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".

That’s correct.

I may have missed a chunk of the debate but this sounded like a reasonable compromise to me:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/24/labour-vows-to-modernise-simplify-and-reform-gender-recognition-act?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Reform, but still requires a doctor to review and agree. Recognition that changing gender doesn't change your sex, and continued, clear provision to allow single sex spaces - for specifically biological women.

One would have to see some more meat on the bones to confirm the breadth of single sex spaces, but at a basic level it sounds okay? Happy to understand what I'm missing though.

Not better than the right though

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.
Nah... It depends who is on the ballot.
If my choice was Starmer, Stalin or or an actual Fascist, I'd be bloody sure to vote for Starmer.

My current choice is two parties who deny that women are a biological category (who will destroys the advances made by feminism over the course of more than a century if they come into power) and a party which, in general, I don't agree with on other matters.

So spoiling my ballot will not be giving the nod to concentration camps and the destruction of the free press.

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.

No. Labour introduced the GRA which gave adult men a female birth certificate. And the EqA that is do badly worded that people think eddie izzard has a right to be in womens single aex spaces. Thats what started all of this.

Whats happened since is an inevitable pushing of boundaries. And thats not a result of party economic politics, but of a result of lobbying and social attitudes that is across all parties.

This would have happened if labour was in power, only i suspect they wouldnt have allowed 'GC' MPs to speak, much less allowed to contribute to policy decisions.

As an asside, is there a tory economic policy that Starmer has committed to overturn?

It’s the gender ideologists and left wing parties who have given this as a gift to the right wing.

It’s on them to fix that. Not us. We just need to keep on fighting for women and girls. How the left wing gender ideologies respond, and the consequences of their response, are on them, not us.

The terms left and right have become meaningless. There's no mention of economics anymore - which is supposed to be the central dividing line. Instead left has become woke and right has become common sense but with a racist fringe. Pretty depressing. I won't vote for anyone unless they offer more than that.

It’s moving in the right direction except the single GP model will just create new business opportunities for Gender GP and their ilk. Let’s see the flesh on the bones, no-one will give Labour the benefit of the doubt on their plans in this regard.

The trans issue has come as a welcome relief to many who can now be much more openly right wing but didn't want to look 'bad'.

Aced it.

I think the devil is in the detail which we don't have yet

Specifically what do they mean by single sex spaces and how do they intend to protect them. I would want to know if they include trans women as women when it comes to single sex spaces. If gender doesn't change your sex Labour need to be clear that single sex spaces are exactly that. But I fear they are going for a fudge.

The issue of a GRC is largely irrelevant because no-one and no service provider can ask to see them. In any case a GRC is not a safeguard because convictions for sex offences, violence and deception etc do not prevent someone getting a GRC.

If you do lose support this is part of why.

I’ve left the left as I believe in a tolerant, pluralistic society and it has pained me to realise they don’t. Their extreme intolerance of diversity of ideas, which is an intolerance of diversity of people, appalls me.

The Labour Party never used to be like this, Tony Blair understood the party needed to be a broad church. I will not vote for Labour unless they become a tolerant, pluralistic party wanting to maintain a diverse society.

What patronising nonsense. I've been forthright on the trans issue for years, during a time when I was a Labour member at the start. I left only because of that. My eyes are open to the misogyny in the party. Labour losing women.

It was the Tories that pushed back on Scotland’s gender Id policy that has prevented self id by the back door into the rest of the U.K. ( and the snp implosion afterwards setting back independence) .
if Starmer had been in power he would never have pushed that back and we’d be in a much worse situation now.
rishi did good work there.

I can never vote Conservative - look at how they’ve screwed over the UK in 13 years - but what I can do is write to the local Lib Dems and Labour parties and get them to engage in debate about this issue. Hopefully there’s time before the GE to at least give pause for thought, and these MN threads have lots of excellent points to make.

I believe that whoever wins the next GE is going to have to volte face on gender anyway, as the snowball becomes an avalanche. The trans ideologues have not had a good year in any regard, and people are “peaking” all over the place.

I agree. I don't think the genie can be put back in the bottle.

When Maria Miller had her consultation, trans politics were really not being widely debated by the mainstream.

She ran a consultation, invited no feminist groups to be involved, called us bigots and "purported feminists" for having concerns. And proposed a move to self ID for transgender people.

This was 8 years ago. It was this Conservative government. Yet now people think the Conservatives are going to protect women's rights.

Either you have a very short memory or you haven't actually been following the debate and are just hopping on to cheerlead the tories.

Here's an article from 2016 where Miller talks about how trans people deserve self ID (and interestingly Jess Philips from Labour is quoted in the GC side of the debate)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/maria-miller-says-only-hostility-to-transgender-report-came-from-women-purporting-to-be-feminists-a6830406.html

This is just a straight up lie. The labour position is by no means moving more GC as you well know.

If you write deliberate falsehoods, people will think you are a liar. What else are we supposed to think?

To be fair though 8 years ago no one really understood the gra, self I’d etc. it was part of the tactics to get it into law before anyone debated it or understood it as a “be kind” situation.
it was Janice turner’s interview with Maria miller that made me consider it more. Can’t believe that was 8 years ago?!
even mumsnet hadn’t completely settled on a position and it was a hot debate.
I don’t think we can blame the tories for that. No one was paying attention

Politics seems to be getting far more polarised, and the common ground that holds a society together seems to be rapidly shrinking. It's quite scary, and I have no idea how to deal with it.

This was 8 years ago. It was this Conservative government. Yet now people think the Conservatives are going to protect women's rights.
Either you have a very short memory or you haven't actually been following the debate and are just hopping on to cheerlead the tories.
But the ball was started rolling by the Labour Party and their GRA so, by your logic, we shouldn't trust them either.
You say "this Conservative government" but that article is dated Jan 2016: that's four Prime Ministers ago!

Lol I suspect the trans issue has also come as a welcome relief to many on the left who can now be openly misogynistic and bully women with impunity whilst simultaneously convincing themselves that they are so much better than the Tories.

Lol I suspect the trans issue has also come as a welcome relief to many on the left who can now be openly misogynistic and bully women with impunity whilst simultaneously convincing themselves that they are so much better than the Tories.

This.

Well said.

Trans will only have a big effect if its a very close election. Cost of living has overtaken the other issues .

I think that American right wing guy the Tories brought in has told them to ditch culture wars and go negative on tax etc .

They'll be banging on about congestion fees and scary tax rises. It worked in 92. And Starmer's response is usually to half apologise , blame his own party and run away. Might work.

Could be a hung parliament then if enough GC ppl abstain or vote for independent candidates. Supporting women's sex based rights won't cost him many votes , especially if he wants to woo soft Tories or floating voters. Alas he is too craven.

The trans issue has come as a welcome relief to many who can now be much more openly right wing but didn't want to look 'bad'.
It's nonsense, isn't it. British politics for goodness-knows-how-long has been a tussle between the Conservatives and Labour. People have been voting for both sides for over a hundred years.
Labour would like the narrative of it being 'a dirty secret' but it really isn't.