Always a good look to put a guy who thinks women have no rights in charge of human rights.
Breathtaking, isn’t it. Women want safety and this man calls them bigots for it – so Labour puts him on the human rights beat. Women not human then? Is that what Labour is saying?
Do the Democrats need votes from gender-critical voters?
Colin, it’s more that the US has voters in a reasonable middle who are getting fed up with the Democratic party pushing gender and trans.
For evidence, the 2024 Trump campaign ran two 30-second TV ads that ended, “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.” Polling by both parties showed it moving the needle toward Trump.
But did voters view “they/them” as gender neutral, or as being third person? As opposed to “you”, which is second person?
I don’t count myself as “in a reasonable middle” of US voters fed up with the Dems pushing trans. I’ve been on the left my whole thinking life. It’s the supposed “progressive” left that has moved to crazy town, and sought to expel me from my own party. I’m without a political home in terms of parties.
Gender critical voters are feminists.
(The clue is in the name. They’re critical of gender. They view it as stories we tell ourselves. They’re happy for you to tell yourself any story you like. You’re male and you like to knit? No problem. Knit all you like. No need for vaginoplasty to enable you to knit. What they’re against is people who tell others which stories to believe.)
They’re also rare right now in the US, already concentrated in liberal districts, and hence unlikely to move the needle as voters. Politicians are infinitely aware of how little gender critical feminists matter to them.
What the Dems do need is the votes of people who tell themselves they don’t care about any of that. They just want their kids to be safe and successful in gym class.
Trans rights activists’ instant outrage at the assumption that trans people could be perverse makes no sense to these voters. It’s not about trans people. It’s about their kids. (The concept that anything could be not about trans is very confusing to TRAs.) If anyone can declare he belongs in their daughter’s gym class, what’s to stop real pervs from lying their way in? Have TRAs never heard of some of the scoutmasters in Boy Scouts?
The sad fact for TRAs is that people do lie to get what they want. Reality has a huge gender critical bias. So even though voters ignore gender issues, their sense of “No!” goes off at the idea of males being included among women when biology matters.
And the Republicans use that to the max. Voters aren’t deep into linguistic usage when they hear “they/them.” All they hear is “I’m one of the loonies who lives in la-la land.”
Republicans come at it from a different universe, of course. To them, gender is the only thing that matters. They’d rather you change sex to play the right part than make the least dent in the strict divisions and hierarchies of gender. (That leads to stuff like the Iranian mullahs allowing sex change operations rather than tolerating the slightest deviance in dress codes. Early on, Republicans, eg Rick Santorum, leaned this way too, until they noticed what it said about them.) So Republicans “agree” with feminists that sex matters, not because equality requires recognition of differences, but because that’s the only way they have to lock you into one of two boxes.
The Dems don’t help themselves by their desperation to avoid any taint of feminism. (What could be more uncool? Really. What?) If they could shake that off, it’d be simple. And because it’s true it would resonate with all those voters who “don’t think about it.” As Rowling said dog’s years ago, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill” / X 2019/12/20.
For Colin, for evidence, the two 30-second TV ads for Trump were titled Nonsense and Hell No.
You can watch the two ads in this comment and see them end by saying “they/them” to mean the Democratic party pushing gender and trans. Polling by both parties showed the ads moving the needle toward Trump.
I don’t count myself as “in a reasonable middle” of US voters fed up with the Dems pushing trans. I’ve been on the left my whole thinking life. It’s the supposed “progressive” left that has moved to crazy town, and sought to expel me from my own party. I’m without a political home in terms of parties.
maddog, I second this. I never thought I would be seen as a ‘centrist’ or even ‘center right’, especially not because of my feminism! Both parties have gone over the cliff, on opposite sides, and are trying to pull everyone else off with them, into a reactionary universe where women are nurturing, caring, uterus havers, and men are macho, aggressive, burping sports fans. Any deviation means you are (for Republicans) unacceptably acting out or (for Democrats) actually the opposite sex in your gendered soul.
If anyone wants to pretend there is anything ‘progressive’ about gender identities, they are people who are lying, have drunk the KoolAid, or haven’t really given it much thought.
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