Why has WPUK gone quiet?

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WPUK used to be leading the gender critical cause in the UK, but they’ve been very quiet the past few years?

https://womansplaceuk.org/

On their website, their last blog post is from 2024?

I thought the organisation dismantled? It was a hell of a lot of work.

Yes they formally disbanded. Not aware of that OP?

They closed down in despair because it turned out that even though they as committed socialist had run some very good events that we had been happy to attend, it didn't turn us all into toe the line socialists.

There was a thread about it at the time. Especially in relation to the last posting made on their facebook page.

I think they had their own internal splits, but in the end it was the entryism of Actual Gender Critical Left that meant even the founding members of WPUK were found wanting in terms of left alignment.

Luckily AGCL have found the not very on the mark FiLia lap dog feminism an easier group to infiltrate.

Just waiting to see how soon that becomes the Socialist Feminist Revolutionary Front.

For old times sake - including the eye opening for some "elephant" thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4662757-womens-place-uk-filia-event-the-elephant-ignored-yet-again?page=1

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5115074-wpuk-with-the-help-of-agcl-have-written-an-article-to-stop-silly-gender-critical-feminists-thinking-facists-are-pro-women?page=1

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5219610-wpuk-statement?page=1

I presume they disbanded because they were criticised to death. I also presume they were sick and tired of being judged by anonymous posters who didn’t do very much but were very quick to complain when things weren’t perfect. The anonymous posters are usually inadvertently riled up by TRAs .

I can’t see an announcement on their site?

Either way, it’s a shame as their early meetings were revolutionary in this fight.

I think if you had been on their facebook page you would know that just isn't true.

Also it is really insulting to say that have different political positions is "criticism".

Not forgetting their personal vendettas including naming women from the stage to belittle them.

Or those who were happy to attend FiLia as consumers and then find out, would you believe it, that women have different political oppinions.

We are all grown ups. I would have thought by now must of us would be aware that you cant just be a consumer groups work and not question what else is going, as the thread about WRN shows clearly. It isn't just that some women do not like being duped. They think it makes the practice of feminism a murky as the political parties.

The thread about WRN shows that it is impossible to try to move from grass roots to a professional organisation because the volunteers don’t want expansion

The first rule of WPUK is you don't talk about WPUK. But since they formally no longer exist, I'm going to break that.

There were lots of good people in WPUK, at least in its early iteration, but there were also a few weaknesses.

It's perfectly legitimate to be a socialist feminist org and think that it's only through socialist politics that women can properly be liberated. But there were a few bear traps for WPUK:

1. Firstly, a sort of arrogance that led them to think that they were the leadership and their way of doing things was the only way of doing things, and anything outside their very precise set of politics was not feminism. This was less of a problem at the start, but it became more of a problem as women not sharing their ideology started to do things without permission from the leadership. Towards the end they were spending rather little time convincing us of the rightness of their approach, and rather a lot of time sniping at people doing unauthorised activism, often in a very teenage form of Voldemorting where they never named the person they were really obviously talking about.
2. I'd argue - they would dispute this - that they were a left wing org more than they were a women's org, and more specifically that their allegiance to Labour would trump everything else. And indeed we saw this in the runup to the election. Rather than holding Starmer's feet to the fire, we started to hear that the leadership were having all these secret squirrel meetings with Labour bigwigs, and we couldn't know what was being discussed, but any criticism of Labour from GC sources might disrupt the conversations they were having. The important thing was to keep quiet, vote Labour and trust them that it was all going to be ok.
3. They proved to be very prone to entryism by a small clique who don't seem to do anything except join groups that are actually doing work, kill them, gut them and wear them like a skin suit while using them as a vehicle to pursue mostly personal beefs. See also, FiLiA.

It's all a bit of a shame because they started out with great people making an important contribution. I think it's vital to have a socialist feminist org, to have people who know the labour movement, can do the policy work and have meetings with ministers. It's just as vital in its way as LWS type agitation - I think I can say that because I couldn't fully commit myself to either, for different reasons, but I see their respective value.

The lesson I take from this is that I don't trust any group that sets itself up as a sole leadership and tries to dictate what people who aren't in it can and can't do; and that there's a certain type of woman for whom the Labour Party is the dodgy husband who she has to believe is always just about to change for the better.

Perhaps feminist socialism should be given a whirl?
As opposed to socialist feminism that is.
Something goes very odd with priorities in the socialist feminist world.

Personally very grateful that WPUK was around in my earliest days of consciousness on this issue. Their regional meetings were a blessing and really helped to solidify the movement for so many.

being very careful not to be outing myself here, but I'm involved in Labour Women's Declaration where a few former WPUK people are now involved, basically LWD evolved from WPUK but its becoming much the same as @SionnachRuadh is describing. Cathy Devine was involved in WPUK and is now part of LWD. There's a lot of LWD activists who just seem to argue with each other and point 2 about leadership having secret meetings with Labour folk etc is very much the case with LWD as well. I plan to step away from it tbh.

Didn't they platform some men who say they are women and got upset when people pointed out that platforming some men and not others kinda missed the point?

Personally did find it a bit odd for Debbie Hayton to speak at a meeting; but really, not that bothered that he did.

Janice Turner has been a valuable ally when it comes to the media, but do think she prioritises the Labour party over and above everything else when it comes down to it.

I know nobody seems to ever be concerned about...the man who literally wrote the policy that got him and any other boy into any female spaces in schools across the UK and I can never work out why.

He is the original wolf in sheep's clothing.

I'm sorry to hear that. LWD were the main reason I kept faith in the Labour Party for as long as I did. I can't say I'm surprised though as the clue is in the name - Labour first, women second.

Yes, but I also think his voice, latterly, became more moderate and that has, at different stages, added a different perspective to the whole issue and opened up discussion for some who might not otherwise have engaged.

For me, it is not so much about 'us versus them' and I do think it has been educational to hear him be honest about what drove and motivated him. He's not so prominent these days. Haven't seen or heard from him in ages.

He is not moderate he just saw the tide turning and wanted in on the favoured position of 'reasonable trans person'.

You and i clearly approach and interpret things differently and i'm not really interested in having an argument about Debbie Hayton. Though as i said, I wasn't that phased about him speaking at the meeting I was at. There's nothing to be gained from denying that some men are AGPs and I do think it has been helpful in certain ways for men like him, and Miranda Yardley, to be honest about that.

I'm not a group person, in fact I tend to distrust groups as they usually become tribalised very quickly - with small differences degenerating into large chasms; and also because cliques and 'group think' tend to manifest. I prefer to remain non-aligned....but stil appreciate how important WPUK was in the earlier days.

Which makes him reasonable and moderate in my book, rather than a committed extremist.

Back in 2017-2018, there was a massive amount of hostility on the left to organisations like WPUK and gender-critical women. There still is some, of course, but quite a bit of it has abated as gender-critical views have become mainstream. Platforming Debbie Hayton was a way for WPUK to say "Look, we're not anti-trans! We're just concerned about the impact on women of this proposed reform of the Gender Recognition Act."

I think it's quite likely that a couple of years later they might have made a different decision - in fact, after platforming Hayton and Yardley in the early years I don't think they platformed any more trans women.

I attended most of the WPUK meetings. I think to organise or even attend a meeting, at that time, was time consuming and brave.

The women who started WPUK had spent their lives in the LP and trade unionism. They were married to Union leaders or officers, or were Union leaders themselves. They would have regularly met with LP officials.
This was at a time when there was no debate. I remember a meeting in the HoC with representation from every political party who all agreed that it would be totally fine for a Transwomen to stand on a woman only shortlist.

WPUK were able to trade on their knowledge of and social contact with people in the LP to push the case for single sex spaces. When a minister/MP can’t be seen to welcome a ‘difficult’ pressure group, they meet outside the confines of ministerial office, or they meet on Union business and then there is scope for ‘any other business’ to be discussed.

I seem to remember that there were some serious ill health issues around towards the end of WPUK, which may have hastened the demise of the organisation, but I think they were the beginning of the beginning of the resistance, and for that I am very grateful to them.

If he was reasonable he would be working to reverse the policies that endangered woman and girls in schools.

It is unbelieveable how hoodwinked and devious he is, to the extent that people think he is reasonable and moderate. I cannot fathom why people fall for this shit time and again.

100% agree @Shedmistress
He's as much of a fetishy AGP as the rest, just is sneekier about to get closer to women.
I can't believe anyone falls for it.

I don’t think Hayton is sneaky. Just like very many people he has become progressively more and more anti trans. I wouldn’t be surprised if he detransitioned one day. He wrote that guide in 2017 - that’s nearly ten years ago and the landscape was very different. The way he has been vilified by Kellie Jay keen and her allies has been unacceptable. They kept calling Hayton a pervert etc when he was actually one of the very very few AGPs who was telling the truth about agp. This was an own goal because now he very rarely comments