Starmer furious that Sunak should mention his definition of ‘woman’

[HagoftheNorth]

PMQ’s today, Sunak highlighted Starmer’s famous comments that some women have a penis. Starmer was furious that Sunak should make that comment while Mrs Ghey was in the chamber. Surely Starmer should realise that it is possible to be respectful and compassionate about trans people without parroting the insane lie that transwomen are women (because ‘woman’ is sex not gender)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68229785

Thank you for sharing that. It sounds like neurodiversity made Brianna vulnerable. I was not discussing Brianna though, to be clear, I was discussing the misinformation that trans people are the most vulnerable. Trans people can, of course, have other vulnerabilities.

Hypocrisy.

Vulnerable children seek out a trans identity. They’re not vulnerable because they have sought out a trans identity.

JFC.🙄

I blame the nincompoops who are telling people they can change sex.

Of course they are. There are people who want to be violent towards and kill transgender people because they are transgender. As clearly demonstrated by Eddie Ratcliffe. To say there isn’t vulnerability is absurd.

And why we should be talking about safeguarding.

You can't talk about safeguarding if you are so fragile you get offended about everything.

The very fact that someone under 18 is saying they are the opposite sex is a red flag. And they should be treated as very vulnerable.

That doesn't mean pandering to the idea that you can change sex. Because you can't. And helping to pretend to very vulnerable kids that you can, isn't going to end well for anyone.

The murder is irrelevant in some ways too. It's all the other issues and harms that matter for all those kids that don't get murdered.

Men can't become women and vice versa. Only men can be transwomen and only women can be trans men.

It's factual. If you are going to spontaneously combust at stating factual stuff, then honestly you need a bunch of help not pandering to.

Not really.

Often when women are talking about the need for privacy and dignity in female only spaces and give concrete examples of trans identified men who have violated those boundaries for their own gratification - such as Lia Thomas walking around with Thomas's penis out in the changing room upsetting the female swimmers; or the known sex offender who entered a women only spa and exposed himself to the women and children there causing great upset ( the staff and other customers referred to them as 'transphobes' and said they were "rude to stare at someone's genitals";

........or the TW, in Scotland, who recently kidnapped an 11 year old girl, held her hostage for days and sexually assaulted her; or the TW who expected women to wax their genitals and then took them to court when they refused..........and so on....

Women are told that they should not use a " few bad apples" to excuse feeling cautious or suspicious of a whole group -and that it is "transphobic" to even report on such events.

No, the judge actually stated that it was a factor look at the sentencing statements. The boy involved was very clear on his transphobia.

Exactly. But either way the language and sensitivity that should be applied to trans children is lacking. They should be treated first and foremost as children.

I 💯 support her Mum's call for social media restrictions. Boys, girls, trans kids are all being targeted with disturbing content. That's where the focus should be right now not adults fighting with each other over whose side they're on.

Any other time is fine. I think the endless carping about penises harms Sunak more than Starmer. Its pretty boring to be honest.
Yesterday's episode shows Sunak has very poor judgement. It makes you realise why he had to bring DC back to deal with the global leaders. Imagine the kind of mess we could get into if Sunaks lack of judgement caused him to say something stupid in those situations.

@Startingagainandagain

I believe debate is important and people should be able to express their views openly but compassion, respect and dignity also needs to be present.

In an ideal world, yes. But at what point does respect turn into obfuscation, and compassion into turning a blind eye? Your statement sums up the crux of the matter for me. Out of compassion for gender dysphoric males we embedded laws and policies into our society that play pretend with the truth and materially disadvantage women. We made promises to young people that just can’t be kept, i.e. that they can literally change sex, and no one will ever notice or mind.

It’s really hard to tell a sad, sweet, young person that they just can’t have what they dream of, especially when you have lots of other adults insist that yes, you can!

On another note, the cold contempt women have received from politicians when pointing out the various problems with self-ID makes me doubt that there is much genuine compassion or respect among our political class. Which is probably to be expected, it’s a dirty business after all.

Quite.

There is a whole load of issues here about vulnerable autistic kids and the internet. And placing vulnerable autistic kids in unsuitable environments with kids with a history of bullying and violent conduct.

Yet what is focused on is trans.

You are missing the point if you are berating people for saying men can't be women.

No. There was one person who as part of already deciding to kill someone anyway came out with some transphobic comments in a conversation with his fellow killer. The murder of children with a transgender identity is incredibly rare.

It’s absurd to pretend that in the great volume of trans identifying children it isn’t dominated by children who had pre existing vulnerabilities.

The language here is blunt, but it's accurate. For years and years activists have been proclaiming that people with a trans identity are the most oppressed group in the UK and worldwide and that they are murdered at a higher rate than other groups. People who have studied the crime statistics have pointed out that this is not true in the UK and probably not true in most other parts of the world either. In the UK people with a trans identity appear to be in a particularly safe demographic. Meanwhile, at least two women a week are murdered in the UK. We have horrific levels of crime involving knives and young people. As others have commented on this thread. news stories about the victims of these crimes get far less coverage than the Brianna Ghey trial has done. What happened to Brianna was terrible, and we all feel sympathy for the family. But it doesn't change the fact that Brianna was the first person with a trans identity to be murdered in the UK for some years. We shouldn't make and change laws and policies as a kneejerk response to a highly emotional event. Lawmakers need to be rational and considered.

As for PMQs having once upon a time not having been a bearpit - not in my lifetime, and I'm 62. It's always been a shouting match, aimed at political point scoring and not much else.

This is an important issue which should be discussed even if within the same week as the trial and sentencing of Brianna's murderers.Brianna's mother was in parliament, in part, to discuss the harms of social media access for the vulnerable.

Lots of examples have been given of how bad for mental health social media can be for young people, and how tik tok use, in particular, can cause huge anxiety for young people - and yet when internet safeguarding is spoken about nobody mentions the mutitude of sites and accounts which nurture a belief in gender identity and encourage vulnerable young people to transition. The accounts on which influencers show off their mastectomy scars are akin to pro-ana sites in which girls post images of their weight loss, for example.

The promotion of the idea of almost inevitable suicide if one is told one cannot transition and so on. The TV footage shown of Brianna prior to the trial most often featured Brianna posing and pouting for Tik Tok......looking for compliments on great they looked or maybe how well they passed and so on.

Yes safeguarding fail

No doubt the fact that Brianna stood out as unusual was fascinating for someone who was already subconsciously looking out for potential targets.

I didn’t deny it. I said it! It’s right there in the words I wrote. But one person’s transphobia as part of one murder does not mean that children go from being not vulnerable to vulnerable when they assume a trans identity. They go from vulnerable to vulnerable.

This thread is depressing. No amount of pointing out the objective facts - people just repeat the new social media ‘truths’.

I’m not interested in defending sunak, or the general toxicity that is PMQ, but it really was Starmer who decided to use Brianna Ghey’s family to score political points there. He didn’t need to bring the family up. The mother was not in the room. He saw an opportunity to use her to land a blow regardless.

And the media saw fit to make a huge fuss and interview the family about this etc. At no point did Starmer or the many journalists eager to get a quote from the family about how bad they feel seem to think about whether this was a decent way to treat anyone. There was no need to drag ghey’s family into this at all.

But who cares about what actually happened? The story has grown and changed shape on social media so now it’s positioned as nasty transphobes cheering on evil sunak are he purposefully taunts (in her face) the mother of a child murdered because they were trans. People aren’t interested in what actually happened and just repeat these new alternative facts again and again with no interest at all in what happened.

Neither politician covered themselves in glory - but Starmer was the one who dragged the ghey family into it. He didn’t have. The media reporting of it is largely awful too. Journalists have presented it to sound like the mother was there and sought to amplify the drama as a result.

He made a poor choice in David Cameron that is for sure. 'Nice' and diplomatic, but not too bright, and with poor judgement.

I'd say it's depressing too but for different reasons.
The fact that humans now think their right to shout distorted facts at each other comes above respect to a grieving family.
The fact that people can make assertions about whether or not a victim was vulnerable without apparently knowing anything about the case.
It's disgusting to be honest.

Calling for politicians to be gagged because of the imagined views of someone who isn't there, isn't going to end well. Next stop: ending Parliamentary privilege?