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????

Yep

Yes, I think that rings true. Progressive utopian beliefs.

Me. I’m a lifelong socialist and environmentalist. I don’t see how anyone can call themselves leftwing if they support men’s ‘right’ to abolish women’s genuine rights, eg to single-sex spaces.

Yes

The one thing that encourages me is that my son who’s youngish and gay, and his partner totally agree with me.

Yes,me although ivevvoted LD in at points of my life.when it suitedI'm probably seen as a transphobic dinosaur by some people but I've spoken to a few women my age and they feel the exact same , but I do find right wing politics jarring and don't even agree with some of their GC views. I guess we are all individuals and have our own thoughts on things.

I'm left-of-centre. Also, an immigrant and an ethnic minority.

I am politically homeless.

I grew up in an industrial northern town that was absolutely devastated by Thatcher. The staunch Labour voting men there were anti-immigration (for driving down wages), equal pay (women belong in the home and earn pin money) etc etc. Traditionally, as a party, Labour has had similar ideology in many respects as the Conservatives. But for different reasons.

Women have always had to fight, and will always have to fight.

Without looking it all up - I'm guessing the non-white Tories are from middle, upper-middle etc families who had enough money to immigrate "the right way".

I have never had much truck with party politics but have always voted Labour or Green. If I were in the UK I'd want to vote for the British Communist party.

I think there are a plenty of us , I am quite cynical about politics and disengaged,I suppose that's what they want divide and rule works everytime

Yep. Didn’t vote last election. My younger self would be shocked to the core.

The erosion of woman's rights to accommodate other groups has been in the last 13 years under a series of Conservative Governments. it's convenient to blame the opposition but the damage has been done under right wing private schoolboys.

yes, i've noticed this too. maybe Tories only care if you have money? whereas Labour hate people with money, and inclusive as long as you're a white man.

I'm GC and lefty. Have always voted, never for the Conservatives, ever.

It's a tedious lie that knowing that sex is real and sometimes matters is a "right-wing belief" but the gullible always fall for it.

I'm.a social democrat. I don't feel.that left wing but compared to this government I feel like bloody Trotsky sometimes.

Agree with @ArtG - I'm angry with leftwing politics in this country and in the US for gifting this issue to the right to make hay with, by asking everyone to state illogical beliefs and judging them on that basis, and for refusing to notice that women are suffering in this issue- the trans people I care about most are the huge clutch of vulnerable transmen under 21 I know. Anyone who thinks I'm getting 'hysterical' or right wing about my young relative getting her breasts removed by an opportunistic private surgeon at 20 can fuck off, or tell me what is so bloody brilliant about that situation

I'm voting tactically to get the Tories out. That's in my view the priority for a country that functions at all. But they can be sure I'm not shutting up.

Another left winger here.

i think in the public discussions there’s a general failure to acknowledge that this is an issue that is not left-right, but has been shoe horned into a left-right axis because one party has been quicker to grasp the feeling of the electorate and they know whose votes they want. And the other party, I’m sad to note, is still stuck in sixth form politics mode.

Brexit and Scottish independence are similar issues that span the political spectrum, and it was equally impossible to have a sensible conversation about them when they were at the top of the news agendas.

I am a creature of the Left, too, though I have kindly been called a "pragmatist" by more "ideologically pure" friends farther Left than me.

I support a healthy welfare state, laws to support collective bargaining. Class is the principle mechanism of oppression in this country, and laws for redistribution of wealth should be welcomed to moderate the extremes of welath inequality. But I also believe people need to he protected from the state because no institution can be trusted completely. I think that fewer laws are better than more, because the state should intrude as little as possible and also because people need to know the laws that govern them.

I believe a strong sense of civic identity is beneficial, and a melting-pot approach to integration is better than a multi-cultural one - people are happier when they are united rather than divided.

So a bit of a mixed-bag, ideologically. Each problem has its own solution which shouldn't be bound by one ideology.

I do not, however, support the "theory" side of the modern left, the breaking down of boundaries, the identity politics, the postmodernism, the lack of personal responsibility but the extreme elevation of individual expression at the expense of society. Equity is monstrous, equality and non-discrimination should be the goal, and anyone who suggests that the solution to past discrimination is more discrimination is either an idiot or someone who will benefit from the new unequal society. Even some of the more radical feminist thought leaves me cold.

But I'm gender critical. Sex should matter only where it has a material impact on one's ability to do a job. However I don't mind sexed language, I think it has utility and more expressiveness in language guves you the opportunity to impart more information and is a good thing. But there are plenty of situations where it isn't necessary.

Me too. I feel very lost politically, disturbed by what Labour have become, unable to vote Tory, wouldn't touch LD or the Greens now either. I spoilt my ballot on the last two elections as I was so frustrated with the choices presented. I only hope they really do show the candidates all the spoilt papers.

Yes. I've never ever voted Conservative, ever. Still won't. But now can't vote Lab, Lib, Green - doesn't leave me with many options.

I am a left-wing feminist. A fundamental part of that is supporting the most vulnerable people in society.

Today's Guardian has a story that illustrates this perfectly. It reports on research findings that female drug users "are at risk of being groomed into sex work and other forms of exploitation when they attend treatment programmes with men" and that "some women reported feeling vulnerable to “predatory males” in mixed groups where they were often outnumbered two-to-one by men, but said they were not given an option to access women-only treatment programmes."

The right of these women to be treated in single-sex groups, away from predatory men, is paramount. Yet the wokebros like Owen Jones and Billy Bragg believe that vulnerable women such as these should be forced to share space with men who will harm them. Owen Jones and Billy Bragg are not socialists. They are are simply opportunists who don't have the slightest bit of care or compassion for the most disadvantaged people in society.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/05/female-drug-users-at-risk-of-exploitation-in-mixed-sex-treatment-groups-study-finds

I’m centre/leaning left and am appalled by the current manifestation of the Conservative Party. I used to at least respect many of them, but I can’t now. How can any reasonable person listen to Braverman, Rees Mogg, Truss and a whole swathe of others and think them in any way decent and sensible?
However, there will always be points on which one can agree with those whose other beliefs one finds abhorrent. (I can agree with specific things said by Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson and even Donald Trump, without remotely embracing the rest of their agendas. For example, I agree with Trump on the need for NATO countries other than the US to spend more money on defence - but for different reasons.). And many of these otherwise appalling individuals are right on genderism.

Being gender critical IS primarily a left-wing alignment. So yes. It’s consistent with my other pro-environment, social-spending, pro-LGB, anti-racist views.

I’m also not at all convinced that knowing there are biological differences between the sexes is necessarily any indication of being critical of gender and gender ideology.

Just to be clear - you are claiming that legally and socially changing the definition of who is a man and who is a woman only affects a tiny proportion of the population who are trans?

Can you explain why you think it doesn't affect all men and all women?

Me! Very left-leaning feminist, although now having to vote Lib Dem because of where I live (left/green bubble in a Conservative constituency). Feeling very sad this morning as one of my best friends has just posted "trans rights are human rights" on twitter - presumably in response to some of the stuff coming out of the Conservative Conference. I feel very politically adrift now.

Yes. Gender ideology is the odd one out if it’s put in that list. It’s remarkable that people have been convinced that reification of gender stereotypes and reinforcement of patriarchy is the left wing position to take.