Possible explanation for recent backtracking?

[lurkingluggage]

Hi, delurking and very nervously posting!

I've been following this board for a long time and there are a couple of current threads that are focusing on the apparent change of opinion by some labour mps re womens rights.

What I haven't seen mentioned, and why I am posting, is an interview that took place on R4 Today programme last Wednesday (26th).

The (stand-in) presenter was Chris Mason and he was talking with the director of JLPartners pollsters, Scarlett Maguire about the impact the culture wars could have on voters.

It's available on bbc sounds at around 1.45.00 and is worth listening to purely for CMs comment about Keir Starmer.

I think it also gives a very clear idea of why certain MPs are reversing!

Apologies for any formatting errors!

Please quote these ludicrous statements at them and ask them, why should we trust them now...?

One of the greatest sins of this movement is what Helen Joyce says is a "linguistic war".

That words and concepts are reduced to Alphabetti Spaghetti.

So that even the KJK phrase now isn't enough. No declaration from "the other side" can be trusted.

Starmer would have to say "large gamete producers (including individuals that are genetically determined to produce large gametes but for medical reasons can't go on to produce large gametes) in all of the next 297 categories of spaces designated only for large gamete producers", and then list all those spaces incl ones such as Sunday literary clubs for lesbians challenging the patriarchy etc.

Gonna make for stilted and never ending interviews, tricky when 2023 is soundbytes all the way.

I agree it's becoming increasingly clear how really problematic some of these people are.

For me, I am still very concerned by what all this has revealed about the party more generally. Particularly the way they ignored their own mps and would not allow discussion by party members. And their generally willingness to shut down freedom of expression and public discourse.

I think that's deeply dangerous, and ultimately worse than some of the selfish corrupt shit that goes on in politics.

I miss the days when the worst that you could expect from Labour was higher taxes and more strikes.

Lisa Nandy in 2020, can they ever row back from this?

Lisa Nandy on the Pledge for Trans Rights.
The pledge calls on candidates ..to back the expulsion of party members who hold “bigoted, transphobic views”.

It also describes Woman’s Place UK, a group that backs biological sex to be acknowledged as part of maintaining women’s rights, as a “trans-exclusionist hate group”.
..Nandy said the call for those who support organisations such as Woman’s Place to be kicked out of the party had given her pause before signing the pledge.

“I have to say, that was the part of the pledge that gave me pause for thought about whether to sign it,” said Nandy. “I decided to sign it in the end....."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/23/lisa-nandy-wording-trans-rights-pledge-labour-leadership#:~:text=Lisa%20Nandy%20has%20said%20she,%E2%80%9Cbigoted%2C%20transphobic%20views%E2%80%9D.

I do know of some Labour Party women who have been working really hard to be heard by KS for a long time; they did recently mention of some changing of directions following being able to get some points across. There's been a lot going on behind the scenes.

“Kier, you have said that a woman is an adult human female. Do you include trans women in that definition?”

My issue is that they have completely destroyed my trust in their intelligence, honesty and sincerity. The fact that we're now starting on the run-up to a GE just makes the new spin look like rank opportunism.

Couldn't agree more. If someone like Davey comes out with 'of course some women have penises' then he's just demonstrated a wilful disregard for biological fact and a willingness to treat people as stupid. If he's prepared to continually compromise any integrity he has* to appease a small lobbying group because they have loud voices, what else is he prepared to do?

*perhaps that should be 'might have.'

How have Stonewall reacted to what the Labour Party are saying this week?

Thank you OP, interesting to know.

I agree the questions to Starmer and all MPs need to get a lot blunter.

"When you say 'female' are you including male born people in that definition? Males who are legally female?"

"Isn't this intentionally trying to mislead the public into believing that you are listening to women and responding to their needs when actually you are furthering the agenda against them that are creating these needs? Women in life threatening relationships not able to go to refuges? Women raped on hospital wards and in prisons? Women no longer able to swim or use public toilets?"

"What provision do you then plan to make for the biologically female people who due to vulnerabilities such as disability, faith, culture, trauma, cannot use a mixed sex space regardless of what certification the male person holds? Are you saying that women who are disadvantaged in this way should rightfully be punished for it by exclusion from society?"

All good questions, Frood.

I'd like to hear Labour's position on something else, which affects a subset of women. YouTube has a video showing Labour MP's in the HoC applauding WASPI women who were protesting about raising the age at which women receive their state pension. (search: youtube labour applaud waspi women, & you should find it).

So if Labour won power in the UK, what would they do to right the wrongs the WASPI women have endured?

Perhaps someone has posted this already. It is an opinion piece by Robin Moira White:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/25/labour-courage-past-lgbtq-rights-trans-people

Back to this Sturgeon type argument,

Discussion of the need to “protect women and girls from predators” is reminiscent of the kind of things written about gay people in the dark days of section 28 in the 1980s. In failing to make clear (as I hope she means) that she is referring to predatory men, not trans people, Dodds feeds those scaremongering tropes

Scaremongering tropes.... it's just like section 28.....

oh that line went out with the Gangnam Style dance and dabbing, love. Find some new lines ffs.

Section 28 didn't enable middle aged men claiming to be women to perve on naked young women in swimming pool changing rooms.

Has anyone heard squeals from Little Owen Jones about this apparent change? If he's not complaining, I'm not sure there is any real change.

'In failing to make clear (as I hope she means) that she is referring to predatory men, not trans people'

Some trans people ARE predatory men. The idea that the latter can't possibly include the former is dangerous bullshit.

What Keir Starmer is offering is self-id light. Once they start writing the laws, they will fudge and fluster so that the tangle will be even worse.

Women will be taking court cases, only to find that Sir K's wording means our rights have headed for the bin.

Not to be trusted at all

Not forgetting the ordinary ‘mum’ coping with the cost of living / washing powder advert and his subsequent feeding ( 🤢) of a baby on the bus.

Eloquently put 😅

If KS is now saying a woman is an adult human female, I think we also need his definition of female.

This is key.

If KS considers female to be a legal category (that includes TW with GRCs) then this new policy is no better than their previous policy.

This. This exactly. This makes Labour so bloody dangerous that they're impossible to vote for.

Stella Creasey gave an interview in which she said trans women are female.

In an interview published in the Telegraph on Friday, Stella Creasy MP talked about feminism, transwomen, JK Rowling and a host of related matters. She said, “I am somebody who would say that a trans woman is an adult human female”.
https://thecritic.co.uk/language-truth-and-logic/

I would pay good money to watch her debate this with Lord Winston.

The 'backtracking' ( which is not really backtracking at all) is as a result, I suggest, of a few recent events. Firstly, the stepping down of Nancy Kelley at Stonewall; the arrival of Iaian Anderson ( CEO of Stonewall) onto the Labour benches plus his disastrous interview with Beth Rigby), and The Tory party decisin to make this into a wedge issue in the lead up tomthe general election.

It is pure PR - designed to give the appearance of change - but effectively no serious change or reflection at all.

I've noticed recently, and increasingly - the tactic coming from Stonewall and the TRA lobby is to use the term Female. this is intentional - and is meant to muddy the waters and make less clear the attempts to define sex as being biological in origin.