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).

I've yet to come across a poll on GE issues that includes women's rights to e.g.single SEX as an option. So it's hardly surprising no one selects it!
As for it doesn't come up at the doorstep. - I'm sure it does and I'd lay odds it would come up on the doorstep a lot more if there wasn't so much sneering at people who hold GC views going on.

Personally I think this issue is fundamental to how our society functions. I will vote with this issue my main priority and no amount of hectoring is going to change my mind.

It's not like we're trying to stop them seeing a dentist.

What is hidden by the dismissive claim of 'single issue':

Medicalisation of children and young people for gender affirming treatments that have been now shown to lack the evidence of improving the patient's life in the long term.

Loss of single sex spaces from toilets, changing rooms to prisons, shelters, refuges and crisis centres. It also includes loss of single sex provisions such as single sex swimming pools. Also included here is the potential loss of female single sex groups meeting for any reason.

Reduction of safeguarding for children and vulnerable people and female people. Because there is now been a political move to treat one sub group of male people as being able to sleep in accommodation, access changing rooms and toilets that were previously female single sex. This also impacts groups such as Girlguiding as well as schools and any other group where there was an expectation that female people would have their own single sex space.

Education issues regarding gender identity. This also has an overlap removal of female single sex spaces in allowing male people to enter female toilets and changing rooms.

Reduction of opportunities for female people in employment or recognising outstanding female people in a society that continues to negatively discriminate against female people.

Sports - there is a loss of safety, fairness and opportunity for female people in sports with the inclusion of male people in female sports events at every level. This is also having a direct counter effect on encouraging female participation in sport.

Issues arising in health where female people no longer feel confident in asking for and receiving female health carers. There is also an issue with communication about female health issues lacking clarity due to forced language changes. There is now even the issue where NHS trusts are potentially providing the services to male people to feed infants from their nipples without their being even halfway adequate research into the drug interactions within that substance.

Reduction of ability to meet and campaign through cancellation or protests. Very few other groups are prevented from meeting as groups discussing issues arising from prioritising gender identity. We have seen that even when lesbian groups wish to meet, they are not only protested to deter entry into the venue but loud music, horns and shouting is meant to then drown out the voices. Women's rights rallies are regularly protested and require long lines of police to protect women from violent and intimidating protestors. Yet, the same is not true for people wishing to meet to discuss gender identity. These meetings and rallies are not interrupted by others.

I am sure that others will come and add to this list. These were just very quick top of mind while I am being constantly interrupted by family issues.

My point is that this is not 'single issue' it does encompass a whole lot more.

I would add to the above : the rise in authoritarianism with people afraid to speak freely and now about to be punished for it - see Scotland’s Hate Crime law which is widely expected to lead to a string of malicious reports of GC women.

@DadJoke Thanks for that link:

'They are pretty anti-women.

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

Have you read that thread? Its full of women almost in tears about sensible policies and a good take on academic freedom too. I will look out for them now and may well join - its £2 per month, or £3 per month for a couple, £1 per month for low wage. (Compare and contrast with Labour party on that front also).

I can see that their views on family may not be to everyone's taste but they do seem a party that is thinking through its policies rather than bandwagon jumping. Plain English is so refreshing.

Yes. I have had more than 2 in my car at the same time. Yet, how many times on threads do we see the completely uninformed 'do you even know any trans people' or 'have you even seen any trans people' . It tells us just how deeply they are prejudiced in their own misconceptions about the people who are discussing these issues on this board and elsewhere. It shows just how uninformed they are themselves.

It is remarkable how detached some people are from the realities of parents with children and teenagers at the moment.

@Gettingmadderallthetime it's more what they say themselves rather than what women are saying about them - that women already have the rights they need. Maybe things have changed since they posted this. I agree that this is most gender critical party which isn't entirely a far-right dumpster fire.

Perhaps I'm resentful because they ushered in the Thatcher years.

I live in a very liberal city and I'm part of the "alternative" scene (metal, goth, punk). Before 2015 I met 1 transsexual in the 90's. After 2015 I've met dozens of "trans people" including the man claiming to be a woman that assaulted me in a bar for politely refusing his increasingly hostile demands to go home with him for sex.

Good for you that you live in lalaland without any issues but a lot of us don't have that luxury.

And "ending homelessness" is something people have been talking about for ages and failed to do so. So until we find that magical solution and end all homelessness maybe until then we can at least try and do our best so the women and teenage girls on the streets don't get fucking raped and assaulted in shelters that are supposed to protect them.

Just a thought.

@MrsSkylerWhite

In response to: I’m guessing you don’t have a teenager then!
I am very curious about why you are not curious about your own answer ...

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

@KellieJaysLapdog points out

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

On that dataset (okay its not exactly robust!) we have late 20s (nope, don't come across it), eight years on and its now becoming more common, and maybe 5-6 years after that its almost the norm in some groups. If your two ex-teenagers are boys that might be one reason why there is less trans activity in their friendship groups. (Although on basis of my DS, mid-20s, working in IT and being a keen anime fan will probably boost things a lot).

There is escalation. Which belies this being a simple medical condition and gives credence to it being social contagion. How many will have lifetime health problems because of being affirmed as having a medical problem when they do not will only become clear in time.

#OneMorePlant did you not know that women need to solve world hunger, homelessness racism and war before we can consider our own needs?

On ‘it doesn’t come up on the doorstep’. Having canvassed, the range of topics that come up frequently on the doorstep is relatively small, but lots of important topics do come up. Parties attitudes to some of them will be for some voters how they decide where their vote goes. These include prison conditions, provision for care leavers, adult residential care. No one ever seems to dismiss these in the same way they do women’s rights.

Oops silly me, I forgot! Thank you for reminding me Maltravers!

Good luck with your quest to end all homelessness @MrsSkylerWhite! I'm sure it will be done by mid June if we all put our minds to it and then we can do something else.

I’m tempted to name change to Mansplainerinchief but there is far too much competition, and I don’t think I can consistently enough misrepresent the meaning of Gender Critical.

" Fact is though, it’s just not as much of a priority with the majority of women in real life as it is on boards such as this. Nothing to do with wrongthink. More like non-think, as poll after poll testifies. transgender issues rarely appears in the top 10 of peoples’ priorities."

I think this sums up the lack of thinking that that this poster is claiming posters 'on boards such as this' have though. I think it is very clear from this post just how posters who would post this lack insight and are uninformed, or are informed but choose to ignore the implications for their own motivations.

poll after poll testifies? Actually poll after poll testifies that when directly asked questions such as 'do you agree that a male with a penis should use the female toilet' the consistent majority answer, by both male and female respondents, is NO! The same about prisons.

poll after poll testifies that when directly asked the question should male people compete in female sporting events, the answer is always the majority 'NO!'.

So, I don't see how any poster can claim that this is not something that women think about in real life. Is it a 'priority' for an election? I don't recall ever seeing it included in a poll in way that covers the issue as a detailed issue. And as I posted before, it covers so many issues, how do you capture that in one question?

I have stood in the town centre handing out leaflets to encourage people to sign the petition about sex being clarified under the EA. I think any person who now dismisses that this is not known and discussed by others outside of this board and women's groups is full of shit. I have stopped late teen aged boys who are fully up to date about this and told me what they were seeing happen and how it impacted them negatively. I have had fathers stop and tell me about their daughters experiences. I have had grandmothers, and twenty something men and women from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds engage and tell me what they know and are worried about.

Maybe if you are actively dismissing it with your friends and family, that messaging is coming through and people are choosing NOT to discuss it with you. Giving you a very skewed perception based on your very own messaging.

Which by the way has been picked up by numerous polls that people feel that they simply cannot discuss this with their friends and family because they fear being rejected for their views. I rarely bring it up with my own friends, I let them bring it up and they do. Often. Because they have children. Or they compete in sports. Or they encounter men in the Primark changing rooms.

But hey.... apparently we are not representative of the majority of the UK population.

Just to confirm 8/9 were biological females and they were 14-15 at the time

They are 17-18 now and some have desisted (trans is less fashionable amongst female teens than it was 3 years ago).

I think any person who now dismisses that this is not known and discussed by others outside of this board and women's groups is full of shit.

I agree and that goes for men like Tim Davie at the BBC, politicians in various political parties, and the many randoms on social media who seem very drawn to posting repetitively to tell women this.

I think any person who now dismisses that this is not known and discussed by others outside of this board and women's groups is full of shit.

Should be NOW known. Apologies for that confusing typo.

Are the Communist Party of Great Britain a far right dumpster fire now? This is from their website, specifically in relation to the Scottish government's attempt to bring in self id.

"The Communist Party is the only political party with a coherent political analysis of sex and gender. Gender as an ideological construct should not be confused or conflated with the material reality of biological sex. Gender is the vehicle through which misogyny is enacted and normalised. Gender identity ideology is well- suited to the needs of the capitalist class, focusing as it does on individual as opposed to collective rights, enabling and supporting the super-exploitation of women.
For these reasons, the Communist Party rejects gender self-ID as the basis for sex- based entitlements in law to women’s single-sex rights, spaces and facilities. The Party will continue to oppose any proposed legislation – whether at Scottish, Welsh or British level – that seeks to enact such a provision.
We call for ‘sex’ as a protected characteristic under the 2010 Equality Act to be defined as ‘biological sex’.
At the same time, Communists are clear that efforts must continue to improve the resourcing of the current system for transgender people to access services and to transition legally, not just in Scotland but across Britain. Together with the defence and improvement of women’s sex-based services and facilities, this is part of the broader struggle for democratic rights, social justice and socialism."

You'll always be mansplainer in chief to me (in my head that's to the tune of "always a woman" please send help)

@Helleofabore thanks for your detailed posts explaining all of the background regarding terminology and history. I hadn't realised how far the creep has gone.
One positive from @KellieJaysLapdog is that younger teens are starting to reject trans, although too many have already been harmed.

The single issue is “will you tell the truth, or are you too afraid to do so?”

This is the bedrock on which all other issues rest.

the party themselves seem to have some ok policies although how realistic they are, I’m not sure.

but I will not be voting for this woman on the basis of her anti critical race theory stance etc.

Critical Race Theory seems a very ineffective way to tackle racism, why do you think it’s wrong to criticise it, Albert?

TBF it’s seems to me to still be on the up amongst boys, especially autistic boys.

Hopefully that trend will also be on the wane soon.