Guest post: A very ordinary woman leaves Labour #labourlosingwomen
I don’t know when Labour fell headlong down the gender ideology rabbit hole – to my shame, I was all but oblivious to this until about two and a half years ago. What became clear though, was that inexplicably, Labour had fallen in love with a neo-liberal, postmodern, anti-materialist ideology that was antithetical to Socialism. I thought Corbyn would see through this nonsense. Not a chance. Introducing himself with ‘pronouns’ prior to the last general election was … well … surprising. As well as stating the bleeding obvious – we all know you’re a bloke mate!
The manifesto offered a glimmer of hope – although how on earth they thought they could deliver their promise to reform the ‘Gender’ Recognition Act AND defend women’s rights under the Equality Act 2010 was baffling. Nevertheless, we breathed a sigh of relief. There was some recognition that sex – and women as a sex class – actually existed. Like good Socialists should, they acknowledged material reality.
A leadership contest predictably followed the election in December 2019. Most of the leadership and deputy candidates enthusiastically endorsed a ‘trans’ pledge solemnly declaring witches should be burned at the stake. Starmer did not sign – and so again there was a glimmer of hope.
It’s been a horror show since:
- Lisa Nandy, MP, stating male rapists be housed in women’s prisons if they ‘identify’ as female during hustings;
- Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a shadow minister, claiming JK Rowling weaponised her sexual assault in order to promote ‘transphobia’;
- Angela Rayner, deputy leader, always the stalwart trans activist;
- ditto Dawn Butler, MP;
- Nadia Whittome, MP, also ditto and in past few days tweeting her pride at signing a letter commemorating ‘our trans sisters’ on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (more women in the UK are killed in 4 week period than transwomen killed in the past 10 years, but Nadia won’t allow reality to get in the way);
- Rosena Allin-Khan, MP and shadow minister, an actual Doctor (incredibly) tweeting about being a trans ally no matter how hard it gets;
- Rosie Duffield, MP, however, agrees that ‘only women have a cervix’ and is subjected to a barrage of misogynistic hate. Labour leadership response? Tumbleweed.
Anyway – you get the picture (there is so much more).
Like many women – and indeed men who are not taken in by this cult – I was just about holding on. I have so much respect for Sisters who remain in this fight from the ‘inside’ (shout out to Labour Women’s Declaration).
On Friday 20th November Starmer stitched the baby pink and blue colours to his lapel and signalled to women the biggest f*** off he could (see my letter following). Oh, that forensic mind of his huh? I would be delighted to be proven wrong.
I resigned and have tried to make as much ‘noise’ as a very ordinary woman can.
Incidentally, I posted my letter on the local Labour Facebook page – you can guess what happened (no actual physical threats, presumably as it isn’t an anonymous forum): “transphobe”, “TERF”, “good riddance”, posting laughing faces on statements about women being subject to rape/death/violent threats.
What is wrong with these people?
My letter
22/11/20
I am writing to inform you of my resignation from the Labour Party.
It is with despair and despondency I do so as the Party seems irredeemably misogynistic. I say this as a result of its promotion of an ideology that demands adherence to a homophobic, sexist, reactionary belief system (any dissent and you are labelled ‘transphobic’).
I had hoped Keir Starmer would attempt to address the bullying and harassment of women who do not accept ‘transwomen are (literally) women’. Thus far, not only has he failed to engage with, for example, Labour Women’s Declaration or Woman’s Place UK (both left-wing, grassroots feminist groups), he has specifically and deliberately failed to stand up to the vile misogynistic bullying of Rosie Duffield.
Friday 20th November 2020, however, was a new low. Any hope I had that the leadership might tackle the misogyny and bigotry inherent in gender ideology disappeared. To be clear – gender ideology is not only reactionary, it is profoundly anti-materialist. As Socialists, such a neo-liberal, post-modern ideology should be antithetical to us. Material reality is fundamental to Socialism. Women’s oppression is based on our SEX.
On Friday, Keir Starmer considered it acceptable and appropriate to retweet a video by Angela Rayner which peddled and promoted lies about deaths of people who identify as trans. In the past year in the UK there have been NO such murders. NONE. The video suggests there is an epidemic of violent hate crimes in the UK against trans-identifying people when in fact as a demographic they are very safe in the UK – unlike women. I also understand that as a result of this tweet, Rosie Duffield was subject to another ‘pile-on’.
I am a ‘gender non-conforming’ woman (i.e. I do not accept stereotypical notions of femininity that gender ideology seems to demand in order to ‘identify’ as a woman. Some people erroneously think this means they are ‘non-binary’ meaning neither being male nor female – you still have a sex no matter how you ‘identify’.) No one should be subject to harassment, discrimination for being a ‘feminine man’ or a ‘masculine woman’ etc. but the current demands by the Labour Party that one submits to an anti-scientific ideology that seeks to destroy women’s sex-based protections makes remaining a member untenable for me.
I hope the Party will – in time – see a way out of this morass of regressive identity politics otherwise I fear we are condemned to decades of Tory rule.
Yours sincerely,
Delyth Rennie
Published 27.11.20
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5 Responses to Guest post: A very ordinary woman leaves Labour #labourlosingwomen
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Thank you for this. I suspect many more women are voting with their feet on this, quietly drifting rightward while liberals are too busy screaming to notice yet. I’m American, but I’ve also left the incurably misogynistic Left over this issue. I’m even changing my party affiliation to Republican – because the Democratic party has made female erasure part of their actual platform. The only politicians opposing this outrageous madness in my country are Republicans. And conservatives are surprisingly easy to talk to, as well, after years of dealing with hysterical, cult-like parrots. Other than radical feminists, the vast majority of organized opposition to this cult is coming from conservatives. So, yeah, priorities have changed, and the Right is officially more woman-friendly than the Left.
Also, it isn’t really just this issue, is it? It’s the LEFT that wants to normalize sexual violence, legalize prostitution, and be “soft” on crime (or abolish prisons altogether -https://www.womenarehuman.com/the-family-unit-is-transphobic-and-must-be-abolished-transgender-activist-says/). It’s the Left that’s already normalized pornography, and sectors of which are even trying to normalize pedophilia. In my experience, the *majority* of liberal males hate women more than the majority of conservative males, and are far more likely to minimize male violence (“there’s no difference,” the absurd lie runs – no wonder they’re now lying about visible biological facts).
I’ve suspected for years that feminism should be independent of both Left and Right. The 19th-century American feminists were almost exclusively Republican, after all. The wedding of second wave feminism and Marxism in the 20th century came later. Obviously, feminism as such existed before that, and doesn’t need Marxism in order to work for women’s rights. I’m still struggling with that part myself, but I’m going to get used to it somehow, because there’s no longer any place for women on the Left. It’s all empty words, and allowing a bunch of disturbed males to invade female bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, prisons, and to abuse women in sports. Knowing that even young girls *have already been* raped as a result of this invasion, and more will suffer the same victimization at the hands of their celebrated “transwomen” if they continue denying the facts of human anatomy. Responding – like bona fide psychopaths – that “male genitalia” raping a woman is no worse than “female genitalia” sexually assaulting a woman (because “there CAN’T be any difference”). Obviously, this is not equality. It’s stunningly misogynistic, perverted, and psychotic in its denial of reality.
It’s time for women to make a home for ourselves on the Right, where we’re still allowed to SPEAK, where are our voices still matter, and where our rights still count – because that’s the only place left where reality is still acknowledged.
Labour is living in a fantasy world, along with the Greens, LibDems, SNP and most other mainstream parties (apart from the Tories and the Communist Party, who still have a hold on reality).
The Labour Party should be worried about losing lifelong activists and socialists. Hell, it should be worried about losing its credibility and its principles! Instead it snuggles into its magic fantasy bubble and pretends everything will be all right.
Labour couldn’t win the last election even against that buffoon Johnson. No wonder people are giving up.
Honey, Socialism is about believing you can make money from nothing. Transsexualism is about believing we have 100 percent control over our bodies (and anything less is some sort of human-created “injustice”). They’re both fantasy-based. Welcome to the Right.
This fight is not left or right. It is a fight for protection of SEX based rights. It is a fight to ensure that women: disadvantaged due to their biological sex, are protected in law.
The right cannot crow that they are protecting women any more than the left can. Both political sides are as bad as each other.
Political parties need to stop kowtowing to an ideology that is cult like in its approach, to the detriment of a generation of young people. This means discouraging the use of “personal pronouns” (note: pronouns are not “personal” to an individual as they are a public descriptor of a person **in their absence**); preventing **in law** the mass re-definition of fundamental terms for male/female; man/woman and sexual orientation (which is not the same as “trans”).
So, the right and the left need to get their houses in order.
I completely disagree with you. You obviously don’t know what really socialism is and transgenerism is right wing neoliberal stuff.