Will Labour introduce Self ID & curb free speech?

[Heylo]

I’ve never voted Tory, but as a lesbian woman who plans to have children (and obviously as a woman!) I am and will be part of the three groups most affected by Gender Ideology; women, lesbian and soon I hope a Mother. I am really worried about what happens when Labour takes power. The Tories have been rubbish no arguments there but at least they are finally moving against the steam rolling of Gender Ideology. I’m thinking Labour are not that fiscally different to the Tories and have said they will not cap bankers bonuses and they don’t intend to increase public spending in a significant way.

Really concerned about more gender identity clinics popping up under Labour and Keir Starmer possibly curbing free speech via so - called hate laws (in the feminist circle i run in we all agree this is a euphemism for silencing women about men in female prisons, rape shelters and other areas where women are vulnerable).

wonder what everyone else thinking?

What is the realistic alternative to prisons? Genuine question. How would that work? I can't imagine someone like that piece of shit Cousens doing community service.

That was in reply to this post:

PP82 · Yesterday 14:28

Hilary Cass has been 'captured' by you lot.

Children should be free to socially transition at school without their parents knowledge. It should be a place where they can explore their identities without parental interference

My response is:

Do you really think children grow up in a vacuum that means that, so long as their parents do not interfere with them, they will remain uninterfered with?

PP82 paints a grim picture of a potential Labour win but considering (if I am remembering correctly) that PP82 is not resident in the UK, they want a stateless society with no prisons, and they have not provided any evidence of their assertion that Labour intend to criminalise people for stating biological fact, I think we can take his / hers / they’s opinion with a pinch of salt.

If you think toilets are more important than women dying giving birth or being murdered by serving Police Officers, then yes i call BS.

The report yesterday made it clear there is nothing stopping another Cousins being recruited.
Don't you find that even a tiny bit more important?

This is why the trans issues don't cut through with a majority of women, intelligent enough to see what is really happening.

We have a form of self ID right now, 1000s of GRC have been handed out over recent years or by the back door as you put it.

I'm entitled to my opinion, same as you are, i don't take offence that you call me arrogant etc or who you vote for, you'll be in the minority.

Well, i can't put down everything!!! people don't read long posts.

I happen to agree with you, my argument though is "Why is Labour blamed for this?"

Its time after time, vote Tory to save womens rights..... completely ignoring the destruction that is still happening under Sunak.

Hunt is openly offering tax cuts, funded by public service cuts.. who will be disproportionately affected by these? clue: not men.

GC women on here are silent.

If you think toilets are more important than women dying giving birth or being murdered by serving Police Officers, then yes i call BS.

This is your false assumption. Concern for one thing does not preclude concern over others.

It was also your false assumption ‘That it is all about toilets”. It isn’t.

So what is the rest, the things other than toilets that some people here are concerned about? There are thousands of pages here about those.

Re: Why are Labour blamed for this? - Because it's a question of ideology. Labour politicians on average seem to have a greater level of belief and support for gender ideology & Tories less so. If gender is your number one voting issue then you are less likely to vote Labour (and even less likely to vote green/SNP etc)

Of course people weigh that up against the other pros and cons of each party. I've read hundreds of posters here who have said they would rather vote labour but can't because of this one issue.

If someone says I think Labour suck on gender/women's rights but on balance I'll vote for them, then that's fair enough for me. If they say Labour actually have the perfect line on gender I'll probably debate them and question that, but of course they still have the right to disagree/ignore me.

Whilst I applaud that particular poster for their candid honesty, I'm also looking at the other energetic Righteous prophets. There's a lot of obfuscatory outraged squirrel-pointing, deliberate misdirection, and triumphant posturing about the irrelevance of the ghastly soon-to-be-dead goose-stepping hags. But sometimes the unspoken itself speaks volumes: no actual disagreement between the Righteous Labourites about the upcoming WrongThink-crushing BadSpeech-stifling specifics that you asked about.

Thus, one must conclude that these measures (in all their specifics) are a genuinely supported aim of the Righteous posters and the inevitably victorious Glorious government.

The OP mentioned "Keir Starmer possibly curbing free speech" and yet the current government are clamping down on all sorts of avenues of protest, apart from the ones they support like the "farmers"? I know Grauniad articles aren't usually welcome here but this appears relevant:

Not on the GC threads i ve been on, i ve mentioned DV refuges and rape stats and no one has ever agreed with me, its always about that it will be worse under Labour and lately "Labour are to blame because they bought out the GRA..."

eh? wtf has the GRA got to do with public service funding? or the collapse of the justice system?

The GC posters ignore or have a go at me, as they have now.

No Labour don't have the perfect line, in fact, at times its utterly ridiculous BUT as i ve said before (many times) i will reserve judgement until i see their manifesto.

I don't need to wait for the Tories one because i can see what their 14 years in Govt has given us all.

This has nothing to do with toilets.

What's to stop another Wayne Cousins from identifying as a women, obtaining a GRC in prison and moving to the female prison estate.

If this 'legal woman' then is ever released into society then which refuge does this legal woman/ man get released into?

I have an autistic daughter, one of the demographic who are identifying as male and modifying their bodies in support of this, under Labour the suggestion is that if I seek psychological help or potentially even sensory processing help to assist her to understand that her issues won't be solved by adopting an identity, I and the medical experts could be guilty of 'conversion therapy'.

Women could be criminalised for even raising concerns.

Labour supporters want people to think this is just about toilets. Total nonsense. It's about controlling society in favour of the male.

Women are talking about this, Women are being silenced by Labour. Just look at what they did when KJK wanted to speak in a event with the conservative party.

After 14 years of seeing the harms done to women why are Labour doubling down?

They could do lots of good things and say they also want to end this mess created by the legislation they introduced last time they were in power. Otherwise one might assume that men being in women's single sex spaces were never unintended consequences at all.

I'm advocating for that. If they can do that they will win my vote.

@lifeturnsonadime
Women could be criminalised for even raising concerns

Really? is this in their manifesto?

Labour supporters want people to think this is just about toilets. Total nonsense. It's about controlling society in favour of the male

To be clear, i'm not really a Labour supporter, i'm quite a bit more left than they are.
I lived in Scandinavia and i liked their way of doing things.

So no i don't think its all about toilets, but thats what many GC's on here will make it or why aren't they complaining about the destruction of WRs over the last decade or so?

Look at the OP ? "i'm really concerned about more GRC clinics popping up..."
wtf? Boris reduced the fee to £5 and the NHS has opened up many more.... but instead its Labour that will do this, honestly it so transparent.

I don't think Lab are doubling down, people like Jess P will fight tooth n nail to get better funding for DVs and to increase prosecutions for men convicted, she also wants better preventative measures.
Its Lab highlighting these murders.

Women could be criminalised for even raising concerns

Really? is this in their manifesto?

The commitment to a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban is in the draft policy document, which will form the basis of the manifesto. Many parents are concerned that yes, this will criminalise them if they attempt to source non-affirming therapy. Labour need to be clear about how a ban would work in practice

Labour have announced they will change the Gender Recognition Act to make it easier for people to transition, and will remove the annulment clause that allows the partner to leave.
They have also announced they will 'update' The Equality Act in favour of trans people.
Experience from other countries demonstrates this will lead to material harm to women, including mixed sex prisons.

IDK how they can make their intentions any clearer. They have no right to hold women's rights to ransom, and we shouldn't be expected to make way for other 'more important' issues.

So no i don't think its all about toilets, but thats what many GC's on here will make it or why aren't they complaining about the destruction of WRs over the last decade or so?

You seem to be struggling with the concept that many 'GCs' aren't just 'complaining about' the destruction of WRs, they are actively working on the ground to protect them, while also raising concerns about the removal of single-sex services & spaces. Indeed the 2 are often intricately entwined.

So why don't they just go the whole hog then and reverse the harms done?

You mention Jess Phillips, but why single her out? She's actually toed the line and hasn't ever openly disagreed with Nandy's statement that trans rapists should be in women's prisons, for example.

Jess Philips hasn't said (as far as I know) that women's refuges will exclude males with a GRC that give the legal sex of female. So what is a woman's refuge? They don't exist solely for females. They will be mixed sex .

Jess Phillips does seem to acknowledge that there is a difference between woman sex and woman gender. But if we have a category of men with a woman legal sex it's all meaningless.

If Labour make correctly sexing a person a hate crime then that is one way how women might be criminalised for calling a man a man. Keir Starmer has hinted to the LGBTQ community that that is what they will introduce. Women are right to be concerned about this. As far as I know no one in the LP has apologised to Rosie Duffield for the way she has been treated .Why should common or garden women expect to be treated well when they treat female MPs with such disdain

I mean I've just read my post back and it's fucking word salad.

This is where we are at. Words are meaningless. Who wins? The men who want to be in women's single sex spaces.

You want to abolish the police? Yeh, right...like they tried in Portland but instead ended up having to increase police funding because of escalating crime?

What I want is to retain meaningful single sex exemptions - nothing to do with 'gender'. I'm sick of the concept of gender identity. I don't personally buy into it and I certainly don't think such a concept should take precedence over the reality of sex in situations currently covered by the equality act.

What you are calling 'the patriarchy' is male pattern behaviours and the way they are prioritised or given free reign at the expense of women and girls. Given that nobody can change sex and male pattern behaviours remain even after transition - then TW are also part of 'the patriarchy'. Prioritising male needs for aproval or validation over the comfort and dignity of the female sex is further cementing male privilege.

Many TW freely report they prostituted themselves ( to men) in order to pay for their surgeries and treatment. In fact most of the murders of TW are of those involved in selling sex in South America. You won't find many TM saying or doing that - if any at all.

Your the only one referring to gay men as "dirty" and women as "pure" -not me.

There’s a lot of whataboutary going on in this thread. “Why are you worried about free speech and self ID when you should be worried about DV and rape stats”.

I thought I’d leave this quote from Naomi Cunningham here because it sums this tactic up so well…

“That is the rhetorical manoeuvre generally known as whataboutery, which is to say you are not allowed to care about this important thing until you have fixed all these other important things too. Of course those things are important, but I also think that it is important that women should have the right to ordinary everyday privacy and dignity. Not just women from particular faith backgrounds where it is especially distressing for them to be expected to undress in the presence of men or use a toilet in the presence of men, not just women who have been traumatised by rape or other sexual violence, but all women are entitled to their own boundaries. I do think that is important, and I am not going to be deterred from saying that is important by saying do you agree that lots of other things are important too. Yes; many, many things are important.”

@lifeturnsonadime

As far as I know no one in the LP has apologised to Rosie Duffield for the way she has been treated .Why should common or garden women expect to be treated well when they treat female MPs with such disdain

This is a really important point. One of the things that sparked discontent among some female Labour members was finding themselves on a list of 'transphobes' drawn up by fellow party activists. Activists who have a direct influence on LP policy. My particular 'crime' was a couple of fairly anodyne comments in a LP FB group regarding all women shortlists, putting forward the pretty (up until then) mainstream view that women were disadvantaged in politics by factors connected to their sex, whether that was socialisation, education, expectation that they would be the main carers of their children etc etc, rather than because they 'identified' as women and that therefore AWS weren't an appropriate mechanism to support transgender people within the party. I was quite happy to be disagreed with, to talk through alternative positions, to consider what support might be appropriate for trans people, but the response was instead to say 'this person is beyond the pale'. It was disproportionate, and frankly authoritarian. I think it's perfectly reasonable for women who have been on the receiving end of this treatment by people who are still very active within the party to be cautious about who they give their vote to. We have seen what the LP does rather than only wondering about what they might do.

Edit: I'd add if you don't think you will ever find yourself 'on a list' or be on the receiving end of legislation that curbs freedom of expression, then you are extremely naïve

It's quite possible and even likely that both Labour and the Conservatives are dealing with what are admittedly complex balancing acts.

Privacy v the public interest, freedom of speech v protection, equity v fairness, etc. (I'm not setting up dichotomies here, these are blunt categories to illustrate that many issues are difficult to reconcile).

The Online Safety Bill may offer some protection for vulnerable teenagers, for example, but may also hamper our ability to read widely. It's tricky.

On many issues Labour's policies are going to be barely different than Conservatives.

ghastly soon-to-be-dead goose-stepping hags

I don't know if MN will allow usernames that long tbh

Well, as thats addressed at me....

Because public toilets are like hens teeth, the Tories have had them closed down, so funding for loo's is "have mixed sex or none"

Same with single sex wards, who is going to provide the staff for these? the land? the buildings? the additional med equipment? planning constraints.. even parking!

So we have choices, spend money on toilets and single sex wards OR spend money on the justice system, DV's, Police...
& its not even about money, my DD worked in the NHS, staff shortages are horrendous, people are leaving faster than they can be replaced, even with massive numbers of immigrant AHPs (and that brings its own issues too ie training and language)

Normal people cannot afford to pay higher taxes for all that we might want.

So its certainly NOT about dismissing concerns about free speech and self ID etc or even Whataboutery but when the economy is so shattered, spending priorities and timescales matter.

In some respects, the opportunity to have all single spaces has gone & we voted for it, thats what really pisses me off.