Keep up the good work. The culture war is obviously the class war on a different terrain -- it's good to see that stance expressed so cogently and concretely.
Freedom of expression or speech is always there if you have the courage to speak up. Which means you are prepared to put your opinions before your hopes of advancement. You will take risks, in other words. An interesting matter when it comes to Party politics, and the main reason I don't belong to one. Petty squabbling with authoritarian leaders is rarely impressive. I have both gay and trans family members. I have no problems with that, nor do the rest of the family, but we realise that some people feel differently. However, if the subject should be raised in conversation, I will make my opinions clear that human rights apply to all of us, regardless of arguments on gender or biology, and political opinions vary significantly whatever the label they claim.
Here you go .. Mr I use AI to research & draft my articles 🤪 I too used AI re the impact of the TLG’s demands on women and girls rights and this is what it came up with.
Please comment as to whether the following demands would impact the Equality Act 2010 sex specific rights of women & girls -
-Amend the Equality Act 2010 to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court ruling of 16th April 2025 by making it clear “sex” refers to a person's current lived sex and adding gender identity as a protected characteristic.
-Ensure that “gender-critical” beliefs cannot be treated as protected beliefs.
-Enshrine the right to self-identification of gender, including non-binary gender, for all purposes.
-Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.”
The demands you described would fundamentally alter the current legal framework of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010), specifically as interpreted by the Supreme Court on 16 April 2025.
Below is an analysis of how these demands would impact the sex-specific rights of women and girls:
1. Defining "Sex" as "Lived Sex"
The Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers that "sex" in the EA 2010 refers exclusively to biological sex (sex registered at birth).
Impact on Single-Sex Services: Moving to a "lived sex" definition would remove the current legal clarity that allows service providers (e.g., domestic abuse shelters, hospital wards, and changing rooms) to exclude biological males based on their sex, even if they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
Sport and Employment: It would likely end the ability of sporting bodies to maintain female-only categories based on biological sex and could complicate equal pay claims, which currently rely on a comparison between biological sexes.
Incoherence: The Court found that a non-biological definition would make provisions like pregnancy and maternity protections "incoherent," as these are biologically predicated on the female sex.
2. Removal of "Gender-Critical" Beliefs as Protected
Currently, "gender-critical" beliefs (the belief that sex is biological and immutable) are protected as a philosophical belief under the EA 2010 (following the Forstater ruling).
Impact: Removing this protection would mean individuals could potentially be dismissed or disciplined for expressing these views without the current legal recourse for belief-based discrimination.
Enshrining Self-ID "for all purposes" would bypass the current Gender Recognition Act 2004 process, which requires medical evidence and a two-year period of living in the acquired gender.
Impact on Women's Rights: Critics argue this would grant an automatic legal right for any biological male to be treated as a woman in all settings, including those previously protected as single-sex, effectively removing the "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim" test currently used to justify female-only spaces.
4. Abolishing Gender Markers on Official Documents
Removing sex/gender markers from passports and other documentation would change how identity is verified.
Impact: It would make it more difficult for organisations to enforce sex-based exceptions or collect sex-disaggregated data. This data is used for monitoring the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires public bodies to track and address disadvantages specifically faced by women and girls
Conor has put the passport point precisely and I won't repeat it. The broader observation — that this entire exchange treats the current legal settlement as the natural baseline rather than a recent and contested political outcome — is exactly right. The Supreme Court ruling is four months old. The Equality Act is fifteen years old. Presenting them as the eternal framework within which "women's rights" must be defended, rather than as one legal settlement among possible others, is a rhetorical move, not an argument.
The question Diane's AI analysis doesn't ask is the one that matters: what would a legal framework designed to protect both cis women and trans people from discrimination actually look like? That is the question the TLG's demands are trying to answer. Whether their specific proposals are the right ones is a legitimate debate. But the debate has to start from the recognition that the current settlement was not handed down from above — it was fought for by some people, against the interests of others, and it can be changed.
The Supreme Court ruling is almost A YEAR OLD you ignorant man! And when you say the Equality Act plus Supreme Court Ruling was fought for by some people.. be CLEAR.. the rights of women and the clarity that Supreme Court brought to the EA sex specific rights of women were fought for BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN! I doubt that men who ID as women will get anywhere if they go to the general public to garner support for their demands to trash the rights of women! Let them bring their demands. (Free speech is for all ..not just those I agree with). One thing you can be certain of, grassroots, left wing women will not let that happen - we scuppered attempts to introduce self-ID by well financed trans lobby groups and trust me when I say we will scupper any attempts to collapse the EA protected characteristic of sex for gender identity!
This takes a strange view of legislation as being what things should be versus a setting of current rules - settings that change, evidence for which is that the legislation you cite is all quite recent. The strong part of the opening post is that it ask the what should things be. It correctly says the High Court decision was what it is meant to be - a reading of the law as it stands. that law could be altered - hence the argument for a change. This response simpy states that the law is, without a rationale.
Following comments are almost all based on this prevents exclusions based on sex not gender. The whole question of what and when exclusions (based on either are required) is simply stepped over (in part the main post does this too by altering the basis from sex to gender).
It is where the response then gets a bit desperate. Maternity and related services concern a person who is pregnant and should do so. I see no need for rules about sex or gender relating to medical care: if the care is relevant to the person then it applies.
The response on passports the weakest. A passport says who a person is sufficient to allow them to travel between countries. A driver’s licence asserts the person is approved to drive. A name, date of birth, photo and citizenship are sufficient for that. No one in passport control has asked me to show a penis to confirm the M on my passport. It is a case of sex assumptions and discrimination brought where they are not needed. The response says a passport with no sex or gender element would make collecting data on such harder. A strange twist of purpose for a passport or a driver’s licence.
The trans debate big spill over value has been to ask why do we want to divide how something is done by Male/female and is that needed?
The strangest elements are where a trans advocate also insists that there is something distinctly special about one or other gender, and tying that to a given body form. The overlap with those opposed is obvious. A lot of imposing as a rule what is a useful description.
Another male who hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about regarding the Equality Act 2010 and who chooses to cherry pick parts of a response to justify his narrative in his response! 🙄 Take your explanation re passports. I note you FAIL to read what 4. is titled.. Abolishing Gender Markers (aka Sex Markers) on Official Documents & simply focus on passports/driver licenses. You FAIL to acknowledge other documentation/data & how it is used to ensure that organisations comply with Equality Law & that said sex disaggregated data is used to monitor disadvantage specifically faced by women & girls! Go figure! 🙄As to the Equality Act 2010 & recent Supreme Court ruling on said law and that the response simply states the law as is without a rationale 🫣Again a response from someone who hasn’t a clue nor any understanding as to the Equality Act and the history/legislation behind/before it! The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. The Equality Act replaced nine statutes (including The Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Acts 1976 and 2000, the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005) and over 100 other pieces of legislation. But hey no rationale re Equality Act 🙃And as to Maternity & Related services concern a person?? who is pregnant.. you mean WOMAN of course.. aka adult human of the female sex! And as to the protection of Pregnancy & Maternity referring to medical care 🤪Seriously? Have you even read the Equality Act? Honestly the ARROGANCE of men coming into a discussion about which they clearly know FUCK ALL is incredible to say the least! Plus ca change! Take your ignorance and shove it! Your response makes absolutely no sense whatsoever as you clearly haven’t a clue as to Equality Law & the protections the UK Equality Act offers women/girls under the protected characteristic of “sex”.
Oh and Pregnancy & Maternity plus Sexual Orientation.
You assert that Conor doesn't understand the Equality Act, without demonstrating any error in what he actually said. The maternity point is a non-sequitur: no one here argues that maternity protections should be removed.
It is like you don’t read what I have written or are really that ignorant regarding the Equality Act. Seriously.. hone your reading skills or is it that you simply cannot read what a woman writes and understand it 🤪 READ what Connor said re the point made about Pregnancy & Maternity then read my response to his comment. He clearly hasn’t a clue re the EA2010 protections re Pregnancy & Maternity.. that and he uses the term pregnant person.. persons don’t get pregnant WOMEN do.. you know.. the same demographic that are EA2010 protected under “sex”. And Pregnancy & Maternity protections have fuck all to do with medical care! But you carry on defending your dude bro re women’s rights 🙄🙃Neither of you have a clue as to what you are talking about when it comes to Equality Act https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/your-rights-under-equality-act-2010/pregnancy-and-maternity
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Well done we agree on something.. of course women are people! It’s the deliberate erasure re the bodily functions & experiences that ONLY women experience that I object to!
In which you confirm that the laws change and improve. Your very argument for the current one. I thought the High Court ruling obvious since it said what the parliament meant at the time - as I said in first post, and as the main post says, the question is whether that is sufficient.
Never, albeit I live in Australia so maybe we are more sensible here, have I been asked to show ID to confirm sex for any form that I have ticked. On which point I tick male for sex and nothing for gender (depending on how the question is phrased). The idea that you need a formal legal ID document to determine descriptive allocations for an analysis is foolish. If that were so almost every sex based analysis (ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc) would be flawed according to you.
So, I will restate that including sex or gender on an ID is an outdated essentially patriarchal idea.
Do there need to be different jails, refuges, changing rooms by any mix of sex and gender : I am skeptical for any bar for refuges. In which case refuges for those tran become a need - I have never yet read anyone, who pursues the line you do, actually say that another set of refuges is needed. It would put pressure on available money of course but that is logic of your position. Mine is the more complicated : first test is does the person need refuge; and second is there a problem for others in the refuge from letting in a given person who has need, and what if anything can be done about that.
Yep I would say a pregnant person is a woman, I certainly think someone who gives birth is a mother (since that ultimately is what a mother does, all else being gender roles) so I have no understanding of why trans men who give birth object to mother and breastfeeding as terms. What I said on pregnancy services is that they ought to be there for anyone who is pregnant and you get excited about terms.
I am ignorant, you are right on that, as to how trans people affect pregnancy and maternity services since in my simplistic way I would attend to the obvious physical pregnancy or not and not care in the least how the person identifies itself on the admission form and I certainly would not ask for ID as proof.
A trans man probably wants to be described as a father, not as a mother. I can't see any greater good that would be justified by taking away his choice.
Duncan, as is I suspect clear from my earlier comments I both seek not to limit how a person expresses who it is and wonder why such need require changing the physical shape of the person’s body. That is me expressing my limited understandings. It comes from my preference to treat each person as a person, using group characteristics as a useful short hand but not a prescriptive measure.
On the language I find it strange that in one aspect there is argument to update language - hence transwoman and transman - and to hold that other elements cannot change - if giving birth why not be called a mother, just challenge the assumption that mother=woman? Breast feeding seems even more a strange word to challenge since all(??) humans have breasts, some of which do better at expressing milk. These are questions somewhat beyond the issue : a pregnant trans man should and as far as I know will receive the same services as a pregnant cis woman.
For me the trans discussion has been good for further reducing where human activities are split into two forced sets (most restaurant toilets in Melbourne are individual cubicles that any person can use in full privacy from any other person) but troubling for its renewed insistance that there are ways of being that are female and male - I find the latter somewhat like race groupings, the characteristics keep changing but the concept persists.
I found your post one of the few times I have read an outline that focusses on treating each fairly, without presuming the outcome, and open to discussion about the how. Obvious things like removing a sex-gender marker from ID as not useful one example.
Conor; languages change all the time. We don't address boys as 'Master', even though 50 years ago some letters and school teachers still used that archaic form. It's obvious why a trans man would nt want to be called a mother, isn't it? Indeed, some languages can exist without gendered pronouns, but that's nit the language we are using now.
What about the rights of the child born to a trans identifying female? It is because of that child’s right to have their birth mother accurately recorded on their birth certificate that any attempt by trans identifying females to record themselves as the father of children has failed. Not just here in the UK but also in courts in Europe.
Ah .. thought as much.. you really don’t have a clue re UK Equality Law nor Equality Impact Assessments nor the collection of data disaggregated by sex so as to be COMPLIANT with Equality Law here in UK. Enough said .. all else you spout has NOTHING to do with the conversation in hand .. just you garbling on about your opinions (though you appear to contradict your initial stance & wording in some instances) & experiences in Australia.
Common to both is that I found no reference to asking for ID to support a sex identification. Rather, as per the UK Government review, it says that:
“The form of the question should follow the UK Censuses (England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland) question and response categories.
What is your sex?
Response categories: Female, Male”
So where is it required or desired that in collecting data about service users that people provide evidence for their stated sex? If this is the case do you really think that desirable practice?
@Connor .. “Duncan, as is I suspect clear from my earlier comments I both seek not to limit how a person expresses who it is”… Who IT IS?? A person is not a ln inanimate object..You surely mean you seek not to limit how a person expresses who they are. I too would never seek to limit how a person expresses who they are unless that involved the harm of another. I draw the line at when that person insists that all MUST support their personal expression and societal legislative measures don’t apply to them!
Diane, that's exactly the point. In your opinion, the choice of a rans man to describe himself _IS_ a harm against others and, indeed, even is a harm against their future child. I understand why you are trying to evade accountability for what you have written, but your views are very clear.
A trans man can describe themselves however they like.. they just don’t get to insist that in law they are something they are not .. ie the father of a child that they have gestated & birthed. Children have rights too! Am so over the me,me, me navel gazing of those who claim a gender identity. It’s one rule for them and no one’s rights matter other than theirs. No .. we are all entitled to human rights and here in UK under EA2010 protections, trans people have the same rights/freedoms as the rest of us! Many just want MORE regardless of established law & protections for differing demographics covered by EA.
Who is it knocking at the door? Who was it that wrote “be wary of grand claims about English usage”?
Dreadful as it is my preferred pronouns are it and it. In my usage a person unspecified is it. If a particular person is specified I use she he her him as applicable.
We refer to animals and bug and birds as it regularly - they too are not inanimate. If it is my dog or your dog I use she he etc where the sex is known.
And now you use emotive BS re “unborn child”. Nowhere have I mentioned an unborn child. I have simply said that children have rights too and a transman can call themselves whatever they like but in the cold light of day and under UK and European Law, they do not have the right to falsify their child’s birth certificate. It’s not always all about trans rights!! Believe it or not others have rights too!
Yes, but what you assert is the 'right' of the child of a trans man to have their father described as a woman through their pregnancy and afterwards. You didn't locate this as the right of the state, or the right of womankind: you described it as the right of the child. And it's a 'right' that has been enacted before the child has a choice, and even before it is born.
PS To be clear: you suggested that children should have the choice to determine that their trans parent's gender is recorded in a certain way, but, in practice, you are for the state enforcing that not giving anyone a choice, let alone the parent.
You absolute idiot- it is only when the child is born that their birth is registered! And as it happens NO FUCKING MAN HAS EVER GIVEN BIRTH! Only those of the female sex gestate and give birth. If a female wants to ID as male that’s down to her. But her infant has rights in law too and has the right to have their birth MOTHER recorded on their birth certificate (legal document) Honestly you really are showing yourself up to be an absolute fanatic that has to be right no matter how much you twist and turn words to achieve that! Done with being polite to you! The day a male births an infant through their penis is the day you can record that child’s birthing parent as the father! Now fuck off with your fanaticism! Only women give birth!
And now I really am done with the bad faith engagement from you and Connor who both twist and turn and claim words I have never used. You are both so clearly out of your depth as to women’s sex specific rights and how and why they matter. Why would you? You are both men who have no idea as to the female struggle in a capitalist, patriarchal world. And you are both arrogant & entitled & so cloth eared when it comes to listening to/reading around the rights of women & why sex matters, not gender, SEX when it comes to women’s & girls rights!
Looool the knots you eejit men tie yourselves into to make yourselves right! That’s male arrogance and entitlement right there! I am done trying to engage in good faith with ignorance 101! The sad thing is, is that you are so immersed in the batshittery of your own BS that you simply do not see how unhinged you come across! My pronouns are it/it 😜🤪😵💫Batshit!
But, seriously Diane, your view IS that it's a harm against others (including his unborn child) for a tran man to call himself a man. I'm not sure why you see any knots here. I am repeating to you what you have said, and you;re just making noise because you can't deny your own words.
This is utter drivel, from start to finish. Just to pick on two points: how does domestic labour ‘disproportionately fall on trans women’? Repeating that statement and advising us to read it again is not a convincing argument. And what about reproductive labour. Who does that fall on? And your suggestion that freedom of expression can be overridden once a decision has been taken is dangerously anti-democratic, and would, for example, have silenced the left throughout the history of the Labour Party. You need to face up to reality: the tide is turning against the most outlandish demands of the Trans Liberation Group as more and more people wake up to the fact that they are a serious obstacle to women’s liberation and therefore also to the struggle for socialism.
I really don't get your point about freedom of expression. Valerie has no obstacles to her freedom of expression, as far as I know. She ran for the CEC. Had no obstasles at hustings, as far as I know. Has a platform, literally, in the form or an organised tendency. She also, as far as I know, has no-one facing what I have on this thread: comments saying that I should be participating in this discussion on the basis of my gender.
Here is your "trans liberation" Duncan: an anonymous group of violent misogynist males calling themselves "Trans Bash Back". Last year they attacked the Brighton conference of the feminist organisation FiLiA, smashing windows, daubing paint everywhere, threatening & abusing the women attending.
Now they post this: a masked angry male aggressively wielding a claw hammer through a broken window dripping with paint that looks very suggestive of blood. And alongside this a graphic: "CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON".
All your sophistry achieves, in this and your previous hit-piece against feminists and Materialist Left, is to offer ideological cover for the prolonged and ongoing threats of violence that trans activists make against women & girls who dare to defend the limited & hard-won rights of their sex. Shame on you, socialist you are not.
Ian, Bash Back-style vandalism targets empty buildings. It's a worthless activity, and I oppose it. That said it's as easy to say that the four people who smashed two windows at that empty conference centre represent trans liberation as it is to attribute any action to any much larger group of people. It's sophistry to say that those four people reflect anything on all trans people or their allies. I'm not sure if you've seen the video on the Telegraph website, but they seem to hit the windows 30 times with hammers, breaking two of them. I'm not sure those people were either male or particularly violent. But even if they were professional window breakers, collective responsibility is not a socialist framing.
Cannot be bothered to respond to yet another load of disingenuous AI generated bollox.. so will just leave my previous comments from your other article of AI fuelled disingenuous nonsense here -
Maaaate it is the whole basis for your article that I am labelling disingenuous bollox! “This article argues that gender-critical politics in the UK socialist left is not a separate phenomenon from the conservative left. It is its connective tissue, simultaneously exhibiting class reductionism, social democratic capitulation, campist logic, and identity politics backlash. Counterfire’s record, the YPML’s programme, and the CEC election results are the evidence.” It is this take, and the ridiculous amount of words that you use to justify shoehorning men into the sex class that is FEMALE. That & how you frame a socialist feminist’s right to an opinion regarding lawful women’s rights which is a load of disingenuous bollox because when it comes down to the bare bones of your argument.. you are a MAN trying to use your platform to SILENCE women around their rights and their life experiences. You could write a thesis about how men who id as women are part of the class struggle.. no one is denying that .. they are just not women, no matter how many articles you write to say they are! The day you actually list EXACTLY what “trans liberation” entails is the day your arguments lose all credibility because women’s oppression is because of their sex and the patriarchy uses gender to ensure that oppression. Men (no matter how they ID) are a part of the patriarchy therefore they instantly benefit from the power dynamics said patriarchy offers to those born male. I am so over purported left wing men telling left wing women that they need to move over for men who ID as women because they are not a threat & they are the most vulnerable! How would you as a man know what is and isn’t a threat to women. I call misogyny 101!
No one is arguing that we divide oppressed groups against each other in the name of the “real” working class 🙄What materialist feminists argue is that (as you point out in your response) men, no matter how they ID, are not women so most definitely are not oppressed in the same way as women and that women’s sex specific rights are just that - sex specific. These rights didn’t just appear out of thin air - they were hard fought for by women for women. Women are still very much fighting for equality and whether you like it or not .. statistically speaking, male violence against women & girls in all its ugly forms has exponentially increased over the last decade. Men who ID as women do not get a free pass to enjoy women’s rights/spaces/facilities/services just because they ID as women. No man does. And again I challenge you to be clear about what trans liberation entails then we will see how voting pans out.
The idea that men identifying as women are disproportionately affected by male violence, not its perpetrators has been debunked many times over the years. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/ That you would argue that a materialist politics would start from male on male violence involving a demographic that is 0.1% of the population rather than centring male violence against women and girls, 51% of the population, demonstrates the little regard you place on the disgraceful statistics around rape & femicide And as to the Your Party founding conference voting on “trans liberation” ..again.. why would any socialist vote against such an ill defined, nebulous term which at a glance appears progressive. Drill down and share exactly what “trans liberation” means & have a proper discussion as to the impact on women’s sex-specific rights. That did not happen at conference .. far from it. Had a proper conversation been facilitated at conference, I would argue that all who support hard fought for women’s rights, would not have voted for such misogyny. Many are unaware that trans liberation centres the rights of men identifying as women over the rights of women! Last but not least the idea that socialist women & men advocating for a materialist analysis regarding women & their rights are in some way providing cover for a conservative drift within socialist organisations.. give your head a wobble.. challenging the neoliberal, post modern, sexist, regressive nonsense that is gender identity politics is anything but conservative. It is sound socialist politics which are grounded in class, sex and race.
You are either being deliberately disingenuous or you simply have not read the demands of those within Your Party pushing for “trans liberation” and how such demands, should they be successful, will impact women’s sex-based rights.
Demand No. 1: LEGALISE TRANS EXISTENCE
Amend the Equality Act 2010 to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court ruling of 16th April 2025 by making it clear “sex” refers to a person's current lived sex and adding gender identity as a protected characteristic. Ensure that “gender-critical” beliefs cannot be treated as protected beliefs.
Enshrine the right to self-identification of gender, including non-binary gender, for all purposes.
Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.
Reject plans for the introduction of ID cards as an authoritarian imposition that will be disproportionately used to police and harass trans people, migrants, and people of colour.
Scrap the Equality and Human Rights Commission - it is broken and not fit for purpose and should be replaced with an equalities body that actually protects human rights.
Reject any attempts to restrict trans people’s rights to access public bathrooms and other gendered spaces, which we have freely exercised for decades. Trans people have a right to access gendered spaces by self-ID (including prisons).
End the testing of hormone levels in women athletes, which has led to the exclusion of gender non-conforming women. Transgender women have been competing in women's sports for many years. Regardless of their success, the question of their participation should be looked at fairly. Transphobia and misogyny have no place in sport. No athlete should be excluded on the grounds of being transgender.
Progressive demands?? I thought you argued that “trans liberation” would not erase women’s sex-based rights!! You clearly have not a clue as to what you are talking about. That or you have no idea as to what women’s EA2010 sex specific rights are. Whichever.. you are well out of your depth here & are showing your ignorance as to women’s rights and why sex matters re those rights. And as to your deliberate misinformation re my making up a claim that trans identifying men are more likely to be convicted of sexual assault than to be victims of male violence.. point out exactly where I said that! You are clutching at straws here maaate because your article & your “arguments” have been exposed to be full of holes.
Your article AND your responses IGNORE and DISMISS the female voice around women’s rights and SEX specific spaces (Men like yourself are forever trying to obfuscate the issues re sex v gender by using the term gender when in fact you are speaking of SEX) You centre men throughout. The purported “progressive” left have a massive problem when it comes to women and our rights. If Your Party have any chance to gain power they MUST be outward looking and focus on the rights of women going forward, not on the rights of men (however they identify) The Supreme Court ruling was CRYSTAL CLEAR on the definition of woman in Equality Act. -Woman = those of the female sex (biological women) not those who identify as women. They are protected under the category of “gender reassignment”. Nothing progressive about a mission to collapse the protected characteristic of sex in favour of gender identity as women’s oppression is very much because of their sex and their rights stem from such oppression. I believe you are acting in bad faith or that you really are ill informed/ignorant around the historical struggles of women for their rights and the current state of women and their rights. But given you admit that “Red Mole is written by Duncan Chapel, a Fourth International supporter based in Britain. I use Al tools to accelerate research and drafting, but analysis and argument are entirely mine”, I am not surprised. AI is not the fool proof tool you think it is. Quite the reverse! I am leaving this conversation now as have important work to do regarding my rights and ensuring that Your Party CEC focus on allowing for women members to have the conversations around women’s rights that reflect hard fought for law not the demands of men who ID as women.
Will end on this “Domestic labour disproportionately falls on trans women, as it does on all women.”.. Offensive does not even begin to cover this pile of nonsense from the Trans Liberation Group or should that read the Men’s Rights Group!!
Are you cutting and pasting your previous comments rather than replying to EXACTLY the questions you posed? Honestly, I use assistive AI for proofreading and research, but that's less shameful than posing questions, pretending you are interested in discussion, and then refusing to engage with the answers.
I am getting really bored with the amount of personal and gender specific abuse in around this discussion I have been reading for so long now. They all sound more Radical Fem than Materialist Fem and never answer the exact points or questions; instead, they simply abuse men for being men and therefore not being allowed to have an opinion and never, and I do mean never, mention the position of trans men in this discussion. Is using AI for research and editing a bad thing now? If so, please tell the Professors of various universities who are encouraging their students to use it
Sex specific abuse .. let’s be clear re the terms of engagement here. And in this case it is warranted. I am fed up with men (ignorant on the sex specific rights of women & girls) jumping in to pontificate on high about said sex specific rights. As to abusing men for being men 🤪Seriously where did you get that idea from. I just don’t tolerate ignorant bullshitters.. men or women. As a mother to sons, who never cease to amaze me as they have grown into the fabulous young men that they are, I object to your baseless remarks. As to transmen .. they are of the female sex and interestingly never much mentioned in any part of the sex v gender discussion other than to point out that men can get pregnant 🙃Funny that eh? Might have something to do with the patriarchy, power dynamics & men eh? As to AI .. it really is not the be all and end all but since you are so supportive, have used AI to ask the question re should men involve themselves in discussions around women’s rights. This is the answer-
Whether it is "okay" for someone to comment on a topic they are perceived to be ignorant about is a subjective question of social ethics and lived experience, rather than a rule of law.
In discussions regarding the Equality Act 2010 and women’s rights, the argument that men should not comment—or should do so with extreme caution—usually centers on several key points:
1. The Principle of Lived Experience
Women and girls have a unique "lived experience" of navigating the world in female bodies. This includes specific safety concerns, biological realities (like pregnancy or menstruation), and the history of sex-based discrimination.
The Argument: A man, regardless of his intentions, cannot personally understand the stakes of losing a single-sex space or a sex-based protection because he does not live with the vulnerabilities or societal pressures that those protections were designed to mitigate.
2. "Nothing About Us Without Us"
This is a long-standing mantra in human rights advocacy. It suggests that policy changes affecting a specific group (in this case, females) should be led and decided by that group.
The Argument: When men advocate for the removal of sex-based protections for women, it can be viewed as an act of disenfranchisement—effectively deciding the boundaries of women’s safety and privacy without their consent.
3. Power Dynamics and "Mansplaining"
In many professional and political spaces, men’s voices have historically been given more weight.
The Argument: If a man comments on women’s rights without first educating himself on the existing legal protections (like the exceptions in the Equality Act), he may inadvertently dominate a conversation with misinformation. This is often described as "mansplaining"—where a man explains something to a woman in a condescending or overconfident manner, despite the woman having more expertise or skin in the game.
4. The Risk of Unintended Consequences
The Equality Act is a complex piece of legislation.
The Argument: Ignorance isn't just a social faux pas; it’s a practical risk. If a man advocates for "lived sex" or "Self-ID" without understanding how those changes would impact equal pay audits, crime reporting, or domestic violence refuges, he is essentially gambling with the safety and legal standing of a demographic he does not belong to.
The Counter-Perspective
Conversely, some argue that because the Equality Act affects all of society, everyone should be allowed to participate in the democratic debate. However, most agree that for a contribution to be valuable, it must be grounded in an accurate understanding of the current law and a respect for the people most affected by any proposed changes.
The "nothing about us without us" principle is sound. Which is precisely why the YPML's programme — explicitly designed to exclude trans women from women's spaces, break the LGB/T alliance, and ensure that gender-critical beliefs cannot be challenged within party structures — is the problem under discussion. Trans women are the "us" being legislated about without their consent in that programme.
On AI: you've used it to generate a legal analysis that confirms the premise of your question. That's not a criticism of AI — it's a description of how all research tools work when given a leading prompt. Ask a different question, get a different answer.
I have engaged with your disingenuous bollox article claiming that TLG’s demands are progressive. And guess what? I used AI for my research and drafting because life is too bloody short to be responding to ignorant dicksplainers like yourself who think that shoehorning men into the sex class that is women is progressive. And YES I included ALL my responses to your last article because in true dicksplaining style you conveniently left out much of what I said in order to justify your ridiculous narrative in this current article. I wont be adding to this response thread because SERIOUSLY you really have not got a clue as to the EA2010 and it’s 9 protected characteristics plus WHY sex specific rights were included in said Act and why sex specific rights are IMPORTANT to those of us of the female sex.
The article and this thread have engaged repeatedly and directly with the specific rights at issue — domestic violence shelters, single-sex spaces, the Equality Act framework. Disagreeing with your analysis of how those rights are best protected is not the same as ignoring them. The TLG's demands are specifically designed to protect trans people without abolishing sex-based protections — that's a contestable claim, but it's the claim on the table, and it deserves a response on its merits rather than the repeated assertion that anyone who makes it is ignorant or acting in bad faith.
I note you're ending the discussion. That's fine. But the record of this thread speaks for itself.
Keep up the good work. The culture war is obviously the class war on a different terrain -- it's good to see that stance expressed so cogently and concretely.
Great work! Thank you very much indeed for the solidarity, especially today (I've just got back from the Trans Pride Scotland rally).
Freedom of expression or speech is always there if you have the courage to speak up. Which means you are prepared to put your opinions before your hopes of advancement. You will take risks, in other words. An interesting matter when it comes to Party politics, and the main reason I don't belong to one. Petty squabbling with authoritarian leaders is rarely impressive. I have both gay and trans family members. I have no problems with that, nor do the rest of the family, but we realise that some people feel differently. However, if the subject should be raised in conversation, I will make my opinions clear that human rights apply to all of us, regardless of arguments on gender or biology, and political opinions vary significantly whatever the label they claim.
Here you go .. Mr I use AI to research & draft my articles 🤪 I too used AI re the impact of the TLG’s demands on women and girls rights and this is what it came up with.
Please comment as to whether the following demands would impact the Equality Act 2010 sex specific rights of women & girls -
-Amend the Equality Act 2010 to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court ruling of 16th April 2025 by making it clear “sex” refers to a person's current lived sex and adding gender identity as a protected characteristic.
-Ensure that “gender-critical” beliefs cannot be treated as protected beliefs.
-Enshrine the right to self-identification of gender, including non-binary gender, for all purposes.
-Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.”
The demands you described would fundamentally alter the current legal framework of the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010), specifically as interpreted by the Supreme Court on 16 April 2025.
www.equalityhumanrights.com
Below is an analysis of how these demands would impact the sex-specific rights of women and girls:
1. Defining "Sex" as "Lived Sex"
The Supreme Court ruled in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers that "sex" in the EA 2010 refers exclusively to biological sex (sex registered at birth).
commonslibrary.parliament.uk
Impact on Single-Sex Services: Moving to a "lived sex" definition would remove the current legal clarity that allows service providers (e.g., domestic abuse shelters, hospital wards, and changing rooms) to exclude biological males based on their sex, even if they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
Sport and Employment: It would likely end the ability of sporting bodies to maintain female-only categories based on biological sex and could complicate equal pay claims, which currently rely on a comparison between biological sexes.
Incoherence: The Court found that a non-biological definition would make provisions like pregnancy and maternity protections "incoherent," as these are biologically predicated on the female sex.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk
2. Removal of "Gender-Critical" Beliefs as Protected
Currently, "gender-critical" beliefs (the belief that sex is biological and immutable) are protected as a philosophical belief under the EA 2010 (following the Forstater ruling).
en.wikipedia.org
Impact: Removing this protection would mean individuals could potentially be dismissed or disciplined for expressing these views without the current legal recourse for belief-based discrimination.
www.lewissilkin.com
3. Right to Self-Identification (Self-ID)
Enshrining Self-ID "for all purposes" would bypass the current Gender Recognition Act 2004 process, which requires medical evidence and a two-year period of living in the acquired gender.
commonslibrary.parliament.uk
Impact on Women's Rights: Critics argue this would grant an automatic legal right for any biological male to be treated as a woman in all settings, including those previously protected as single-sex, effectively removing the "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim" test currently used to justify female-only spaces.
www.counselmagazine.co.uk
4. Abolishing Gender Markers on Official Documents
Removing sex/gender markers from passports and other documentation would change how identity is verified.
Impact: It would make it more difficult for organisations to enforce sex-based exceptions or collect sex-disaggregated data. This data is used for monitoring the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), which requires public bodies to track and address disadvantages specifically faced by women and girls
Conor has put the passport point precisely and I won't repeat it. The broader observation — that this entire exchange treats the current legal settlement as the natural baseline rather than a recent and contested political outcome — is exactly right. The Supreme Court ruling is four months old. The Equality Act is fifteen years old. Presenting them as the eternal framework within which "women's rights" must be defended, rather than as one legal settlement among possible others, is a rhetorical move, not an argument.
The question Diane's AI analysis doesn't ask is the one that matters: what would a legal framework designed to protect both cis women and trans people from discrimination actually look like? That is the question the TLG's demands are trying to answer. Whether their specific proposals are the right ones is a legitimate debate. But the debate has to start from the recognition that the current settlement was not handed down from above — it was fought for by some people, against the interests of others, and it can be changed.
The Supreme Court ruling is almost A YEAR OLD you ignorant man! And when you say the Equality Act plus Supreme Court Ruling was fought for by some people.. be CLEAR.. the rights of women and the clarity that Supreme Court brought to the EA sex specific rights of women were fought for BY WOMEN FOR WOMEN! I doubt that men who ID as women will get anywhere if they go to the general public to garner support for their demands to trash the rights of women! Let them bring their demands. (Free speech is for all ..not just those I agree with). One thing you can be certain of, grassroots, left wing women will not let that happen - we scuppered attempts to introduce self-ID by well financed trans lobby groups and trust me when I say we will scupper any attempts to collapse the EA protected characteristic of sex for gender identity!
This takes a strange view of legislation as being what things should be versus a setting of current rules - settings that change, evidence for which is that the legislation you cite is all quite recent. The strong part of the opening post is that it ask the what should things be. It correctly says the High Court decision was what it is meant to be - a reading of the law as it stands. that law could be altered - hence the argument for a change. This response simpy states that the law is, without a rationale.
Following comments are almost all based on this prevents exclusions based on sex not gender. The whole question of what and when exclusions (based on either are required) is simply stepped over (in part the main post does this too by altering the basis from sex to gender).
It is where the response then gets a bit desperate. Maternity and related services concern a person who is pregnant and should do so. I see no need for rules about sex or gender relating to medical care: if the care is relevant to the person then it applies.
The response on passports the weakest. A passport says who a person is sufficient to allow them to travel between countries. A driver’s licence asserts the person is approved to drive. A name, date of birth, photo and citizenship are sufficient for that. No one in passport control has asked me to show a penis to confirm the M on my passport. It is a case of sex assumptions and discrimination brought where they are not needed. The response says a passport with no sex or gender element would make collecting data on such harder. A strange twist of purpose for a passport or a driver’s licence.
The trans debate big spill over value has been to ask why do we want to divide how something is done by Male/female and is that needed?
The strangest elements are where a trans advocate also insists that there is something distinctly special about one or other gender, and tying that to a given body form. The overlap with those opposed is obvious. A lot of imposing as a rule what is a useful description.
Another male who hasn’t a clue as to what he is talking about regarding the Equality Act 2010 and who chooses to cherry pick parts of a response to justify his narrative in his response! 🙄 Take your explanation re passports. I note you FAIL to read what 4. is titled.. Abolishing Gender Markers (aka Sex Markers) on Official Documents & simply focus on passports/driver licenses. You FAIL to acknowledge other documentation/data & how it is used to ensure that organisations comply with Equality Law & that said sex disaggregated data is used to monitor disadvantage specifically faced by women & girls! Go figure! 🙄As to the Equality Act 2010 & recent Supreme Court ruling on said law and that the response simply states the law as is without a rationale 🫣Again a response from someone who hasn’t a clue nor any understanding as to the Equality Act and the history/legislation behind/before it! The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. The Equality Act replaced nine statutes (including The Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Acts 1976 and 2000, the Disability Discrimination Acts 1995 and 2005) and over 100 other pieces of legislation. But hey no rationale re Equality Act 🙃And as to Maternity & Related services concern a person?? who is pregnant.. you mean WOMAN of course.. aka adult human of the female sex! And as to the protection of Pregnancy & Maternity referring to medical care 🤪Seriously? Have you even read the Equality Act? Honestly the ARROGANCE of men coming into a discussion about which they clearly know FUCK ALL is incredible to say the least! Plus ca change! Take your ignorance and shove it! Your response makes absolutely no sense whatsoever as you clearly haven’t a clue as to Equality Law & the protections the UK Equality Act offers women/girls under the protected characteristic of “sex”.
Oh and Pregnancy & Maternity plus Sexual Orientation.
You assert that Conor doesn't understand the Equality Act, without demonstrating any error in what he actually said. The maternity point is a non-sequitur: no one here argues that maternity protections should be removed.
It is like you don’t read what I have written or are really that ignorant regarding the Equality Act. Seriously.. hone your reading skills or is it that you simply cannot read what a woman writes and understand it 🤪 READ what Connor said re the point made about Pregnancy & Maternity then read my response to his comment. He clearly hasn’t a clue re the EA2010 protections re Pregnancy & Maternity.. that and he uses the term pregnant person.. persons don’t get pregnant WOMEN do.. you know.. the same demographic that are EA2010 protected under “sex”. And Pregnancy & Maternity protections have fuck all to do with medical care! But you carry on defending your dude bro re women’s rights 🙄🙃Neither of you have a clue as to what you are talking about when it comes to Equality Act https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/your-rights-under-equality-act-2010/pregnancy-and-maternity
Women are people.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Well done we agree on something.. of course women are people! It’s the deliberate erasure re the bodily functions & experiences that ONLY women experience that I object to!
In which you confirm that the laws change and improve. Your very argument for the current one. I thought the High Court ruling obvious since it said what the parliament meant at the time - as I said in first post, and as the main post says, the question is whether that is sufficient.
Never, albeit I live in Australia so maybe we are more sensible here, have I been asked to show ID to confirm sex for any form that I have ticked. On which point I tick male for sex and nothing for gender (depending on how the question is phrased). The idea that you need a formal legal ID document to determine descriptive allocations for an analysis is foolish. If that were so almost every sex based analysis (ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc) would be flawed according to you.
So, I will restate that including sex or gender on an ID is an outdated essentially patriarchal idea.
Do there need to be different jails, refuges, changing rooms by any mix of sex and gender : I am skeptical for any bar for refuges. In which case refuges for those tran become a need - I have never yet read anyone, who pursues the line you do, actually say that another set of refuges is needed. It would put pressure on available money of course but that is logic of your position. Mine is the more complicated : first test is does the person need refuge; and second is there a problem for others in the refuge from letting in a given person who has need, and what if anything can be done about that.
Yep I would say a pregnant person is a woman, I certainly think someone who gives birth is a mother (since that ultimately is what a mother does, all else being gender roles) so I have no understanding of why trans men who give birth object to mother and breastfeeding as terms. What I said on pregnancy services is that they ought to be there for anyone who is pregnant and you get excited about terms.
I am ignorant, you are right on that, as to how trans people affect pregnancy and maternity services since in my simplistic way I would attend to the obvious physical pregnancy or not and not care in the least how the person identifies itself on the admission form and I certainly would not ask for ID as proof.
A trans man probably wants to be described as a father, not as a mother. I can't see any greater good that would be justified by taking away his choice.
Duncan, as is I suspect clear from my earlier comments I both seek not to limit how a person expresses who it is and wonder why such need require changing the physical shape of the person’s body. That is me expressing my limited understandings. It comes from my preference to treat each person as a person, using group characteristics as a useful short hand but not a prescriptive measure.
On the language I find it strange that in one aspect there is argument to update language - hence transwoman and transman - and to hold that other elements cannot change - if giving birth why not be called a mother, just challenge the assumption that mother=woman? Breast feeding seems even more a strange word to challenge since all(??) humans have breasts, some of which do better at expressing milk. These are questions somewhat beyond the issue : a pregnant trans man should and as far as I know will receive the same services as a pregnant cis woman.
For me the trans discussion has been good for further reducing where human activities are split into two forced sets (most restaurant toilets in Melbourne are individual cubicles that any person can use in full privacy from any other person) but troubling for its renewed insistance that there are ways of being that are female and male - I find the latter somewhat like race groupings, the characteristics keep changing but the concept persists.
I found your post one of the few times I have read an outline that focusses on treating each fairly, without presuming the outcome, and open to discussion about the how. Obvious things like removing a sex-gender marker from ID as not useful one example.
Conor; languages change all the time. We don't address boys as 'Master', even though 50 years ago some letters and school teachers still used that archaic form. It's obvious why a trans man would nt want to be called a mother, isn't it? Indeed, some languages can exist without gendered pronouns, but that's nit the language we are using now.
What about the rights of the child born to a trans identifying female? It is because of that child’s right to have their birth mother accurately recorded on their birth certificate that any attempt by trans identifying females to record themselves as the father of children has failed. Not just here in the UK but also in courts in Europe.
Ah .. thought as much.. you really don’t have a clue re UK Equality Law nor Equality Impact Assessments nor the collection of data disaggregated by sex so as to be COMPLIANT with Equality Law here in UK. Enough said .. all else you spout has NOTHING to do with the conversation in hand .. just you garbling on about your opinions (though you appear to contradict your initial stance & wording in some instances) & experiences in Australia.
I read https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-review-of-data-statistics-and-research-on-sex-and-gender/review-of-data-statistics-and-research-on-sex-and-gender-executive-summary and an a non government body report https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Data-matters.pdf. Both are strong about collecting data on sex and being wary of gender terminology and classifications.
Common to both is that I found no reference to asking for ID to support a sex identification. Rather, as per the UK Government review, it says that:
“The form of the question should follow the UK Censuses (England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland) question and response categories.
What is your sex?
Response categories: Female, Male”
So where is it required or desired that in collecting data about service users that people provide evidence for their stated sex? If this is the case do you really think that desirable practice?
@Connor .. “Duncan, as is I suspect clear from my earlier comments I both seek not to limit how a person expresses who it is”… Who IT IS?? A person is not a ln inanimate object..You surely mean you seek not to limit how a person expresses who they are. I too would never seek to limit how a person expresses who they are unless that involved the harm of another. I draw the line at when that person insists that all MUST support their personal expression and societal legislative measures don’t apply to them!
Diane, that's exactly the point. In your opinion, the choice of a rans man to describe himself _IS_ a harm against others and, indeed, even is a harm against their future child. I understand why you are trying to evade accountability for what you have written, but your views are very clear.
A trans man can describe themselves however they like.. they just don’t get to insist that in law they are something they are not .. ie the father of a child that they have gestated & birthed. Children have rights too! Am so over the me,me, me navel gazing of those who claim a gender identity. It’s one rule for them and no one’s rights matter other than theirs. No .. we are all entitled to human rights and here in UK under EA2010 protections, trans people have the same rights/freedoms as the rest of us! Many just want MORE regardless of established law & protections for differing demographics covered by EA.
Who is it knocking at the door? Who was it that wrote “be wary of grand claims about English usage”?
Dreadful as it is my preferred pronouns are it and it. In my usage a person unspecified is it. If a particular person is specified I use she he her him as applicable.
We refer to animals and bug and birds as it regularly - they too are not inanimate. If it is my dog or your dog I use she he etc where the sex is known.
And now you use emotive BS re “unborn child”. Nowhere have I mentioned an unborn child. I have simply said that children have rights too and a transman can call themselves whatever they like but in the cold light of day and under UK and European Law, they do not have the right to falsify their child’s birth certificate. It’s not always all about trans rights!! Believe it or not others have rights too!
Yes, but what you assert is the 'right' of the child of a trans man to have their father described as a woman through their pregnancy and afterwards. You didn't locate this as the right of the state, or the right of womankind: you described it as the right of the child. And it's a 'right' that has been enacted before the child has a choice, and even before it is born.
PS To be clear: you suggested that children should have the choice to determine that their trans parent's gender is recorded in a certain way, but, in practice, you are for the state enforcing that not giving anyone a choice, let alone the parent.
You absolute idiot- it is only when the child is born that their birth is registered! And as it happens NO FUCKING MAN HAS EVER GIVEN BIRTH! Only those of the female sex gestate and give birth. If a female wants to ID as male that’s down to her. But her infant has rights in law too and has the right to have their birth MOTHER recorded on their birth certificate (legal document) Honestly you really are showing yourself up to be an absolute fanatic that has to be right no matter how much you twist and turn words to achieve that! Done with being polite to you! The day a male births an infant through their penis is the day you can record that child’s birthing parent as the father! Now fuck off with your fanaticism! Only women give birth!
This is the perfect example of your erasing of trans men. You simple deny their existence.
Was this you being polite? Goodness me.
And now I really am done with the bad faith engagement from you and Connor who both twist and turn and claim words I have never used. You are both so clearly out of your depth as to women’s sex specific rights and how and why they matter. Why would you? You are both men who have no idea as to the female struggle in a capitalist, patriarchal world. And you are both arrogant & entitled & so cloth eared when it comes to listening to/reading around the rights of women & why sex matters, not gender, SEX when it comes to women’s & girls rights!
Looool the knots you eejit men tie yourselves into to make yourselves right! That’s male arrogance and entitlement right there! I am done trying to engage in good faith with ignorance 101! The sad thing is, is that you are so immersed in the batshittery of your own BS that you simply do not see how unhinged you come across! My pronouns are it/it 😜🤪😵💫Batshit!
But, seriously Diane, your view IS that it's a harm against others (including his unborn child) for a tran man to call himself a man. I'm not sure why you see any knots here. I am repeating to you what you have said, and you;re just making noise because you can't deny your own words.
This is utter drivel, from start to finish. Just to pick on two points: how does domestic labour ‘disproportionately fall on trans women’? Repeating that statement and advising us to read it again is not a convincing argument. And what about reproductive labour. Who does that fall on? And your suggestion that freedom of expression can be overridden once a decision has been taken is dangerously anti-democratic, and would, for example, have silenced the left throughout the history of the Labour Party. You need to face up to reality: the tide is turning against the most outlandish demands of the Trans Liberation Group as more and more people wake up to the fact that they are a serious obstacle to women’s liberation and therefore also to the struggle for socialism.
Roy, you are mistaken if you think trans women perform less domestic labour than men. I've added a postscript to say more: https://redmole.substack.com/i/191240244/postscript-on-domestic-labour-and-the-quality-of-objections
I really don't get your point about freedom of expression. Valerie has no obstacles to her freedom of expression, as far as I know. She ran for the CEC. Had no obstasles at hustings, as far as I know. Has a platform, literally, in the form or an organised tendency. She also, as far as I know, has no-one facing what I have on this thread: comments saying that I should be participating in this discussion on the basis of my gender.
Here is your "trans liberation" Duncan: an anonymous group of violent misogynist males calling themselves "Trans Bash Back". Last year they attacked the Brighton conference of the feminist organisation FiLiA, smashing windows, daubing paint everywhere, threatening & abusing the women attending.
Now they post this: a masked angry male aggressively wielding a claw hammer through a broken window dripping with paint that looks very suggestive of blood. And alongside this a graphic: "CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON".
All your sophistry achieves, in this and your previous hit-piece against feminists and Materialist Left, is to offer ideological cover for the prolonged and ongoing threats of violence that trans activists make against women & girls who dare to defend the limited & hard-won rights of their sex. Shame on you, socialist you are not.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DWT-1DQjJfY/
Ian, Bash Back-style vandalism targets empty buildings. It's a worthless activity, and I oppose it. That said it's as easy to say that the four people who smashed two windows at that empty conference centre represent trans liberation as it is to attribute any action to any much larger group of people. It's sophistry to say that those four people reflect anything on all trans people or their allies. I'm not sure if you've seen the video on the Telegraph website, but they seem to hit the windows 30 times with hammers, breaking two of them. I'm not sure those people were either male or particularly violent. But even if they were professional window breakers, collective responsibility is not a socialist framing.
Cannot be bothered to respond to yet another load of disingenuous AI generated bollox.. so will just leave my previous comments from your other article of AI fuelled disingenuous nonsense here -
Maaaate it is the whole basis for your article that I am labelling disingenuous bollox! “This article argues that gender-critical politics in the UK socialist left is not a separate phenomenon from the conservative left. It is its connective tissue, simultaneously exhibiting class reductionism, social democratic capitulation, campist logic, and identity politics backlash. Counterfire’s record, the YPML’s programme, and the CEC election results are the evidence.” It is this take, and the ridiculous amount of words that you use to justify shoehorning men into the sex class that is FEMALE. That & how you frame a socialist feminist’s right to an opinion regarding lawful women’s rights which is a load of disingenuous bollox because when it comes down to the bare bones of your argument.. you are a MAN trying to use your platform to SILENCE women around their rights and their life experiences. You could write a thesis about how men who id as women are part of the class struggle.. no one is denying that .. they are just not women, no matter how many articles you write to say they are! The day you actually list EXACTLY what “trans liberation” entails is the day your arguments lose all credibility because women’s oppression is because of their sex and the patriarchy uses gender to ensure that oppression. Men (no matter how they ID) are a part of the patriarchy therefore they instantly benefit from the power dynamics said patriarchy offers to those born male. I am so over purported left wing men telling left wing women that they need to move over for men who ID as women because they are not a threat & they are the most vulnerable! How would you as a man know what is and isn’t a threat to women. I call misogyny 101!
No one is arguing that we divide oppressed groups against each other in the name of the “real” working class 🙄What materialist feminists argue is that (as you point out in your response) men, no matter how they ID, are not women so most definitely are not oppressed in the same way as women and that women’s sex specific rights are just that - sex specific. These rights didn’t just appear out of thin air - they were hard fought for by women for women. Women are still very much fighting for equality and whether you like it or not .. statistically speaking, male violence against women & girls in all its ugly forms has exponentially increased over the last decade. Men who ID as women do not get a free pass to enjoy women’s rights/spaces/facilities/services just because they ID as women. No man does. And again I challenge you to be clear about what trans liberation entails then we will see how voting pans out.
The idea that men identifying as women are disproportionately affected by male violence, not its perpetrators has been debunked many times over the years. https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/ That you would argue that a materialist politics would start from male on male violence involving a demographic that is 0.1% of the population rather than centring male violence against women and girls, 51% of the population, demonstrates the little regard you place on the disgraceful statistics around rape & femicide And as to the Your Party founding conference voting on “trans liberation” ..again.. why would any socialist vote against such an ill defined, nebulous term which at a glance appears progressive. Drill down and share exactly what “trans liberation” means & have a proper discussion as to the impact on women’s sex-specific rights. That did not happen at conference .. far from it. Had a proper conversation been facilitated at conference, I would argue that all who support hard fought for women’s rights, would not have voted for such misogyny. Many are unaware that trans liberation centres the rights of men identifying as women over the rights of women! Last but not least the idea that socialist women & men advocating for a materialist analysis regarding women & their rights are in some way providing cover for a conservative drift within socialist organisations.. give your head a wobble.. challenging the neoliberal, post modern, sexist, regressive nonsense that is gender identity politics is anything but conservative. It is sound socialist politics which are grounded in class, sex and race.
You are either being deliberately disingenuous or you simply have not read the demands of those within Your Party pushing for “trans liberation” and how such demands, should they be successful, will impact women’s sex-based rights.
Demand No. 1: LEGALISE TRANS EXISTENCE
Amend the Equality Act 2010 to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court ruling of 16th April 2025 by making it clear “sex” refers to a person's current lived sex and adding gender identity as a protected characteristic. Ensure that “gender-critical” beliefs cannot be treated as protected beliefs.
Enshrine the right to self-identification of gender, including non-binary gender, for all purposes.
Abolish gender markers from official documentation such as passports.
Reject plans for the introduction of ID cards as an authoritarian imposition that will be disproportionately used to police and harass trans people, migrants, and people of colour.
Scrap the Equality and Human Rights Commission - it is broken and not fit for purpose and should be replaced with an equalities body that actually protects human rights.
Reject any attempts to restrict trans people’s rights to access public bathrooms and other gendered spaces, which we have freely exercised for decades. Trans people have a right to access gendered spaces by self-ID (including prisons).
End the testing of hormone levels in women athletes, which has led to the exclusion of gender non-conforming women. Transgender women have been competing in women's sports for many years. Regardless of their success, the question of their participation should be looked at fairly. Transphobia and misogyny have no place in sport. No athlete should be excluded on the grounds of being transgender.
Progressive demands?? I thought you argued that “trans liberation” would not erase women’s sex-based rights!! You clearly have not a clue as to what you are talking about. That or you have no idea as to what women’s EA2010 sex specific rights are. Whichever.. you are well out of your depth here & are showing your ignorance as to women’s rights and why sex matters re those rights. And as to your deliberate misinformation re my making up a claim that trans identifying men are more likely to be convicted of sexual assault than to be victims of male violence.. point out exactly where I said that! You are clutching at straws here maaate because your article & your “arguments” have been exposed to be full of holes.
Your article AND your responses IGNORE and DISMISS the female voice around women’s rights and SEX specific spaces (Men like yourself are forever trying to obfuscate the issues re sex v gender by using the term gender when in fact you are speaking of SEX) You centre men throughout. The purported “progressive” left have a massive problem when it comes to women and our rights. If Your Party have any chance to gain power they MUST be outward looking and focus on the rights of women going forward, not on the rights of men (however they identify) The Supreme Court ruling was CRYSTAL CLEAR on the definition of woman in Equality Act. -Woman = those of the female sex (biological women) not those who identify as women. They are protected under the category of “gender reassignment”. Nothing progressive about a mission to collapse the protected characteristic of sex in favour of gender identity as women’s oppression is very much because of their sex and their rights stem from such oppression. I believe you are acting in bad faith or that you really are ill informed/ignorant around the historical struggles of women for their rights and the current state of women and their rights. But given you admit that “Red Mole is written by Duncan Chapel, a Fourth International supporter based in Britain. I use Al tools to accelerate research and drafting, but analysis and argument are entirely mine”, I am not surprised. AI is not the fool proof tool you think it is. Quite the reverse! I am leaving this conversation now as have important work to do regarding my rights and ensuring that Your Party CEC focus on allowing for women members to have the conversations around women’s rights that reflect hard fought for law not the demands of men who ID as women.
Will end on this “Domestic labour disproportionately falls on trans women, as it does on all women.”.. Offensive does not even begin to cover this pile of nonsense from the Trans Liberation Group or should that read the Men’s Rights Group!!
Signed
A hostile commenter 🤪
Are you cutting and pasting your previous comments rather than replying to EXACTLY the questions you posed? Honestly, I use assistive AI for proofreading and research, but that's less shameful than posing questions, pretending you are interested in discussion, and then refusing to engage with the answers.
I am getting really bored with the amount of personal and gender specific abuse in around this discussion I have been reading for so long now. They all sound more Radical Fem than Materialist Fem and never answer the exact points or questions; instead, they simply abuse men for being men and therefore not being allowed to have an opinion and never, and I do mean never, mention the position of trans men in this discussion. Is using AI for research and editing a bad thing now? If so, please tell the Professors of various universities who are encouraging their students to use it
Sex specific abuse .. let’s be clear re the terms of engagement here. And in this case it is warranted. I am fed up with men (ignorant on the sex specific rights of women & girls) jumping in to pontificate on high about said sex specific rights. As to abusing men for being men 🤪Seriously where did you get that idea from. I just don’t tolerate ignorant bullshitters.. men or women. As a mother to sons, who never cease to amaze me as they have grown into the fabulous young men that they are, I object to your baseless remarks. As to transmen .. they are of the female sex and interestingly never much mentioned in any part of the sex v gender discussion other than to point out that men can get pregnant 🙃Funny that eh? Might have something to do with the patriarchy, power dynamics & men eh? As to AI .. it really is not the be all and end all but since you are so supportive, have used AI to ask the question re should men involve themselves in discussions around women’s rights. This is the answer-
Whether it is "okay" for someone to comment on a topic they are perceived to be ignorant about is a subjective question of social ethics and lived experience, rather than a rule of law.
In discussions regarding the Equality Act 2010 and women’s rights, the argument that men should not comment—or should do so with extreme caution—usually centers on several key points:
1. The Principle of Lived Experience
Women and girls have a unique "lived experience" of navigating the world in female bodies. This includes specific safety concerns, biological realities (like pregnancy or menstruation), and the history of sex-based discrimination.
The Argument: A man, regardless of his intentions, cannot personally understand the stakes of losing a single-sex space or a sex-based protection because he does not live with the vulnerabilities or societal pressures that those protections were designed to mitigate.
2. "Nothing About Us Without Us"
This is a long-standing mantra in human rights advocacy. It suggests that policy changes affecting a specific group (in this case, females) should be led and decided by that group.
The Argument: When men advocate for the removal of sex-based protections for women, it can be viewed as an act of disenfranchisement—effectively deciding the boundaries of women’s safety and privacy without their consent.
3. Power Dynamics and "Mansplaining"
In many professional and political spaces, men’s voices have historically been given more weight.
The Argument: If a man comments on women’s rights without first educating himself on the existing legal protections (like the exceptions in the Equality Act), he may inadvertently dominate a conversation with misinformation. This is often described as "mansplaining"—where a man explains something to a woman in a condescending or overconfident manner, despite the woman having more expertise or skin in the game.
4. The Risk of Unintended Consequences
The Equality Act is a complex piece of legislation.
The Argument: Ignorance isn't just a social faux pas; it’s a practical risk. If a man advocates for "lived sex" or "Self-ID" without understanding how those changes would impact equal pay audits, crime reporting, or domestic violence refuges, he is essentially gambling with the safety and legal standing of a demographic he does not belong to.
The Counter-Perspective
Conversely, some argue that because the Equality Act affects all of society, everyone should be allowed to participate in the democratic debate. However, most agree that for a contribution to be valuable, it must be grounded in an accurate understanding of the current law and a respect for the people most affected by any proposed changes.
Sadly you proved my point
The "nothing about us without us" principle is sound. Which is precisely why the YPML's programme — explicitly designed to exclude trans women from women's spaces, break the LGB/T alliance, and ensure that gender-critical beliefs cannot be challenged within party structures — is the problem under discussion. Trans women are the "us" being legislated about without their consent in that programme.
On AI: you've used it to generate a legal analysis that confirms the premise of your question. That's not a criticism of AI — it's a description of how all research tools work when given a leading prompt. Ask a different question, get a different answer.
I have engaged with your disingenuous bollox article claiming that TLG’s demands are progressive. And guess what? I used AI for my research and drafting because life is too bloody short to be responding to ignorant dicksplainers like yourself who think that shoehorning men into the sex class that is women is progressive. And YES I included ALL my responses to your last article because in true dicksplaining style you conveniently left out much of what I said in order to justify your ridiculous narrative in this current article. I wont be adding to this response thread because SERIOUSLY you really have not got a clue as to the EA2010 and it’s 9 protected characteristics plus WHY sex specific rights were included in said Act and why sex specific rights are IMPORTANT to those of us of the female sex.
The article and this thread have engaged repeatedly and directly with the specific rights at issue — domestic violence shelters, single-sex spaces, the Equality Act framework. Disagreeing with your analysis of how those rights are best protected is not the same as ignoring them. The TLG's demands are specifically designed to protect trans people without abolishing sex-based protections — that's a contestable claim, but it's the claim on the table, and it deserves a response on its merits rather than the repeated assertion that anyone who makes it is ignorant or acting in bad faith.
I note you're ending the discussion. That's fine. But the record of this thread speaks for itself.