Are you voting in the next general election purely on the transgender issue?

[TeacherAnonymous123]

Just as the title says really! Is that your only thought about who you'll vote for, or will you look at wider policies? Been getting lots of information through my letter box recently, and none mention it.

Labour have made many statements on gender. Contradictory and waffle but they are there

Indeed, including that babies are born without a sex.

There’s a difference between the random witherings of politicians in interviews and stated party policy.

It is stated policy, not random wittering in interviews

If you follow some threads on FWR you’ll pick up on the statements

I do follow and contribute to threads here thanks. It’s not stated policy unless it is stated in the policy documents. That’s pretty much the definition of stated policy.

Until then it’s just opinion.

Labour have released statements

That’s not just a random view in an interview. Have you seen those?

@EasternStandard yes I’ve seen Dodd’s statement about the GRA last year and similar. I don’t think these amount to policy statements, I don’t think they will make it into the manifesto, and I don’t think they will happen. The new government will have its hands full trying to sort out the economic and institutional shitshow that they will inherit. The party are already throwing a bone to the activists (VAT on private schools), they’re not going to do anything else ideological, particularly anything that wouldn’t have broad support in the country.

Ok so if I understand you correctly you think they will just not mention modernising the GRA again, nor changing anything to do with single sex spaces

A kind of leave it out altogether

Not sure but it’s a new take, I’ll have to ponder on that

So everything Starmer says on TV, media etc is just random witterings and not to be trusted or considered Labour Party policy?

ok….

@EasternStandard Labour’s strength is its huge number of young and keen activists. Compared to the Tory party who are lucky if they can muster half a dozen octogenarians to drop leaflets in each ward. Unfortunately, these activists need regular care and attention, which involves dropping them morsels of their particular ideological obsessions - the latest of which is alphabet soup rights. Starmer needs to keep them on board until the election. When he painfully has to admit some nonsense like some women have a penis or whatever in a TV interview, he obviously doesn’t believe it, he knows no one in the country believes it, but he does need to say it to keep those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed activists, many of whom still mourn the loss of Comrade Corbyn, on board.

Watch as these ‘policies’ sink without trace after the election.

I met a very pleasant older Corbyn type at a PCC count a few days back. We probably had nothing in common but were able to agree that for both of us a Starmer Government was both unknown and worrying. He happily confirmed that gender ideology was awful. He had no idea how his party could have got things so dangerously wrong.

It does not matter what your politics are. Whether you believe in high tax or low. Whether you are vote leave or remain. Whether you think that Corbyn is king or that Boris is the second coming of Christ. Whatever. People with two X chromosomes are women. In some circumstances they are weaker and need protection. If they are to compete fairly they need their own sport. Almost everyone knows this. Far too many, for whatever reason, won't admit it.

I think the question is not whether Starmer is trustworthy, but whether I and others trust him. Starmer presents a great unknown. Sex vs gender ought to be simple. Of course vulnerable women and girls ought to be able to access single sex spaces. He does not seem able to say this loud and clear. Why not? This is the reason I can't trust him.

Not really , I’ll be voting labour for many other reasons too

I've been canvassing with my Labour MP three times in recent weeks. The youngest person there was the MP, early 50s. The rest of us were over 60, several over 70. Friends in other constituencies, notably cities with large numbers of student activists, report the same — hardly anyone under 40, let along young activists. I'm a member of my Women's Branch (about 20 of us, 75%+ of us over 50, no one under 35). At big CLP meetings when we get 100+ people turning up, I don't recall more than a handful of people under 25 ever attending — and they only came because they wanted to get our MP deselected for saying something they didn't approve of.

Are you a party member? Do you actually go meetings? Your version of the Labour Party is very different to my experience.

I was canvassing in the run-up to the last GE in 2019. Every day we were issued with more and more desperate policy promises issued from party HQ that we were supposed to read out on doorsteps in order to persuade people to vote Labour. It was a joke and we all knew (including my MP) that there was no way a Labour government could honour those pledges. Voters were laughing at us and we couldn't blame them. It was November, they were opening the front door and letting the heat of their homes and we were keeping them standing there for five minutes while we read out 20 or more Labour pledges, many of them made up on the hoof. It made me realise that nothing even the most sincere MP or party supporter tells you can be relied on.

I'm not sure it's a good thing to have a party skewed to the youngest voting demographic, anyway.

I think this gets close to my concern about Labour (and I was a member for most of my adult life - nearly 40yrs)

I watched it become enthralled with identity politics, queer theory, antisemitism, misogyny. The drive for purity of thought and "if you don't agree with us on THIS (whatever) then you don't belong with us.

The political left has lost its moral compass. It now requires total obedience to an ideology- it is so easily manipulated.

Yes. I will vote on this issue mostly. However, as Keir Starmer is my MP, I doubt it will make any difference here. I'm hoping that KJK is going to stand against him

This is a really important point. It's not just about Labour's stance on women's rights, it's about their attitudes and behaviours. I can forgive them being wrong about mixed sex spaces much more easily than I can forgive the bullying of Rosie Duffield and other GC women, and the sheer intolerance of dissenting views.

It's like when you realize a particular media source, like the Guardian, that you trusted, is actually deliberately leaving out important information or discourse that it doesn't find politically expedient.

The issue is not just, or even mainly just, that you disagree on the specific issue. You can disagree about an issue in a fair and open way.

It's that you now wonder - what else are they being dishonest about, what other story are they trying to manipulate, or bury?

Well said.

@YesHesAPlonker couldn’t agree more, as perfectly encapsulated by Billy Bragg with his moronic take that the problem with JK’s gc views is the people who are on the same side as her.

@YesHesAPlonker
’ I watched it become enthralled with identity politics, queer theory, antisemitism, misogyny. The drive for purity of thought and "if you don't agree with us on THIS (whatever) then you don't belong with us.

The political left has lost its moral compass. It now requires total obedience to an ideology..’

💯

Confused this morning to learn that the government is banning 'single sex' toilets. I thought they were promoting this. Turns out the newest twist is that 'single sex' is the new 'gender neutral' or 'unisex', and that this is being banned although we all know that women are not at risk in such toilets and it safeguards trans and NBs. Also learned that wanting separate sex toilets is right-wing. The world is turned upside down.

This is from Bill Maher. Not directly relevant to toilets. However an insight in to how far ‘the left’ have gone. And I’ve no doubt in the UK, it will get much worse when Labour are in power.

https://www.newsweek.com/bill-maher-pedophiles-hollywood-viral-video-1892498

And all Labour really needed to say was 'we support Brexit and will get a socialist Brexit' and they would have got in - because they only just lost. The re-nationalisation of utilities (though difficult to do) was popular as also re-nationalising railways.