I don’t believe Keir Starmer is Labour. Fight me.
Isn’t that why he helped remove actual labour people to make new, now more tory labour?
The only way for Labour to govern under first past the post is to appeal to the center.
Unfortunately our country is disgustingly conservative and the right wing have always been far better organised, it probably helps they have the media on side.
Starmer is actually doing a surprisingly ok job. The austerity he’s pushing is tedious as fuck but if he weren’t keeping an eye on economics we’d be drowning in hysteria about “magic money trees” and labour dragging the country in to debt.
The employment rights bill will be an incredible improvement for working people. I wish it went a lot further but it’s a solid start.
Unless labour support electoral reform we are doomed to an eternity of right wing government. Labour only got into power last year because reform split the vote, and very soon the reform and conservatives will merge together again.
I really have it with those old white men.
Why can’t you just shut up if you are incapable of adjusting your world view to the 21st century?
Remeber how when there was a fight for gay marriage a good portion of people said they didnt mind the legal concept and just wanted to call it “civil unions” and we totally did that as a first step to placate those people before going full on equal marriage…
I wonder why the approach to trans rights has been so all or nothing with people It seems like there is no real desire for progress from eithet side the way things stand now.
Well, that whole civil union thing didn’t really work out so well and those same people were still (and are still) homophobic to the extreme so why give them anything? They are clearly not interested in compromises anyway.
And why the fuck is there a compromise position at all? Bigots don’t have a right to discriminate against people. If they don’t want to get on board they can fuck off.
What happens when that attitude ends up creating more biggots and we find ourselves even more outnumbered. I dont know what the best solution is but surely its not to alienate a full third of the entire population and expect that to work out well for everyone.
On a personal one to one level i do agree they can fuck off. But from an observing the reality of living in a country that just elected a fascist, im worried all the demanding people accept things they disagree with lest they be shunned, its just going to lead to more pushback against trans and other vulnerable people.
How didnt it work out? It lead to eventually getting marriage equality world wide, in large part because those first states tried to do civil unions.
By your logic, when they freed the slaves, they really should’ve done it slowly instead of all at once, because look how many racists it made!
Or was civil rights too fast as well?
It certainly did work out in many countries, which transitioned from it to Marriage for all in the end
What is there to compromise here? Every building with gendered facilities has to build a third set of toilets for trans people? The government has to build a third set of prisons for trans people?
An example of compromise would be to acknowledge that trans women are biologically different from cis women.This is not an extreme or hateful idea. Other issues like sports or bathrooms can still be nuanced discussions that acknowledge peoples concerns and work to educate rather then alienate. Acceptice means different things to different people and it wont come all at once.
To compare a similar example imagine someone who comes out as gay to parents in the 90s: strict chrisitan parents might kick them out of the house and never speak to them again, - OR- they could be the type of conservative parents who say “well i dont agree with it but i still love you”. Whch would you rather have? Which one would potentially lead to a potentially better outcome/changed mind?
It seems to me that completely alienating people who have reasonable objections to relatively new ideas is not the best way to go.
That didn’t answer the question you replied to, and didn’t actually say anything. What does that all look like in real world terms in your mind? How does this “compromise” manifest? I’m guessing that it involves putting trans folk in harms way…
An example of compromise would be to acknowledge that trans women are biologically different from cis women.This is not an extreme or hateful idea.
It is also not in dispute.
What is in dispute is sometimes the extent of those differences, but is usually whether those differences are relevant at all.
Other issues like sports or bathrooms can still be nuanced discussions that acknowledge peoples concerns and work to educate rather then alienate.
Opposition to trans rights generally comes from three motivating factors:
- The propensity to find trans people icky.
- The desire to deny the existence of gender identity as something that is distinct from sex. (This comes in both pro- and anti- gender essentialist flavours and we could discuss it all day, but that is not relevant for now.)
- Having a genuine concern about biological differences. The reason why we’re not having nuanced discussions is because people in categories 1 and 2 will masquerade as people in category 3 and not participate in any discussion in good faith.
Let’s take trans women in sports as an example. There is - for sure - a small number of people who will argue that that anyone who identifies as a woman should be able to compete as a woman in any circumstances, but this is not a mainstream position, even in the trans community. The mainstream position is that trans women should be generally be allowed to compete as women in competition after some suitable amount of time on hormone replacement therapy.
This is because strength is not stored in the balls or in the genes; the difference in strength between cis men and cis women is a result of the effect of testosterone on the muscles, and the presence of testosterone needs to be maintained in order to maintain those muscular differences. Such studies that there are seem to suggest that trans women tend not to have any advantage over cis women after a year or two on HRT when controlling for differences in height.
Some people who are hostile to trans women in sport are unaware of this and think that strength advantages are permanent, and when you explain the reasons that they aren’t then those people may become less hostile to the concept. Maybe they have doubts about the specific studies or want there to be more research for any given sport or whatever, but that is the region in which compromise is possible. But maybe they’ll just start pulling further justifications out of their arse.
- “Those height differences are significant enough to merit banning trans women!” If it were then the sport would have height categories, wouldn’t it?
- “What about muh bone density?” In what world does having heavier bones and weaker muscles to move them around with constitute an advantage?
However, the debate is mostly populated by people who pretend to care about biological differences, but in reality simply object to any concession that trans women are in any way women. Anyone who claims that men are biologically better than women at chess or darts is fundamentally unserious. The film Lady Ballers came about when someone at the Daily Wire suggested that they make a documentary about men identifying as women so they can compete against women. When they found out that actually, that’s not a thing that happens and there are requirements that you have to meet, did they let that stop them? No, they just wrote a fictional film about it instead because they object to trans women being treated as women for ideological reasons, and they want to poison the well by persuading people that it is a thing that happens.
How do you compromise with that? How do you compromise with someone who objects to a trans woman competing as a woman in a chess competition because they fundamentally object to the premise that a trans woman is in any way a woman?
Why are they trying so hard to prove it, if it’s the obvious truth? I never saw my mother and sister having to prove or defend the point that they are women.
Well, regardless of my standpoint, I might not like what you have to say but I will for sure fight for your right to say it. Same goes for everyone.
Why are they trying so hard to prove it, if it’s the obvious truth?
It’s unclear, and quite important, who you mean by “they” here.
The ones who try to pass something that’s not a common sense as a common sense.
And I’m still not sure whether you mean the “your gender is the sex you’re born with” people or the “trans women are women” people.
I never saw my mother and sister having to prove or defend the point that they are women.
Is anybody saying that they aren’t?
Of course not. This would be like pointing your finger to a red colour and saying that it’s not red.
If you spent more than five minutes looking into this you’d understand that there’s a whole lot more to it than presentation. Some people are born intersex. Some biological women are born with two xx chromosomes. Some biological men are born with xy chromosomes. Etc etc. It’s nice that your mom and sister have it all clear. A good portion of humanity has to fight to explain their place every day
I personally believe in a traditional binary understanding of gender based on biological sex, but I am acknowledging that others may have different perspectives based on their beliefs. That’s ok.
Well, that’s cool and all but you haven’t addressed anything I wrote.
What does
“traditional binary understanding of gender based on biological sex”
do to explain individuals that are born intersex? Or with chromosome xx but female biological sex organs? Etc etc.
Please address what I actually wrote.
We haven’t even began to discuss concepts such as gender. We haven’t moved past fifth grade biology in this conversation yet.
Can we not just have gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms and be done with it?
“But what about MtF people going into sports?” Just put a fucking asterisk by their name on the leader boards.
Jobs a good un
You put the handwashing station in an open area, visible to the hallway.
You put floor to cieling stalls for the actual doing your business part.
I have been to a lot of places that do this and nobody cares. It is an added level of safety that you are either in private or visible to passers by.
To be totally honest: I like the current divided setup for the purely selfish reason of the men’s toilet being less occupied than the women’s toilet at most places with a lot of people.
But that would mean that in average it would be a net benefit to use non divided ones, since then the empty stalls would be used.
Guess what? Trans women also don’t feel comfortable using men’s bathrooms or sharing bathrooms with men. Because trans women are women.
Same argument that was made for gay people sharing locker rooms, bigots never get new material. If you’re not comfortable sharing a bathroom with someone, then, ya know, you don’t have to use it.
Why is it queer people have to suffer for bigotry? Why not just be less of a bigot?
Its so tiring of people trying to patch problems with “gendered bathrooms”, “train cars only for women”, “women parking lots” rather than actually solving real problems. These band aids should be a temporary solutions at best but here we are - argueing about gendered bathrooms in 2025.
The worst when people try to spin these as some sort of innovation. Especially for gendered train cars here in Japan was such a huge thing and I couldn’t help but eye roll when instead of addressing perverts they just herd women into protected pens and put camera noise default on every smartphone that take 10 minutes to disable by actual criminals.
train cars only for women
Good thing nobody can actually suggest that in this day and age. Because that’s a concept that makes everyone immediately go “Ooooh, how delightfully 1800s. Wait, why are we doing this, I thought we were better than that.”
…If someone actually suggests that, have them be detained by a few chimney sweeps until the police arrives by horse carriage.
nah that’s just you guys americans. This suggestion is still widely considered in most places. The problem is that it turns from a temporary patch to a “solution”.
Shopping mall next to me just added a parking floor for women only instead of hiring more security guards which here Thailand are incredibly cheap and honestly a real joy to have around. In the west people would say “it’s a pointless job” but having someone maintain order and vibe of a place is much more effective and important than girl trains.
There are just so many of these populist examples that people have their brains hijacked by. Once you start paying attention you just can’t wait for AI overlords to take over cause we’re really not good at this.
