Breakthrough - LGB Alliance meet with Anneliese Dodds, Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities

[fromorbit]

Four years after starting LGB Alliance finally yesterday have had a formal meeting with a senior figure in Labour, Anneliese Dodds, Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Chair of the Labour Party.

LGB Alliance
Our thanks to the Chair of The Labour Party, Anneliese Dodds MP, for meeting with us for a productive discussion about our work.

India Willoughby is having a sane reaction to someone talking to some gay people: "This is the equivalent of meeting the KKK."

Lots of similar takes online from TRAs. The LGBT Labour response was less ranty, but equally overboard.

LGBTLabour
We’re incredibly disappointed in Anneliese Dodd’s decision to meet with the LGB Alliance, a fringe group which undermines our fight for LGBT+ equality. (1/2)

We’ll be seeking an explanation from Anneliese’s office, as well as reassurances on the Labour leadership’s policy commitments to LGBT+ people – including Trans people – on hate crime, healthcare, conversion therapy, gender recognition reform and more. (2/2)

Meanwhile in reality world:

LesbianLabour
Well done AllianceLGB & AnnelieseDodds getting together for an initial meeting, let us hope there will be more meetings in the future when LesbianLabour, ScotLesbians, LesbianFB & LGBAllies_Cymru
will also be invited. It’s been a longtime since Labour heard from Lesbians.

Dodds has long been on the gender train, but since July 2023 has started to look like she wants to get off.

MP faces criticism for 'biological women' remark at conference [Jan 2024]
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/24054287.oxford-mp-anneliese-dodds-jlm-conference-remark-slammed/

Labour will lead on reform of transgender rights – and we won’t take lectures from the divisive Tories -July 2023
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/labour-will-lead-on-reform-of-transgender-rights-and-we-wont-take-lectures-from-the-divisive-tories

I think the Cass report will have shifted her further along. She is an highly intelligent academic, who I think read the Cass Report and has further realised the wheels of the gender train are made of rainbow candy and are melting while racing towards an abyss. She is I hope slowly peaking. The attacks on her from TRAs over the last year for uttering heresy like biology is real will help her realise the train was a disaster all along.

We are seeing more ferrets leaping off the train and reversing. How far they reverse depends on people inside and outside Labour pulling as many kids and people off the train as we can.

This is a signal that following the Cass Report No Debate is well and truly over. The gender wars inside Labour and the unions are moving to a new stage which will perhaps be even more vicious. This means silenced voices can be heard, but will have to still fight to get further wins. The Labour manifesto has yet to be written, we need to ensure that sex equality is in it, and we fight back against a conversion therapy ban which includes banning sane therapy plus a lot more.

I’ll be watching with interest. My Labour candidate has outsourced his thinking on the to AD (🙄, but better than Stonewall!)

I hope she is starting to see sense on this.

I wonder if she will be treated as badly as Rosie if she does start to support women.

I also wonder if this will be in time for women who are single issue voters to be able to consider a labour vote in the next general election.

I noticed that O Jones has noticed the meeting too. And is horrified.

He's blocked me on twitter.

She's being non - compliant for even attending this meeting. Men's rights activists are bound to be annoyed.

Good to see. I hope she listened.

Based on her performances up until now, I have not been at all impressed by Anneliese Dodds, but this does sound significant and I'm also watching with interest.

I wonder if she will be treated as badly as Rosie if she does start to support women.

She won't, she's very loyal to the leadership and also a lot more popular within the party.

Just as in negotiating with the unions to get through the change in Labour's self-ID policy, she'll be putting together a position the majority can get behind. Getting things done quietly, which is her way.

I'll be very happy to change my opinion of her, just as long as 'getting things done quietly' doesn't turn out to be code for, 'Shut up and leave it to me'.

It is a start to have Dodds meet with LGBA. May it continue.

I saw the thread title and thought 'well that's her in the naughty corner'. Jic the likes of Allsop read this, this is the reaction when you try to have a debate or even just try to talk. Wall to wall tra-trums!

I very much doubt she'd have done this without leadership approval so that might be promising.

A meeting with the Labour Women's Declaration next please, Anneliese. Bring Starmer too. And a photo call on Twitter.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the women’s declaration could have a stall at conference?

But the naughty corner is full of strong women standing shoulder to shoulder, so she'll find some good company 😁

I believe there has been a shift. My local LD candidate says to me the debate is toxic and she regrets how her party have acted towards members like me (I'm no longer a member) and the shutting down of alternative voices. All very understanding and conciliatory. She also listens and acts on behalf of women in rape crisis who want women only facilities. However, she also believes we need to be kind and the cass report is flawed. Her opinion is however more nuanced than what was once acceptable. This I believe will be the future pathway for non-activist trans allies. Specifically to this thread, it may point to the direction Labour will pursue: more nuance, more sense but still too little devotion to women's rights. I have to say I'm leaning more Tory everyday....

Exactly - there's a clock running for us as well as Labour. But it's great that Dodds, as a senior party member with the relevant brief, may be revising her opinions. We need the Labour leader to do this.

This is important, too:
let us hope there will be more meetings in the future when LesbianLabour, ScotLesbians, LesbianFB & LGBAllies_Cymru
will also be invited.
Not to mention Labour Women's Declaration. But this feels like quite a big step forward.

Yes.

That's a positive move. Makes it more likely that women will be able to vote Labour if they continue on this path to democracy and reality.
More small steps.

Wasn’t a central tenet of the case against LGBA that they weren’t a proper charity because they didn’t do any campaigning?

And now they have, people are complaining.

Some folk are never happy, are they?

Are charities required to do campaigning? Surely that's not the only possible point of a charity?

Further development the party has issued an official defence of Dodds which appeared on the important Labour newssite Labour List :

Speaking to Westminster journalists this afternoon, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “Anneliese in her role as Shadow Equalities Secretary meets with a whole range of organisations, and it’s right that she does so. And she meets with stakeholders from across the spectrum on those issues.
“It was a private meeting like she’s had with multiple other organisations, and I think there is a very clear distinction between meeting with an organisation and that not being the same thing as endorsing an organisation.”
On accusations that the group is “trans-exclusionary”, the spokesperson said: “We’re not going to get into characterising different organisations, but we do think it’s right that politicians engage with a range of opinions within a subject.”
Party defends Dodds after LGBT+ Labour condemns her meet with LGB Alliance
https://labourlist.org/2024/05/lgbt-labour-trans-lgb-alliance-meeting-anneliese-dodds/

The drama is ongoing on twitter.

LabourWomen’sDeclaration
·Of course Anneliese Dodds should meet AllianceLGB the leading UK charity, led by lesbians, which advocates for same-sex attracted people ie LGB
Right on cue, LGBT+ Labour tantrum, their sense of entitlement revealing why conflict of rights has been taboo to discuss in UKLabour

Katy Montgomerie
I can't believe I ever thought AnnelieseDodds was pro LGBT. At one point I actually hoped Labour might be positive for LGBT people in the UK. People were telling me they aren't years ago and I didn't believe them

Willoughby is having a real meltdown tweeted about 5 times about this.

I hope she’s going to apologise to Rosie Duffield, if she hasn’t already.

So two blokes object to a woman meeting some other women?

They really don't like women being disobedient, do they?

I think the melt downs will give the Labour leadership pause for thought.

The Cass report was very strong in highlighting the need to critically evaluate all information and not simply dismiss what is being said because you intuitively don't like it. She said that it is imperative to explore different perspectives. I think that landed with a number of MOs who were 'intuitively' lumping concerns about trans issues with 'old fashioned' ideas like the horror of sex before marriage and same sex relationships.

Increasingly, those who are trying to paint people with concerns as swivelled eyed loons are the ones who are looking unhinged. I wonder how long it will take them to cop on and change course. It may be that for many, the tantrums aren't performative but genuine inability to regulate thoughts and emotions.

Apparently Starmer has met, briefly, with Rosie Duffield

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/15/starmer-meets-mp-heckled-by-labour-over-gender-views/

She says no apology was forthcoming.