Is the LP changing its stance on 'gender'?

Interesting, as that is back where I started. Your question was about the Labour Party. When I read the assumption about the "women in the street", I did not want anyone to suggest others found this subject so important when there are real, national problems for the Labour Party or any other party to solve.

But then, it was probably more fun to descend on me or to lecture me on men, women and other humans.

Nor me.

I'm not disagreeing with that.

If you put this highest on your list of what you need from a political party Rosie, you won't vote for them unless they chant the right mantra.

However, for many people, it is not at the top of their list; it cannot be. Being able to eat, have a roof over their head and have their houses properly insulated, etc., will mean they are looking for those things first. On the day we all watched people's houses burn because of climate change, I cannot think of anything that comes further down in my priorities.

I do hope you all count yourself extremely lucky to be able to see this as the most important thing a government can do.

Chewbacca

That's precisely the position I'm in too Rosie51; politically homeless.

And me, hence the thread . It's a miserable state of affairs, and one that is shared by a number of people I know - including supporters of the Lib Dems and SNP. the Greens are as bad but I don't know anyone who will have the chance to vote for them in a GE.

DaisyAnne
My first post was because someone posted about "the women in the street" implying we all feel as you do. I objected. It appears I am still having to object against people who feel they know what and how I should think.
I find it hard to read posts where people object to others expressing their feelings whilst wanting to express their own feelings without objection.
I’ve not really grasped what you are trying to say about the LP.

That's precisely the position I'm in too Rosie51; politically homeless.

I'm away to find some fog to knit, about as likely as getting a concise, clear vision of what the Labour party stand for. Many of us won't vote for the Conservatives, but neither will we vote for any party that doesn't know what we are, and what protection women as a sex class need, which at the moment is all of them.

You believe that Stormystar. At the other extreme some people believe, just as strongly as you do, the complete opposite. If you are a believer what are they?
Two things spring to mind here, although Stormystar may, of course, disagree. One - I might believe in Islam, which would make me a believer. Someone else might be a Roman Catholic. They would also be a believer, although we believe in different things. I, as a hypothetical Muslim could respect their right to believe as they do, and the reverse could also be true.

Two - the idea that human anatomy is at the root of what makes people male or female is not, as I understand it, in doubt. The TRAs belief is, I think, that that is irrelevant to what makes them men and women (which is different), and that so-called 'gender' is more important than sex. So if a man changes gender they can become a woman, whether or not he changes his body.

There is no spectrum of sex on which intersex people sit, and there is no magical transubstantiation of gametes - it's all about the 'gender'.

Either way, the issues that the LP would have to deal with if in power are nothing to do with belief - they would include things like whether men should be housed in women's jails, or whether all public buildings should have 'gender-neutral' toilets, even when this means that the Ladies' is sacrificed and the Gents' stays as it was.

Elegran

You are not interested in my description of men and women? The description of how their bodies differ, in their structure and how they work?

So you are not interested in the differences between men and women - the differences which make it impossible for a man to be a woman or a woman to be a man. A man can feel womanly, and a woman can feel manly, and if that is so then they are free to live their lives as they wish without molestation and to act as though they are the sex that they feel but that doesn't make a man into a woman or a woman into a man. It means that they are men who have a strong preference for being women, or women who have a strong preference for being men. It is aiding and abetting a fantasy to confirm their misconception.

Brainwashing. I said I do not want it. Not from you. Not from those diametrically opposed to you.

My first post was because someone posted about "the women in the street" implying we all feel as you do. I objected. It appears I am still having to object against people who feel they know what and how I should think.

Yes that's a really good point Rosie. My belief has absolutely zero impact on the reality of biological sex. If everyone on this thread said crikey you are right it is possible to change sex, the actual reality of biological sex would remain. I am really sorry that people cant change sex but I didnt create that situation.

If the differences between male and female are to be ignored, and any man can legally declare he is a woman, purely by saying that he believes he is a woman, then he can go wherever women go, with his male body and his male hormones.

If some men can go wherever women go, what is to stop other men with male bodies and hormones and instinctive male reactions to seeing women partly clothed, from also going wherever women go?

As someone said above, we put great efforts into making it possible for women and girls in third world countries to have places that are closed to men. Yet we are reversing the efforts that were made by previous generations of women to secure those safe places in our own country.

Has something happened to the women and girls recently to stop them needing and wanting privacy when they are at their most vulnerable? Has something miraculous happened to men recently that takes away their instincts, and makes women and girls safe from ALL of them?

You're right Galaxy and I've never taken the trouble to look into the scientific research on what the labour party might be.
It has changed over time, I've heard, so how can we really have any idea what we are talking about?

Sex is a spectrum moving from male to female
All organisms that reproduce by sexual means have two sexes. Not 3 or 4, nor a whole spectrum of sexes, just two. That goes for mammals down to flowers. That sometimes there is a fault in one organism's developmental makeup does not invalidate that truth. Humans are bipedal and binocular. An individual born missing a limb or blind through a defect in the eye or its total absence does not invalidate those truths. A person born with an absence of a digit, or an extra one does not invalidate the truth that humans have 10 fingers and 10 toes.
It is not my 'belief' that sex is immutable and there are only two, that is a fact. Whether I believe it or not matters not one jot, the fact is unaltered.

Elegran excellent posts. All of them.

It's very difficult to proceed really if words can mean anything. We are talking about the labour party, what if Elegran for example believes that the labour party is a cricket club and I believe that the labour party is a political party, how do we proceed in a discussion about the labour party.

You are not interested in my description of men and women? The description of how their bodies differ, in their structure and how they work?

So you are not interested in the differences between men and women - the differences which make it impossible for a man to be a woman or a woman to be a man. A man can feel womanly, and a woman can feel manly, and if that is so then they are free to live their lives as they wish without molestation and to act as though they are the sex that they feel but that doesn't make a man into a woman or a woman into a man. It means that they are men who have a strong preference for being women, or women who have a strong preference for being men. It is aiding and abetting a fantasy to confirm their misconception.

Stormystar

Daisy Anne the immutable fact is the difference between male and female anatomy. This has never changed in the whole of the history of humankind. And the few abnormalities only prove the point. Yes we form an opinion but the perspective we take mostly arise from the beliefs we hold, but beliefs are not truths. Come on You know this.

You believe that Stormystar. At the other extreme some people believe, just as strongly as you do, the complete opposite. If you are a believer what are they?

Wes Streeting was quite open minded I thought. If you listen to him theres a lot of stuff going on between the lines I think.

Chewbacca

Whatever DaisyAnne, I'll put it down to the heat!

Then I will be equally tolerant of your misconceptions of my posts - if that is an end of it.

So you do not believe the views you discuss are at one extreme of the spread of this topic. As I have said, several times, as someone whose views sit squarely in the middle area I find the attempts to tell people they must agree with one of the views, at one end of the scale, extreme. The idea that it is a "belief" horrifies me. That is how this conversation makes me feel.
No, I don't feel that my views are extreme. I have nothing at all against transpeople living their best lives. Nothing. All I want is for them to do so whilst respecting women's rights, and to accept that they are transwomen, rather than expecting us to accept that we are 'cis' women and allow them into female spaces if they are male.

I don't think that your views sit squarely in the middle, although I accept that you believe that this is the case. You have told us that we are extremists and therefore that our views are simply 'beliefs' (as opposed to what, exactly, is not clear). I am not telling anyone that they must believe in anything. I am (perhaps forcefully, but at least politely) explaining what I believe, which is that men (or male-bodied people) should not have unrestricted access to places where women are vulnerable. I am doing so in the face of increasingly tautological opposition, which reminds me of conversations with Marxists when I was a student. They were always closed down because anyone who disagreed was told they did so because they suffered from false consciousness. If only they understood the reality of the Marxist POV, they would understand that the Marxists were right, but until then they could be safely ignored.

I am not, and have never been an extremist. Unless, that is, you are defining 'extremist' as 'anyone who disagrees with you'. I don't think you have defined 'extremist' in this context - it's one hell of an accusation, so maybe you could do that? What is it about my views, or others on this thread that are 'extreme'.

I don't understand what you mean by 'the idea that this is a belief horrifies me'. I understand the horrifies bit, but what actually horrifies you? The idea that people think differently, or the belief that men and women are biologically different? (or something else, before I am accused of attacking or misquoting.)

Also, the thread is about whether the LP is changing its stance. You say that they are open minded and you admire that, but have not given a single example of what you consider open-minded. Anything would do.

Whatever DaisyAnne, I'll put it down to the heat!

Chewbacca

You're not being attacked DaisyAnne, you're being disagreed with. You know... like people disagree about politics?

But you are disagreeing with posts I did not make. I think that twist of the fact is an attack.

Elegran

No, I am not an extremist, DaisyAnne I am probably one of the most middle-of-the-road reach-a-compromise people on Gransnet. I neither want to eliminate trans people nor champion them over non-trans ones.

However, I do like accuracy . How can we communicate effectively with one another if we use words as labels for something which is not their meaning? Putting the coffee into a jar labelled "TEA" devalues both tea and coffee. It works in the family that uses that jar daily, but when a visitor tries to make themselves a cuppa, they run a serious risk of getting something they didn't want.

The sexes exist for the purpose of reproduction. Without reproduction, the human race would die out when the last representative tottered off. There are other ways of reproducing, and there are individuals in most species which are not interested in male/female sex but prefer their own sex, but but for mammals the norm is male/female.

We call many animals by different name for males and females. A male swan is a pen, a female a cob. A male horse is a stallion, a female a mare. a male fox is a dog, a female a vixen. a male bird is a cock, a female a hen. A male human is a man, a female a woman. This is nothing to do with how they feel themselves to be many or womanly, it is biological fact.

Do you believe that someone who transitions has somehow changed the DNA in every cell in their body? That they stop producing eggs and produce sperm instead? That their hips and shoulders change their shape, their eye-sockets alter, their Adams apple shrinks or grows, their breasts atrophy, their thigh bones alter how they fit into their pelvis? Do you believe that they can father children, when before they would have been mothers, or that they have grown a uterus and can gestate a child?

I have not expressed anything along the lines you seem to be suggesting. My first posts pointed out that I would not argue about what you believe, although I was talking about the fact that it is a belief.

Somebody chose to infer that I said the opposite of what I actually posted. That set everyone who can't be bothered to read back saying things that bore no reference to my posts.

I am not interested in your description of men and women. Nor am I interested in the description used by those at the other extreme of views on this topic.

I suggested that we do not know; that knowledge can change. It's the intransigence of the extremes and the insistance that they and only they know, that I was discussing.

It would have been better if I hadn't typed the cob/pen swans the wrong way round.

A male swan is a cob, a female a pen

Yes thanks for clarity Elgar. And even if we reach a time where men could have babies through modification of their bodies, they still would not be, and never will be Women.