Oh fuck OFF, Emily Thornberry

[teawamutu]

Apparently we all need to be kinder and women's rights protections were a wrong turning: https://nation.cymru/news/emily-thornberry-labour-has-ended-up-in-the-wrong-place-on-trans-people/

I don't think she is stupid, but I do find it depressing when intelligent people are completely blinkered and detached from reality because of the circles they move in.
I do agree

Another well-heeled woman happy to throw all other women under a bus - but especially those at the bottom of the social strata - just because a relative wants to pretend to be a man to get a social promotion.

I wonder if there has been some research regarding "young" people and what appeals to them for elections etc.

Most of the "young" people I know think that its bollocks and are very tired of the whole drama. Its and its only the energised lot who want to be part of a civil rights movement to signal that they are good people.

Whether she believes its real the whole ideology has a short shelf life and will either expose her as an idiot or a liar.

I don't think she's stupid, I think she's a liar because she absolutely knows no one can change sex. She's entitled to her own opinions but not her own facts

given she definitely knows no one can change sex, it's up to her to come up with a solution beyond metaphorically wafting her hands around and saying beeee kiiiind

Yes, that infuriates me too! All these easily disproved lies about violence against trans-identifying men, all based on stats about male violence against prostitutes (most of whom are female anyway) in Latin America.

Male violence against women and girls is so unimportant to these liars, that they genuinely believe men should be allowed free access to all single-sex spaces. Who cares if they harm women?

I haven’t forgotten her sneery comments, years ago, when she passed a house flying an England flag. The flag was for a football match.
It’s stuff like that that ushered in the dreadful tories, and possibly reform at the next GE.
They just don’t get it.
Happy International Women’s Day!

There is an article in today's Guardian which forecasts electoral wipe out in London for Labour for "abandoning" progressive voters so I wonder if she is panicking and trying to position herself as separate from Labour policy https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/06/labour-urged-listen-progressive-voters-or-face-political-earthquake-london

I'm curious - do you think she knows that what she says about transpeople/violence/marginalisation is untrue, but cynically says it anyway?

Or do you think that she hasn't actually read the statistics on violence and social marginalisation?
Or that she has read them but can't understand them?

Which do you think it is? There has to be some explanation for her saying such daft things

People are entitled to their own opinions, but not, as a PP said, their own facts.
Politicians in particular need to be scrupulous in basing their opinions on facts, because they have authority, reach, power and influence.

When politicians' opinions are clearly at odd with provable facts, those opinions need to be challenged, not accepted. 'Post-factual' politicians are dangerous.

I think we all have blind spots; chinks in the armour....and particular causes or ideas to which we are emotionally attached. Though I do agree there are different types of intelligence.

I think she's blinded, on this issue, by her personal feelings - those that involve family members. It has been said her neice identifies as a trans man. Also, like many in the Labour party she has invested a lot of emotion into the concept of 'trans rights' and contemplating she could be wrong is not something she can, as yet, face.

My guess is that she hasn't really thought about it in any depth, but goes along with the groupthink of her political/social circles. The reason I think that's likely is that I was there myself only about 4 years ago – I assumed that trans was gay rights repeated, and therefore we must not make the same mistakes; we must be much nicer as a society to trans people than we were to gay people who just wanted to live their lives etc. It has to come very close to home for some of us to start to experience the cognitive dissonance that leads to reading trans books and gender critical books. Then we start thinking for ourselves, and following our assumptions to their logical conclusions.

I swallowed a lot of propaganda whole before I started having doubts when people close to me tried to explain their worldviews, or suddenly changed behaviour but couldn't or didn't want to explain why. I'm no more or less intelligent than four years ago, but my views on "trans" have changed considerably with exposure to the thinking behind trans politics. I still like the trans people in my life – I haven't personally met any horrible ones – but my eyes have been opened to some of the harms caused by trans politics, not least to trans people themselves.

So I don't think Emily Thornberry is stupid, but I do think she is blinkered, and she won't want to remove the blinkers or for anyone else to remove them. It's a disturbing process to have part of your worldview torn up. And then there's the politician's self-interest; they have to, or think they have to, calculate the impact of every utterance. That's how you get a PM stating that it's not right to say that only women can have a cervix.

I agree plus I do think it's different when said relative is a TM because I suspect she really does view her niece still as a girl/woman. Obviously she uses all the right pronouns/names etc but I'd be very surprised if she doesn't see her niece as a troubled woman in need of protection rather than as a man

And if your family member has been involved with puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and/or surgery.....then your emotions are going to be particularly heightened, especially if you have gone along with that as well as the pronouns.
And as you say, when your public face/job/career is very much tied up with a very a particular position on it then it becomes more difficult to back down.

You could see how conflicted ET was on the Laura Kuenssberg show when Jake Berry )said he wouldn't want any of his children used in the puberty blocker trial/experiment and threw open the question " Would you?" to both Thornberry and Billy Bragg. They both looked momentarily paralysed, and sheepish.

One of my biggest dislikes with politicians is all the vagueness of their platitudes. The whole be nice attitude doesn’t solve problems. I’d much rather they come up with the specifics. What exactly does ‘indulging’ mean when it comes to single sex spaces. If she thinks they shouldn’t exist why doesn’t she just come out and say it. What is she scared of?

I came on to say the same thing. There is something deeply uncomfortable about how much some of the Labour Party despise the working classes.

I'm not sure what else you'd call someone who wants to think with the heart instead of the brain, the organ that actually evolved to do the thinking, than stupid.

The simple fact is that there is no data to back up her statement.

There is no study that shows trans people in the uk at more at risk of assault. No one has done the research. Victims of crime have been allowed to state their gender rather than their sex. Perpetrators' crimes have been recorded as the gender they prefer, rather than their sex. All the data is mixed up.

She has made a public statement as a matter of fact without fact checking and that, to me, does seems rather stupid.

Stella Creasey popped up today to say it shouldn't be the place of Labour to show hostility to immigrants. Both London Labour MPs and both signalling to progressives that they share turf with the Greens. They know the Greens will be coming for them. Polanski might even run in Stella's seat.

I agree with you and disagree with her stance on Gender Issues.
I used to use the 'either thick or a liar' line. But i now strongly believe there is no way forward in that approach. We should be able to disagree with each other with more grace.
Check out JK Rowling. She's devastating on this, without insults.

The moment "suicidal empathy" was explained to me was the moment I "got" the motivations of the likes of Thornberry and the wider progressive movement on trans.

Would it be better if we said she's dishonest, or that she's behaving with political stupidity in placing her own family member ahead of intellectual rigour, honesty, women's rights, LGB rights, & safeguarding?

Sometimes "stupid" is adequate shorthand.

The Society of Women at Cambridge circulate info about their talks to their subscribers, and don't tell ticket holders where the talk will be until just before the event.

That's GC normality. But there goes Emily about the Most Marginalised.

She's annoyed me for bloody years.

Agreed.
Posh types exuding vibes of, 'Gosh! Those awful proles! They're meant to just vote for us and not have opinions!'

I don't think she's thick, but i dont think she's particularly bright, either. Shes just average and trying to fit in with the other Labour people, not a great independent thinker.

So shes accepted TWAW policy, seen family members transitioning, and heard trans are the most marginalised in society and not applied any critical thinking.

Its not in her favour to change her view, but i think ego has a lot to do with it, too.