Health Secretary Victoria Atkins: ‘The Labour Party is writing women out of our vocabulary’

[IwantToRetire]

What gets her most impassioned is the topic of women – and what she sees as attempts to eradicate their place in society.

Most recently, an NHS trust provoked fury after saying that <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/Bm1bq/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/18/trans-womens-milk-as-good-as-breast-milk-says-nhs-trust/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">breast milk produced by trans women who were assigned male at birth is as good for babies as that produced by a mother who has given birth.

Before that, the health service was found to be using the term “chestfeeding” in place of breastfeeding.

“I’m a mum – I find it extraordinary that a trust thought this was an appropriate use of their time,” she says, suggesting that such services would do better to concentrate on tackling long gynaecology waits.

“I’m very comfortable and clear that I am a woman and I would like my rights as a woman to be protected. And they will be protected by the Conservatives.”

She is most scathing of all about Labour’s approach to women, suggesting that a “Left-wing mindset” is creeping into the NHS.

“That is why we need to be making this robust case to refuse to wipe women out of the conversation,” she says.

Sir Keir Starmer <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/Bm1bq/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/07/26/keir-starmer-woman-is-adult-female-labour-hardens-stance/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">famously struggled to define a woman, settling on the statement that 99.9 per cent of women do not have a penis, as the party became embroiled in trans rows.

Last year, then-health secretary Steve Barclay promised the return of “sex-specific” language to the NHS after references to women were expunged from its advice on the menopause and diseases such as cervical and ovarian cancer.

But many trusts have resisted the shift, routinely referring to “people who give birth” while some have referred to “birthing parents”. Atkins can barely contain her outrage.

“When I see reports of mothers as ‘people who give birth’! No – they are mums. I find it deeply concerning that there are parts of the Labour Party and the Left who seem to think that women can just be written out of our vocabulary.”

“Half the population are women. Of course the NHS should use the word ‘woman’,” she adds.

These paragraphs are just a small part of quite a long article in the Telegraph but thought they would be of interest https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/23/health-sec-victoria-atkins-interview-mothers-nhs-trans/

She also talks about women and prisons and abortion being decriminalised. Full article can be read at https://archive.ph/Bm1bq

We are not America, ‘evangelical Christian’ does not mean ‘right wing’. Many are firmly left wing.

The UK Conservative Party are the ‘right wing’ of UK politics but often sit to the left of the American ‘left wing’ Democratic Party.

Posters need to think who will be pressing Labour and winning

It won’t be women.. lesbian or otherwise

@SaffronSpice I think they used to. Not now.
Think Miriam Cates. Liz Truss making friends with Bannon, Suella Braverman etc.

I only live in the UK. So really the agenda in the States is not relevant except I do see some members of the Tory party engaging with people like Steve Bannon and Trump. I'm never going to be too happy on that though I don't think either have really engaged on trans issues. Over there, it is all about groomers. I can just about remember that one for gay and lesbians, we we're predators after children.

But left wing evangelical Christians I have definitely not seen! I recall much more finger wagging from these people on a woman's place and they have been against homosexuality in my experience. Loudly

With this line of thinking you’ll give men everything

Transgender males will impact policy. Lesbians will be last on the list with women.

Weird thinking when Labour have so many more female MPs than the Tories do.

Fundamental question is the Tories record in Govt.

Its shockingly bad when it comes to womens rights, maternity, rape, single sex spaces.

Try as hard they might, they cannot escape this.

Much as I have little time for evangelical Christians, they aren't the only religious people who have a problem with homosexuality.

Maybe she should spend less time worrying about what the party in opposition is doing and more time and effort into what her party the CURRENT government are doing. Then we might get somewhere. All talk no action.

Our laws are not created by them in any case we have legal same sex marriage

Our law does underpin males legally certified as females - the GRA

Males when allowed will demand more

Lesbians will not get a look in. It will be men demanding more from Labour, it already is if people read up.

And going by Labour spokesperson they’ve said ok

There are plenty of people in the Conservative Party, including the more actually conservatives ones, who have a pretty mainstream view on gay and lesbian issues.

However, it's also reductive to reduce the "correct" ideas about homosexuality to a kind of left wing tick-box. There is a lot of variation in POV among those communities themselves, even on things like SS marriage - maybe especially on same sex marriage. I would also say there are many who have quite conservative views about how sexuality should be dealt with in school settings. (We'll ignore that there are even fair few very conservative religious people who are gay or lesbian and remain celibate because they are apparently beyond the pale.)

The tick box approach to policy is so problematic because you get things like "So and so voted against this pro-woman bill, therefore must be anti-woman" - where there may be half a dozen reasons why the bill itself was poorly crafted or would have other problematic effects. And of course reasonable people of good will can often disagree about the best way to accomplish goals, or even in some cases what the best goals are.

These are the same things that have made the gender debate so impossible, I hate to see people realizing that it is toxic in that context, but continuing to use it in other policy areas.

And as for evangelical Christians and politics - religion doesn't map onto secular politics all that well, so no, you can't make too many assumptions. Evangelical can mean a lot of differernt things, too.

Certainly not! It's actually hard to name a religion that is accepting. They are nearly all patriarchal methods of woman management

I know a couple who are left-wing evangelical Christians, they run a charity near where I live which offers a food bank and support to vulnerable people in the community. It is very overtly a Christian charity but is known locally for being very fair to all their clients. A local LGBT charity actually recommends them, they've had quite a few informal referrals from there.

I talked to the couple about all this once and they told me that in both their view, any sin is between the individual and God, and not for them to judge. And that Jesus helped everyone but especially focused on vulnerable people regardless of their sin. Also that many people are living in sin and there's nothing special about homosexual sex in that regard, they see it as just like sex outside of marriage. Interestingly they both consider that the state shouldn't have any role in marriage at all, even for heterosexual couples, that it should only be registered civil partnerships at the state level for legal reasons, and that marriages should be a religious ceremony only.

They are very anti-Tory and are concerned that Starmer will be too right-wing especially when it comes to social welfare. Which on that I very much agree with!

It was quite a fascinating conversation to be honest and upended some of my assumptions about evangelical Christians.

Ordinarily I would agree but we are seeing increasingly close relationships between British and US right wing

E.g. Liz Truss this week with Nigel Farage at a US conference, where she said the Civil Service was being run by transactivists and the right need a "bigger bazooka" to get rid of the left.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13117307/amp/Is-Liz-Truss-eyeing-political-comeback-alongside-Nigel-Farage-Ex-PM-backs-Brexit-Party-founder-returning-Conservatives-says-work-help-turn-country-around.html

E.g the National Conservatism conference in London, sponsored by an American Christian movement, here are the speakers

https://nationalconservatism.org/natcon-uk-2023/speakers/

Also that many people are living in sin

Christians believe that everyone is sinful.

100%

Oh I meant to quote saffron re US politics

Well let's not rabbit hole on religion too much. Imo they are just mostly exercises in men controlling women and they can all get stuffed. The fact that a few women get up and handmaiden on behalf of them doesn't make them my friends.

All this is deflection from the actual threat of transgender policy to women

We are not seeing same sex marriage at threat nor abortion law changed expect in the other direction

We are seeing a party saying yes to males demanding more

As much as pro Labour posters want to ignore it. Don't moan when it happens.

No it's more like a group of vegetarians pointing out that they agree with him on this one issue and nothing else, and are vehemently opposed to his genocidal aims, so please don't tar us with the Nazi brush.

Sorry yes I think that was their point and I misquoted it, thanks. Everyone but Jesus is living in sin according to them.

You are the one who invoked Godwins law with a bad analogy. I am unclear why you did that, but the "vegetarian" analogy you used was very different to the point I was making so I was using the analogy in a more comparable way.

At no point have I implied you were a Nazi.

Okay true it wasn't the best fitting analogy but hopefully you see my point.

I don't really no. It sounded to me like you were making light of my concerns around homophobes using GC vehicles to shut down conversations around LGB as well as T. If that is not what you meant I apologise

I agree with you that anti-LGB are often anti-T as well but I wouldn't characterise these people as GC.

The reason is that I see being anti-LGB is almost always rooted in rigid views around appropriate behaviours for each sex, which is the opposite of having a GC view.

@AdamRyan I apologise for being rude earlier and implying you meant things that you didn't.