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".

Time machine?

More seriously, Labour, LimDems and Green have made it extremely clear that they have no interest in representing the views of their voters, they just want to dictate what we think. So, they haven’t got many voters.

Tories have been a disaster for a decade but Rishi seems to be a nice guy who gets it and is cleaning up the party. I think I’m gonna vote Tory for the first time. And I voted for Corbyn!

Slow handclap for Kier…

@DojaPhat and @Fawful So tell me who I should vote for. I set out my red lines earlier. Two of them are probably acceptably left wing from your point of view. The third is single sex spaces and services.

Is your view that I should give up one of them for the other two? Prioritise social justice over women’s rights? Or that I’m just wrong that women’s rights are in any way threatened?

Make your argument. Please! I don’t know how I’m going to vote.

Well said.

I don't get why people think anyone needs to justify their voting choices to randoms online. Most people are somewhere in the centre and not tribal unlike the many very loud voices on the internet. I don't need validation from anyone to vote how I want to.

I say this as a centre-left voter who has always voted Labour apart from a foray into the LibDems as a student. I didn't bother voting in the last election and may or may not in the next one.
What I can say is that I will never vote for a party that will literally lie about there being more than 2 sexes or will say that women can have a penis. As soon as they voice that lie, I no longer believe anything else they say. If they can be manipulated to that extent, what else will they fall for? I also don't think Labour are going to be the saviours that many people think they will be, where are they going to get the money from to fix everything?

In answer to the OP, I don't think there IS anything we can do. My prediction is that there will be a big rise in right-wing governments over the next ~5 years. I think there's a good chance the UK will buck this trend and go to Labour at the next election BUT there will be backlash at the following one due to overreach on many issues.
People will only take being lied to and manipulated on these issues for so long, and when they realise how much it will affect them, and more importantly - their kids, I think it will flip back the other way.

This sums up my position too. Like PP, I'm also politically homeless.

This.

It's not my responsibility to prevent right wing parties gaining traction on this issue, and I don't have the power to prevent it anyway. Centrist and left leaning parties have created a void because they refuse to listen to women and wont meet with women's groups and that has allowed other parties to fill that gap.

All that is on Labour, Lib dems and the greens, not on me.

I really don't know. I think we just need to keep making noise.

Wrote to your MP/MSP regularly. Bring it up whenever you have contact with a politician.

I also think piling on on Twitter shows them how many feel strongly about this issue.

Here too. If the left want your vote op they need to change.

I think we've had one confirmed Tory voter, and a lot of people saying that the Left/Centre have pissed on their own doorstep.

If you think that's 'rabidly Tory' you are sadly deluded.

To quote a popular IdPol mantra, mebbe you should educate yourself.

For me, the dilemma would be way more acute if both Wales and Scotland were paragons of good governance, excellence in public services, rational debate in gender, absent of personality cults and lying in office, and pragmatism over ideology.

But despite both countries getting funding per capita way in excess of England, and independence in all the areas that matter, they are wasteful, ineffectual and riven by factions, and put ideology first over their citizens, if anyone thinks Labour run by Starmer will somehow buck this trend, they're seriously mistaken or naive.

Scotland and Wales are the blueprints for Labour winning overall.

For me, there's only a superficial dilemma is not voting for a left party. It's soon quashed by everything I've read on the SNP and Welsh Labour.

If the Scottish Indyref has shown me anything, it's that adults can vote for whoever they like. You're entirely alone in the ballot box and you owe no explanation to anyone.

I've tried, OP, I really have - from engaging in discussion with the lab and lib dem candidates on my doorstep, to attending the local MPs surgery. None of them will engage, not one was able to answer the question 'What is a woman?'

The only possible conclusion one can come to is that they are cowards, liars or mysogonists. Or all three. So they will not be getting my vote.

I really don't know what we can do about it. They just don't care about women.

This attitude is literally how fascists have been VOTED into power.

We do have a responsibility to vote against the worst. The fact there is no best option that perfectly aligns with all our values is no excuse to refuse to vote, spoil a ballot or even vote for the worst option.

If you seriously think women or you personally have no responsibility, then frankly, we and you don’t deserve the right to vote. With rights come responsibilities.

Why don’t you campaign Labour / Lib Dems so they get the op’s vote back?

The conservatives actually started all this craziness with Maria Millers consultation on gender equality and proposals to move to self ID. For some reason posters always forget that.

Rishi Sunak has just been told by the Attorney General that his parties guidance to schools around transgender students is illegal because it contradicts the equalities act. This is ideal for them because I'm sure they would love to repeal the EA but it's terrible for lots of disadvantaged groups if they do that, as it removes legal protections and makes discrimination easier including at work. As a woman, you'd be nuts to support that. Look at "Pregnant then screwed" to see what happens to us at work.

This is what Keir Starmer actually said
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/01/turning-trans-issues-into-a-toxic-divide-doesnt-help-says-keir-starmer

He said Labour will protect women's rights.

I know there is massive uproar about the 0.01% who he says "have a penis". He's referring to trans women with a GRC and most of society is happy for those people to be treated as women.

I think we need to wait until closer to the GE to find out what Labour's policies actually are. Self-ID is dead in the water now, no party will introduce that as its a huge vote lower (see the SNP).

I suspect its going to be easiest to maintain the status quo and strengthen the sexbased exemptions in the EA and I hope that's what they do.

I think anyone that votes tory on this issue is a turkey voting for Christmas. The Conservatives are not friends of women (unless you want to go back to 1950s housewife style).

Oh come off it. There's a bit of distance between 'doesn't align perfectly with all my values' and 'thinks women and girls don't need safety, privacy or protection from predatory men.'

We do have a responsibility to vote against the worst. The fact there is no best option that perfectly aligns with all our values is no excuse to refuse to vote, spoil a ballot or even vote for the worst option.

But what if my view of the worst is the opposite to yours? Presumably that's fine? (I agree with you that we should exercise our right to vote).

Most posts on these threads come back to the left = good, right = evil narrative given the perceived political superiority on MN.

Who thinks that? Seriously!

This attitude is literally how fascists have been VOTED into power.
I don't disagree with the general point about voter responsibility, but the Tories, whatever you or I may think of them, are not Fascists.

So your conclusion is thay because of Welsh Labour (who are constrained by conservative westminster decisions), people are better off voting for a party that's been proven to break the law, is full of liars and populists, and has pretty much bankrupted the country and destroyed our standing and global influence on a vanity project?

🤔

Yes that is fine. I’m more interested in getting people to understand that they have a responsibility to vote, and not voting/spoiling a vote is not living up to this responsibility.

The left have done much better than expected. Not sure why this is a "lesson" for Keir Starmer.

Labour can't even accept women are women . People don't want this gender shit . No-one ever in my day to day life talks about it and on the rare occasion it comes up its to ridicule it .Only those few who shout the loudest get worked up over this . People are sick and tired of issues that effect an absolute minority being treated and changing our whole society as if it's effecting the masses . The fact this issue has descended to children is awful and we're raising a generation of confused kids . if putting the genie back in the box means being right wing so be it .
Liberalism is desecrating society where social norms and responsibilities are being eroded .

The Tories are not fascists.

My point is that refusing to vote because there is no perfect option to vote for or spoiling a vote when there is an option to vote against is how you get fascists in power.

Voting is a responsibility, and it’s not always about voting for a party, it is also about voting against a party.

So even if there is no party to vote for by your values, there is still a party to vote against by your values.

A party that doesn’t exist which espouses all your values is not a valid reason to not vote.

We don't have a fascist party in the UK, so they won't be getting into power if I vote for an independent candidate or god forbid a tory.

Of course I have a responsibility to use my vote in the best way I can, but Labour won't change much fiscally compared to the tories. So I will vote for the best of a bad bunch.

The point I was making was that Labour etc have alienated have large number of women, and that is on them.

If, despite the Labour position moving more GC - and actually now being very similar to the Tory position - you still insist that GC people should be voting Tory, then people are going to assume you're a front for the Right Wing.

What else are they supposed to think?