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????

I'm a left-wing socialist and gender-critical. Just like Labour have let us down on socialism they've let us down on women's rights too.

The Tories are capitalising on this for votes but they don't really give a shit, it was only a few years ago they were going to push gender self-id laws through parliament, have allowed the gender ideology to spread through the civil service and other public sector institutions, and all they've done policywards in the past 13 years is make everything harder for most people, most of their welfare cuts and austerity impacted women the hardest.

I'm likely voting Labour, not on the hope they'll improve much but that they will stop things getting worse.

Lefty GC woman here - I'm planning on spoiling my vote. I think if you abstain from voting, it just shows poor voter turnout and maybe points to political apathy. Spoiled vote shows you are willing to vote but there's nobody to represent you.

I used to vote Labour or Green; I won't vote for either until they get their act together and start caring about the rights of women and children. Trans people have a place in our society, but that place is not one already designated for women.

Me. Labour are so rubbish and wooly re this (and we'll most things). But the conservatives are still the far worse of the two evils for me.

Historically the left has been dominated by men whose advocacy was primarily for the benefit of other men. We have to thank the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s for successfully challenging this. But it's still a problem and still needs challenging, again and again. Misogyny is so normalised that left-wing men can advocate for the marginalisation of women and it's seen as progressive by many.

In England - voted Labour and sometimes Green. In Scotland - voted SNP. Mid-80s spent supporting Miners Strikes, anti-apartheid, Redskins and Billy Bragg, student protests, poll-tax riot/non-payment, women’s groups etc… I will not vote Labour/SNP in this next election unless I see some real engagement on this issue. Too many people with their head in the clouds, trotting out the ‘right-wing, bigot’ accusations - failing to engage their brains.

I will not vote Tory. I will not vote Lib-Dem or SNP/Greens. I don’t know what I’m hoping for. I don’t want another Tory term. I want to vote. I think I will decide when I’m stood at the ballot box the best step to take. But for those who say this is a ‘side-issue’ - fucking catch yourself on.

Me too!

Voted Labour all my life. Not a chance for this lot. I think my X will go for the tories.

Yes, I’m gender-critical and a socialist all my life.

My Dad, his kinda girlfriend, and my sister are all gender-critical and all left-wing. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to agrees gender ideology is all a load of bollocks, except for my left-wing feminist niece who works in a university and is probably steeped in it all day and every day, but I’m sure she’s eminently convertable, she’s not stupid, and obviously doesn’t want to risk her job. It’s easy for me, I’m retired and undoxable.

Me. Politically homeless here too

…Just to add I would never vote Conservative purely because they know men aren’t women. That way lies obliteration of the UK. They’ve done quite enough damage for a lifetime.

Not sure that’s fair, as it's maybe homophobia out of a twisted idea of "inclusivity" and "acceptance for everyone". Like they have taken their own progressive ideas to the extreme point that it turned back and undermined homosexuality.

It also supports gender non conformity and often seems to be a, "gender is a social construct", position.

Yes, you can also argue that it's connected to rigid gender roles, as they apparently think that if you like traditionally female/male things, then you may be the opposite sex, rather than just gender non conforming.

So you can argue for some sort of parallel with conservative thinking, but I doubt it's enough to fairly be saying, "you belong over there with the right-wingers".

And the right wing don't want them either.

Matt Walsh giving the other side of the argument:

https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1683820604883869697

Feminism set the stage for trans activists by insisting for years that there are no significant or inherent differences between men and women apart from anatomy. They are the ones who came up with the idea that most differences between the sexes were “social constructs.”

Also, trans activist tactics of "no platform" and "punch a TERF" would appear to be borrowed from the left-wing "antifascist" movement.

And of course it was traditional lesbian and gay groups that developed into extending their support to trans activism.

If there was any "conservative thinking" involved, then I'm assuming it was just one thing in the mix with their progressive values driving it forward.

Honestly, I thought I was left wing - I definitely favour a fairer distribution of wealth and would prioritise a good standard of well-being among the vulnerable over a great many other things. It use to be that that was enough, I think.

But left wing, where it looks like a social doctrine of uncritical acceptance of anything that calls itself progressive and the abjection of anything that will not conform to the above, then not so much.

Yep defo me.

Majority of GC are leftwing. Many of the right aren't being gender critical as they are usually aligning biology and gender still in an essentialised way and often still agree with stereotypes (not all but many).

A strong contigent of GC (and it has caused some divisions in thought), believe that sex is innate and gender is constructed and therefore, someone who is sexed male can definitely identify with what is traditionally ascribed to those sexed females. And in doing so, they haven't changed sex, they have just done something all humans do in having a range of personal traits, values and behaviours. This is a fairly standard leftwing feminist premise. However, because we are still in a patriarchy which privileges things ascribed male or traditonally associated with men, which perpetuates itself by making a good attempt socialising men and women into these roles, and due to some biological factors, you get the concentration of males being violent and the ones more prone to criminality - so there is still a reason to seek out sex segregation in some areas.

Being GC for me is nothing to do with religion or traditional right wing views. I'll not be voting Tory. I find it hard to understand those who are willing to do so on this one position alone. It's also a strawman, because the tories who have this position based on religious views and traditional stereotypes of women, aren't going to be on our side.

Feminism set the stage for trans activists by insisting for years that there are no significant or inherent differences between men and women apart from anatomy.

How does that work? TRAs are the ones arguing the opposite - that the difference between men and women is inherent innate identity, what a person is like or how feminine or masculine they are/feel is what determines if they are a man or a woman.

(I know this is Matt Walsh's claim, not anyone on this thread! )

I disagree with this premise. Trans activism states that gay boys can be converted into straight women. And this can be done with experimental drug treatments. It doesn’t matter if they arrived at that point through some determination to be inclusive, it’s still homophobic and right wing to want to medically eradicate gay children.

I also disagree that trans activism supports gender non-conformity. It does the opposite. It reinforces gender non-conformity by stating masculine = man and feminine = woman.

It’s just two heels of the horseshoe coming together.

Economically socialist, socially liberal (UK definition), non-authoritarian, second wave feminist here.

I’m all for blokes in dresses and long hair as long as they aren’t trying to identify their way into women’s spaces. I’m very much against girls being oppressed by the expectation that they will perform femininity and all the baggage associated with that.

I'm left of the current Labour party.

I'm left of Jeremy Corbyn and Caroline Lucas.

I'm left of Nelson Mandela and Bernie Saunders.

The Political Compass puts me pretty much bang on top of

Pyotr Kropotkin, and in line with (but much less authoritarian than) Chairman Mao.

I'm slightly to the right of Ghandi.

My very first ambition was to be a suffragette.

I'm a biologist who can give you thousands of reasons why sex is real and important, but gender is a tool of patriarchal oppression - and utter bollocks.

So yes - I think I can safely say I am left wing and GC.

I have also long stopped caring whether others see me as left wing or right wing. Neither are morally good or bad, as political positions they both have good points and bad points and I won’t be moralised at by sanctimonious pricks who want to shame me for believing one thing or another in either direction.

Left-leaning rather than left-wing - I've voted in every election since I was 18 and never voted Tory.

Like so many others, I hate 90% of what the Government has done since 2012 and I hate most of their policies, but I just can't vote Labour/LibDem/Greens after the way they have trampled women's rights. The recent reaction to Sunak's speech is more of the same: any assertion of women's rights is instantly branded anti-trans. The number of Lefty men racing to Twitter/X to demand that TW be accommodated on women's wards is staggering - Michael "some rapes are OK" Crick is just the most egregious example.

This, but I also see it as an individualist attempt to solve a societal problem.

Society struggled with gender non-conformists, so we can either fix society, or make people who are non-conformist with their gender ' change sex' to fit in with societal expectations.

But I have far more in common politically with someone like Bimini Bon Boulash, (non-binary drag queen) than Sunak.

I will vote Labour despite my MP being TWAW as the alternative will be dreadful for my class, and try to move Labour to a more reasonable position.

On any political compass I'm as far left as you can be but I've no time for identity politics.

The fuzzy folk thinking I have seen, and I'm not claiming that it actually makes sense obviously, is that you start from:

"There is a difference between biological sex and gender"

And:

"Gender is a social construct"

Conclusion: Well if it's a social construct, then anyone can be a man or woman by fitting with that construct.

@NotBadConsidering

It doesn’t matter if they arrived at that point through some determination to be inclusive, it’s still homophobic and right wing to want to medically eradicate gay children.

You can make that point against Iran perhaps.

It's harder to make against Western trans activists, because they will say that they have no interest in changing gay children, but only giving treatment to children that are struggling with gender identity and not sexual identity.

Now yes, if someone is struggling with sexual identity they could get caught up in all this.

But trans activists will say that this isn't the intention, and they are perfectly fine with kids growing up gay. They don't want to "trans away the gay".

On the basis of posts here, maybe close to half GC lefties will vote Labour, with a heavy heart, but absolutely not Tory.

What proportion of women in the wider population are as clued up on TRA as the MN women? Not high, I would say. So even fewer Lefties female skeptics out there will abandon Labour over this.

And then there are the women where this just doesn't register on their radar, they've had not one bad experience with TRA or individual transwomen, see the whole thing as a moral panic whipped up by the Tories. Those women will vote Labour en masse.

And I think this is how Starmer sees it thru his political lens. I think he's by definition more Left wing than Blair ever was, his early pro bono work for the McDonalds individuals and workers groups puts him firmly in the social justice category, he's naturally drawn to trans rights. But his political instincts are to govern from the centre, hence his flip flops and 180s on so many issues.

I think he'll see his compromise recently announced as just good enough to appeal to enough GC women, and women less perturbed by this area will vote Labour anyway.

And this thread and it's responses kinda prove his position will be just about good enough to diffuse tension here.

Now, what he does when in power? That's a whole other debate.

Just because they can’t see their homophobia, or can’t admit to their homophobia, or don’t intend for it to be homophobic, doesn’t mean it isn’t homophobic.

I know what you’re saying. But their lack of self-perception is the problem. They’re pushing a right wing homophobic ideology and don't even notice/realise/admit to it but have the audacity to tell off the rest of us for being “right wing”.

Like I said, I won’t by moralised at by the sanctimonious, and I’ll add I won’t be moralised at by sanctimonious hypocrites.