What is the purpose?

No no no this is all wrong. TERF Times on Facebook:

The Labour Party is finally applying the Equality Act to its own internal processes after it prevented a man from applying to positions reserved for women.

This week, it emerged that Emily Brothers, a male former parliamentary candidate who identifies as a woman, had been barred from contesting women’s reserved seats in the Southern region’s National Policy Forum election.

Brothers was also excluded as a delegate from the main sessions of Labour’s women’s conference. He stood for Parliament in Sutton and Cheam in 2015, for the Greater London Assembly in 2016, and in Isle of Wight East at the last general election.

The decision has caused outrage among some Labour activists. Kerry Postlewhite, a newly elected member of the National Executive Committee, said:

“We object to this action and view Emily’s exclusion from NPF reserved seats for women as unfair and contrary to the values of our movement.

“This decision is needlessly disadvantaging Emily, who is already breaking down enough barriers. What is the purpose? Surely, a more inclusive culture is what party members deserve.”

No no no no no. Don’t be so silly. Of course “a more inclusive culture” in the sense of “including” men in the category women is not what anyone deserves, because it’s factually wrong (aka ludicrous) and because it’s grossly unfair.

Here’s the thing. (It’s so tedious to have to keep repeating this.) Not all “inclusion” is desirable or reasonable or fair. We don’t include everything with everything, because if we did there would just be a big lump of Everything, which would be useful to no one. We are allowed to separate one thing from another; that is not necessarily or inherently “exclusion” as in telling a small child she can’t come to the birthday party. We are allowed to separate the things.

Come on. You know this. When making a meal we don’t just include everything, job done. Quite the contrary. We exclude almost everything, so that what we do include will taste good and be healthy to eat. When getting dressed we’re not inclusive of every garment we have, because that would be lumpy and too hot. When going somewhere we’re not inclusive of everywhere, because we want to go to this one particular place, for reasons.

Are we getting the drift? Inclusion is a good thing in some contexts, yes, but not all of them. It’s not an uncomplicatedly friendly word. We do not have to be inclusive of everything every minute of every day. We are allowed to choose certain things and certain people. We don’t have to invite the whole neighborhood for lunch just because we’re eating a sandwich.

Women do not have to include men in the category “women”. Not ever. Kerry Postlewhite needs to get a grip on ontology.