Lib Dem manifesto

[GoogleWhacking]

Has anyone seen it? They are pledging to recognise non binary identities in law and remove the need for medical reports for the GRA!

Definitely not voting for that!!

Yes, I think this was where he was. Still men, even after surgery.

It's a bit like a 'live, laugh, love' fridge magnet in terms of how useful it is.

Meaningless sentimental platitudes with overtones of self righteousness. Ahh, Bisto!

WickedSerious · Yesterday 18:40

They forgot free ice cream and a pony for every household.

What? Where and how the Hell am I supposed to look after a pony in my back yard?

On that Ed Davey Q&A: so even five years ago, people were pointing out that the suicide claims were utter rubbish, along with the epidemic of violence stuff.

Lib Dems peaked my interest yesterday with pledges around water quality. However safeguarding women and girls though legislation takes priority for me. Sounds like Lib Dem pledges don’t centre the Cass report

just one or two incidents my arse … clearly a man minimising female experience.

He needs to look at statistics around penis driven upskirting. Look at the high numbers of sexual assults in mixed sex hospital wards/prisons/loos/schools. Look at basic statistics around sexual assault which are almost entirely penis driven. I don't care how people identify, however basic safeguarding of vagina owners is critical.

How did they come to that policy? Continued polling shows the majority support them on this.
I'm hugely shocked at the misrepresentation of the policy around parental leave on here and people saying that parental leave can only be for women. On a feminist board!
We would have loved shared parental leave but financially it didn't work for us. My career which I love and makes me a better parent when I'm at home stalled due to my maternity leaves.

While I don't pretend to be an expert, I do find the different arguments and evidence that trans women are somehow a danger to other women totally unconvincing. Like all bad arguments, they take one or two rare incidents, and try to hang a full-blown thesis on them. These are not "legitimate concerns' and I don't believe we should engage with them.

The problem with this is that "trans women" is not a defined group. It's basically saying:

"While I don't pretend to be an expert, I do find the different arguments and evidence that men who demand special treatment are somehow a danger to women totally unconvincing. Like all bad arguments, they take one or two rare incidents, and try to hang a full-blown thesis on them. These are not "legitimate concerns' and I don't believe we should engage with them."

Which is obvious nonsense.

"Men might be a danger to women generally, so sex separation is a good thing. But male prisoners demanding access to women's prisons - there's no evidence they're a problem specifically."

But the argument could make sense if you were very strict on "trans women".

If that was defined as "men who have acquired an official Gender Recognition Certificate, which can only be obtained after detailed background checks being subjected to our battery of foolproof psychological tests", then that would be a possible argument, which could be tested. And they'd obviously have to present that on demand.

I can believe that maybe it would be possible to screen sufficiently to measurably reduce the risk compared to random men. But that's totally incompatible with any sort of easy-to-acquire, easy-to-hide GRC.

But I don't think forcing women to accept government-approved men with a "Nice Man Certificate" into their spaces is very nice. I can see what's in it for the men, but what's in it for the women? What if they don't want ANY men there, eh? Even the officially Nice Men.

Plus if they're so Nice and Safe, how come they still want to let men into female spaces? If someone with a certificate still demanded entry to female spaces, that would suggest a lacuna in the Nice+Safe testing.

I do support the option. The devil is in the detail though.
Much like the supposed spousal 'veto'.

If maternity leave becomes parental leave which is (as an example) 12 months shared between both parents as they choose then does the mother get the final say?

What if she wants the whole 12 months but the father says no I want my 6 months, I'm entitled to it and you have to go back to work ready or not. Would he be able to force the mother to relinquish 6 months against her will?

I haven't seen anyone say that parental leave is only for women. There are comments to the effect that is first and foremost about the baby, and for women to recover from pregnancy and birth.

Shared parental leave can be a great thing (was for our family) but the as always with policy, the devil is in the detail.

Some of us have concerns that women in less than egalitarian relationships could be bullied or pressured into signing over their leave to their partner, it he decided that's what should happen.

Given the lib dems general attitude to women, I'd want to be damn sure this was prevented from happening before this policy was brought in.

It also sets the expectation that women don't need their maternity leave, which I would worry sets the stage for another government to take it away further down the line.

Policy decisions need to be examined for unintended consequences.

It's not 'misrepresentation' to question something.

On the Lib Dems in general - it's unlikely Labour will need to form a coalition if the polls are correct.

There's a chance they will end up being the largest 2nd party if the Tories face a total wipeout losing much of their base to Reform. This will put the Lib Dems's in opposition.

We need to consider how a Labour government with a Lib Dem opposition will look for women. On the surface it sounds bad re genderism however the incumbent government rarely likes to side with the opposition (clue in the word) because it can make them look weak. Could a Lib Dem opposition force Labour to be the adult in the room?

@GrammarTeacher maternity leave can only be for women. Shared parental leave if extended should, as a minimum, include the current full maternity leave without any need for it to be reduced to enable the other parent's leave. So any additional leave for the father/partner is on top of the current levels of maternity leave.

It also sets the expectation that women don't need their maternity leave, which I would worry sets the stage for another government to take it away further down the line.

Policy decisions need to be examined for unintended consequences.

Very good point.

Yep. Another step in denigrating and denying the mother and baby bond. The dyad of mother and baby is essential; if we're not careful we could end up suggesting it doesn't exist. Mothers and fathers are not interchangeable.

But women don't NEED a year off. What about the unintended consequences the other way? I faced a large amount of criticism when I went back to full time work (as soon as we could afford the nursery fees). It's hugely important that shared leave becomes just that.
I'm hugely concerned about the determinist trend within some strands of feminism. I am not just a mother.
My children are the most important thing TO me. They are not the most important thing ABOUT me.

Pretending it doesn't exist will certainly suit the surrogacy lobbyists.

Some women might. Not every woman is the same as you.

Exactly. We're not all the same. That's why shared parental leave is a good idea.

As long as the current maternity entitlement is not accidentally/unintentionally downgraded. That's not what shared parental leave should be doing. It should be about additional entitlement for fathers/partners.

Haven't RTFT, have work to do.

What baffles me about the LibDems is the lunacy at the highest levels, which contradicts the sanity I find at the lower levels.

I asked our LibDem candidates at the last local election what they thought a woman was, and they were both admirably GC (one was a Scot and he knew all about dear little Isla in his pink leggings).

But by that time I'd left the party as they refused to tackle sensible questions about eg men in women's prisons and had made it plain that terfy types could get stuffed.

Why the huge disconnect between sensible local reps and the insanity of the upper echelons?

Philosophically, I believe in the freedom of the individual to be who they want to be - and not to be told who they are by society.

Brings to mind the old saying about your right to swing a punch ending at the start of my nose.

An individual's freedom to be who they want to be ends at the point it requires defining who other people are regardless of who they themselves believe they are.

There is no argument by which TWAW, TMAM or NB people are valid that does not involve redefining everyone else
as types of personality rather than disparate people of different sexes.

And another thing - they support people of all sexual orientations.

Does that include MAP and/or bestiality?

There does seem to be a disconnect between the people in the ground and the Powers That Be. I was in Lewes before the manifesto was launched and the nice Lib Dem people on the stall were TERFs. Their argument was that it's important to get the Tories out. Like another poster I may vote Tory as a protest.

I agree about the criticism of working mums being widespread and crap.

I'm not sure that potentially reducing maternity leave will help to address this though - they're two separate issues.

Society doesn't like women to have choices - that's what we need to address.

(Incidentally I needed the full mat leave with one of our kids because he was prem, I was ill and then even when partially recovered physically I was a state because of the trauma and his ongoing medical issues. I might have been able to be signed off sick if mat leave wasn't available but that feels like ignoring the fact that it was all pregnancy related, and would certainly have put me under pressure to return to work before I was able).

It is a stepping stone to changing surrogacy laws.

Nothing is going to mention the mother, or take into account the mother child relationship.