Janice Turner on Labour u-turn

[southbiscay]

Is it safe for women to trust Labour again?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b5a6df40-2d70-11ee-aede-28bc53acbdb8?shareToken=463658bee75ab918efe6b0320e42aad3

Just read the wes streeting apology article in the guardian and I do really think that changes like this will be like the first small crumbling in a dam.
They start to create a space in which it is 'legitimate' to raise certain concerns, make certain points.And once these points are spoken about more frequently, without the Labour party endorsing (through silence or words) the reflex slanders that they produce from transactivists, people will start to hear the words that are actually spoken without fearfully misframing them as transphobic.

They need to do a lot more to convince me. I will wait and see.

Come now we're not talking about Johnson or Cameron or.... anyone that sold their souls to Brexit to keep power.

NEVER FORGET

yes Bernard, it is now expedient because they realise just how far they got it wrong and that all this fuckwittery they indulged is harmful to women and the party everyone tells us is supposed to care for women, actively silenced women. Even their own MPs were abused in parliament for making the same stand they now want us to believe they are taking. Abused by Labour MPs.

This situation is ridiculous and Lisa Nandy trying to blame others means that she will never be leadership material. And she nearly was the leader!

Nothing about this new decision suggests that are to be trusted. This is a power move pure and simple.

And this corker

Oh, didn't you hear Lisa Nandy who used to be quite content with male rapists going to women's prisons?

It was the young activists in her local party to blame. It was them that done it. Nothing to do with me guv, (dis)honest!

I respect Janice’s opinion. i also come from a consistent standpoint that none of the main parties actually give a shit about women’s rights. And I’ll judge them by what they do not what they say. but saying the right thing openly often precedes doing the right things openly, so this a step in a good direction. I am happy to see the main opposition party finally hearing women’s views. Obviously yes it should have happened years ago. This is positive though an unthinkable previously,. There will be lots of set backs along the way. but I know most people do know that human biology matters and this will win out eventually.

Back in the day this board used to send tweets, emails and even cards to women in politics who stood up. I’m going to do that here, as I did after the Westminster Hall debate to all the gender critical speakers from each party. I’ll ask them to put recognising the importance of biological sex into their election manifesto, plus committing to reforming the equality act to clarify sex and gender and repealing GRA.

I’m not planning to waste time asking MPs where they were when everyone else was suffering for over a decade, even though obviously they were in the wrong not to have broken their cover years sooner. That was almost all MPs. We still need the vast majority of MPs to be on board with a pro-woman agenda. So there is a mountain to climb in front of us yet.

That requires consistent chipping away at individual and collective misogyny by sharing information and taking different sorts of action, which many women on here have been doing for years. We tend to need MPs more then they need us (until every 4 years we get an election) so this is a long game where usually the balance is not in our favour. As we approach 2024 GE the power scales start to tip, incumbent MPs who want to keep their jobs or gain support for their parties can see that. So right now is a big opportunity. Tell them what you want to see happen.

Any politician sticking their neck out on this will be getting a load of shitty TRA blowback on their social media and post bag. I’m not going to add to that. Purity politics is for the birds.

Bloody hell at them

If they have realised it's expedient to listen to their female voters then that is progress. It's not enough to win back my trust or respect - that's gone and may never come back - but if they really are talking to the Labour Women's Declaration, for whom I have a lot of time, then that's a real positive for me.
A public meeting between Starmer and LWD would be a good way of convincing me it's actually happening. A statement of support for clarifying the Equality Act would be another.

Angela Rayner would still concern me and I imagine she's a concern to Starmer too.

If Labour do any more U-turns they will be spinning !!😁

So he thinks they can transplant cervixes?

Obviously he failed human biology at school? 😁

It would be interesting to compare and contrast what actions were considered necessary for the Labour Party to convincingly demonstrate its undying love for the Male Sexual Entitlement movement/community versus what actions it considers ‘good enough’ to convince women not to regard them as blatant misogynists and male supremacists.

One of those lists is going to be a lot longer than the other.

Those posters on here who’ve been arguing for a couple of years that Starmer has been playing the long game on this all this time may be seeing their hopes come to fruition. His “something that should not be said” statement is the one I found difficult to respect at the time but perhaps he’d simply let slip his strategy: avoid saying anything to rock the boat publically, sort it out behind the scenes, launch your new messaging in a managed way when it’s ready.

Labour’s position on gender risked* few potential votes in a cost of living crisis but it made its politicians look weak, silly and extreme*.

This is the entire reason they have changed the policy.

I just can't believe it has taken years to burst the political bubble that had apparently sane people pretending they thought men could be women.

We've got to keep pushing, because there are still far too many men using women's facilities and far too many unwanted unisex facilities.

On the “undying love” list, possibly the most concerning are:

• adopt the histrionic sloganeering of lobby groups wholesale without any scrutiny of their assertions;
• fail to do any research or consider the wider implications of the position being adopted;
• ignore the harms to teenage girls.

Lisa Nandys 'I was unduly influenced by young activists' excuse reflects terribly on her.

Was she unable to think for herself? Does she not have the courage of her own convictions? What else could she be unduly influenced on?

This wasn't a minor issue, she wanted rapists placed in women's prisons. She signed that awful pledge. I think this will haunt the rest of her political career.

I believe this is as good as it gets. Turning back on Self ID, belated apology to Rosie Duffield, LWD stands at conference.

These are all good steps, and to be celebrated. We don't stop as soon as they make a few concessions though. We have made progress, we can make more.

Such a good point.

I wonder if these muppets have changed their stance yet ,

https://talk.tv/news/17648/julia-hartley-brewer-how-can-you-protect-womens-spaces-if-you-think-some-women-have-a-penis-trans-transgender-sex-gender

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10863343/JK-Rowling-wrong-woman-penis-says-Labours-Stella-Creasy.html

Bang on. How can we have confidence in politicians' ability to listen to scientists and question what they recommend, when they have this dismal failure on their records? It really sticks in my craw that Labour have been so abysmally stupid and dictatorial on this issue. I can't vote Tory but they have spotted the problems with this issue well ahead of Labour, they've allowed their MPs to speak freely about it, they've closed down GIDS and they have had three female leaders (all PMs) against Labour's big fat zero.

Yes to the Golden Bridge, BUT... this is not enough.

I'm going to need Statmer etc al to define all the words before I might start to believe that they mean the same thing I do when I say 'a woman is an adult female human'.

Just saying a woman is an "adult female" is not enough. Starmer etc al might still be talking about men. I need to hear them say:

Women are adult female humans. That means the half the human race who have the type of bodies which should enable them to bear children, whether or not they actually do.

I need them to talk about single sex spaces, not safe spaces. And I need them to confirm in simple terms which kinds of people are permitted in the spaces meant for women.

Too right Appalonia. I won't forget the spousal veto, the treatment of Rosie Duffield, the 99-99.99%, the sweeping rejection of LWD and refusal to meet them (like Stonewall refused to even speak with LGBA) and all Julia Long's moment with Lisa Nandy. (I don't care how led you are by young TRAs, you at least pause for thought when asked if a rapist should be in a woman's prison.)

Labour must think women are stupid.

It feels a bit like when your ex asks for a reconciliation, and you realise you don't love - and possibly don't even like - them any more but there are still the kids to think about, and the house and the dog.

Anyway my response to Labour is the same: I will listen to what you have to say but I won't be rushed.

You've all seen how Starmer is looking both ways on Brexit. This is what he's aiming to do with trans rights.

Its ugly, and unprincipled and deeply unsatisfying. But I think this is the limit of his policy in this area.

And yeah Lisa Nandy gives me pause for thought too. If someone who admits to being easily led can get as close as she did to being elected party leader then that's dangerous. Something else you might like to consider, please Labour Party.