Sex and Gender at the Labour party Conference

[fromorbit]

It seems the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) blocked motions focusing on pushing trans rights as well as those focusing on Gaza. CAC is controlled by pro leadership people so this reflects their priorities. Given what happened to the Lib Dems conference no doubt the CAC will be pretty happy in their priorities.

Obviously the conference will be shadowed by the decision to cancel the women's conference this year because of the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling. On the upside Labour party rules actually now say that women exist since earlier this year. See earlier thread.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5374205-labour-party-rules-updated-after-supreme-court-win-women-exist

By all accounts women's conference may return next year, but will face controversy because it will focus on actual women not men.

Meanwhile LWD is continuing their conference representation with an event The Supreme Court Ruling:Reflections on the Past Year & the Challenges Ahead and hosting Sex Matters and For Women Scotland reps at their stall.

Details - Conference 2025 - Labour Women's Declaration
https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk/conference-2025/

Labour Women's Network have a PERSISTERHOOD: Feminist Rally!
https://www.lwn.org.uk/persisterhood_rally

Labour For Trans Rights have organised a Trans Solidarity Rally Chaired by Nadia Whittome which has 8 other MPs attending including Dame Emily Thornberry MP, Dawn Butler MP and Christina McAnea, General Secretary of Unison plus the General secretaries of Aslef, and UCU unions.
https://www.labourfortransrights.co.uk/

There is also an trans activist demo outside the conference. So the TAs are scaling up protests, but their influence in the party as a whole is way weaker. They still have major sway in the unions as recent votes at TUC show. However sooner or later someone will sue more unions for sexism so they are on borrowed time.

Anyway this thread can mark off any potential drama though I can't see Labour matching either Lib Dems or the Greens conference.

It will be interesting to see how it pans out. There will be all manner of protest outside the conference, not just the predicatble TRAS.

And will it turn out to be a time of consolidation for Starmer and his new Home Secretary, or will it digress into an open warfare and leadership challenge. Personally think Labour needs to get to grips with pressing issues and fast....not indulge in leadership challenges from the Left.

The 'Persisterhood' rally doesn't use the word 'woman' once.

They can't let other people speak without them there can they. Well done to the LWD, that's a bit of a coup really considering the attitude towards the Women's Conference.
Bit different but there's a Menno video on YouTube from Edinburgh, where FWS were speaking outside Holyrood to protest about them not implementing the SC ruling yet. There was also a stand with women reading out the names of children killed in Gaza. Of course there was a TRA, only one, but he managed to get police on his side and played really loud music while the women were reading out the names of the dead children.
Any other protest group would have had their amplifier and themselves removed.

Who would have thought that Emilly Thornberry would turn out to be quite so full on TWAW. I imagine that may have something to so with her trans identified 'niece'?

It does use it once 'fabulous Labour women' although I don't know what sort of 'women' that pertains to.

But I've never heard of Persisterhood, are they making up words again or is this a 'thing' and I've missed it?

Perhaps they've changed it but they do use the 'w' word

We are the only women's organisation affiliated with the Labour Party, and we're dedicated to training and supporting women to take on leadership roles.

I'd be willing to bet my kidneys that the Trans Solidarity Rally will pass completely unprotested, nary a cricket, no glass will be banged on, no attendees will assaulted, insulted (except perhaps on here), doxxed or threatened. Unless a brave GC person sneaks in with an awkward question or two. In that case the threats to safety (actual safety, not transsafety) will all be aimed at her.

Missed that......but definitely get the feeling 'woman' is a 'trans inclusive' term.

‘Labour For Trans Rights have organised a Trans Solidarity Rally Chaired by Nadia Whittome which has 8 other MPs attending including Dame Emily Thornberry MP, Dawn Butler MP and Christina McAnea, General Secretary of Unison plus the General secretaries of Aslef, and UCU unions.’

All the usual handmaidens then, what a surprise.

No respect for dead children. What a strange response. 😢 But no suffering can compare with his poor victimised fetish.

Someone can only support trans people if they personably know one?

I've never attended a Party Conference - but then I have never been the member of a political party.

But for those who have just what is the point if as laid out in the OP they are so restricted in what can be said, who can say it, etc..

Do the side events make up for this? ie LWD being able to meet up and maybe get new members.

Or is really just a chance to meet up with old friends?

I've been to Labour party conferences in the distant past, so some of this may be out of date.

The official business is indeed usually quite dull - debating and voting on motions. This is sometimes consequential, for example Blair's amendment of Clause IV. But mostly the party leadership is free to ignore the votes, and the debates are long and self-indulgent.

Conference attendees who are delegated by their branch to attend might be expected to be at the debates, depending on the attitude of their branch. But the rest of us, who wouldn't be able to speak or vote anyway, just pop in to the main conference hall for the big set piece speeches and spend the rest of the time at fringe events - which can be genuinely interesting and exciting, and at the many social events.

There are only a few, select facts here and I’ve never attended a conference for a political party, but it sounds to me as if there is a significant change in the power structures.

A few, select MPs who already have their flags firmly nailed to the mast are attending a “Trans solidarity rally.” The union presence is troubling, but we know they are overrun at the top with transactivists and that will take time to readjust.

Maybe I’m wrong, but that sounds like a very limited number of MPs who are still sufficiently on board with the cause to put their names out there. I feel as if it would have been overrun a few years back with MPs wanting to demonstrate their right-on-ness.

LWD are allowed an open presence. That would not have been tolerated in the past, but would have been stamped on before they got anywhere close to being inside.

But the best news: that the Conference Arrangements Committee is blocking pro-trans and Gaza motions is huge. Those things are, at best a complete distraction from all the important stuff that’s going on. The Omnicause is harnessed to waste an awful lot of time that would be better used on things that actually matter and is, at least in part I think, actually a disruption tactic and a gleeful demonstration of their power to do that.

It really does seem as if the incredible hold that a small group of people had is being loosened. Things that were unspeakable are now open for discussion.

I’m sad the Lib Dems are still lost, but I could vote Labour if sanity has returned, even though I feel the current leadership is weak and unlikely to win a popularity vote.

While I don’t feel much sympathy for these people as individuals, given how far beyond reason they have been on this issue - at the expense of all other women and girls, I do feel pretty rueful about the number of powerful women who subscribed to this ideology- and continue to do so. It is killing women’s careers. From Kamala Harris to Nicola sturgeon, never in my lifetime have there been so many women in positions of power. This was a once-off chance to make life better for women - so many of whom are economically poorer and have far heavier care burdens than men, as well as facing threats from male violence and abuse, poor healthcare etc. And then along came this ideology and knocked all of that for six. Maybe Thornberry, Whittome etc would never have done much to tackle female inequality. It certainly doesn’t feel like they care. But to stake their careers on this one issue which - at its heart - hates women… it’s something I will never understand.

As a non attendee hope you dont mind me adding this here, but as the OP is about Sex and Gender at the conference, here is another strand about an issue sadly negatively impacting on women.

Leading VAWG organisations – including community-based ‘by and for’ services – are coming together at the Conference to have the urgent conversations this government has neglected to hold. Through three key events, we will call for vital reforms -> https://southallblacksisters.org.uk/news/vawg-takeover-at-labour-conference/

Whilst FWR has had threads more likely to focus on the impact of TW on VAWG services, the real impact has been cut.

Not because of adherence to trans politics, but many councils no longer support, or rather think it a good use of money to provide specialised services. So women escaping DV are expected to be happy to accept unsafe accommodation in a general purpose homelessness hostel.

In the end it maybe there will be no single sex services. Not because of trans politics, but because the safety of women is just not a priority.

Very important point considering Labour makes a big fuss about VAWG.

Maya Forstater
Sex Matters is going to the Labour Party conference to talk to MPs, delegates and organisations about the flaw in the government's digital identity plan.
https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/the-government-must-fix-the-flaw-in-its-digital-identity-plan/

Pride in Labour rally outside conference falls apart.

Maya Forstater
https://x.com/MForstater/status/1972005321502830837

3h
This rally was a no-show. About 12 blokes were there and they called it off!

After reading this piece, I was wondering how that rally had gone

Labour women's conference cancelled to stop trans inclusion

Yes as mentioned earlier in thread the rally was cancelled as only 12 people turned up.

Report from the fringe event - packed out.

The Supreme Court Ruling:
Reflections on the Past Year & the Challenges Ahead

LabourWomen’sDeclaration 🦖

And we're off! tracygilbert72 MP, our chair for this fringe, introduces our speakers:

Susan Smith ForWomenScot
Sarah Vine KC
Dee McCullough LesbianLabour & LabourLGB

Susan Smith of ForWomenScot gives us an inspiring account of their heroic and successful case against scotgov
on the definition of sex, and their current actions to require government to comply with the ruling.
#LWDLiverpool25

Sarah Vine KC explains how Criminal Law is there to deal with the very worst forms of human behaviour.
She warns of the dangers of further enshrining the legally undefinable term 'transgender identity' in law - including within the govt's current plans to "equalise" hate crime & to introduce a conversion practices ban

Dee McCullough of LesbianLabour & LabourLGB
gives a rousing account of how the Supreme Court ruling is positive for lesbians and gay men.

Questions flooding in as our fringe meeting draws to an end here at #Lab25 in Liverpool.

We have a full house & there is so much still to discuss.

Join us to continue the conversations at our stall (J19) in the Exhibition Hall over the next 3 days.

Announcement!

To coincide with the 5pm start of our fringe today at Lab25 conference, we are launching our new updated website.

Have a browse.
Sign up for mailings.
Join us in holding UKLabour to account on women's sex-based rights.

https://labourwomensdeclaration.org.uk

Feet on the ground. Interesting difference.

Thanks for the update, it good to see so much interest in women's issues at a Labour event, may the leadership take note. 🙏

Pictures worth a thousand words.

Wonder how Stonewall will write it up?!

According to X a few furries joined the stonewall event after their photo was taken

Coverage from Herald of Scotland of LWD at conference;

Labour urged to act on unions over sex-based rights
Labour members to “please, please, please deal with the unions”.
Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland (FWS), said she had “swung between disgust and despair” at what she described as the refusal of trade unions to support women in workplace disputes relating to gender identity.

Ms Smith said: “If I would beg Labour members to do anything, it is please, please, please deal with the unions.
“I am a product of a very upwardly mobile 20th century, but my grandfathers were both solid Labour union men, and I think they would be absolutely horrified that these organisations which were supposed to protect workers’ rights are now captured by trendy post-modernists.
“I have swung between disgust and despair watching women like Sandie Peggie being betrayed by the organisations which should support her, and I am fed up to the back teeth of hearing complaints about the Darlington nurses having to turn to organisations like Christian Concern, because if the unions were doing their job, they would not have to do that.
“You do not have the luxury of purity politics when you are trying to feed your family, and if anyone should know that, it is the unions.”
https://archive.is/3JDx8

Sarah Vine KC tells Labour: digital IDs must record sex
Ms Vine, a silk at Doughty Street Chambers and a leading legal commentator on equality law, said if the Government pushed ahead with the plan then it was “essential that sex accurate data is always recorded on any ID”.
She said any argument about the ID recording gender identity rather than biological sex would rely on privacy rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, this would not override the need for clear legal records.
“Article 8 is what is called a qualified right. Article 3, which protects you from inhuman and degrading treatment, is an absolute right. Article 8 is to be respected other than for prescribed lawful purposes.
“If Parliament passes a law that makes mandatory the carrying or possession of digital ID, that will be a prescribed lawful purpose, so the Article 8 argument will fail.
“If it is Parliament’s intention that we will use digital ID to ensure that a person remains who they were for the purposes of, for example, migration, work and health, there is no reason at all why that consistency cannot be maintained on a digital ID.
“So if somebody changes their gender, changes their name, etc., there needs to be a marker on that digital ID indicating that that is what has happened, so that people cannot use those freedoms to escape.”
Ms Vine also touched on Labour’s plan to equalise hate crime protections and legislate to ban so-called conversion practices.
The lawyer warned that current legal definitions of “gender identity” are so vague that proposed hate crime and conversion practice offences would effectively require juries and magistrates to make “political decisions”.
“The introduction of further criminal offences as proposed in respect of transgender identities — so that is hate crime or conversion practices — will effectively involve asking juries in the magistrates to make political decisions, because you will decide whether something amounts to hostility on the basis of somebody’s gender identity in accordance with where you are in this discussion, where you are in this debate.”
She added: “I don’t think that misgendering somebody is demonstrating hostility to their transgender identity. I don’t think that dead naming somebody is demonstrating hostility towards them.

https://archive.is/136tu