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?

OK rhinos clearly we have both offended each other and I apologise for my part in that. We seem to be talking at massive cross purposes.

If you go back to the post you initially responded to, I said "Moderate, nuanced views" are not what is being expressed by GC Ultras (by which I mean people who refuse to use pronouns in any circumstances and insist on referring to trans people as their birth sex at all times). "Absolutist views" are what GC Ultras are insisting on, and at the root of the "I'm voting Conservative, at least they know what a woman is" nonsense."

It sounds like your views aren't the views I was referring to with "ultra" so I'd like to know more about why my use of it offended you so much?

Or do you want an entirely different set of pronouns?

BINGO!! People who want to express their feeling of mental commonality with each other (which can of course be much much more varied than the current offshoot of gender constructs) would coin a new nomenclature.

Probably useful to have a genuinely neutral pronoun as well, not the current NB 'I don't have a gender" pronouns but a general use "this person's specific identity alignment isn't known / isnt elevant to what I'm saying here"

I have, BTW, posted this many times before.

Seems ridiculous I'm sure...but 20 years ago so would the idea of male people self iding as women and being welcomed into women's sports, prisons, rape services etc. Just imagine where we'd be if all that TRA energy had gone into creating something new instead of their zero sum strategy of appropriating existing single sex resources.

As I said, I don't think.the solution to this is any sort of muddle between male and female, I think we need to think completely differently.

I think you've misunderstood my position.

I think we need a third state that people can transition to, otherwise "transgender" is meaningless.

I think we need a way to legally categorise people in that third state, so we need (something like) a GRC.

And I think we need to be clear about what the third state is and when it can be used, otherwise again its meaningless and there is nothing to transition to.

My reference to "GC Ultras" describes people who believe there is nothing other than biological sex, people can't and shouldn't transition, there are men and women end of.

I'm sorry but I'm not prepared to refer to my brother as female because of the impact on me and how it rewrites my history and the way I relate to others.

With this in mind I find it deeply distressing doing it for anyone else because it's always at the forefront of my mind that they're inflicting psychological harm onto other they are related to.

The Beaumont society did a survey years ago which has been quoted on MN before which said a significant number of wives ended up having psychological breakdowns. There are also concerns about the impact to parents and children.

If maintaining your own truth and own identity is 'absolutionist' quite frankly you can stick your Righteous Moral Crusade.

You have no fucking idea.

Red, you also have "no fucking idea" about my life and how I came to be on this board.
I'm sorry about your brother, and of course you can choose to process that how you like and refer to them how you like.
You don't need to be so rude in response to others with their own ways of doing things. I can't deal wwith the hostility which is why I'm not answering your questions.

Don't fucking demonise me like you constantly are because you don't understand law and how it works.

I do not consider pronouns to be polite or respectful FOR GOOD reason.

@AdamRyan Thank you. I appreciate your re-reading and reconsidering.

My reference to "GC Ultras" describes people who believe there is nothing other than biological sex, people can't and shouldn't transition, there are men and women end of.

The thing is, I do think that. I am one of your "Ultras", and I don't like this position being painted as extreme.

At the same time I also believe trans people are mostly expressing something they genuinely feel.

But I don't think this makes them objectively any different to others of their own sex or any closer to others of the opposite sex, and I don't think the things each trans individual is genuinely feeling are necessarily very similar.

The awareness of the two sexes and the social gender constructs culture lays on top of them are so deeply embedded in human social experience that they are like a jutting out hook ready to catch pretty much any feeling of "not fitting". Whether that is feeling that one doesn't fit socially, emotionally, physically, intellectually, sexually and I'm sure 1M other drivers, that fundamental awareness of there being an Other type of human is there as a ready made metaphor to project your feeling of Otherness on to.

So I am against transitioning in the gender sense because I don't think imposing a subjective belief about ones own and the opposite sex out into the real world and on to real other people is a good solution. I think it forces the transitioner into an unstable (not mentally but socially) position where they are always expending mental effort to keep their constructed identity together against the reality of their true sex and history. And if there is medical transition as well then there is a whole addition layer of at best practical challenges and at worst ongoing physical issues to deal with.

I'd really love to see people accept themslves as their sex plus whatever separate, non sex/gender social identity resonates for them than legitimise the idea that (a) people can be socially or legally not of their sex, and (b) socially or legally closer to the opposite sex. The first because it's not true, and (like those medieval scholars) trying to fit the impossibility into the real work just creates more and more problems, and the second because it reifies the idea that there are mental traits that are "right" for each sex and if you don't have them you are in some way a flawed specimen of your sex.

When sex matters we have the right to expect single sex facilities, and that's not an extremist position.

Undermining that by giving people the right to lie about their birth sex on official identity documents under the guise of 'gender identity' is the extremist position imo.

I don't consider the language of private, consensual conversations to be any of my business.

I do believe the language of public information and public policy should be clear and unambiguous. I would place most news reporting in that category too, especially when paid for by the public purse.

If that's an extreme view then I guess that means the Campaign for Plain English are extremists too.

Sadiq Khan being willing to be photographed with a member of LWD is quite the change.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1764000017788858744

And also Wes Streeting in Newcastle.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1763906812393230668

Yes I saw that and I'm watching. You've still got time to win my vote back, Labour - it's up to you.

They're gonna have to go some, AFAIC. It's not helped by my MP being one of the worst.

Now if they really want to win my attention, Khan and Streeting could post those photos on their Twitter pages....

Me too. It's easy.
Listen to women, stop abusing anyone who has a different view and speak up about the wholesale social grooming of children into thinking their bodies are wrong.

Yes it would be easy for Labour to win my vote.

and I totally agree with @TheInebriati wanting women to have single sex spaces is not an extremist position, no matter how much certain posters try to paint it otherwise.

Well it's no longer easy for Labour to win my vote back. Believing that sex is real and matters apparently makes me an "ultra" to Adamryan. It was the normal understanding of everyone until some people decided science doesnt matter and fantasy is more acceptable. Wishing you could be the opposite sex doesnt make you change sex. You can change your appearance but not your sex.

I can not trust anyone who ignores women until an election is on the horizon and then does as little as they think they can get away with to address their concerns. The economic situation is bad, neither party has much idea on how to improve it. Labour will curb free speech and introduce self ID because they wont be able to do much else that will please their supporters.

Meanwhile the right wing of the Conservative party are trying to take over and lose any chance of avoiding a disastrous election defeat. They are not going to win voters from lifelong Labour supporters by being more right wing. It is adopting hard right policies on austerity that got them to where they are now. Tax cuts are stupid, inheritance tax cuts would be even more stupid. They need to restore NHS services and money on AI is not going to cut it.

As for the Lib Dems, they are just a joke. They'll happily push drugs on children. They took £1.5 million from the company that makes puberty blockers.

It's a negotiation. If Labour want my vote they will have to earn it. Not impossible although they're running out of time.

anyolddinosaur · Today 10:10

I can not trust anyone who ignores women until an election is on the horizon and then does as little as they think they can get away with to address their concerns.

How very well said.

I was just thinking the same. Labour don't really give the impression that they believe in anything much. Except focus groups, perhaps.

That's probably true of the front bench loyalists, not so much the rest of the parliamentary party and the constituency parties - who are far more vocal and far more radical.

I believe analysis found that labour party members were more radical than labour MPs generally not just on this subject. In turn Labour MPs are more radical than Labour voters.

I believe there are similar patterns for other parties.

When we talk about inclusion and representation, it's problematic from the parties to NOT be reflective of those who vote for them.

Labour party members may be more radical - but there are a lot of former Labour party members who are not.

When it comes to an election you need to appeal not to party members but to the larger pool of people who might vote for you. Too much pandering to a small number of people loses you both members and votes.

Given that Labour are likely to be the next government (27 point lead in a poll this morning) what they say matters whether you vote for them or not.

In that sense LWD having contact with leading Labour politicians is a very good thing.

Yes it is a good thing but I see LWD have since clarified that Sadiq Khan did not actually visit their stall and has yet to agree to speak with any of them.

'Overall, despite this friendly but cheeky pic with @SadiqKhan - who sadly did not visit our stall & has never (yet!) agreed to speak with any of us - many delegates were keen to grapple with issues so long silenced in our @UKLabour party.'

If Khan didn't actually refuse to stop and pose for a photo with LWD then that might still represent progress of a sort but it's not what I understood from their original tweet.

I have a lot of time for LWD - they're currently one of two reasons why I might yet vote Labour - but I need to be able to trust what they say.

https://twitter.com/LabWomenDec/status/1764587728396566863