JKR calls Labour's Bluff - Offering Meeting leadership only on her terms

[fromorbit]

JKR is playing at a different level. After Starmer and Reeves offered to meet with her she gave them her conditions.

I'll be happy to meet after NoXYinXXprisons, Lesbian Labour, Womens Rights Network, WomansPlaceUK and Alliance LGB have been given in person meetings with the Labour leadership. I'd also like to know whether Angela Rayner still considers the last two organisations hate groups.

They are trapped either they now have to meet with gay and women's groups and listen to them something they are desperate not to do. It is not impossible then that Reeves at least can be made to see some sense. Even talking with these groups and JKR will also make TRAs go ballistic and many will leave the party. Chances are that Labour will promise a bunch of stuff to JKR which If Labour still follow gender nonsense after that they can be fully held to account for. If they promise single sex spaces are safe then every time that is breached Labour's credibility will be on the line

Or if they refuse to meet with the groups they prove EVERYTHING JKR said in her essay was right.

The media are now hyping the meeting further locking Labour in

BRING IT ON
Keir Starmer insists he WILL meet with JK Rowling to thrash out trans and gender rights & ‘respects’ her views
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/28714134/keir-starmer-jk-rowling-trans/

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/24/labour-gender-transition-recognition-process-trans.

Gay bars are banning gay people for being visibly gay now?

Just going back to some earlier posts:

Spoilt ballots are counted, and some candidates / agents may ask to see them.

But I am looking forward to the day when there are more spoilt ballots that actual votes. The fact that so many vote for a party they dont believe in as the best of 2 bad options is horrifying.
.

And will Labour get rid of Starmer

I suspect many would like to but given the recent history of the Tory party, and the public reaction to new leaders being elected (which any party is entitled to do, but most voters donts understand it) a lot of people will say they were lied to.

Seems more likely that once the super majority has settled in to gettinge their way the left leaning Labour MPs, plus independetns (and SNP?) will get more challenging.

It just whether with the predicted size of the majority it would ever reach the point that Theresa May got to where not only were all MPs opposing her but the speaker as well.

So suspect at least 2 if not 3 years of a Starment Government, more than enough time to amend the GRC process.

D’know, the more I think about this idea, the more I’d love to see it happen. It would be a breath of fresh air to see capable, well-informed women explaining reality to clueless politicians 🤔

Would definitely be better than the football!

JK Rowling clearly holds the whip hand with the Labour party in the trans rights row

https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/labour-trans-jk-rowling-b1166680.html

I'm not ready to say that Rowling is all that clever in this instance. By naming a set of conditions that Starmer obviously won't want to meet, she's let him say "I offered to talk to Ms Rowling, but she made it impossible". If she'd limited her demands to "I'd be delighted to chat, if he'll invite Rosie Duffield too" she might have called his bluff. I mean, how could he object to talking with a member of his own party?

I'm sitting here shaking my head, I'm listening to the Rest is Politics and they're talking about JKR's letter in the Times. It should be noted that they never mentioned the Cass report when it came out even though it was the biggest story in politics for several weeks and also the self id aspect of the Greens collapsing the Bute House agreement was barely mentioned as a footnote and they tried to frame the reason as climate related which is really wasn't.

This is my summary of what they said but I only listened once since it made me so mad so I may have missed some stuff.

They start it off with saying that according to their polling no one cares about this issue and that there is only a tiny amount of trans people (who are also the most marginalised). Then Alastair says that the women in his life don't think the same as JKR (not implying that maybe women aren't a monolith, more implying that shes wrong and other women don't agree with her). I got the impression that Alastair felt somewhat betrayed by JKR (a formerly very good Labour donor/supporter) daring to have an opinion and publish that opinion

Both of them make a point to say multiple times how much they respect JKR but also as a podcast have decided not to engage in the issue because as men they don't feel like they should have an opinion on this essentially.

Rory then cites that he has a trans friend who is a doctor who helps people transition and also knows several women who feel very passionately that their rights are being erroded (thought no one cared about this according to themselves), He also then recommends the podcast the witchtrials of JKR, I would love to know how anyone could listen to that podcast and not be fully informed of the issues and see where JKR is coming from.

No mention of Rosie Duffield, no mention of Tony Blair seemingly being able to have an opinion on this and Starmer valuing that opinion over the countless women who have spoken.

Its such fence sitting nonsense, they would have been better to ignore it completely rather than try not to offend anyone and pretend like its an issue that people don't care about

That's why I can't listen to it anymore. They wind me up more than TRAs.

I'm gender critical, and I'd love it if it were true that most trans people were happy with third spaces or using the facilities for their own sex, and didn't expect to be treated as the opposite sex. And that all the current trouble is down to a few extreme activists who have no backing from the majority. I just don't think this is true.

Why would someone go through the health complications of cross sex hormones and SRS if they expected and accepted that they'd still be seen as the sex they are?

I used to follow accounts like this on Twitter. Mostly male people who had medically transitioned. They opposed self ID, partly because it undermined their credibility. But mostly, they expected to use women's spaces and believed that, somehow, they weren't men. Many claimed that women saw them as women. And I would say that even these people, who in practice do not align with gender critical views anyway, are in the minority of trans identifying people. You will of course find a few trans people who really do agree with Rowling, but understandably they're not a large percentage. I wish it wasn't a zero sum situation, but it is.

I think they're largely typical of many men of their status. I would bet they both know it's all bollocks but they think women shouldn't make such a fuss, not when more important (in their opinion) politics are at stake.

Rory sounds marginally better if he has at least taken time to listen to the podcast and some of his female friends but I can imagine Campbell being the one who sets the tone of the podcast as he's always struck me as a boorish type. He won't be the slightest bit interested in listening to women.

She shoots - she scores (which is more than they did tonight)!

He didn’t want to talk to women in his own party even though he was asked to over a long period of time. An added bonus of JKR’s stance is that it has flagged up his reluctance to speak to women for all to see.

It isn't that big a hurdle.

Remember Starmer talks to Tony Blair all the time who agrees with JKR.

Note the Catholic Church, evangelical churches and all UK mosques not only disbelieve in trans stuff, but think it breaks a magical cosmic order. Weirdly Starmer has never had a problem talking to those groups or anyone who attends them.

I guess whether it is a good strategy comes down to whether the public eventually believes JKR is more unreasonable than Starmer.

That will depend if there is a spate of cases of criminality, medical negligence, cheating in sports connected to gender stuff after Labour take over

Thanks for the link to the article 👍

I really wish this zombie idea could be killed off:

'Most significantly, it would no longer be necessary to testify before a panel of experts to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria; instead just one specialist would be needed....A panel of experts provides reasonably serious scrutiny of a claim; a single hard-pressed, in-demand specialist can’t offer the same level of robustness.'

1. Nobody goes in front of a panel - they fill in paperwork and the panel looks at the paperwork.
2. The panel isn't much of a safeguard because they approve nearly all applications made for GRCs and if they do turn down an application a judge will often rule in the applicant's favour e.g.https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2019/10/10/gender-recognition-certificates/

Great article in the New Statesman - the most widely read left magazine in the UK

Labour’s women problem
Keir Starmer must accept that JK Rowling is right.
By <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/AppCz/www.newstatesman.com/author/hannahbarnes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Hannah Barnes
https://archive.is/AppCz

Labour is living in denial - JKR is the force that is facing them with reality.

Very good article, thanks.

Excellent. Labour are making a right arse of themselves over this. Desperate attempts to deflect and minimise are only making it worse. It won't go away once they're in power.

@miri1985 I came here to see if anyone had commented on the latest TRIP. I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by Alastair’s comments, when he refers to the women he knows I think it’s worth noting that his daughter Grace is very-right on and publicly TWAW so he will haven influenced by her. I was more heartened by Rory’s stances that I think he’s almost there - he acknowledges that he knows women who are worried about their rights AND he has listened to The Witch Trials of JKR. I’d guess he’s still trying to “be kind” and could be brought round by reasonable argument - hence why we need to get JKR on Leading - if of course she wanted to do it.

Here is the form to nominate guests. Let’s keep it civil and not insult them as they will just ignore any abusive messages about how stupid they are 😜
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdlYSP0zb0U-sr3DBVSiinD4kzB5x1xe69qY43xjC1QP7yLmg/viewform

In Starmer interview in DM this morning he says:
So does the Labour leader have a woman problem?
'No, and I've said, I'm very happy to meet JK Rowling to talk this through,' he says. 'I respect her views. I welcome the debate. There are strong and different views on this topic. I recognise that.'
Does it ever cross his mind that she might be right and he might be wrong? He suggests his position is misunderstood.
'I think on the basic stuff of no self-identification, of women's spaces – and I don't just mean in the sort of criminal justice, domestic violence world – but also [hospital] wards, and the proper fairness and integrity of sport, I actually think there's more common ground than perhaps, is sometimes reported.'

He's an idiot. The common ground argument and self ID does not work. We've looked at this. The problem is the militancy of TRA and the fact they will not recognise women's rights and dignity.

I suspect Starmer's real desire is to placate her and make her go away and she knows this. He's tried this with most of the female members of his cabinet, and now he's giving Rachel Reeves a go.He wants her to stop saying stuff that draws attention to the issues that he is evading - not to actually act on anything she says or take her views seriously. Just a desperate PR measure. Firefighting.

JK is signalling that she won't be dismissed and got rid of so easily - and by listing the groups that have been active over recent years, and which have been labelled as hate groups or as bigots - she is also signalling the scale of the problem he needs to contend with, and which will still be there after July 4th.

He knows she is going to be an ongoing thorn in his side.

He's very careful not to mention toilets or changing rooms......the sorts of situations in which the largest number of women and girls will be directly effected.

I notice that he’s not yet offering to meet women’s groups from his own party.

So he’s not really listening to her at all. As a pp said, hoping it will all go away with a little placatory chat.

He wants to shut her up until the election is over. She’s costing him votes.

Thank you fromorbit for sight of the New Statesman article. It is very well written and factual rather than hyperbolic. It should be sent to every Labour candidate standing for Parliament asking for comment.

JKR did this at EXACTLY the right time. She lay down a challenge which everyone heard and now Starmer and Labour have to either accept it or run away. The media will bring it up again and again over years.

Remember this is about more than one election it is an ongoing conflict. One which can be won just by saying the truth that human beings are real flesh and blood biological animals with two sexes.

The SNP had a complete dominance in Scotland, with support from other parties, and a bunch of women and gays took their gender nonsense down.

To take on Labour we have all the people that won in Scotland, a tonne of veterans, plus many many more and recruits are turning up daily. The TRAs cannot win at open debate or in court. They know it themselves.

Look at Wes Streeting - a weasel sure, but a weasel who knows the TRA position is weak and will lose. He wants to be on the winning side.

I know a lot of people are worrying who to vote for. The truth is just do what feels right and don't worry about it. The real fight comes AFTER the election. It is a fight we can win unless they arrest every truth telling woman and man in the UK. It will take years, we will lose some battles, but we are getting stronger every day.

Starmer isn't going to even try to crush gender crits, he is clearly confused by the whole situation. He is not a true believer like Sturgeon. If he is willing to permit open debate then the TRAs will lose sooner or later.