Mumsnet Manifesto urges government to define what a woman is

[InThePottingShed]

Telegraph today:

”The first ever Mumsnet “manifesto” is urging the next government to define what a woman isin the Equality Act.
The popular online forum released a 25-page document on Friday which it said represented the chief concerns expressed by its nine million users over the past four-and-a-half years.
It has 12 asks of the incoming administration after July 4, including to “guarantee access to single-sex spaces” for women by reforming the 2010 Equality Act.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/01/mumsnet-manifesto-woman-gender-equality-act-election/

if you have the Telegraph app the article also includes some quotes from Labour politicians. Conservatives For Women have put them in a post on X:

https://x.com/cforwomenuk/status/1796782966909096316?s=46&t=tGndANTCcSFoV6PaqNg6qA

Bloody hell, who would've thought we would see that in the papers.

I'm absolutely bloody delighted.

Credit to FWR stalwarts, such as your good self @Datun

Cake and beverages all round

Yes there are additions and details to work on.

But the ball is now rolling x 9 million.

Brava MNHQ!

And cin cin FWR 💪

Interesting that the Telegraph chose to focus on the second last priority from the MNHQ survey - begining to look that because Labour policies are virtually Tory rather than socialist this is the only issue they can find to attack them on!

Not sure if this has been posted by the archive copy of the article is available here https://archive.ph/7DShv

Some maybe interested in this web site where a trans woman is tracking comments about trans women made by politicians https://clareflourish.wordpress.com/members-of-parliament-and-trans-rights/

Nice to find a common link even if only for opposite reasons!

I don’t want to see assisted dying happen in the U.K. I’d be concerned it’d be open to abuse.
There was a story recently where a woman with mental health issues wanted to go through the process.

Everything else in the manifesto though is a yes please.

My view on euthanasia is that it's going to become more likely legalised and certainly more necessary, as medical science moves forward to be able to predict, but not yet cure or alleviate terminal disease.

I speak as someone with a genetic mutation in my family which causes early onset dementia. Just pretty recently discovered. I've seen my parent and an aunt survive for over ten years in an utterly awful state that they would have chosen not to have to endure if they'd had the foreknowledge.

I do have that foreknowledge, because we can now test for the faulty gene. Something my parent and aunt couldn't do. My children and my nieces and nephews will also have the choice to test for the mutation, as I have done.

Not to allow me or my kids to die at a time of our choice to avoid the humiliation of the inevitable, is barbaric.

Sorry for the derail but it's an emotional subject for me!

Thankyou IwantToRetire for highlighting this excellent resource!

”Some maybe interested in this web site where a trans woman is tracking comments about trans women made by politicians https://clareflourish.wordpress.com/members-of-parliament-and-trans-rights/

"Most Labour MPs have been supportive of trans people, in solidarity with us as an oppressed minority. A few are against. Under the Equality Act, trans people are entitled to be treated as our true gender/sex from the moment we decide to transition. That is, trans women are women. So, any MP who uses their platform to claim that trans women as a class are a risk in women’s services, or should not be there, is against trans rights. Trans men and nonbinary people should not be erased, so anyone who claims that only women have any aspect of reproductive biology is against trans rights."

So no single sex facilities allowed and if you disagree you're a right wing extremist

". In reality, the Heritage Foundation, Alliance Defending Freedom, together with Civitas and other Tufton St lobby groups want to enforce gender stereotypes and recognise that Trans subverts them. After the Cass review was published on 10 April 2024 the situation is direr."

It's useful, if defamatory, describing at least one MP as 'anti-trans'.

"... anyone who claims that only women have any aspect of reproductive biology is against trans rights."

It's so anti reality. 'Rights' built on a fantasy uncoupled from biology.

Way to take my well thought out post and heartbreaking situation and put the knife in, especially since I'd clearly said my relative had said SEVERAL TIMES that they'd rather die than end up with dementia in a care home. However putting that option in place, allowing that relative to decide at what point they would like to invoke that option and how is not in place. My relative will end up living like an animal, in a prison. That is just a fact, there are many people already in our country living in this way.

You obviously have absolutely no experience of what the daily "life" of humans in many care homes (the not top end ones) is like. I'd suggest going and having a look - care jobs are easy to get, for several care companies the only training is online - and then deciding if that is better.

All my relatives money will go to paying the "care" home that is anything but.

I'd also like to see care companies as not for profit so at least carers get paid decent wages, there is proper training and it's paid as the difficult job it is rather than a min wage job anyone can get.

People are being abused in these homes too - there have been many exposes about this.

Ginny

I'm so sorry about that response Ginny - your post was crystal clear.
I presume the reason this is on the Mumsnet manifesto is because as women, most of us bear the weight of family / friends caring responsibilities. As someone who has actively faced in my close family this terrible dilemma in terms of quality of life and the right to die a good death, I'm fully behind the need for society to discuss and carefully legislate in this area.
Evidently countless other women on this site share that view

Late to this thread but that's seriously impressive on a variety of levels. Firstly that Mumsnet do it (thank you Justine) and secondly that they explicitly raise single sex spaces. I filled out that survey and it made no mention at all of these issues. I wrote them in to my comments space. To make the final cut loads of us must have done that, and that's incredibly rare in surveys. Thank you all you lovely vipers of FWR. Together we can make a difference.

Can all the banned FWR posters be invited back now, please?

This.
MN's treatment of women raising the alarm, particularly about child safeguarding, in the past has been abysmal.
The policing of language and pandering to certain posters who regularly and persistently come on here to silence women, the capitulation to the thread police all over MN, who get any threads about safeguarding and women's rights moved straight into the naughty corner, has been depressing and frustrating.
Granted, things have improved in recent times, but it has been an uphill struggle.
I too noticed that the only space in the survey for this topic was in the additional comments section.
I am glad we have at least had this space on MN, given the dearth of other accessible spaces, glad things are improving, but I wish it hadn't taken so many years.

I agree with @porridgecake and @YetAnotherSpartacus although being a pedant, there aren't really any items on the manifesto directly tackling child safeguarding. Some have a link but maybe the silencing of posters has been quite effective.

I noticed Safe Schools Alliance got zero help from the bigger organisations when they were rightly calling for a public inquiry after Cass.

(I think FPFW retweeted them and that Conservatives for Women might have supported them, but radio silence from WPUK and Sex Matters et al)

secondly that they explicitly raise single sex spaces.

I wonder if MNHQ has also been paying attention to threads like this where women on the post natal wards find the men intrusive and disruptive.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/ami_being_unreasonable/5010028-the-petition-going-round-about-dads-in-hospitals

Brava MNHQ and @JustineMumsnet !

I hope you'll be inviting some politicians on for webchats in the election run-up.

It's useful, if defamatory, describing at least one MP as 'anti-trans'.

Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer

Sorry you are the one who has taken my "well thought out post" to then claim I am putting the knife in.

As usual on FWR there's some horrible competitiveness of my suffering is more than yours, or what ever.

I pointed out - which you didn't - that unless the person concerned has take the decision to end their life when fully cognisant, it is not acceptable for somebody to then say they should be euthenased.

I dont know if you willfully misunderstood, but cant understand your grandstanding.

But 2 can play at that game.

I have had 2 immediate members of my family suffer and then die because of dementia complications.

But I wasn't posting to whip up sentimental poor little me sympathy posts.

And I wont ask you to apologise for being so offensive.

But ask that next time you indulge in competitive suffering have some thought for the other poster/s who are contributing to the discussion whose circumstances you have no knowledge off.

I posted what I posted because I KNOW the reality of that decision not being taken in advance.

And your thoughtlessness in presuming I didn't is the issue.

I'm disappointed that childcare is not mentioned.

Unaffordable, scarce childcare is a huge barrier to working women and the present Government has done its level best to make it that way.

There's no point in "Free" childcare (that is not free) when it's so difficult to find places.

Really good point!

Sex Matters mentions MN manifesto:

Polling shows that most people support genuinely single-sex provision, and fixing the Equality Act also features in Mumsnet’s election manifesto – in essence, the nation’s biggest doorstep.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/its-time-to-make-the-equality-act-clear-2/