Shadow justice secretary agrees with JK Rowling over gender critical views

[IwantToRetire]

The Labour shadow justice secretary has said she agrees with JK Rowling that “biological sex is real and is immutable”.

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice secretary, expressed support for women who express gender critical views, saying that they should not be “stigmatised” for saying them.

Ms Mahmood, who took up the role last September, used her first major speech to warn of the dangers of “the rule of the mob” when “the rule of law fails”.

“Hashtag movements are sometimes used to shut down debate and often many women have had to go to court, usually in employment tribunals, in order to clarify their rights to free speech.

“To clarify their right to believe that for example because you referenced JK Rowling, clarify their right to say that biological sex is real and is immutable – a position that I also agree with.

“But they shouldn’t be in the position of losing their jobs for having views that are perfectly legal, and that they are perfectly entitled to express.”

These are extracts from an article on MSN based on an article in the Telegraph. Not had time to compare copy.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/shadow-justice-secretary-agrees-with-jk-rowling-over-gender-critical-views/ar-AA1ntt5J

Totally missed that about Reeves. This is looking more hopeful.

This is making me hopeful I might not be politically homeless anymore.

Well good for her. I wonder, how is the Guardian reporting this? They're in a cleft stick of their own making.

That's a great statement by Sajid Javid. I don't doubt his sincerity, but look also at the politics. He's sending a message to Labour that they're now on notice of a very significant medical scandal and if, as the next government, they try to steer things away from sanity, they will be owning the fall-out. The Tories are on the hook too, but they'll be able to argue that they inherited the scandal ramping up and, although they were slow in acting through a lack of awareness, they did act when they saw the seriousness. It might be spin but there's some truth in such a narrative.

Hurray 4 Shabana Mahmood n Sajid Javid !

I'm feeling a bit more cheerful about sanity returning. Fingers crossed. 🤞

With no reflection on other posters, I am in that mood today where I actually find it depressing that we should be pleased that someone in her position states that people with protected beliefs should not be stigmatised and that sex is binary and immutable.

What a low bar.

yes, but it's a reflection on how utterly s**t Labour have been, until they've seen how the tide is going.

I think all the parties have been rubbish. The Tories are instinctively suspicious of equality law and left Mordaunt and Miller to their own devices until about 2019 when

1). It started to become unavoidably clear that self ID in prisons was a problem

2). They realised they could kick a ball into an open goal because Labour had also been ignoring women.

I'm pragmatic so I'm pleased. This is how we win.

I would also like to post without comment a tweet that Rosie Duffield put out just this morning;
'Quite a few agreed with me but the more senior women wouldn't even ever post a message in our v small secret WA group. Some have lied about me on television, some have posed with groups that hate women even recently....'

The rest of the thread is here for those who can access it:
https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1782701546423140466

It's entirely possible she had to keep a low profile to encourage the moronic tories to waste all their ammunition on the non issue that is Angela Rayner and of course the asinine Rwanda pantomime. Which they obligingly fell for.

In a world where there is only 100% bandwidth available for discourse, allowing froth to occupy 99% means 1% will probably sneak through.

Too early for me to vote Labour....I need far more in the way of cast iron re-assurances....and I don't think they'll be forthcoming; plus, and and this is a very big plus....my MP is Kim Johnson and, along with Dawn Butler, she is, and remains, one of the biggest TRA activists and supporters in the Labour Party. Not a chance in hell I'll be voting for her.

It's entirely possible she had to keep a low profile to encourage the moronic tories to waste all their ammunition on the non issue that is Angela Rayner and of course the asinine Rwanda pantomime. Which they obligingly fell for.
what a weird take. I thought that Labour MPs were too scared to say how they felt because they knew that the rest of the Party would turn on them. The Labour Party.

I've got the same dilemma - Labour, Tories, LibDems, Greens - all TWAW candidates. I keep hoping for an independent or an SDP or even a Communist candidate but there isn't one.

Yes, important, I think, to have respect and trust in the actual MP you are voting for, not just the party they represent.

I'm probably tempting fate here, and almost inviting a derail, but strange that all those (in fact 2/3) posters who love to turn up and lecture us about how wonderful Labour is and we are too stupid / reactionary to see it, aren't here shouting with glee, we told you so!

I think they’re so busy calling women stupid and reactionary on another thread they haven’t noticed the opportunity on this thread 😂

This is called winning. I'm enjoying it!

Notably absent from the data scraping threads too, despite early on chiding women for being so silly as to think they might have a right to object.

JKR has similar thoughts to people here attracting attention

Following Ms Mahmood’s comments on Monday night, Rowling wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “If senior opposition figures agree with me that sex is real and immutable, I hope we’ll soon see an apology to [Ms Duffield], who believes exactly what I believe.”

Now Labour are 100% behind Cass the question of Support for Rosie is going to come up.

She really is the fucking QUEEN.

Pressure building. Labour can look forward to being asked lots in the next year why they didn't back Rosie if she was right all along:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13341775/jk-rowling-labour-apologise-rosie-duffield-transphobia-row.html

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/04/23/jkrowling-labour-apologise-rosie-duffield-shabana-mahmood/

I think it's encouraging that Shabana Mahmood has spoken out, with common sense. I honestly hope that she, along with Rosie Duffield, Tonia Antoniazzi and others will show other women that there is a now a group, who can be mutually supportive and that the can also express their views publicly.

It's all lovely. But I still think they are outnumbered and outgunned by annaliese Dodds, Angela Raynor, Dawn Butler, Lammy, Kate Osborne, Lloyd Russell Moyle, Lisa Nandy, and a leader who refuses to get off the fence.
With a strong Labour majority after the next election I have no faith at all the way this will go .

Just because a (very) few gc voices are being heard in the LP without being gunned down doesn't mean a change in direction. IMO