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It's shocking that you imply women's existence as an oppressed sex, protected under the Equality Act explicitly, is merely a belief, not a biological (& socialised) reality, one which in Britain is the only category under threat of erasure as a political/social & legal category https://twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1286357273166700546
But it's outrageous, particularly from a supposedly left-wing MP to imply that those of us who aren't in denial of the scientific validity & reality of sex, of socialisation & their enormous significance, especially to women in a sexist society, should be excluded from democracy>
& that thousands of left leaning or socialist/feminist women, intersex people, lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual people along with dozens (& a growing) number of trans people & many detransitioners are actually bigots who's lived reality & opinions must not be discussed>
I have to say this Nadia but your words chill me to the bone as a trans socialist. This is the left giving an open goal to the right on free expression, democratic norms & for a faux-scientific authoritarianism not supported by the majority of the population >
Can you not see what a disaster & failure 'no debate' has been for trans people? It has not prevented debate, nor will it. Discussion is growing & will continue to grow, all you have done is help to toxify it & stifle it on the left in the very places where it could >
& must be possible for it to be conducted in a more responsible, measured & structured fashion. Instead the debate has been forced into some of the most toxic arenas, amplifying hateful extremes including a tidal wave of sickening misogyny, causing anger, fear & division >
The left cannot win over & unite the millions facing a new era of economic depression, increasingly authoritarian governments, a growing nationalist/far right by refusing to resolve & actively exacerbating working class divisions between different oppressed groups & with an ugly>
holier-than-thou elitism. You make me afraid as a trans person Nadia because you are abrogating the left's responsibility & utmost need, to work to resolve conflicts between oppressed groups & listen/encourage a range of socialist, feminist, trans & working class voices >
including people with long experience & very fine records of anti-oppression work. It is grossly unjust & wrong to paint all defence of women's sex-based rights as bigotry. Being pro-women's rights is not anti-trans any more than being pro-science is anti-religious minorities.>
You are not de-escalating these divisions, you're intensifying them, you're fanning justifiable outrage, anger & fear whilst actually excluding & pushing people away from the left. This is self-harming for any prospect of a vibrant, outward-looking left capable of winning over >
millions of working people who at least in part absorb some of the ideas & prejudices of establishment controlled corporate & state media. You don't win people over by fiat, just as leave voters in Labour heartlands weren't won over by declaring them stupid, ignorant, racist.>
You are not fighting transphobia Nadia, you are fuelling it & your very exclusion of trans people who are not in denial of a sexual reality from legitimacy in this debate is itself transphobic (how people like you have demeaned & cheapened what should be a powerful word) & has >
resulted in my proud trans history being de-legitimised, erased, abused, my livelihood and sense of safety threatened along with thousands of working class, trade unionist & Labour women. How DARE you fan a blanket 'bigotry' narrative that helps legitimise this abuse!>
We want & respect the necessity for *all* affected parties to be involved in a debate of equals & strive towards policy respecting the autonomy of different groups but seeking to advance the lives & on-the-ground rights/services/lives of each & every group including trans people>
but if you continue with 'no debate' which is in effect saying yes to a coercive approach & lends legitimacy to hateful, even violent threats against us, we will simply have the debate without you, we will continue to grow, campaign & influence as you continue to shrink into >
your self-congratulatory bubble of imagined moral 'superiority'. We will NOT be silenced. You don't get to re-define women without their consent, you don't get to monster feminism, the movement centering female people in their own liberation from a sexist society, as bigotry>
How is that absurdity supposed to liberate trans people? My liberation from transphobia & young people's liberation from inhumanly restrictive gender roles won't come by demolishing any feminism worthy of the name, not on my watch. It will come by finding common ground & >
common cause with feminists, whilst respecting our differences & autonomy, because transphobia stems from the mischaracterisation of us as 'deviants' from & 'perverts' of the very gender norms which evolved to keep women in their place & men prepared for dominance, work & war.>
Sometimes we will bitterly disagree, sometimes there will be conflict but respecting each others rights & reality is the pre-condition for a unifying dialogue & for unity against capitalism, for decent services, for an end to oppression & male violence. >
For freedom from gender role straightjackets & from the policing of gender. If you think this is a bigoted perspective outside the democratic norms of a civilised society then I suggest you are truly lost. >
The left must reject this damaging & self-isolating elitism. We face grave dangers over the next decade & the left simply must do better & be braver than this in winning over & striving to unite people on a principled, democratic, collectivist basis or we'll all suffer
