Labour Leadership : Reboot 2019

[Red]

I don't have the video to share but at a husting last night, Nandy said that a child rapist who id's a woman should be moved to a women's prison. The room applauded.
Labour are a disgrace. I despair.

[Ella77]

It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

[indigo]

I keep thinking that sense will prevail, but it's utterly ridiculous.

[smalex]

I don't think this subject is that widely known, really, so I can't imagine this is going to be a widespread vote winner, is it, once people start cottoning on to the ramifications of it, and more stories about how fucked up it all is come out? Not that that should be the only consideration, of course, but I can't understand why, from almost any POV, so many in politics are so tied to this policy.

[Mountain Goat]

I just saw that. It's so disturbing. Even the people who are supposed to be on our side truly aren't.

ETA: what also disturbed me was that one of my first thoughts was how brave that woman was to ask that question. I should not be thinking that.

[Red]

It’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

Utterly. RLB also said over the weekend that 'transphobia' is a very real issue with working class voters in the North of England. Hmm.

Smal, I agree it isn't very well known with the general public and lots of people will likely be outraged but it's still a tiny bit worrying to me that women are blithely proposing this as a political policy. The cognitive dissonance on this issue is.... so weird.
How can you believe that a child rapist who id's as a woman as the effing right to demand anything? Because their thoughts and feelings take precedence. Are dresses and lipsticks magical?
I might have to go and hulk smash something.

[Red]

ETA: what also disturbed me was that one of my first thoughts was how brave that woman was to ask that question. I should not be thinking that.

Yes, it feels brave to even be questioning elements of this for fear of being a 'phobe.

[smalex]

I don't mean to say that this argument is all irrelevant because the general public are going to reject it, I just can't understand, from any angle, why are they all so under a trance with this? When they're on one hand acknowledging they need to 'reconnect' with their northern heartlands, their core voters, the man/woman on the street, and all that, I just can't imagine why they're so beholden to this policy, as if Joe Public is going to demand the rights of a child rapist who has self ID'd as a woman. But sure, call working class northerners transphobic, that'll have them flocking back

[Ella77]

There’s a suggestion that the source of a lot of their funding may be worth a look at.

[Red]

There’s a suggestion that the source of a lot of their funding may be worth a look at.

That makes sense. But who is funding people like Stonewall and the like? This movement has a LOT of money which it uses on training schools, the police, big business etc.

[Bat Macdui]

I don't mean to say that this argument is all irrelevant because the general public are going to reject it, I just can't understand, from any angle, why are they all so under a trance with this?

I am also a bit baffled. I think it's a combination of not gainsaying Stonewall and possibly looking at funders. I think it came out during the GE that the LibDems got donations from a pharma company that made puberty blockers. And obviously, that element of pushing/lobbying is massive in the US, with the way healthcare is funded there. And Stonewall are (for most) the be all and end all of gay rights, so shouldn't be gainsaid. There's some theories that they took on the T (to the extent they did) because post the legalisation of gay marriage, they were in danger of becoming more irrelevant (no legal things to fight for). Also: massive element of women, shut up. But I genuinely don't see how we have progressed so fast and hard to Nandy talking about placing child rapists in women's prisons and getting applauded.

[smalex]

OK. That makes sense. Or, actually, it doesn't, it's insane and ridiculous, but it's illuminating anyway.

[Mountain Goat]

Until all this, Nandy seemed like solid, decent, principled person with a backbone (regardless of whether or not I agreed with her) and this just seems so leftfield.

[Bat Macdui]

Yes. I thought the same and she's been a Wigan MP for years, so I have known of her/about her for years. Sensible. She gets branded as a Brexiteer but she spent ages trying to walk a fine line between representing her Leave constituency and trying to get Corbyn to have an actual policy. Mostly sensible.

[Mountain Goat]

I'm glad you said that as I didn't know if I had just read everything wrong as of course I have much less knowledge of her. Sensible, level headed and the sort of person who listens carefully to everyone before making a decision. Not someone who suddenly throws her own gender under the bus and won't hear another word about it.

[Bat Macdui]

What's quite baffling about it is that she spent all of The Brexit Wilderness Years talking about citizen's assemblies and power back to the people about big issues. Obvs, to her it's not a big issue.

[Bat Macdui]

When I wrote to her I said something very snotty about how Prime Ministers should not make policy with widespread implications for all the public based on the views of a single issue campaign group.

[Mountain Goat]

Oh well done.

[Morganna]

I've just watched the Ch4 debate, and deliberately didn't read the comments on here until I had.

I got the impression that none of them is particularly gung-ho about it, but that they have been pressurised to Make A Stand for some reason. It does seem as though there is more to this than meets the eye, and apart from a lobby from pharma companies selling hormones I'm a bit baffled about what it is. Who stands to gain?

I'm not at all convinced that the candidates have all been misled about it, or that they are somehow all too dim to understand the implications, so there has to be an explanation, but I don't know what it is. #helpful.

[Bat Macdui]

I read an interesting thread about it on Twitter this morning about Emperor's New Clothes/Peer pressure/No one wants to be the first to dissent. Which could be part of it. The Labour Party needs it's Joanna Cherry. It really, really does, because otherwise they are going to destroy themselves. Dawn Butler declaring that babies are born without sex is not going to help convey the image of a competent party.

I also have another side theory which is a bit tin foil hat and it's around the sort of man who is white and in power and finds the blurring and eroding of boundaries very helpful. Like kink and gay coming together under Pride as Pride is conflated with a family day out. Like porn being empowering. Like children being able to give consent to medication, meaning they might be old enough to give consent to other things. That sort of thing. It's... icky and a bit PIE reminiscent.

I might delete that later, I am twitchy about it, it's conspiracy theory-ist but also I don't think it helps, it allows TRAs to accuse women of seeing paedos everywhere and being hysterical.