Thinking about strategy w.r.t. trans stuff and the Labour Party. I'm not really convinced that the current approach or strategies are useful or working. So what do we do instead?

Some initial thoughts: firstly, there's a distinction between how trans members can expect to be treated within the party, and the party's public stance on trans issues/the degree to which they will defend or push on them.

These cross over - the obvious example is with elected representatives being transphobic, which presents an internal party issue (activists may need to work with those reps) and an external policy/material one (can't depend on transphobic MPs to do good stuff).

On the first one: fundamentally I think the Party has a culture problem in general, not just about trans stuff, and it's quite widespread. There's little accountability for things and the complaint system doesn't work.

This fundamentally needs fixing, in a way that's sustainable and functional. The good news is that there are substantial alliances to be made here; complaining about Rosie's latest duffincient is all very well, but we can probably generalise this.

This is in a sense not very far from the LGBT Labour strategy too of a slightly gradualist approach, moving slowly towards more trans people being elected to internal positions in the party, that sort of thing.

There aren't trans people high up in the party and so we're mostly reliant on others to advocate for us; we should work for this to change, not because of an abstract need for "representation" but because it is a route to being more often in the room where things happen.

The second strand, external stuff. This is difficult. I'm not talking here about what queer activists should advocate for or how we should conduct ourselves in general, I'm talking specifically about what the Labour party can do.

Part of this, to be honest, I fear is not expecting it to get in line with strong cutting edge positions on everything. It's clear that - unfairly, I think - if the party goes hard on trans rights, it'll get slated for it in the right-wing press...

... and you might say "who cares", and I get that, but: we can't get anything from the Labour party if it isn't in power, and so we should probably consider engaging with it on that hard-nosed basis.

Keir has publicly committed, during the leadership campaign, to GRA reform, including an expansion of rights for non-binary people. That's good! We should, specifically, see if we can pin down some commitments from Shadow Equalities or Shadow Justice about this.

It probably doesn't matter if Labour aren't loud about this policy in their comms, as long as we can work hard to secure assurances on it for when they're in power.

The other policy area that I think has both a reasonable chance of improval in is trans healthcare; a future Labour government should fix the broken GIC system. I don't think there's any understanding of this amongst Labour health wonks.

I think this is another area where we should form alliances - disablity activists, especially those advocating for better mental health funding - because I think there is some common cause. The NHS is too good at dealing with acute emergencies compared to...

... longer-term, chronic things; I think it makes sense to focus on building links with other people who face issues accessing NHS care in the way trans people often do. And then we try to influence within the party on this; don't make things exclusively a trans issue, but...

... make trans issues part and parcel of a wider idea. It feels less... monofocused?

I suppose the other thing too is that we should think about how to put external pressure on the party to get it to do stuff. As I've said I think extra-electoral activism should continue doing what it does, rather than orientate itself around lobbying Labour in particular.

But I think it probably does make sense for trans people organising within the party to make links with, say, trans groupings in other parties, especially the Greens and Lib Dems, probably also the SNP.

We've just seen that in a number of places, those first two especially are picking into parts of the city progressive component of Labour's coalition. If we can assist our mates in other parties with getting their parties to be stronger on trans stuff, it...

... gives them a reason to push Labour on this, on a progressive flank where Labour are weak, and hence gives an electoral inventive to actions we want.

In short, I suppose, I propose a pragmatic and unromantic view of the Labour Party, where we see it for what it is, not lament it isn't what could be. And what it is is an electoral force seeking to get or retain power, for nominally left purposes.

It responds to incentives. It operates in a media environment. It has needs and concerns as an organisation, and we can anticipate and act in accordance with those needs.

Where Labour is in power and can do things, like in Wales, we should push it to use that power, and we should make it electorally relevant for it to do so.

If we can't make an issue electorally relevant, then we look away from the parties and to direct action or the courts or civil society. We've got a bum hand in this poker game, but I think we can play it right.

Not sure about all of this, but these are initial thoughts that I had in the wake of conversations yesterday. Don't treat them as carved in stone; I'm interested in what others think.