that consistent with any reasonable traditional class or sex rights based analysis of society. It's Socialist Worker mangled with Judith Butler.

I'm in the same situation. I won't vote for them at the moment because this is a key issue for me, but if they sort that out they'll have my vote.

We will never know how things would have turned out with him as PM, so our opinions have little relevance to this discussion. But as a working class voter, his manifesto addressed the issues we face far more than anything I've seen from Starmer or Sunak (unless you believe the Tories when they tell you asylum seekers are the biggest threat to British society)

I canvassed for Labour in 2019. Spent a couple of weeks wandering the more deprived streets in this constituency in the rain and gloom trying to convince the normally died-in-the-wool Labour voters that Labour could deliver on the ever-changing daily menu of promises. People who had voted Labour all their lives were hearing today's special offer (today, madam, we can offer you a reduction in the voting age to 16) and laughing at us. People who've worked ruddy hard all their lives know about budgeting and knew when they were being sold a fantasy. They also thought giving 16-year-olds the vote was ridiculous. It was so patronising, knocking on doors and offering pie in the sky. We got our Labour MP back in but it was a close thing because Corbyn was so unpopular on the streets. Starmer seems to have learned from that and he and Rachel Reeves are already scaling back expectations.

Well for example, if I'm at a party and someone introduces me to "Jane", when clearly Jane was born male, I'm not going to start calling that person he/him and commenting on how they are upholding regressive stereotypes by wearing a dress. I'm going to say, nice to meet you Jane and make chit chat.

If at work a trans man joins my team, asks to be called Kyle and he/him, that's what I'm going to do.

It is absolutely no skin off my nose.

What you describe seems to amount to pretending to a TW (and anyone else in the vicinity) that you believe he is an actual woman.

But how exactly does this performance amount to "treating someone as a woman"? How is it gender (or sex) specific?

I don't think I've ever had call to use a third person pronoun when chatting to trans people.

Second person, yes; but third person, no.

If Jane then insists on using the women's toilets, on the grounds that everyone believes that Jane is a woman, and you're not one of the women privileged enough to be able to use a mixed sex space and kindly continue enabling Jane's personal fiction for their happiness, is there skin off your nose then?

When you have to state that you cannot use a mixed sex space, the reason being that Jane is actually male, knowing what is likely to happen to you, is there skin off your nose then?

If you don't dare speak out and just can't use toilets at work any more - or go swimming because Jane's joined your local swimming club, or go to your lesbian group because Jane's joined it and is keen to enforce that male people are lesbians too and for the attendees to express their openness to overcoming their genital preference, any skin off your nose yet?

This is the issue. It's the gateway drug. Its all very nice and polite to comply and enable a male person in this way, and yes it stops rows and bad feeling and tears and tantrums and threats and all hell breaking loose. But people do this thinking it's a social contract in which they pretend politely up to a point, and the person they are pretending for does not really believe they're a woman, and will not push their personal fiction to the point of harming women.

In a casual social situation I am not going to start WW3 by pointedly misgendering a stranger, particularly if they're nice to chat to and I don't want to offend them. But I will as far as I possibly can just avoid the pronoun they don't want, and I won't actively lie to them as they would like, because I'm not going to say Hail Marys I don't believe in or agree that this other person gets to control me and my perceptions. And I'm very, very aware that this nice person may be one of the ones who then takes that inch I give via pronouns and starts demanding the next mile.

It's not easy. But being nice and polite and kind and afraid is what got women into this unholy mess.

Tbf no one cares if other people try to register all pronouns correctly, it’s not that interesting

The issues arise when work or schools compel pronouns and gives sanctions if not followed, or allow males into female spaces, sports or take prizes

If pp want to chat to Jane and not mention their dress - why would you? Then up to them

It's pretty basic, isn't it? Which is why those parties who can't even adhere to these basic principles stick out like a sore thumb & are not worth voting for.

I really scratch my head over the Euroskeptic -open borders thing.

But that's not treating Jane as a woman, that's just using Jane's name I don't care what people call themselves. I knew a man called Tracey once, all that time was I actually treating him as a woman, because Tracey is (now) a female name?

What does it mean, though, to “treat someone as a woman”? In situations where sex is relevant, we agree that we shouldn’t be forced to treat him as a woman, right? And in situations where sex is not relevant, shouldn't we be treating everyone the same?

I once met a 'Jane' at a party. He was dressed in a patterned, floaty frock and with a lot of bangles and heavy make-up. I was wearing straight-leg Levis, boots, chunky leather belt. a crisp white dress shirt and a waistcoat with discreet self-coloured embroidery. No make-up, no jewellery. 'Jane' spent quite a lot of time asking me why I didn't make more of myself because, apparently, I could look quite attractive if I tried.

It's not easy. But being nice and polite and kind and afraid is what got women into this unholy mess.

I was working in a large serviced office in central London today. There were two loos (each an individual cubicle/room). One had a mens sign, the other was gender inclusive (or similar wording),

Which got me thinking - why have one men's? Shouldn't it be either both inclusive or men's, women's and inclusive? From a practical point of view, they're individual rooms so it didn't really matter but it looked a bit strange.

Because men must have a choice of all the options @grass321

I wondered that. In this contest, provided they leave a clean seat that's down (which wasn't the case every time I used it) I'm not too fussed.

But I'm surprised the hosting company (they have multiple offices globally) doesn't see it as a one-sided look.

If Jane then insists on using the women's toilets, on the grounds that everyone believes that Jane is a woman, and you're not one of the women privileged enough to be able to use a mixed sex space and kindly continue enabling Jane's personal fiction for their happiness, is there skin off your nose then?
Yes. Hence why I said biological sex should be protected 🙄

EXACTLY. Gender is bollocks. It doesn't matter what pronouns people use or how they choose to dress.

Sex based segregation where it matters is what most people want.

Imagine I run a book club just for lesbians, or a feminist literary review just for women, or a lesbian dating club etc etc. Sex based rights surely absolutely are a bar for men/transwomen to enter.

Women join the WI and other women's only spaces for companionship away from men. Surely they should be able to keep it that way.

Go and form your own gatherings, the vast majority of women in these situations never had a vote to allow men/transwomen in, and if they did, the overwhelming majority would keep the status quo.

This is zero sum game on definitions, and totally binary on adherence to material reality ie the belief in trans is to thumb your nose at biological science.

I'll also throw natural justice in there as well.

You said, you are happy to treat men as women when sex doesn't matter. But the only example you've given is using someone's first name. How is using someone's name treating them as a man or a woman? How does one treat a man as a woman? If you call me Raj do you treat me differently if you think it's short for Rajani than if you think it's short for Rajesh?

Disappointed (but not surprised) that my post was deleted.

For anyone who wonders what my crime was, I simply asked why a man might want to become transwoman.

I'll just leave it there this time without adding my suggestions of why he (she/they/it/meow) might.