On the subject of gender self-identification, a comment on a previous post puts it thus:
No-one had ever heard of this idea before this government came along, it's neoliberalism in excelsis. Liz Truss is one of the most neoliberal members of the Cabinet but she's been worn down by a campaign by Julie Bindel, Beatrix Campbell, Selina Todd, Linda Bellos, Lucy Masoud, Jennifer James, Venice Allan, Suzanne Moore, Janice Turner, Ruth Serwotka, Laura Pidcock, J.K. Rowling, Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Paul Embery (he voted for Corbyn all four times), George Galloway and the Morning Star. Socialism is based on material reality and this time it won.
Of course others could be added: Bev Jackson, Kiri Tunks, Julie Burchill, Rod Liddle who is still one of us at heart, the immensely courageous Debbie Hayton, Lachlan Stuart who coordinated the last Labour manifesto, and so on. Simon Fanshawe is a bit Blairier, but even so. The material realist Left has not won a victory like this in a very long time.
Even those of us who find the Augustinian and Thomist arguments for material realism to be more convincing have to concede that this victory belongs at least primarily to those whose basis is essentially or explicitly Marxian. Clearly, that view corresponded closely enough to the third-wave feminism of the Secretary of State.
I have never much liked the term "socially conservative", and I no longer use it in self-description. The society that I would like to see, and towards which I am actively working, would be radically different the one in which we were currently living. Had it been left to the social conservatives, then gender self-identification would already have happened, because they have never, ever won anything at all.
This Government has introduced no-fault divorce, and hardly anyone has even noticed. This Government has imposed both abortion and same-sex marriage on Northern Ireland. Did, say, Jacob Rees-Mogg threaten to resign from the Cabinet over the imposition of abortion on Northern Ireland against the wishes of the elected local legislature? Did he in fact do so? Well, there you are, then.
I know quite a few people who know Rees-Mogg, and they all speak highly of him. But this is about his political record. In itself, it will not do to be a practising Catholic, as Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi are, and to be a certain sort of contrived eccentric. Yet last year, on no more basis than that, it was put about in all seriousness that a party that had been in government for six years might give its Leadership, and thus the Premiership, to a man who had never been anything other than a backbench MP.
Of course, that did not happen. But enough of a flurry had been created to force Rees-Mogg's appointment to the Cabinet, albeit with no policy-making role, since that kind of thing is reserved for the likes of Liz Truss. With no policy-making role, there he remains. He has not resigned over no-fault divorce. He did not resign when same-sex marriage, and even abortion, were imposed on Northern Ireland. And he would not have resigned over gender self-identification.
Depending on local circumstances, in each constituency at the next General Election there should be one Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat or Independent candidate who subscribed to this and this. The complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that we could get to publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.