Labour Students attack on Rosie and Tonia has escalated

[fromorbit]

Thirty Three Labour student societies are attacking Rosie and Tonia for being pro-women and accusing them and the Labour leadership of "Nazi Revisionism". Read this Labour list article for details and to see the student release. "Revisionism of Nazi atrocities has no place in Labour"

https://labourlist.org/2024/01/rosie-duffield-investigation-allegations-transphobia-antisemitism-university-labour-clubs/

This puts Starmer and the Labour leadership in a bind will they openly support Rosie and Tonia who are basically just saying standard Labour policy? Will they rebuke the societies concerned? How can you go into an election with your student section claiming that the Labour party hierarchy are bigots and are Nazi revisionists?

This could also impact the Welsh leadership election Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth Labour student socs have all signed and they are claiming one of the leading Labour Welsh MPs is a a "transphobe" because she dislikes porn and for saying women's sport is important.

Get the biscuits in folks.

FWIW Tonia is my MP and is a really good constituency MP who is open to discussion with people she disagrees with and I respect her as a person and a politician. I know people who have had robust debates with her but always found her to be fair minded and open to being challenged.

I have less positive opinions of Rosie as I'm an immuno compromised woman who has a dim view of those that flouted the rules during COVID. However I think this level of anger over liking a tweet, even if you don't like the content, is a bit much. Also I like tweets sometimes because I just think they're funny or even I disagree with the point I might appreciate the logic of the argument or the time they've taken to reply.

Bitter people have gone through my tweets before and apparently I'm a traitor to the cause because I once liked a picture of a transwomans cat. To which I say get a life you absolute losers and the same goes for Labour Students.

This lot should really be concentrating on their studies, there are exams coming up.

The statement from Labour students clubs includes this quote. "brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures." So where does this claim come from and is it evidenced? (Several lost hours later I have answers).

You can find it at a favourite student source (Wikipedia) here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender_genocide. Where its expressed as: According to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Nazi German government brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures.[6] This area of research is underdeveloped and the number of transgender victims is unknown.[7][8] Heather Panter, writing in the book Genocide and Victimology, noted that the number of transgender people targeted by the Nazis was likely lower than the number of gay people targeted.[9]

So perhaps many is quite a long stretch? This link to the New York based museum is to the blub for a panel talk in which Dr. Anna Hájková, Associate Professor of Modern European Continental History at the University of Warwick spoke. (Note that Warwick Uni is one of the signatories of the student Labour clubs statement and Dr Hájková heads up the Queering University Programme). The panel talk is recorded and I was intrigued enough to listen. Its not surprising that they are talking about fragments and echoes in terms of this research. Its definitely true that Weimar Germany was a diverse and welcoming culture for all sorts of outsiders and the Nazis may have been responsible for 'wiping out vibrant community structures' which really helped the trans community live open lives (its fascinating stuff and worth exploration). This is what the panel talk was about really. There were three case studies presented by Dr Hájková and two were gay and Jewish, the other was half Jewish and not initially picked up and transported. Given what I have just written this was not the talk that perhaps was expected from the blurb. No real evidence of brutal targetting or deporting many because the people transported could well have been targetted for other reasons which are well known already.

If you are interested in work by Dr Hájková note that she was fined 4000 euros in 2000 for infringing an injunction prohibiting her from making false claims about an alleged (by her) affair between a holocaust survivor and an SS guard. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/21/court-fines-historian-over-claims-holocaust-survivor-lesbian-affair Given this experience you might expect her to be pretty keen to only publish well evidenced claims and be perhaps cautious in making claims such as that which appears in the students' statement. I wonder what she feels about that quote being used as though it was well-evidenced fact. Its sad that university students are using this as evidence. They must know better. At the very least follow the damned links.

This little rabbit warren also led me to the University of Warwick Queering University Programme website which is amazing (and not in a good way). https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/academy/activities/learningcircles/transqueerpedagogies/queeringuniversity/

The short version of the above would be that as a non-jewish, straight Aryan wealthy men like Eddie should have been pretty safe in Nazi Germany. Jewish, gay cross dressers who had to resort to prostitution were far less fortunate. No surprises.

Skimming through that University of Warwick link, strikes me once again that the gender boom has produced so many fat salaried jobs and sinecures. It's a ill wind... 😛

I don't think you understand the word 'inclusion'.

@Blankdiary my son is a constituent of Rosie and every time I bring it up (the way she has been treated) he reminds me of the covid 'noshing' debacle and the fact it was quite public knowledge there.

What struck me is that

• an award for gender equality (which previously would have been focused on sex equality, specifically women) has been awarded for something trans related

• and that the first of the two activities under the 16 days of activism banner was about male victims of domestic abuse. The 16 days of activism is about male violence against women and girls (commemorating the Montreal murder of 14 female students), not about men as victims. But rebranding it as “gender-based” takes the focus away from women. Of the men murdered related to intimate partner violence, most are killed by another man.

The other thread about semantic gentrification is relevant here too.

Did you actually just refer to Keir Starmer as 'Stammer'? 🙄

THIS. Everyone should be very worried about what could be headed our way if Labour gets in.

We're not the anti inclusion ones, it's those who worship sexist stereotypes like you do that are anti inclusion Mishy. We are happy to include all women, no matter how they identify.

Proper inclusion would be all males in male spaces without pushing out transwomen. Just think how great it would be if transwomen knew that they could use the gents and be properly included with all the other males. Think of the wonderful diversity of presentation that could be achieved if you lot stop saying that dresses and long hair go in one and trousers and short hair go in the other

I have hope for the younger generation and I think gender identity is loosing its grip but still so much damage has been done

I'm sure we've all seen the famous cache of photos of cross dressing senior Nazis. (I'm guessing that's what Glinner was referring to in the original tweet.) Izzard certainly wouldn't have been unsafe on that score, so it's all rather confusing. I was hoping that Mishy could enlighten us!

Yeah, I posted that on the other thread. Compared to the standards of the time the Nazis were very accomodating of transvestites.

I believe it goes by Butler Youth these days.

Of no real consequence

Hmm, not sure about that. Said this before, but Rosie Duffield only won the Canterbury seat after a huge and, anecdotally, aggressive mobilisation of the student vote. She won’t get that anymore. If, by some miracle, she does win it will indicate a massive swing to the left in that constituency - not completely impossible I suppose, given the shit show the Tories preside over now, but the loss of the support of the Uni votes are not inconsequential to her.

Twitler Youth,I've heard!

The youth vote is fickle anyway. Yes in Canterbury it is significant, but the Tories could survive without it for years. The fact is gender is not that important in most people's voting at the moment. Rosie is very pro Remain which is significant locally and Labour have been doing well locally in the local elections. Labour students could make an particular impact if they all vote Tory which is unlikely. Rosie is a popular local MP she gained votes in 2019 when most Labour MPs lost some. She lost the Labour students, but the local party members/trade unions backed her for reselection which is more useful.

Say Rosie loses votes from Labour students that is likely to be countered by a bunch of reliable votes from older woman who might disagree with her on other issues but appreciate her stand. Labour are on course to win in 2024 not just because of the youth vote but mainly older people who think they are a better bet than the Tories.

Anyway Rosie is an interesting case for sure. I think this another everyone hates a particular woman theory which like with JKR when you test it turns out to be nonsense.

As for the wider significance of this I checked and there 52 Labour student clubs, so while 33 are run by TRAs so half of them are not. So that is very interesting. A lot of young people think genderism has full of issues. They just won't admit it openly often because they will get swamped.

They're busy saving the world,no time for that studying nonsense.

I doubt that anyone really cares what student societies think tbh.

Student groups misconstruing things and adopting a very extreme position so they can show and have a big tantrum is hardly new.

The problem is that in the 21st century the weird cult of ‘the young = progress’ promoted by social media means that it gets more attention than it previously would have. The storm in the tea cup gets blown out of all proportion.

Oh bless Mishy! You actually think most students don’t grow up out of their daft student politics and look back on it and cringe? Here, have this for your bedroom wall.

Arguably, the people of Canterbury (the actual, permanent population) having their democratic views distorted by whatever is fashionable among students in any particular year isn’t very helpful.

If Labour and Duffield want to win in Canterbury, maybe convincing the non-student population is the key thing.

The witch hunt against Duffield is dreadful (and really shows how absolutely hypocritical and superficial the ‘we stand for inclusivity unless we don’t like you’ crowd are). But if Duffield can’t gain electoral support in her constituency beyond the student population, that’s just how these things go. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Foolish and bullying kids need to be dealt with strongly by the Labour leadership, and I say that as a Labour Party member.

Don't most uni students stay registered at their home address and vote at home? Do they really go on the electoral register at uni when they're only there for 3/4 years in large numbers? I'm not even sure how you would when your address changes every year surely it would be difficult to be on the register at the right place when an election came round?

Absolutely!

Labour need to disaffiliate from Labour students, bunch of nasty little
authoritarian bullies.

I see a tervish candidate is standing for Labour next week at a Hackney Council by election. Fingers crossed she’s elected, that’ll make the authoritarian student bullies howl.