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????

Me, every time there's one of those 'plot your political persuasion' quizzes I come out somewhere to the left of Ghandi. But I can't vote for any of the current left/centre left parties who pretend not to know what a woman is. They're either lying, in which case why should I trust them to set effective policy, or they're genuinely so gullible, deluded and hard of thinking as to believe TWAW, in which case why should I trust them to set effective policy?

To be truly gender critical in the original meaning of the phrase is to take a left wing feminist position: analysing and resisting the effect of gender stereotypes, especially their adverse impact on women. The right wing position tends to be that yes, sex is immutable but gender stereotypes are fine and should apply to the appropriate sex.

We want to smash the gender stereotypes boxes; small-c conservatives (who are often capital-C Conservatives too) want everyone to stay in the 'correct' boxes; TRAs and gender ideologists want to keep the boxes just as much as the latter but swap people to the opposite ones.

For clarification, I'm not planning to vote Tory either; I'm politically homeless and will spoil my ballot paper unless something significant changes (and I don't need to be lectured about how pointless that is, it's not an action I take lightly but I CANNOT give any of the major parties my vote at present and we don't tend to get much in the way of smaller party / independent candidates in my constituency).

Matt Walsh also thinks there's nothing wrong with men having sex with underage girls so long as they are married.

You could argue that the rise of transactivisim and the promotion of "progress" as a deity is a direct result of the decline of organised religion. But then a very large reason for declining public faith in organised religion is due to the abuses of power that went on within it including the appalling abuse of women and children by the Catholic church and the blind eye that was turned by so many (not all). So maybe Mr Walsh needs to get his own house in order and practice some introspection. He won't though.

As a GC woman in my 60's, who campaigned for women's rights in the late 70's and onwards, who always considered herself to be left wing, I now find myself politically homeless. While Labour have always tried to keep women in the tea making role (thank you TUC) and lefty men have always tried to direct women's rights groups, women have not taken that nonsense from them. I was educated by women, in an all girls school, who had sacrificed much to keep their careers, labour are now spitting on their legacy and memory and seem to not even see it. I cannot vote Conservative, because of their hideous policies causing poverty and deprivation, but do not want to vote for any party that holds the view that anyone can identify into the opposite sex and removes protections for women and girls.

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

Because as far as I can see they are the ones banging on about how much they have lost the plot re: women's rights support trans rights.

Labour, Greens, Lib Dems. I've voted for them all most of my adult life and would consider myself centre left - although I have voted Tory once also because I'm not a 'pure' partisan voter.

IMO There is no credible centre left party to vote for because of this issue. It's like politics have been taken over by the local 6th form and the experienced, balanced adults have left the building (and that's probably unfair to the local 6th form).

but do not want to vote for any party that holds the view that anyone can identify into the opposite sex and removes protections for women and girls

Absolutely agree. These days the left make me very angry with their attitude towards women and girls/children.

I've just read a bit of a leaked synopsis of how Labour will transform the UK. It looks promising, but I've been so fooled by politicians, that deeper inspection shows it to be an empty document, high on rhetoric, aims and principles, and especially bureaucratisation and promises to micro manage.

I would in any other circumstances (ie pre identity politics writ large) give them the benefit, so angry am I with the Tories.

But because of Starmer and Labour Party capitulation to TRA, I won't lend them my support.

I know that Starmer will resort to leftist tropes in power, is already announcing he'll massively ramp up BLM-adjacent racialised policies on turbo charging quotas especially for black-run companies getting preferential treatment in govt contracts, and I believe he'll extend similar expansion of rights to the apparently beleaguered trans community in terms of ramped up online anti hate speech laws and massive clamping down on misgendering and geometrical expansion of DEI across the public sector.

I'm sure the MN women know what this will mean in health, education etc. Your worst fears will be realised as your sex based language is eroded even more.

So, for me the argument is...vote Labour for platitudes, definite micromanagement of all our lives, and expansion of racialised and genderised initiatives (just short of Self ID).

It's not enough for me to trust them. They need to lose the GE and realise their slavish devotion to Stonewall and ID politics was instrumental in their defeat.

I'm Old Labour. Very old indeed. Rock against Racism . Worked in the bar at Perverts for the Pits in Stoke Newington. Anti cruise missile blockade at Upper Heyford. Troops Out. Poll Tax demo 1990. Stop the War. Practically a cardboard cut out leftie.

But...I was also very into ID politics in the early 80s. Mea Culpa. Perhaps we left the door open for these nutbags and grifters? It's just that I found the relentless focus on the economy a bit boring I think. Now it has gone to the other extreme. The rainbow lanyard a shiny bauble , a consolation prize for losing everything else?

Any road ...now I have , ahem , woken up and rediscovered the centrality of class.

Me

Much as I would love to give Labour the finger, I am very fearful of waking up the next morning to realise I've helped to enable a hung parliament.

If keeping the likes of Ed Davey out of the cabinet office means voting Labour again then I guess that's what I will have to do. I will be paying close attention not only to manifestos but to opinion polls, flawed and misleading as they are.

ramped up online anti hate speech laws

That is something to keep a very close eye on. I mean, there may be little we can do, but I present Scotland's Hate Crime Bill as a salutary object lesson.

Re Matt Walsh - I disagree with him on lots of things (I can’t say “everything” because I don’t know everything he thinks/says/does) but enjoy listening to him on the subject of gender. I’d never post links to his work to support anything I was saying though.

The more the merrier, afaic, on the gender critical front. If anything, the gender debate has made me more likely to listen to people whose politics oppose mine. In the Brexit debate I read/listened to nobody but Remainers.

What were the identity politics in the early 80s? I have always thought of identity politics as a distraction from the true main source of inequity: economic disadvantage.

I might have missed things as I'm a bit younger than you but, in my mind, the 80s were the last decade that there was a real political focus on economic class - albeit in a negative 'smash the miners' way. I'm really interested to hear that current identity politics may have roots that far back.

@MavisMcMinty

I wouldn't call Matt Walsh gender critical. As a conservative Christian he believes both in the existence of sex but also in rigid gender roles. There is a Venn diagram of the overlapping treatment of sex and gender between GC, TRA and conservative approaches, I'll attach if I can.

As for his other opinions, I agree with some, not with others, but he can be quite forthright and abraisive in his presentation!

I like a bit of forthright and abrasive, tend towards them both myself.

Me too. Always considered myself a safw left wing Labour voter. I feel very conflicted ahead of the next general election... My view on sex vs gender and TWAW doesn't align at all with current Labour stance. And I feel strongly about it enough to feel unable to support the party with a vote. But I also don't believe in not voting and the only thing I have certainty on is I'm no Tory voter!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Sometimes it seems that I am called a communist in the morning and far right in the afternoon.

As for far right, the algorithms of YouTube has brought up lots of conservative GC American blacks. They don't seem far right to me.

My experience of this was the early transsexuals, those who had surgery and really, really wanted to be women. I think they did, on the whole believe that they had a disorder that would be "cured" by surgery. The gay village in Manchester had a lot of transvestites who went clubbing and used the ladies loos. What they did during the day I don't know. I do know that the young "right on" lefty women, like me, thought we were being kind by not objecting, we messed that up!

My vote is always futile in this Tory safe seat, with its entirely absent MP who’s apparently more concerned with his work helping the British Virgin Island avoid taxes (or somesuch). He has a 25,000 majority and in the last two GEs Labour and LibDem got 10K each. I am not hopeful, even though neighbouring Tiverton and Honiton had a massive 25K Tory majority overturned in last year’s by-election.

The gay village in Manchester had a lot of transvestites who went clubbing and used the ladies loos

That's interesting Dumbo12. Do you think they were gay or straight transvestites? During my v misspent youth in the late 90s I remember frequenting a central London gay club with loads of (gay, I assume ) drag queens. I don't think they did use the ladies loos. I imagine they were far more interested by who was using the men's!

And at university in the 00s I studied with an elderly (to my mind at the time anyway) post op transexual transwoman who I also don't think used the ladies (art course, we were there all day every day, I think I'd have noticed). They were extremely frank about being trans. This current movement seems a world away.

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.

I think this goes part of the way but falls significantly short of the issue.

It’s not just a change society or change the individual choice.

Contemporary TRAs want to change the whole of society to fit around an individual’s self re-categorisation. It is a highly individualist approach but it very much wants the whole of society to reorient and change to accommodate individualistic (to the point of solipsistic) notions of gender identity.

Everyone has to act as if a person is the opposite sex, and all the institutions and organising principles in society need to conform to that aim. Because the worst possible outcome is an individual being made aware that they haven’t actually changed sex.

Me too, 100%! I find though that even the most left leaning people I know, particularly women, are actually gc too. It's not that unusual, it almost feels like an intentional act on RW side to Co opt GC just to try and grab womens votes?!

I would like to feel there is some change of heart in the Labour party as I feel they are scarily on the electoral back foot on this issue and it galls me to think that the conservative government are the standard bearers for GC policy.

I think ultimately being GC at the local level would ultimately lead to be frozen out the party and your chances of finding safe local or constituency seats would disappear. I therefore think any GC Labour member (and there are probably many) would keep silent to limit any career damage. Although GC views are protected by law I don't think this would make much difference with internal party politics.

I wonder if it is the case that TRAs would be more likely to confront left wing politicians than right as in some strange way it would be more of a betrayal for a left winger to GC than right leaning person? (e.g.JKR v Kemi Bedinoch)

Yes. Labour need to be clear what their stance is.

I wonder if it is the case that TRAs would be more likely to confront left wing politicians than right as in some strange way it would be more of a betrayal for a left winger to GC than right leaning person? (e.g.JKR v Kemi Bedinoch)

I think you’re right. I think the Labour Party conference will tell us a lot about how the wind is blowing