Anyone else seeing LWD Director Viv Pointon’s posts about Sonia Sodha?

[IWantToMakeTea]

Did anyone catch the comments LWD director Viv Pointon made about Sonia Sodha? She’s getting massive backlash online for explicitly targeting Sonia’s heritage and ethnicity.

Just to be 100% clear, I am and remain completely gender-critical— but I did end up leaving the LWD and WRN groups a while ago simply because of how some people, like Viv, were behaving behind the scenes.

The group chats just felt incredibly messy, bitchy, and unmoderated. Instead of being a supportive or organised space, they were frequently filled with general nastiness towards each other, a bizarre amount of hate directed at former Labour MP Rosie Duffield, and some shocking antisemitic comments. Viv herself was often a central part of that unpleasant atmosphere. A lot of the time, it was just constant chatty bullshit rather than anything actually relevant to GC campaign work. There were some bitchy LWD messages that got leaked to a newspaper a few months back. These are grown women behaving like playground bullies. I was going to go to the conference and attend the fringe group, but I decided not to go, though I might watch the videos on YouTube later.

Being in those groups was really eye-opening because it showed me the GC movement isn't 'love all around'. Maybe I was just a bit naive! Even though the core beliefs are massively important, seeing a director behave like that online to Sonia Sodha just reminds me that some people in the movement can end up doing more harm than good with their behaviour.

What does everyone else think?

You're absolutely right and even on this forum there are GC posts that, imo, play right into the hands of trans activists. I've posted saying this a few times. I'm female GC, by the way.

If you exclude the death and rape threats and actual physical violence, the outer fringes of both sides of this debate are beginning to sound equally unreasonable.

I do not really get involved or spend too much time but what I do know is there are a lot of people who know that sex exists that are complete numpties, some are horrible and some are backstabbing, some are racist, some hate marmite and some do not like crisp eating on trains.

We cannot control all the other behaviours of people around us so call them out or walk away.

There has definitely been a fracture in the movement between those still, primarily committed to Leftist politics, and others. For some women their identity as Labour party members, or as Left wing activists remains a far more important and core part of their identity. ( and anti Israel positions will therefore predominate)

This. I also think that there will be a lot of people who just will not see the high profile GC feminists who openly disagree with Viv.

I did see this but didn't realise Viv was director of LWD! I assumed she was right wing and am tbh pretty disturbed that a Labour person would say (essentially) that non-white British citizens shouldn't be identifying as English.

Agree that there is a lot of nastiness in elements of the GC movement these days - particularly about race/religion for some reason.

Have you got a link, OP?

Also, groups ( any kind of structured grouping) can quickly become toxic - with 'in factions' and 'out factions' and judgements on ideological purity etc.

That's the thing: "Sex exists, doesn't change, and matters in certain situations" is so very ordinary and fundamental that loads of people know it, and so there are bound to be some eejits and some arseholes amongst the crowd.

Because people are still people no matter their group allegiance. That's the problem with joining groups or parties. Human nature doesn't change - and the desire for group acceptance and to be morally righteous is always a factor.

This is it (I know most ppl aren't on X)

I thought it was fucking appalling as was the doubling down

people who believe biological sex is real come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and beliefs as do ppl who don't believe sex is real. The fact that some ppl who believe sex is real are massive racists doesn't alter the fact that sex is in fact real

Is it appalling to be able to define your ethnic group?

Isn't her point that it only seems to be the English that are never allowed to do this?

That's because English is not an ethnicity and it'll be really disappointing if we fall down this rabbit hole on FWR 🤦🏻‍♀️

More detail. (I’m not on X so there’s a limit to what I can see on my phone without the god awful popups)

actually she's now listed as a former director of LWD on companies house, but yes, I've been put off Labour a bit (although my local MP is fab).
When I was in the groups, very many of their activists and directors seemed to completely forget that the equality act covers more than just 'sex'.

The OP brought this topic to the board and you brought the screenshot so maybe don't bring it if we cannot discuss it.

What was Viv responding to from Sonia?

I'm pretty interested in English not being an ethnicity, what do you mean?

Might be useful to read Sonia’s piece

https://open.substack.com/pub/soniasodha/p/suella-braverman-cant-tell-me-im?

sorry PP, I should have included that piece myself

This.

Really? My experience is that they were quite surprised it covered ‘sex’ and certainly that it covered biological sex.

You’re denouncing that sort of behaviour yet are behaving exactly like that, by coming onto MN to start a thread about one woman!

However clumsily or elegantly you think she has argued, Viv is categorically not racist but I can see she is trying unpick this subject from a human geography standpoint - which I believe is her academic background. Sonia herself has been contradictory on this matter and it is clear there has been some confusion, discussion and disagreement on the thorny topic of ethnicity, identity and nationality - with many people contributing to it.

As you are clearly here to shit stir, could I just clarify that she has not been involved in LWD for some time now. Nevertheless, the group chats have always been a place for robust discussion and conversation (this is politics after all) but I have generally found support for relevant issues. I don’t know why you’d think the ‘gc movement’ like anything else, would be ‘love all around’?

sorry I don't understand what you mean? My point was that I would see posts that would be inappropriate about people's race, religion or health as if those posts were okay and sex was the only protected characteristic that existed.

Viv Pointon confirmed in February that she had left the Labour Party.

I don't think i'm shit stirring, I'm just posting about a recent event, which many people on FWR do?

On a topic we are lot allowed to discuss on here apparently.

Not my experience. There have certainly always been racists in the Labour Party, especially antisemites, but to suggest that there was no misogyny (which is what you appear to be doing) or that they were only concerned about preserving the integrity of the PC of sex seems fanciful. Or did you mean they were dominated by people talking about ‘trans rights’? As that wasn’t clear