Scared and disheartened today

[teawamutu]

The Rosie Duffield interview in the Times, the commitment to make GRCs easier to get in Labour's manifesto, all the sneering about culture wars, the Tories doing SO bloody badly...

It feels like we're about to lose all the ground we fought so hard to regain, let alone the potential advances that just won't happen now.

What did Rosie say ?

She just said it as it is......what we all know. That Labour is committed to virtual Self Id; that she is isolated and briefed against in the party by a number of activist MPs; that Starmer is gaslighting her and so on.......

Thread on Rosie here:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5092157-rosie-duffield-im-being-gaslighted-by-keir-starmer www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5092157-rosie-duffield-im-being-gaslighted-by-keir-starmer

Things are tough, BUT don't forget women in Scotland took down the SNP and the Scottish Greens. Don't underestimate the power of truth, and really good lawyers.

It's going to set us back about 5 years, but it's not over until it's over.

This. They've just bided their time, I feel like all the progress we've thought we made was smoke and mirrors.

Thank you RebelliousCow.

I regularly feel despondent and that we are take a step or forward, only to find something else is much worse than I’d realised or that something else has come into play.

We can’t tell what the future will hold and election results aren’t always as we expect them to be. The current situation is difficult enough without worrying too much about things in the future that we have no control over.

There are thousands of women on board and thousands of men and women who know gender ideology is nonsense but still aren’t saying much as they don’t recognize how serious it is.

We have made enormous progress and that’s something we must remember as we go on into the battles yet to come.

I find there is a consistent feeling about that smoke and mirrors point . The Labour Women’s Declaration group has been clear that they don’t feel confident in the words repeated by the leadership team.

https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/labourpolicypositionsexgender/

https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/sex-and-the-equality-act-lwd-responds-to-kemi-badenoch/

If the women most active in representing the Labour Party don’t feel confident about the words spoken by the leadership team, then who the fuck can be confident ? If posters continue to state they are confident that Starmer and team will not reverse the gains so far, I would like to know why and how they personally know something the women heavily involved in the Labour Party don’t.

But OP, I do think that we shouldn’t give up heart. This was always a long campaign and built step by step. We will get there.

I’ve been wavering for a long time but Rosie’s interview has, I think, done it for me. For the first time in my life, I’ll vote conservative. Really can’t believe this is where I find myself. I’ve seen firsthand the damage GI has done and is doing to vulnerable young people and cannot in all good conscience vote for any party who blindly and obstinately continue to parrot #bekind when it’s the utter opposite of being kind to children, teenagers and young adults.

Edited to add that if Starmer is willing to be patronising as well as duplicitous and specious about this topic, what else?

It's incredibly frustrating at the moment. I never thought I'd find the prospect of a Labour government scary.
I will think about joining them if they do win, to try to change them from within.

I'm fed up of messages from women in the party that they're quietly gender critical, what's the point of quietly holding rational opinions if everyone thinks you are buying into nonsense?

I hear you op. I think Labour really let their mask slip this week in their eagerness to sneer at Sunak's proposal for the Equality Act. I don't think I'll ever be able to un-see that disdain and derision for women's concerns.

And while I don't want to take anything away from the wonderful women of Scotland, I do wonder where that would have ended without the Isla Bryson case.

This is the single reason that I'm voting Conservative. Everything else seems pointless if women cannot be a class of their own.

If Conservatives got back in on the back of this, it would send a bloody great wake up call to all politicians that women's rights matter. I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

I’ve never voted Tory and never will, but I can’t vote for a party that doesn’t fully respect women’s rights.
I believe the Labour manifesto is out this week so I’ll read that carefully and then raise queries with our Labour candidate. He is young and has he/him on his Twitter profile so I don’t hold out much hope. If enough of us do this, just maybe they will get the message that we have serious concerns.

I am voting SDP. I am unsurprised that Labour women have no confidence in Starmer - those women who will vote them in and who tell us regularly on here that our concerns are groundless are going to get a shock when Labour get going on their anti-woman policies. They cannot say that they were not warned.

It's not that they haven't "got the message", they know, they just don't care.

It is depressing op. I don't know what the answer is apart from to keep doing whatever you can. I do think the Cass report has made it much harder for the health service to go back to affirming gender identity in children which is a major win. Sadly we're going to have a lot of legal cases from detransitioners. I think this is going to be a long long journey.

I know that Isla Bryson was difficult for Sturgeon, but I would say it was likely Operation Branchform and other internal issues that actually brought her down.

I don't know what to say to cheer you, OP, only that no matter the political manoeuverings, the world will go on being round.

I'm deflated and disheartened by all the infighting today. Usually I find it an inevitable part of a very disparate movement that is cross party and grassroots and raggle taggle (no offense), but today I really tired and down. I suspect a lot of people feel the same. We are facing a Labour government and I am afraid of what they're going to do with their self righteousness and their refusal to ever listen to any dissent.

It's been a long time and progress is in such tiny increments. Perhaps it needs to be in order to be lasting. And perhaps 'the price of freedom is eternal vigilance'.

We have Cass, we have the School guidance, we have Forstater and dozens of other legal cases establishing that in almost every instance, gender heretics are legally justified.

Still, the counter to that is that even given the case against Edinburgh Rape Crisis finding they harassed and discriminated, Mridhul Wadhwa remains in place.

I'm feeling despondent too, there's been two televised debates and women's rights or trans issues haven't even been mentioned - I was expecting them to be front and centre.

I've been unsure what to do for ages now. I really don't want to vote Conservative but couldn't see how I could vote Labour either due to their inability to define a woman. I'm English but live in Scotland now. I still care what happens in England. There are no independents standing in my constituency so it's just the usual suspects.

After watching various debates etc this week I'd decided that getting the tories out was the only way to give the NHS a fighting chance. Another 5 years of the tories would probably kill it off for good. So I'd decided to vote Labour and hope that we can bring the gender stuff crashing down around their ears, like it has in Scotland.

Now after reading this thread I'm back to undecided again 😖

I know exactly what you mean. The recent interview with a former judge, who's happy to trample selfishly all over women's needs, made me furious.

It is intensely frustrating to have to work so hard just to try and reinstate the rights women had 20 years ago.

However - at the risk of being unduly portentous - I tend to agree with the Martin Luther King quote: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice".

Truth and logic must surely come back into fashion at some point.

I'm wavering but unlucky for certain posters, I seem to be immune to smug, patronising and guilt trips.

What I need, is a reason to believe Labour will protect women's rights and single sex spaces and women's sport. I don't give a flying fig about why you think KJK is naughty or boo hoo we don't like the tories. Heard it. Why should I vote Labour?

I sympathise with the 'I'll vote Labour and fight the gender battle later' line of thinking. But I think the only time we have a substantial bargaining chip is now, when they need our votes. Once they've got them they won't need to even pretend to listen.

It looks as if I might have got lucky as regards my own dilemma as we seem to have at least one independent candidate who looks promising. But that's not going to change the election result.

SDP have some good policies but good luck getting housing as a single mother under their plans.

@Floisme unfortunately I don't think they need our vote enough. Labour are almost guaranteed a landslide victory regardless. There are not enough of us to swing this one. If it was a closer fight then Labour might have actually courted our vote but as it is they can afford to ignore this issue.

I can't disagree with that @Disc0mbobulated but I'm afraid I think the idea that we can fight it once they're in power with a big majority is delusional. Sorry.