Brighton shows why you shouldn’t vote Labour - Julie Burchill (and a mention of IamSarah)

[IwantToRetire]

The pleas of many local parents to rid our schools of pesty wokeness have fallen on deaf ears. Classrooms have become petri dishes for social experiments in defiance of parental wishes. Is it really possible that, a few years ago, one school in Brighton, labelled as ‘the coolest state secondary in town’, once had as many as 40 children who did not identify with their sex at birth with another 36 saying they were ‘gender fluid’? Or is this social contagion, as eating disorders are now often understood to be, among sad teenagers desperate to identify as something or anything, rather than feel lonely? Whatever it is, the council are hindering rather than helping these confused adolescents. Sometimes it seems as though there is an almost sadistic element to the way right-on teachers torment distraught parents. Isn’t it odd to send people who think diversely off for re-education, or re-‘training’?

And another thing, after boasting that ‘diversity is strength’, isn’t it odd to send people who think diversely off for re-education, or re-‘training’? This is what the Sainted Bella did after Councillor Alison Thomson retweeted posts supporting JK Rowling and the feminist Germaine Greer. Even though the culprit apologised unreservedly, Chairman Sankey frowned, ‘I have also taken the decision to remove Councillor Thomson from her lead role on city centre renewal while further investigation is carried out and subject to her completing training.’ Because nothing says not being qualified to work on renewing city centres like believing in women’s rights.

But not even the re-training of the hapless Thomson was enough for one Green councillor, Chloe Goldsmith. She asked how Labour would ‘meaningfully demonstrate’ to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, questioning/queer, asexual plus (LGBTIQA+) people that the party would stand up for them. This brought another avalanche of woo-woo affirmation from Labour, with the situation continuing ad infinitum.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/brighton-shows-why-you-shouldnt-vote-labour/

Oh for goodness sake. I'm gender critical but the Spectator is a stuffy hate rag and what the Tories are currently doing to this country is horrendous.
The answer is not keeping Labour out. Yes they are not perfect and I wish they'd rethink their views on this matter but this isn't the only important thing to think about when it comes to policies.
Fuck the Spectator with all its racism. Think again OP.

Is the article the OP quoted itself racist?

Is there any chance this article could have been printed in a more ideologically acceptable magazine or newspaper?

Assuming the answer to both of these is "no", duck off with the guilt by association and purity standards and try engaging with the substance of the piece instead.

Perfect demonstration in first response.

It's a hate rag, think what you should be thinking.

Yes m'lord. I'll say 5 hail mary's. Amen.

"I'm gender critical but"
It's a bit early in the morning for Mumsnet gender bingo. Come back when I've had my coffee

Yeah, this.

Which papers brought GC issues to the public's attention, and helped stop rapists in women's jails, men in women's sports etc? Was it the Guardian, Indy and Mirror? Nope, it was the Spectator, Times and Telegraph. (Honourable mention for the New Statesman, but only while Helen Lewis was editor)

You do you, but I'd rather not wait for ideological purity while my rights are being given away. Janice Turner's take-down of Maria Miller in the - gasp - Murdoch rag that is the Times, single-handedly stopped the self-ID being made law, IMO. I'll take that over tumbleweed from the Guardian.

And yet the OP is linking to an article telling people not to vote Labour.
I'll vote for who I want to vote for m'lord.

I don't understand how you can turn a blind eye to the other articles published in the spectator just because they also back a cause you back. I don't think I could ever read the Spectator as it happily publishes Rod Liddle articles.
I don't think I'll ever forgive the Tories as most of them voted against equal marriage. What about austerity, the destruction of public services and the NHS, the pressure on teachers etc etc.
Maybe I'm being to black and white but I'll fight the GC fight without siding with the right thank you very much.

“Because nothing says not being qualified to work on renewing city centres like believing in women’s rights.”

This sentence will have leaped out at anyone who’s read Invisible Women. Town and city planning is designed around men’s lives and world view. Such as transport systems focused on a single direct commute to and from work, rather than multiple journeys involving childcare and other responsibilities, designs which make women feel less safe etc.

I don't think I'll ever forgive the Tories as most of them voted against equal marriage

This is factually incorrect because Cameron brought it in, whereas Labour actively avoided it and brought in the GRA instead. Precisely so they didn't have to equalise marriage. That's the truth, like it or not that is the history there.

@Dinoland

It's not "turning a blind eye" to agree with one article from a news source whilst disagreeing with others.

This is exactly what's becoming more and more concerning in politics - the oversimplified, black-and-white thinking, tribal nature of it all.

Personally I can't vote labour whilst they continue to be blinded by this ideology and contribute to dismantling my rights as a female and pushing children down a path of lies and life long health problems. I can't agree with that. And they don't have diversity of thinking on this so if I vote for them I'm endorsing it. For the same reasons (but different issues) I cannot vote Tory. It's all too black-and-white. Labour have been letting the people down for a long time now, forgetting their roots, and this is the icing on their self-serving, self-destructive cake.

Ah I see reading an article in the spectator is “siding with the right”

hyperbole much?

Some of us will never forget that Penny Mordaunt - now considered a front runner for the post-Sunak Tories - was the original architect of Self-ID in England, and that she fought tooth & nail against the original GC feminists to ram Self ID through into law. Or that there have been many Tories on the backbenches who approved of Self ID and have been railing against "TERFs" and "transphobes" for as long as this fight has been going.

Genderism is deeply sexist and regressive. It appeals to sexists on both left and right, which is why women on both left and right have united to push back. The idea that suddenly the Tories (or even more hilariously, Reform) are going to our knights in shining armour on any of this is pretty naive.

Vote for the party that makes the most sense to you, but accept that you'll have to fight them on this topic no matter what. At least then you won't be disappointed.

you mustn’t vote Tory because you don't like some of their policies.

you must Vote labour even though you disagree with some of their policies.

I don't understand how you can turn a blind eye to the other articles published in the spectator just because they also back a cause you back.

Because thankfully I’m a sentient adult with a brain between my ears, and who can cope with a magazine saying something I disagree with as well as it saying things I do agree with. Maybe it does us good to hear both sides of an argument, @Dinoland, have you thought of that?

And because I don’t indulge in tribal nonsense or call magazines “hate rags” or think that everything the Tories do is “evil” or whatever. Black and white thinking like @Dinoland demonstrates just lacks any kind of nuance.

And I’ll read what I like and make up my own mind about that (AND how I’ll vote) without being scolded into Right Think and Right Actions. Ironic really, given the magazine article’s content.

Ha yes

I don't think I'll ever forgive the Tories as most of them voted against equal marriage.

What about Labour who laid the foundations for the GRA by FAILING to bring in gay marriage?

There used to be a fancy Latin term for attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument - "ad hominem" (at the person).

I've realised that that's actually kind of old fashioned - these days people often don't even bother attacking the person making the argument.

You just save time and effort by having a go where at where they're making the argument. So "ad locum" (at the place)?

Agree with that, but that's also exactly why it makes no sense to reject helpful interventions from either the left or right.

Could you make your partisan campaigning here any more obvious?

If you say you’re against genderism why doesn’t the GRA, which underpins the entire system concern you?

We wouldn’t be here without that law

Could I care less what you think?

I agree on the reading a wide range of spices point MissLucy, but the article in question is about not voting Labour because if you do your constituency will turn into Brighton. This has been immediately turned into a not-so-subtle Vote Tory opportunity.

Honestly, I've been on MN for nearly 20 years and ever since Brexit the political campaigning here has become absolutely fevered. The feminist board used to be a rare exception, but at the moment you can't move for someone trying to turn our righteous anger at genderism's capture of parties and institutions into a vote for Their Side.

It's an election year, we can expect it all to ramp up.

I mean some would say feminism itself is political...

The GRA does concern me, so whoever gets in at the next election will need a lot of lobbying to repeal it - and I don't for one second think any party is going to prioritise it.

I can see some are getting quite rattled for getting called out on this. Please, enough of trying to shout me down for not being a card-carrying lobbyist.