WPUK statement

[RapidOnsetGenderCritic]

What should people make of this?

https://x.com/womans_place_uk/status/1862105940176060787?s=61

That’s bad news. We need all the help we can get, against the colossally funded transgenderist movement. But I know how campaigning wears people out. Huge thanks for all WPUK has done.

I was going to post this but with the question are they closing or just taking a break.

Or are they saying that with a Labour Government there is no need to keep a watchful eye.

It is very obscure, but at least honest in telling donors to stop sending money.

For all those who are not on twitter, the statement is available on their web site https://womansplaceuk.org/2024/11/28/a-womans-place-uk-the-right-side-of-history/

If they are closing then framing this as right side of history is either pompous or extremely niave.

(Just a thought OP as I dont think many on FWR would think a statement from WPUK is a priority, but might if it was suggested in title they are closing, or implying there is nothing to fight for anymore.)

Yes, WPUK have been very important for years in providing a space for women to literally meet and discuss the issues around gender Ideology. It was WPUK that provided me with such a place ( in the form of meetings, gatherings, conferences) in my very early years of 'awakening'......

I think because they have set out their stall as a Leftist organisation, this may have caused them some issues...as the women's movement that has evolved over the last several years incorporates people with a wide range of backgrounds and perspective ( and not all of the supporters align themselves so tightly to any one political tribe or outlook).

That Right/Conservative parties and persepctives are resurgent across the West must come as a point of conflict for WPUK - especially as it is they that are most rejecting of trans ideology. How do they work with people and politicians with whom they disagree on other issues - for example is Kemi Badenoch a goodie or a baddie? Do/can WPUK dare support anything a Trump presidency will do when it comes to pushing back against gender ideology....and so on.

WPUK want to remain pure and true to their particular brand of feminism......so I imagine there may have been some kind of existential crisis.

WPUK want to remain pure and true to their particular brand of feminism......so I imagine there may have been some kind of existential crisis.

Yes I think their "left" allegiance has taken primary place. And they have found former supporters who had this left framework have become critical of them.

What I think they did well, and have found this over a number of years, that the links to, experience of TU organising made them very effective. Partly because on one level they were less overtly radical.

But what was as a beginning a plus, has now made them less relevant.

"The abandonment of a materialist understanding of women’s oppression and the growth of neoliberal identity politics in other parts of the left have been massive betrayals of women. Conversely, we have long warned that the embrace of gender conservatism".

I for one have some issue with this passage. I don't see everything to do with women and women's rights through the lens of 'oppression', and also think that certain conservative views of women's rights also have value. For example, motherhood is not always an oppression; and the family can sometimes be a place of support for women, especially women as mothers. The female body, and its consequences, is not purely an oppression to be escaped

By identifying identity politics as being 'neo-liberal' is telling too......even though in some respects I do agree that everything has now become commodified ( women's bodies, personal identities.....). I think this use of words does point to an inherent ideological crisis for those who still identify as 'left wing' and have a very particular interpretation for what 'left wing' and 'materialist analysis' means.

I think of them very fondly as they were one of the first groups to organise meetings back in the days when we couldn't really talk about it. I went to a large meeting in London in I think 2017, where Maya Forstater, Julie Bindel, Meaghan Murphy and Salina Todd were speakers. The relief of being in a room with hundreds of other women was palpable, and to be able to talk to others about what was going on, when most people just didn't have a clue, was so helpful.

Its a very different landscape now, many more pp have an awareness of the issues and there is a large, organised fightback. I wish them well, for whatever reason they have decided to step down. The fight will continue!

I agree, identity politics is not neo-liberal in origin although it does benefit neo-liberal societies and organisations. I mean, identity politics came out the Left in the US in the 60s - Herbert Marcuse, for one, was highly influential and believed that struggle against Capitalism involved more than the traditional class struggle. Marcuse argued that free speech was of benefit only to the right/ruling class and that the Left should work to suppress speech that they viewed as suppressive.

As for WPUK - I found them very helpful in the early part of the fight against gender ideology but, in my experience of things, after a promising start they petered out somewhat as, to me, it seemed that they weren’t prepared to take the fight to the institutions and organisations (both Left and Right) in the way groups like For Women Scotland, Fair Play UK, and Let Women Speak did. I think Sex Matters are the nearest thing today to the function WPUK fulfilled in the early days of this new feminist awakening.

I wonder if WPUK are disheartened by the fact that the TUs and Labour Party have no intention of listening to them or giving them a seat at the table? If I were a committed trade unionist member, or Labour Party member, I would feel very upset if the movement I’d worked so hard for was treating me as badly as GC women are treated in the political Left.

Yeah, I would go so far as to say, while I agree that there are some influences around commidification and individualism in gender identity politics, the idea that it is neoliberal is quite a stretch,

Identity politics is accepted almost exclusively on the left of politics, and is largely rejected both by right wing neoiberals and most conservatives. This is the case across Europe, North America, and Australia and NZ. The exception is a few old school Marxists here and there, but even then it is pretty split, often by age.

Even at first blush, what are the chances that would be the case is it were fundamentally a neoliberal or right wing construct? We didn't see this emerge from the right either, it's always come out of the left.

this Probably is the right time for them to stop, I hope all women involved find a place in other organisations. WPUK were invaluable when they formed but their allegiance to Labour and the trade unions is not helpful when neither Labour or the Trade unions have listened to them.

There are many more organisations and it’s become easier to speak out (thanks Maya) and we know funding the legal challenges is key to making change.

think of them very fondly as they were one of the first groups to organise meetings back in the days when we couldn't really talk about it. I went to a large meeting in London in I think 2017, where Maya Forstater, Julie Bindel, Meaghan Murphy and Salina Todd were speakers. The relief of being in a room with hundreds of other women was palpable, and to be able to talk to others about what was going on, when most people just didn't have a clue, was so helpful

I think it was May 2018, I was at the same meeting.

I'm very grateful to them for my 'awakening' in the early days. Their website is a great resource and helped me form my opinions and that I wasn't going mad.

I think they probably feel uncomfortable as the movement has broadened and expanded to include people who don't share their politics. Organisations like 'SexMatters' which are apolitical represent more where we are now. I didn't always agree with WP, but things have changed so much, the landscape is completely different.

I'll always be grateful to them though for being one of the first places women could talk even if I don't share all their politics.

I'll always be grateful to WPUK for those early meetings and I think it's a shame that some of my more recent memories of them are less fond. I feel more affinity with The Labour Women's Declaration even though I'm no longer a party member

They played a really important role back then, of legitimising women meeting and speaking on this topic. The fact that they had trade union and Labour Party connections showed that concerns were being raised by individuals/ groups who could not be written off as “right wing” or “far right” as a silencing / delegitimising tactic.

They were pathfinders in a way.

It’s a more crowded landscape now, and I know of some women who would have attended those early meetings who have formed their own local grass roots groups to continue campaigning.

If Labour Women’s Declaration have got a seat at the table, then there won’t be the same need for WPUK.

This Ruth Serwotka

Yes, I couldn't remember if it was 2017 or 2018, it feels so long ago! But it was the first real life meeting I'd gone to, was v nervous, after seeing the horrendous footage of TRA s violently protesting women meeting, and I arranged to meet women I didn't know in the pub beforehand, through Mumsnet, noone knew where the meeting was happening until a short while before, it was v cloak and daggers back then! But exhilarating. What was your experience of that meeting?

Some lovely comments. I'm grateful for their early actions yet feel sorry for them that they have to contend with such entrenched misogyny in so many men on the left.

But exhilarating. What was your experience of that meeting?

It was great. Meghan and Selina Todd stood out as speakers. There were lots of FWR there!

Quite possibly we met then or afterwards in the pub @Appalonia!

That was a great meeting. Selina Todd was superb.

There's a full record of WPUK meetings on their site - that one was May 2019.

https://womansplaceuk.org/2021/10/27/record-womans-place-uk-meetings/

That's the end of a wee era.

Women's Place were hugely important getting the conversations going a few years back, and their website has some great resources on it.

I'm sure the organisation will echo on through other channels.

Yes, that's the problem as I see it. ........I have the feeling that in secular societies the innate human urge for transcendence often seeks an outlet in political ideology - which tends to be fixed and unchanging; religious in its devotion.

I think many of us have occupied such radical leftist positions at some point in our life, but time and experience often reveals to you other perspectives - if you allow it. I do feel that certain strands of feminism are in some ways actually anti woman.....in that they negate the joys and pleasures that can be found and experienced in female roles associated either directly, or indirectly, with the female body and function

That's not to say that we must confine women to such roles if they choose otherwise, and of course it is possible to embody and enact all sorts of scenarios in the context of a single life....and each has something to offer,

I'm very grateful for what they did in really starting the conversation and knowing how to organise.

Have the Labour Party really abandoned self-id completely?

I do wonder how easily women can discuss these things in union meetings or LP meetings?

I disagree with them if their demands were mostly met, as repealing the GRA is the not even being discussed seriously yet.

Have the Labour Party really abandoned self-id completely?

No, they have not.

There's a full record of WPUK meetings on their site - that one was May 2019.

Ah I was a year out too! Remembered month but not year. Thank you.

I was also at that meeting, all the speakers were amazing. It was the first time I heard Selina Todd, I can remember getting that tingling up the spine when you know you are in the presence of a great person.

I think that most of the founding members retained their normal jobs, the
work load alone must have been extraordinary, but also they were seen as traitors by the most of The Labour Party and the Trade Union movement, which must have been so incredibly difficult. When your life has revolved around these organisations and suddenly you are persona non grata, it’s all aspects of your life that change, work, political affiliations, socialising. And it’s not just you personally, your family members are caught up in this too.

We owe them so much. I went to as many of their early meetings as possible, had bomb threats, screaming mobs outside, TRAs trying to kick the venue windows in. I owe them so much, I have become so much more courageous, and they started that process.

Thank you WPUK