MPs who believe ‘women have a penis’ will be named and shamed ahead of general election

[fromorbit]

Brilliant plan sure plenty of Mumsnetters will be up for being part of the volunteer army asking questions:

An “army” of volunteers in an apolitical new grassroots campaign is gearing up to meet all MPs and parliamentary candidates at hustings events and on their doorsteps to ask each one the question: “What is a woman?”

Their answers will be video recorded and uploaded individually to a website which is being launched in the coming months.

It will allow voters to find out instantly whether their next MP thinks women must be born female and that binary biological sex cannot be changed, or whether they believe that male-born transgender women are women too.

Sharron Davies MBE, the former Olympic swimmer and feminist campaigner who has been appointed as the campaign’s first ambassador, said it would let voters “know if their MP will stand up for women”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/09/23/mps-believe-women-penis-named-trans-election-sharron-davies/

We also need a women's issues hustings in every constituency in the election run by people who know what women are. Women Won't Wheesht (WWW) have already run the prototype in Rutherglen [the hustings was reinstated after an attempt to cancel it after they realised banning women's meetings is in fact illegal.]
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4899435-womens-group-hustings-for-rutherglen-hamilton-west-byelection-cancelled

There are a great many with councils run by other parties /NOC seeing the same.
And again, it was Conservative policy to decentralise education, and get rid of LEAs, put more control in the hands of individual schools and academy trusts that enabled this situation where different schools can teach different things depending on their own views. Before this government, resources and standards were applied centrally.
So I see it as chickens coming home to roost from previous bad Conservative decisions. Again, feel free to disagree, but this crazy situation where charities decide what to educate our children on was not a feature of the last government. This is a Conservative generated "unintended consequence" and I'd be much more likely to vote for them if they came up with a plan to deal rather than "but Labour councils...." being their answer.

If Labour did what they say, and strengthened the EA to make "woman" a sex based definition then Creaseys suggestion is one I would back. The Conservatives have no plan to make misogyny a crime, that is worse IMO.

Again, the issue here is your assumption that Labour are going to include TW in the definition of women and move to self ID. But that's based on fear, not fact.

I'd rather vote Labour in, then apply pressure on this policy, than not have a policy to protect women from misogyny at all.

Especially on a day where it turns out a 16 year old girl has been stabbed to death for saying "no" to a boy. This violence against females (humans, for avoidance of doubt) has got to stop.

It's based on pretty much everything Labour have had to say on the subject for the last few years, Adam. They've been very clear that they think people who don't agree that male people can be women are bigots.

the issue here is your assumption that Labour are going to include TW in the definition of women and move to self ID. But that's based on fear, not fact.

Labour have made it very clear they are very much TWAW and support Self ID ...then Kier said 99.9% of women don't have a penis (which is ridiculous), then he changed his mind and said no he didn't support self ID, then he said he did support it in Scotland 😂

And for what it's worth, no, I don't think a political party which doesn't think women and girls should be allowed to say no to male people in their toilets, changing rooms, rape crisis groups and sports are the right people to tackle violence against girls who say no to boys.

Good point @MargotBamborough

If only there was a Women's Party to help tackle this sort of thing.....a Womens Equality Party maybe.......oh wait 😕

I don’t get this idea that this is not a left / right issue at the same time fears this campaign will help Conservative

That sounds contradictory

I don't understand how anyone can say that believing that humans can't change sex is a right wing position and not think they sound completely insane.

Jennifer Murray in the DM (boo hiss) has enough scorn to go round

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12567453/JENNI-MURRAY-wont-party-stand-rights-women.html

It's not a left/right issue because in the lifetime of this government we have moved from a position where all the parties had TWAW and self ID as the official policy, to one where Labour and Conservatives official position is woman = adult human female and strengthen the EA to that effect.

It is too simplistic to say GC = Conservative, TRA = Labour and therefore if you are GC you must vote conservative.

In the meantime the conservatives are trying to turn this into a wedge issue to do exactly that. And many here insist it's not possible to be a GC feminist and support labour/lib dems/SNP. Which is a nonsense.

Who said that margot? I haven't seen that anywhere...

If not left / right the left won’t have more to be concerned about due to this campaign.

And if not left / right Conservative won’t benefit over Labour

It's a common trans activist misconception, Adam.

If you believe women are female and men are male and that these things are fixed and immutable, you're in league with right wing conservatives in the US who want to ban abortion, apparently.

🙄
The conservatives have also been hostile to GC people in the very recent past margot. I feel like some people have forgotten the whole Maria Miller furore.

In 2020 the Conservatives declined to reform the GRA, after taking 2 years to consider their own consultation. They did however say this:
"However, it is also clear that we need to improve the process and experience that transgender people have when applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate – making it kinder and more straightforward. Our changes will address the main concerns that trans people themselves tell us they have about it.....Thirty-eight per cent told us the process was too bureaucratic. So we will place the whole procedure online. Thirty-four per cent said the process was too expensive. This, too, we will address. We will reduce the fee from £140 to a nominal amount."

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/response-to-gender-recognition-act-2004-consultation

The double standards in how the parties statements and actions are viewed is astounding tbh.

I think you might be getting a bit mixed up. There is a reasonable recognition that many with gender critical views have those views because they are right wing/religious.

There is a risk to GC feminists of ending up being aligned with/associated with some pretty anti-feminist people over gender issues. E.g Jordan Peterson or Dan Wootten.

I think someone posted this upthread and it's quite helpful

https://deadwildroses.com/2019/10/07/handy-venn-diagrams-the-radical-feminist-position-on-gender/

You can get the same result either way. Decentralised education allows schools to teach gender ideology if they wish, if LEA are in charge and they have lobbying from pro-trans groups then they could force schools into teaching gender ideology too.

In many cases if a council is part of the Stonewall scheme then this stuff is pushed onto residents one way or the other.

It's you who's getting mixed up. The people who are anti-trans because they are right wing and/or religious are not gender critical.

The green circle is gender critical, the red circle is religious/right wing. That diagram explains it clearly for you.

I don't get this either @MargotBamborough . Believing humans can change sex is a poor education position and has nothing to do with politics.

IMO much of the trying to link non belief in gender wang and politics comes from the States where everything is more partisan and there is no room allowed for nuance (although I'm sure it must exist there).

Certain people have tried to translate the same set up to the UK but fortunately we are socially and politically very different to the states.

Naomi Klein recently said that the reason so many women were worried about trans women in changing rooms/sports etc was that white women had discovered right wing politics and the person interviewing her pointed out one of the main women in the UK arguing again gender wang was in fact a black lesbian. Thread about this here:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4904909-writer-naomi-klein-says-she-doesnt-understand-gender-critical-feminism

I think it is another way of trying to shut down debate by trying to say you are right wing therefore your opinion has no value, which in itself is a ridiculous and puerile thing to say/think.

I don't think anyone is saying if you are gender critical you must vote conservative because that wouldn't make any sense. People can vote who they want to vote for.

Instead I think what has happened (from my own experience and that of my friends who I've discussed this with) is that women are repelled by Labours stance on women's rights/trans rights. It isn't so much that conservatives are turning it into a wedge issue, it is a wedge issue but the Labour party have done it to themselves.

I don't blame the Tory's for building on that. I would if I was in charge of a political party. The end goal of an election is to be in government and if your opponents come out with statements/beliefs so idiotic then of course you are going to cash in on that.

I know everyone is hostile towards women, Adam. It would be lovely if there were a party to vote for which wasn't fucking hostile towards women.

The reason for the double standards is because Labour's whole thing is that the Tories are evil and nasty whereas they are good and kind and progressive.

So I would expect a party that identifies as good and kind and progressive to be less fucking hostile towards women.

There is a risk to GC feminists of ending up being aligned with/associated with some pretty anti-feminist people over gender issues. E.g Jordan Peterson or Dan Wootten.

I really don't think your average woman on the street cares about that association. I certainly don't care. I'm sure I share lots of other beliefs with both Jordan Peterson and Dan Wootten such as we breath oxygen to live, roast potatoes are really good to eat and grass is green.

Sharing an opinion on something doesn't make you agree with everything that person says and the majority of people know that.

Is this turning into the same old "if you don't agree with me you are far-right" argument?

And again it would be too easy to show that the most socially conservative countries like Iran see the "cure" to homosexuality in the form of sex changes, or that many of the pioneering sex change surgeons worked for the Nazi regime.

No - the green circle is feminists.
The green and red circles are both gender critical I.e. see biological sex as more important than gender.

There are many gender critical people who aren't feminist. And that's the rub.

It could just as usefully be framed as the same old "if you don't agree with me you are a labour supporting, TWAW TRA" argument.

It's not helpful.

Some people People on both the left and right are gender critical. Some people on both the left and right are TWAW.