London Mayoral election – voting as gender-critical

[PotteringPondering]

I’m voting in the London mayoral election on 2 May, and interested to know how others plan to vote.

I’m gender-critical and the only candidate I think I can vote for is Amy Gallagher, the former Tavistock whistleblower.

She’s SDP (ie relatively small minority party), so I guess won’t stand much chance of being elected. But a strong vote for her would signal a resurgence of the only party consistently against gender ideology (other than KJK’s new Party of Women, who are not standing in the mayoral election).

Hang on, you've been posting on this board for months! It appears you don't actually understand what gender critical means. It doesn't just mean knowing sex is real. It means rejecting the gender stereotypes that both gender ideology and traditional/ religious/ hard right hold dear.

https://deadwildroses.com/2019/10/07/handy-venn-diagrams-the-radical-feminist-position-on-gender/

It might be useful if you could try and understand this. Otherwise it just looks like you're trying to stir shit and obfuscate which is a shame. It's really great to have discussions between people who disagree, but it has to be in good faith?

Re Mayor I'm flipping between Bin face (actually quite sound policies) and Khan.

I kind of want to vote Sadiq Khan because I'm horrified at the racism that's been thrown his way recently. That really pushes me very close to just voting in support. The thing that might well stop me is remembering he sacked Joan Smith (wrote about connection between terrorism and DV) because of her GC beliefs.

I will vote for Sadiq Khan. The voting system has been changed so it is first past the post. I do not want to cast a protest vote that might let Susan Hall, the Tory candidate, win by default.

Sadiq Khan seems to genuinely have the best intentions for Londoners and not corporate donors. I am not a member of any party and prefer honest people to run things.

You are mistakenly under the impression that being gender critical is about controlling trans people. It’s not. It’s about protecting women.

I’m guessing you don’t have a teenager then!

GI believers categorise women’s concern for their rights is anti-trans, at the same time as maintaining allowing TW into women’s spaces/sports does not affect women’s rights. Look guys, either this is a zero sum game or it isn’t, you can’t have it both ways.

This was my thought.

Any parent of a child in my area that I speak to now is very concerned. School toilets. What is being taught. Whether the school is transitioning children ( and I know two children who were transitioned by the school without the parents knowledge).

I think it interesting when people declare they have only seen ‘x’ trans people. I see a different male adult trans person (some could be cross dresssers) every week these days. And I am not out and about all that much. And that is not including the female trans people I see on a regular basis, sometimes in my home.

But this constant framing of ‘hating transgender people’ seems to be coming from people who have their own prejudiced beliefs about who and what is posted on this board. Sometimes they will make such declarations and then wonder at the pushback they get without understanding that they themselves have just attempted to shame others through their prejudiced labelling of the posters on the board.

And the cycle continues.

Their policies are less extreme than the Tories. I agree that they are more gender critical than Labour, but not as gender critical as Britain First.

They are:

In favour of the current law on GRCs.
In favour of health care for people with gender dysphoria.

They are pretty anti-women.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3956172-SDP-policies-on-transgender-and-biological-sex-rights?flipped=1

You have a belief in common - that gender identity is a belief and not something accepted and demonstrated by science and scientific and medical bodies. It's this which makes you gender critical. There is a reason the LGB Alliance pals around with the Heritage Foundation, and sides with Republicans on this issue.

Your movement is defined by your shared attitudes to transgender people. You might otherwise be feminists, but that's not what defines gender critical.

Yes this

This sums up my feelings totally

Voting on a single issue is silly when the country is in such a terrible state

I don’t think men get to determine what feminism is for women and how it relates to gender ideology.

I know there is a tendency to override women but we shouldn’t have to deal with that.

KellieJaysLapdog · Today 09:42
MrsSkylerWhite · Yesterday 22:48

Sorry, I disagree. Child poverty and homelessness are my priorities, whatever the sex of the person living with them.

I’m a 59 year old woman. I’m aware of having encountered 3 transgender people in my lifetime. I suspect my experience is common. The number of people whose lives are blighted by poverty and homelessness is vast.

I’m guessing you don’t have a teenager then!

Not any more. 29 and 21 year olds. Youngest has a couple of non-binary friends. Elder knows only heterosexual or gay people.

“You have a belief in common - that gender identity is a belief and not something accepted and demonstrated by science and scientific and medical bodies.”

If you are going to post this, then you had better produce that evidence that ‘demonstrates’ your claim.

Because if you don’t produce the evidence then all those reading can safely assume that you are the one making false claims.

That thread is four years old. Where is your current evidence that the SDP is 'pretty anti-women'?

And your experience may only be common for where you live and for someone with no children at school. I think you are trying to use your own experience and draw false conclusions.

I now don’t know a parent of a school aged child in my area who is unaware of the issue and unaware of a child who is not declaring a trans identity.

In addition to that, even going into my local shops there is always at least 1 male adult person around presenting as ‘feminine’ whether they are cross dressing or trans. That was not the case pre covid.

Maybe accept that your experience is not the norm except only for someone in a similar situation to you.

And that is your choice.

You don’t get to shame others who think differently to you.

In the US a 16 year old girl in a homeless shelter for women has already been raped by a man claiming to be a woman.

If you care about the homeless you should care about the disproportionate sexual assault women who are homeless suffer. It's so bad most resort to prostitution to get out of dangerous situations.

Maybe consider this in your priorities.

People like you claim that the trans issue is just one single thing but it envolves dozens of different issues from free speech to education to healthcare to homelessness.

Maybe we need this reminder.

For readers unsure of terminology:

The term ‘GC’ of course is a shortened version of ‘Gender Critical’, which is in turn a shortening of ‘Gender Critical feminist’. Gender critical feminist was the original term and referred to the feminist theory that rejected gender stereotypes.

Meaning that those feminists rejected the stereotypes being used by trans people to define their identities. Feminists seek to abolish the gender stereotypes, including those embraced by people who believe that people can change sex. In general though, the feminist movement does not seek to make 'sex' irrelevant for female people, because there is never going to be a time when a female human body will not be unique from male human bodies.

It is a universal belief that people cannot change sex. The vast majority of the world’s population don’t believe people can change sex. So therefore people across a wide spectrum of political views share that opinion based on scientific evidence.

There is also no scientific evidence that a gender identity can be scientifically or medically proven despite false claims that there is this evidence. There is not. This means that a gender identity is a philosophical belief only.

Some people who are considered far right wing also share the belief that people cannot change sex. It is not a controversial thing to believe. No modification, however extreme, will change a person’s sex. Those far right wing groups, however, also tend to embrace gender stereotypes, not reject them as feminists do.

However, to falsely align feminists with people who may have very different motivations to them yet want outcomes that look similar when described at top level description only, extreme activists have dropped the ‘feminist’ from
the term ‘gender critical feminist’. They then use 'gender critical' only.

This is how ‘gender critical‘ is dishonestly misused. To falsely bolster discussions about political alignment.

Those other groups who also believe that sex cannot be changed, yet embrace gender stereotypes are falsely labelled ‘gender critical’. They are not. But by falsely labelling the different groups this way, by force teaming feminists with far right groups, extreme trans activists and lazy people who simply repeat what those activists say, portray feminists as allies of the far right.

They also do this with the intention of portraying feminists as holding 'extreme' views. When in fact, they hold a very common view that is held by the majority of the UK population, and most likely the majority of the world.

This is done to discredit feminists and to portray them as hateful towards trans people. This is false.

OneMorePlant · Today 11:56
MrsSkylerWhite · Yesterday 22:48

Sorry, I disagree. Child poverty and homelessness are my priorities, whatever the sex of the person living with them.

I’m a 59 year old woman. I’m aware of having encountered 3 transgender people in my lifetime. I suspect my experience is common. The number of people whose lives are blighted by poverty and homelessness is vast.

In the US a 16 year old girl in a homeless shelter for women has already been raped by a man claiming to be a woman.
**
If you care about the homeless you should care about the disproportionate sexual assault women who are homeless suffer. It's so bad most resort to prostitution to get out of dangerous situations.
**
Maybe consider this in your priorities.
**
People like you claim that the trans issue is just one single thing but it envolves dozens of different issues from free speech to education to healthcare to homelessness.

So surely ending homelessness is the obvious solution? So that women and girls are not at the mercy of shelters and the streets.

I think posters get caught up on this because they can’t see women are thinking about women first, not men.

You missed my point entirely.

If you were familiar with current day teenagers you would undoubtedly have met more than three transgender people.

I’ve had 9 teenagers with a trans identity in my back bedroom all at the same time!

Anyone who cares about homelessness in London would be bonkers to vote for SK again.

https://www.evolvehousing.org.uk/learn-and-share/10-facts-about-homelessness-london/#:~:text=–%20In%20August%202023%20London%20Councils,across%20England%20were%20in%20London.

It is more than just voting.

Get to hustings events for mayoral and assembly candidates. Ask question about women's safety, single sex spaces etc.

There is a hustings for disabeled people in April:
https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/campaigns-and-policy/act-now/london-hustings-2024/

Besides the obvious, and previously made, point that you don’t understand what GC means, you are here confirming many people’s belief that the current laws on GRCs are anti-women.