You may be right but you should be ashamed of yourself

[Pluvia]

Yesterday, at a Labour Party meeting, I proposed we should consider a motion welcoming the Supreme Court ruling and the clarity it offers women and lesbians in particular. The local transactivist nearly exploded with righteous indignation. My suggestion was voted down, almost unanimously.

On the way out someone who I know to be GC caught up with me and quietly said 'You may be right but you should be ashamed of yourself.' I asked whether I should be ashamed for supporting women and girls rights, or whether I should be ashamed of raising this at a Labour Party meeting when both our Labour prime minister and a key member of his cabinet had accepted and welcomed the ruling. They said 'Both'.

I can only conclude they are angry at me for being right and doing something about when they didn't dare do it themselves.

I just can’t believe she said ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’. That really gets me, she’s not GC, she’s a fence sitter.

Pluvia · Today 11:30

I am aware that another constituency has already passed a motion opposing the SC's ruling and demanding that Labour reject it.

They can reject it until they're blue in the face, but legally, there's absolutely nothing they can do about it. Obviously, this is of little use to you, or others like you, in similar situations, bug they have no basis to discipline you, or expel you.

Yes, I know that. Trying to remember on what grounds women who signed the Labour Women's Declaration were thrown out, as some of them were. Presumably because they refused to accept Labour's TWAW policy.

Now the Labour Party has welcomed the SC ruling. So should this mean that all those people who think they shouldn't have done, and should have refused to acknowledge the clarification of the law, be thrown out?

I keep asking this, but do Labour really want to hand Reform a stick to beat them with?

A piece I read earlier this year quoted an (anonymous*) experienced political strategist saying "trans stuff" was one of the main reasons for growing support for Reform in Wales.

• Presumably the writer protecting his source.

I am bemused/fed up when, mostly, men in the media opine that people don’t make voting decisions based on single-issue matters and polices, such as trans rights/ gender ideology.

What are your thoughts on the BlueLabour movement?

Frankly it's the sort of thing I would expect from a group of LP activists. illogical, hypocritical, poorly thought through, and disrespectful of other's opinions. The LP is not what it was and IMO many stalwarts are hanging on in there hoping it will return to its glory days. Perhaps you should rethink your allegiances?

I so done with the “secretly” GC women who have let other women (and some men) do all the hard work, take all the abuse and STILL won’t stand up and be counted.

thank you @Pluvia for taking action for women and girls

I can absolutely sympathise with those who stood to lose their jobs if they spoke up, or those (like me!) who were openly GC in certain settings but not, say, at work, for the onslaught of harassment it was likely to cause.

But those who could have spoken up or could at least have done something and didn't, even now? Not so keen on that. I'm thinking here of the likes of Jo Brand - feisty, zero-fucks given feminist blethering on in last night's HIGNFY that "everyone was scared". Where were the voices like hers in all this?

Well done you. That is a very odd and hostile reaction from this supposedly GC woman. If she was trying to maintain her ‘cover’ all she had to do was not say anything rather than be quite so nasty. What a disappointment some people are.

What are your thoughts on the BlueLabour movement?

Don't have any thoughts on it: I know little about it. Would have to do in-depth research. I've changed my mind, or loosened up my thinking, on a number of issues: I've found myself agreeing with some of the things people like Mary Harrington have said, for example, but I'm extremely wary, as a lesbian, of what social conservatism might might mean for me.

Respect to you for speaking up. As more people speak up the flood gates will open and we can put the last decade of insanity behind us.

She's the one who should be ashamed - for being a coward.

@Pluvia - you sound very courageous and have nothing to be ashamed of.

Well done for speaking up, Pluvia.

'You may be right but you should be ashamed of yourself'
Newsflash for your interlocutor: shame has changed sides.

I can understand from your perspective as a lesbian and as a woman. I personally am very wary of Labour because of their position with the Unions, having been a member of one early in my career, they are deeply unpleasant and thinly disguised men’s rights organisations, advocates and activists. Nothing I have seen in recent years has dissuaded me of this.

Personally, I would prefer to know exactly what I’m getting as you often do with socially conservative parties, than with supposedly ‘liberal’ snakes in the grass.

This situation is one where secret ballots should absolutely be used. I’m horrified to hear they are not. The Labour Party has turned into a bully boys’ paradise. Whose idea was it to stop ballots being secret in the first place?

@PersephoneSeethes Did you know what you were going to get with Boris? Liz Truss? Mrs Thatcher?

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer...

Thank you for posting @Pluvia and for speaking up. That woman may come round in the end. I have started drafting an email to my Labour MP about the ruling and was going to mention how pleased I am that Keir supports it wholeheartedly 😉 and how disappointing that the Lib Dems have lost touch with the rule of law and ordinary people, and perhaps I might join the local LP, and see what the response is. I am a fierce leafletter but gave it up when the LDs insisted on their stupid and unlawful definition of transphobia.

I wasn’t in the country/ was a baby for Thatcher. I didn’t vote for Truss or Johnson.

Yes. As we see here on FWR and AIBU, they can be the people who censure others for language and for discussion.

They might agree but they need it to be accepted by the right people before they will publicly support.

It was generally pretty clear what you were going to get with Thatcher. You might not have liked it, but it was consistent. And she did respect science. Truss was fairly predictable too - she was open about being full on Rand-Libertarian.

Please do join, even if it's only a temporary measure. I sometimes think that just three or four more people prepared to speak out about it in my branch would tip the whole thing. At the moment it's me, a couple of much older, second-wave feminists who sadly because of health issues aren't often able to make meetings, and three older men, one of whom is very unpopular for reasons that seem to go back about 20 years. If just three people under 70 were to come along regularly and talk about issues sensibly, I think it would encourage others to come change their stance.

Who was right?
Pluvia was ethically, legally, and strategically correct in the long view.
Who was wrong?
Both the transactivist and the GC ally were wrong: the former for intolerance, the latter for cowardice.
However, Pluvia may have erred in tactical preparation — though this does not diminish the essential righteousness of the act.
Thus, the maxim emerges: "Right action often precedes right reception." Leadership demands being prepared to endure disapproval when principle is at stake.

A few years ago, on another talkboard, a group of us were angrily told by someone who'd run out of argument that 'Even if it does turn out you were right, you'll have been right for the wrong reasons.'

People don't like being shown up. As wrong, or as cowards