Staying and fighting versus leaving?
Louise
Epiphanies Host
At what point in a political party do you give up staying and fighting and instead leave when your party (that you're otherwise fine with) embraces something like racism, transphobia or homophobia which targets a minority?
When the leadership embraces the prejudice and passes/advocates for harmful laws?
When the disciplinary procedures aren't being used against this prejudice (and you've seen them used swiftly and effectively on other matters) so people can voice it with impunity?
When a sizeable group of bigots in elected office are already starting to bully and harass people from this minority out of the party but haven't taken over yet?
Other?
When the leadership embraces the prejudice and passes/advocates for harmful laws?
When the disciplinary procedures aren't being used against this prejudice (and you've seen them used swiftly and effectively on other matters) so people can voice it with impunity?
When a sizeable group of bigots in elected office are already starting to bully and harass people from this minority out of the party but haven't taken over yet?
Other?
Comments
Speaking generally, because that's the way you framed the OP:
Maybe it depends on why a person belongs to a party in the first place. Is it a vision of how the world should be, and how to get there? Individual identity? Community/cultural? (I.e., are the people around a person all in a particular party?) Has the person always belonged to the party, and never realy thought about it?
Either way we desperately need proportional representation to bring about government by consensus. The U.K. doesn’t really have a government - more a cronies club, which is soon going to include the civil service too.
It seems like revolution will be the only way to bring about real change. And that idea gives me no pleasure at all
For example no government is going to give me what I want in terms of tackling managerialism (giving managers too much power and pay compared to experts doing the job who know what they're doing), so I compromise on something that would benefit me and vote for my rather managerialist party anyway, but if the compromise is saying 'I'll put up with trans people being constantly harassed and denigrated', when I'm not trans and so somebody else suffers, surely there's something worse about that?
I had decided to stay and fight because I saw a case where my vote as a member might help keep a very able and hateful candidate out of our constituency but I now see trans people being harassed out of our party and the person in charge of discipline seemingly doing nothing. (If the anti trans people were doing the same with anti semitism their feet would not have touched the ground - so there's a definite unwillingness to act)
Once you see that institutional prejudice is at work, by staying part of that institution are you complicit? What would you need to do if you stayed not to be complicit?
I'm aware that just asking the question can be taking up too much space for my voice, so if I'm out of order please don't hesitate to tell me.
Suppose you were a proponent of gay rights in the 1950s, and you were generally politically left of centre. No matter what you do, you're not going to get equal marriage any time soon. The best you can possibly hope for is decriminalization of homosexuality, and if you get that, you'll still be stuck with rampant prejudice. Should you walk away from the Labour party because your fellow party members are mostly homophobic bigots, or should you keep advocating from within the party? In part, it depends what the other parties are like. Is there a mainstream non-bigot party that you can jump ship to?
If everyone who shares your opinion stops engaging with mainstream politics (because of bigots in the mainstream parties) do you have much chance of progressing your agenda? You need organizations outside the main parties to be pushing for rights for trans people (or whoever), but you also need the cause to be adopted by political leaders within the party, and I think you're more likely to do that from the inside.
We don't live in the 1950s, and we're not talking about something that's decades away from the mainstream. There's been a recent (past few years) uptick of prejudice against trans women in particular, in a mainstream party which was previously doing a reasonable job of tackling this kind of thing. This is because determined transphobes have got into positions of power and are also organising online where they target and harass trans folk and allies.
Not do good intentions whitewash iniquity.
There may be times when you feel you've no option but to co-operate with others who are unsavoury. If so, do all that you can not to be smeared or tarnished by them, and never fall into trying to defend the indefensible.
But if there is a genuine listening capability then there is hope of reform and change. I think it's necessary to make a judgment for yourself on that kind of basis. The ascent of intolerant or phobic views in positions of organisational power may not be a permanent feature, provided the power is not used to silence or marginalise.
I tend to vote for the party which is the most moderate and sensible.
I would suggest that both moderate and sensible are in the eye of the beholder.
and when it comes to general elections it is in the eyes of the beholders
It's a hard one. If the allies leave, then the people from that minority group who are left behind have no one to stand beside them at all. Which makes it easier for the non-allies (anti-allies?) to drive them out / get away with their prejudiced nonsense unchallenged. OTH, if the allies and the people from that group all walk away, that hits them where it hurts - in the ballot box and their pockets.
Look at this at in terms of what you want to invest in, what's healthy for you and what you - and the group you're supporting - think will have the most impact in the longer term. As this is a marathon not a sprint. But I agree, in terms of trans-rights, we seem to be going backward not forward and I don't understand why this is.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jan/31/gender.weekend7
https://www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/women-must-have-the-right-to-organise-we-will-not-be-silenced
A transphobic stance has become an acceptable position amongst British progressives; I can't speak for other countries but I gather it's largely a peculiarly British problem.
And funny you should mention The Guardian, I know people who have worked there and who are pushing the J. K Rowling/TERF line - and I'm talking about people who were absolutely excellent on stuff like calling out anti-gay stuff in the church, but they're overcome by the fake feminism and the 'fragrant'* JK Rowling being assailed by the rascal multitude on Twitter, yet are blind to harassment of trans people and what this kind of bully pulpit transphobia means in practice. I switched from The Guardian to the FT over Brexit because I wanted better information and I don't regret it (apart from the expense - ouch!).
I have made contact with people who are affected by these issues in my party and am going to take a lead from them, I've also looked at the policies of other parties, so I'm ready to leave if I can't do any more to help, but I'm also struck by what LB says about working outside. I have donated to Equality Network Scotland and will sign up again and see if I can do more for them. There's a horrifying overlap between the new transphobia and ethnonationalism and I'm very afraid about where it leads.
*fragrant = deliberate Mary Archer reference
Bloody hell. If you swapped out the words trans for, say gay or black, that would never made it onto the page. An ism is an ism however well written it is.
Thanks for that. In fact recent polling a few days ago for Yougov found the reverse was true. "Labour, Lib Dem and Remain voters, along with women and younger people, are likelier to hold more trans-friendly views than Conservative and Leave voters, men and older people."
By 47% to 30% women agree that a transgender woman is a woman while men disagree 33% to 43%
And while I think being active with an external organisation focused on equality is a good point and a suggestion I might take up post-Covid, the association between anti-trans campaigning and the stirrings of Eastern European style populism up here (which uses it as a wedge issue and gets it from Russia Today rather than The Guardian) means it's not just something that can be ignored when it starts to gain ground in a governing party.
The direction of the trends doesn't seem good
On the process questions, I think the self-ID issue may be lurking in the background even though it isn't being raised explicitly. Realistically, I don't think very many people who are not trans are going to self-identify as trans (or non-binary) just because they can. But it may be hard to combine self-ID with allowing trans people into single-sex spaces without creating some bad optics for the average cisgender person on the street. Perhaps the compromise is to make it easier to transition (young people and Labour voters positively support this) but somewhere short of pure self-ID. I doubt the average cisgender person on the street really has strong views on what the process should be, as long as there is a process, and the way these questions are worded is almost guaranteed to generate negative answers from anyone who doesn't positively believe the process should be easier.
I think the most problematic numbers are for the last four questions, and perhaps this where advocacy aimed at improving people's understanding of gender identity is most needed. My general impression that many people who are generally supportive of trans rights still have a hard time getting their heads around gender identity, and that better understanding will likely generate better numbers here. I sometimes think that too much energy is expended directly confronting people like Rowling and not enough on building a consensus on understanding gender identity that will eventually make people like Rowling irrelevant to the conversation.
I also find this point interesting:
I'm sure some of these don't knows are people not willing to reveal negative views, but it also suggests there may be room for people to change their opinions with the right kind of advocacy.
On self ID, I think that is a dead duck in the UK, a right wing Tory govt will not allow it.
Not that they can prevent it in Scotland, TBTG.