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".

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.

You dont know what you are talking about.

This has been discussed in feminist circles for years, long before 2016.

The issue has always been the fact that politicians talk about 'gender' then switch to allow gender to mean sex. Its how badly written the GRA and the EqA is thats the problem. Men dont want the public or the state to recognise their gender, they want everyone to ignore their sex. And these two acts allow that.

Trying to introduce self id didnt cause the problem, it highlighted the problem.

The labour position is by no means moving more GC as you well know.

It's certainly more GC than it was. Not that long ago, the LP was totally in favour of self-ID, and it seems to have rowed back from that a bit. It is also pledging, as admittedly it did in the last election, to retain single-sex exemptions. As Pronounsshera says, the question is "what do they mean by single sex spaces and how do they intend to protect them". If they allow people with a GRC to enter single-sex spaces, then they're not in fact protecting single-sex spaces.

I think the OP is right to raise this issue and I do worry about it a lot. The problem is that the right have leapt on the left's failure to protect women's rights, and therefore they're happy to portray themselves as the only people who will safeguard women. It means that people like Julie Bindel, Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock will go on GB News or write for the Daily Mail because those are the outlets that will platform them. I understand why they do that but I am concerned about it too. I don't want women's right to safety and privacy to be seen as a right-wing issue. I don't want to vote Tory because, among a whole bunch of other things, I have no desire to see asylum seekers sent to Rwanda.

We also need to face the fact that it is overwhelmingly likely that in the next 18 months we will have a Labour government. It doesn't matter how supportive the Tories are, or claim to be, if they're not in power. We have to persuade Labour to do the right thing.

Well this thread has gone as I expected it would. OP, I suggest the only thing you can do is continue to write to your MP and any minister or shadow minister that is relevant. If you are a member of a particular party then getting campaigning.

However, the framing of this wide range of issues as ‘a gift to the right wing’ is based on emotional manipulation.

These wide ranging issues are universal. People from all the political spectrum believe that no one can change sex and that there are situations where that matters.

This is not the only issue of our time that is held across the political spectrum. The difference is that some political parties have been significantly influenced to only affirm a group of people with the extreme view that people can change sex and should be accommodated on every demand.

What is interesting is that earlier this year, the Labor PM from Australia had no issue answering who a woman was . A female adult human. Why can’t Starmer do this?

So, there are different approaches in left wing parties across the world as well.

The people, thankfully few, who cannot comprehend that this is, and always was, a universal issue and seek to shame women for speaking out or for changing their votes are not new. We have seen them so many times before. They have nothing more to add to threads except this type of shaming posts.

The answer is that feminists need to always campaign from a feminist perspective. This will always overlap with other group’s actions and objectives. So what? Are you going to stop because some body else is also concerned but from a political party you disagree with? Really? What other campaigns do you expect to be solely the left’s concerns in modern life? Do you also not understand that there are cross bench projects happening right now…. Should they never happen?

What Helle said.

I think the OP is right to raise this issue and I do worry about it a lot. The problem is that the right have leapt on the left's failure to protect women's rights, and therefore they're happy to portray themselves as the only people who will safeguard women. ... I don't want women's right to safety and privacy to be seen as a right-wing issue. I don't want to vote Tory because, among a whole bunch of other things, I have no desire to see asylum seekers sent to Rwanda.

I agree and of course the Tories (and other conservative parties) will not safeguard women in the broader sense of protecting the poor, disadvantaged, disabled, minority women ...

I agree on much of this

A short time ago Starmer was announcing a line with greener in it. Likely because he looked to Aus Labor for tips.

Now Uxbridge means he’s having a go at Khan.

Amusing to watch how easily he’ll spin for a vote. But that cost of living claim goes down the pan with £12.50 a day charge.

As for shift to right it’ll happen anyway as climate causes movement.

And he’s still scared of TRAs so just wants the women’s rights issue to go away.

*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.*

Well thank you, ChopperC110P for your word perfect demonstration of why I am no longer a Labour Party member and why my vote is now hanging by a thread. 'You're either with us or you're a fascist enabler' - I remember that attitude as if it were yesterday.

Rest assured that I intend to use my vote as responsibly as I can and that I have already given it more thought than I have to all the other elections of my voting life combined. And I repeat that, if Labour are not the recipients, then that will be on them.

Apologies for quote malfunction. The first 3 paragraphs of my last post were quoting ChopperC110P

And I value women, the cunty type.
So what?

We have gasp different opinions.

You vote whichever way you like. We too shall vote how we see fit.

There are policians on all side who understand the women rights issues and safeguarding failures of male gender demands. There are policians who dont understand and some on all side who are actively trying to remove womens rights and safeguarding.

The difference between the parties is that the conservatives allow discussion and differences of opinion, labour much less so.

I honestly think both sunak and starmer are in the clueless idiot group.

Maybe the tories will be brilliant in opposition on this issue and show labour up for danger to safeguarding and womens rights that they are?

show labour up for danger to safeguarding and women's rights that they are?
They don't need help for that! Remind me again, who is the only mainstream party in the UK who has never elected a woman leader?

Yes the European electorate are pushing back against trans ideology and in some cases unfortunately the rainbow is being seen as a threatening symbol so LGB rights are also losing support.

Yes, this absolutely.

I’m economically left wing and socially liberal with no-one to vote for.

Gender ideology is regressive and authoritarian. The idea that having this view makes me alt right is laughable.

We've only been doing this for 20 years. How much longer until they listen?
Also it's not rocket science, it should never have got off the ground, let alone be an issue now. I just cant vote for a party that has ignored me for two decades about something so simple.
I cant make them see the issues, those issues are staring us in the face, except labour, green. Lib dem. I'm not their mummy, I shouldnt have to hold their hand and walk them through.
I'm done sending emails and either getting screeds back comparing to gay right or nothing.

It's never a huge difference one way or the other in the US, and what with different states voting different ways, I'm not sure that tells us a lot in itself.

What's more interesting I think is the loss of fairly traditional voting groups for the Democrats: what appears to me like an increase in people who feel a little like homeless Labour voters in the UK, people who would have considered themselves traditional liberals and voted Democrat - maybe they still are, but they are conflicted; and also things like the exodus of people from states like California to Idaho and Texas.

You are right that making predictions about the black vote is speculative at the moment, but there seems to be a real movement of black conservatives in the poplular media who are gaining momentum, and in a lot of ways they seem to represent the "average" values of that population better. I think there's a real possibility they could break out.

At which point the Dems have lost Catholics, the working class, rural people in the South, Hispanics, and then the black vote, all of which they have considered "theirs" in the living past. That seems to me like a very bad trajectory and at some point it will start to pinch.

The reason things are moving towards the right is a natural response and a re-balancing away from the excessive cultural changes that have been forced on to people. This was inevitable. You cannot force or push drastic change withoit people pushing back.

There is nothing that can be done about this. It is an inevitable part of the natural cycle.

..and it is certainly not something that women concerned about their rights and protections should bother themselves with.

Being conservative is not something to be ashamed of. Conservatism recognises that there is nothing to be gained from rqdical change which seeks to over-throw the norms and customs that have developed for good reason. Change, at it most workable, has to be incremental.

I say this a natural radical, who in my younger years regularly over-threw all previous conditions - but then discovered that each time I did that i had to start all over again. and build an enitirely new structure from scratch......often having to reconstruct that which I'd carelessly over-thrown.

I'd go as far as saying that conservatism is the new radicalsim. It is the zeitgeist - hence the shift in european politics.

The Spanish socialists in were split apart by the vote on Gender Self ID -it was far more controversial for many Left wingers than it would appear to be here.
The Conservatives have voewed to immediately repeal gender Self Id should they get in. If it goes to another vote, I suspect many Vox voters will vote for the mainstream conservatives.

The Conservatives, the most successful party in UK political history, are Centre Right. Nothing like the US right, or the right wing parties in many European countries (Marine Le Pen nearly won ffs!). The likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees-Mogg can become MPs in certain areas, but neither are ever going to be PM. They represent the most extreme that the British public are willing to go either way.

My friends discuss how the Left ( I'm a former Labour Party member/Leftie/radical activist) thinks it can dictate everything, and that if there is any push-back they resort to calling it a " right wing manufactured culture war".

So predicatble. Naive student politics - which is failing to see the situation from a macro level. Once you zoom out ( rather than zoom in, as you are doing) - you can see the patterns at play.

Moral self righteousness just fuels the flames.

The Conservatives have voewed to immediately repeal gender Self Id should they get in.

Interesting

Kier Starmer has turned the Labour party into a centre right party - that is pretty much indistinguishable from the toroies on everything except its commitment to Gender Self ID.

There are going to be a very large number of angry and disappointed people should they expect some big left wing revolution should Labour get in.

This is on Labour to fix

This is the important question. I have seen Kier Starmer on TV being asked if he includes male-bodied transwomen as women when he talks about protecting women’s single sex spaces, and he was very clear that his answer is yes he does.

So, Labour have very clearly stated that they will protect women’s single sex spaces AND have also clearly stated that men who identify as women must be allowed into all women’s single sex spaces. This is a fudge: they’re basically saying to biological women “Calm down dear, of course you can still have women’s toilets / rape centres” and simultaneously saying to transwomen “Don’t worry, you can go anywhere biological women go.”

If Labour have done a u-turn of what Kier Starmer said on tv only a few months ago, they’re going to have to be much much clearer about that. At the moment this looks like a fudge designed to trick biological women into voting Labour. If Labour clearly safeguard women’s spaces and services for biological women ONLY (and stop fake science and brainwashing being taught in schools) then they are welcome to have my vote. Until then it’s Sunak for me.

I also want it made very clear - as the Conservatives are trying to do - that people can’t be forced to use the preferred pronouns of transpeople. At the moment people in the UK have been fired, expelled and arrested for using accurate sex-based pronouns instead of agreeing to say whatever transpeople tell them to say. The police are captured by transactivists, the NHS is also captured, I won’t vote in a captured Government too.

This is a time for clarity, not a patronising political fudge.