Anyone else GC and left wing in their politics?

[mids2019]

I am finding the conservative party conference difficult in some sense as I agree with some of their GC policies and attitudes yet would describe my self as a working class died in the will leftie. I really don't like this assumption that being for women's rights automatically means people associate you with right wing politics in general. For me it's simply not the case.

Why is it that poor now associate left with trans rights????

It isn’t individualism though, is it?

If it were, it would not be heresy to state that one does not believe male people can turn into female people, to campaign to retain single sex spaces, and to speak out against irreversible medical and surgical treatment of children and young people.

It’s a religion. A totalitarian religion.

It’s dangerous and illiberal.

Not sure what being GC is. But I'm definitely against trans women competing against women in sport. I would also like my single sex toilets back. Mixed toilets are dirtier. And I enjoyed the calm of a women only space.

Also don't believe in trans women in women's prisons.

“ArabellaScott · Yesterday 22:00

everybody just getting to be whatever they want and not being constrained by their biology, society, or anything else.

Can you see any potential issues with unfettered individualism?”

Yes. Loads. I’m not saying it is necessarily a good thing I’m saying it’s what feminism and left wing liberalism did. And I’m saying that this self-centred way of thinking, thinking that there should be no constraints on the will of the individual and no duties or responsibilities imposed upon the individual other than those they freely choose for ourselves is now the dominant way of thinking across the western world. I’m saying we are where we are because the dominant ideology in our society leads us there and if you don’t like this stop on the road we are on then perhaps it’s time to rethink the entire journey. Because this is just part and parcel of this particular trip we have been on.

“t isn’t individualism though, is it?”

Yes it is. It’s people believing they should get to be whoever it is they want to be, they believe it’s their right to do this and that those who disagree should have no right to stop them.

They also believe that when the rights of the individual or the rights of a small group conflict with the rights and wishes of a larger group the smaller group and the individual people should come first. So if a man wants to become a woman and compete as a woman, he can.

But a woman who wants the man to fuck off out of her single sex spaces, can’t say that?

I don't agree that individualism is part and parcel of being left wing. To me that is more of a right wing concept. It's the same viewpoint that says I don't want to pay taxes so that poor people can have healthcare, I'd rather just have private health insurance for myself and if poor people get sick it's not my problem.

@Duffdee you have a very shaky grasp of political ideologies and their histories. I suggest you do some reading on socialism - you could start with Saint-Simon or Robert Owen, and work your way up to Marx & Engels. Or just look up the origins and meaning of “left wing” - even Wikipedia has a better grasp of this than you demonstrate in your posts.

The notion that “left wing” means “individualism” or the prioritising of the rights/ demands of the minority over the majority is seriously misguided.

I suspect the “rights” @Duffdee and others of this thinking would say, if pushed, is that the desire of men to live as women without discrimination (compared with other MEN - this is the misunderstood bit of the Equality Act) must be transformed into a compulsion of others to treat them as überwomen and never ever to even think that they are biological men. That is, the right to compel others’ speech and thoughts and actions.

@FarEast I read Marx years ago. Marxism is illiberal, collectivist and modern. Marx was also wrong about pretty much everything. All of his predictions turned out to be false and never came to pass so he should be seen for what he was, a prophet that fails in prophecy is a charlatan.

If you go find the fringe left wing parties that are still Marxists they will agree with mumsnet that people can’t just be anything they want I’m sure. But the Labour Party and the Lib Dem’s and the democrats in America and the mainstream centre left across Europe are not Marxists.

The modern mainstream centre left are possibly a metastasis of Marxism, like a post-modern cultural version but they’re not it. The mainstream centre left parties are socially liberal, hyper individualistic and post-modern. They’re like the political version of the guardian newspaper. These guardian types lead us here as their world view is now the dominant one in the west. I think they need to accept that and either accept that this comes along with it or admit they were wrong and change course entirely. But they can’t have everything else that comes along with their world view but just not this particular bit that they don’t like.

Yup. Very left leaning (socialist/a bit commie sometimes.) Does my head in when I see TRAs talking about how communist/Marxist they are, especially if they bang on about 'sex work is work'. You'd have been sent to the Gulag mate. I absolutely hate that there's a group of left wing people support the exploitation of women. (See what happened in Leeds.) But I can't vote for the Tories. Some of them are decent, but their party has wrecked my country. I don't know who to vote for in the next General election. Logically I'd go with Labour to get the Tories out, but I don't think they're going to be any better.

Is it because the left have traditionally been about supporting the oppressed i.e. Undervalued workers that they have somehow naively added trans people to the umbrella group of the 'opressed? Maybe some on the left take the blinkered approach that as trans people are a minority and there is evidence of hate crime against them then by default the trans right issue is a virtuous one?

I think that TRA possibly have latched onto the left (as with LGB groups) as the left in a sense can't reject them without limiting their reputation as party of supporting those that are marginlised. It may be therefore left wing politicians do not go to the extent of thinking more deeply about the fundamental consequences of trans ideology of at best simply ignoring them.

Cynically it could be that the left rely on a 'youth vote' or at least a future vote which means trying to tap in with the current zeitgeist and rejecting trans ideology might alienate a portion of this demographic.

Yes this. Also funding base

Unions are particularly captured, other donors too

Well, can you explain how you are defining those terms, then? How can we discuss Left/Right when we do not understand the way in which you are using or understanding them?

Can you explain, with some examples, what you mean by 'women's rights' and how the Tories have neglected them? Then we'll be able to advance the discussion further,

Individualism is individualism. It makes no reference to sex (or gender).

Feminism is collective feminism. It is about multiple females and their collective interests.

You can't have a new wave of feminism based on individualism because it's meaningless nonsense.

Perhaps liberal feminism was a brief foray into feminisnim through an individualist lens. Bur most strands of feminism up until and since have surely been about collective action, consciousness raising and women helping each other.

Femisniisms

That is not left wing politics, that is the politics of late stage american consumer culture and rampant individualism - where everyone can be whatever they want and seek to find " their best, true self". Most of it is just fantastical, over idealistic thinking. It is what lies behind post modernistic theories of the self. That we can all create our own reality.

You cannot really be whatever you want, though. We all have limitations and pre-existing conditions that are due to one type of thing or situation, or another. Plus societies cannot function in a healthy way without shared norms and values and some sense of appropriate boundaries. We have duties to each other and to some extent we have to suppress certain aspects of self expression in order to form healthy and workable relationships.

We are all constrained by our biology and physicality. The body ages and dies. It suffers injury and disease. If you have a disability than you are physically constrained in certain ways.

Women are adult human females and as such have certain vulnerabilities when it comes to issues around superior male strength, and the fact that we can become pregnant. Once pregnant we need to prioritise the growing baby - and thus suppress our desires for drink and drugs or whatever....

The 'individualism' thing is incredibly western centred. Try telling women who were born as Dalits in India that they can be whatever they want.

Individualism is basically neo-liberalism.

It's not left wing and it's not liberal.

Most tory voters are not individualist because we tend to support things like having state provision of schools, some medical care etc. I would hope Labour and Tory voters alike feel free to express their views on gender issues no matter what those views are.

Thing is Starmer isn’t electable to me. He can’t define what a woman is. He supported Corbyn and his policies. He flip flops with his views from on week to the next.

A woman is an adult female. What’s hard about saying that ?

But if the conservatives get in it will be five more years of the same.

Fell off the thread last night but just wanted to add that I'd have thought it was obvious that left leaning voters would be far angrier with their own parties over this.

When your opponents attack you it's kind of expected, business as usual. You don't take it personally.

An attack from the party you'd always considered your allies is of a different magnitude. You don't see it coming and you feel blindsided, betrayed and devastated. The anger might not come straight away but when it does, it's white hot and takes a long time to process, especially if just about the only party prepared to tolerate debate has normally been your opponent, and if one of the few places you feel you can express yourself is an online forum.

And then the people you'd always considered your allies turn round and say, 'Gosh, you're so angry and what's that you're reading? it must be because you support the other side.'

Yes. It's why I find it sad, as someone who has always been on the left politically, that it seems individualism has become so entrenched in our world view that those on the left could be seen to be furthering it.

Of course I do believe in individual freedom, expression and rights and in the importance of identity...just not when it encroaches on the wellbeing or rights of others. It's always about balance and empathy.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1221135646107955200

Let’s be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights.

So yeah, the issue "fits nicely" in a way with the left-wing being, "on the side of the marginalised", "anti discrimination", "fighting for equality and civil rights".

Gay marriage is accomplished, this is the next stage. If you just stand still, you are no longer on the progressive side.

But are there other trends in the modern left-wing that helped to encourage the acceptance of trans-activism?

Has "identity politics" gone too far in general on the left? Did this contribute to the acceptance of trans activism?

Are any (questionable) academic theories filtering down to the level of activists and politicians? For a start, theories about sex/gender and gender identity, so people may not want to look outdated and unsophisticated if they don't go along with it.

Evidence that activists have some agenda beyond just a sincere belief in "trans equality"? Like if you wanted to get conspiracy theorist on this, would could be the end goal?