Rosie Duffield Quotes

I don’t talk about trans rights because I think it’s not my place to talk about trans rights. Trans people have got some great organisations and they’re very good at representing their rights, and that is just as it should be.
Trans rights are the same rights as everyone else, but what concerns me is that there is a slight conflict in some cases between trans rights and women’s rights.
Women’s rights are why I came to Parliament, and why I’m sitting here, because women are now visible in Parliament.
I grew up in a very strong feminist household, and what really concerns me are the rights of women to have privacy and space, and the necessity to be in women’s refuge – not shared with someone with a male body.

The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few. Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed,” she said. “I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.”

Most backbenchers I'm friends with are women and most of us refer to the men that surround him [Keir Starmer], the young men, as 'the lads' and it's very clear that the lads are in charge. They have now got their Downing Street passes. They are the same lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs.

In the interests of full transparency, I should say that Rosie Duffield's a friend of mine. We'd probably have been friends no matter where or how we'd met, but we found each other as part of a group of women fighting to retain women's rights.

It seems Rosie has received literally no support from [Keir] Starmer over the threats and abuse, some of which has originated from within the Labour Party itself, and has had a severe, measurable impact on her life.
But she fights on ... because she feels she has no choice. Like me, she believes the stakes are too high to walk away.

They don’t threaten criticise, yell or exert their physical strength in increasingly frightening ways.
Not at the start. Not when they think you're sweet, funny and gorgeous. Not when they turn up to your third date with chocolates, then jewellery.

For the first time in my life, having been an ambassador for a gender-balanced 50:50 parliament, I would hesitate to encourage other women to come into politics [...] I would have to really think about what I was asking them to do, and putting people into this position when they are going to be on the front line of some pretty shitty abuse.

Those patterns continue: reward, punishment, promises of happy ever after, alternating with abject rage, menace, silent treatment and coercive control.

As prime minister, your managerial style and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long 14 years to be mandated by the British public to return to power.
Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.

Is it starting to look like Labour has a women problem? It certainly is for the 7,000-strong group of women members, councillors and activists who make up Labour Women’s Declaration and had a stall at last year’s party conference refused.
It is for Lesbian Labour, who were also stopped from exhibiting at last year’s conference. It is for Dr Karen Ingala Smith, the formidable feminist campaigner who compiles a list of women killed in the UK each year which is then read out in parliament by Jess Phillips every International Women’s Day, and who had her membership rejected after she made a few gender-critical joke tweets featuring kittens.

It was just a big load of scary noise, this giant person. When you’re bullied your brain starts to shut down. It’s protecting yourself. And you can’t think of the words; you’re not eloquent. I would misspeak, stutter, and he would exploit that.

Many of us know that self-identifying as a woman does not make a person a biological woman who shares our lived experience. But for obvious reasons, these views are not voiced outside of closed rooms or private and secret WhatsApp groups. Even there, the most senior MPs often do not post a single word; they know exactly what’s at stake and not many of them want to be me. So for now, they mostly remain silent.

[On the possibility misgendering might become a hate crime.] Is that a serious thing? Is that coming to Parliament any time soon? I hope not because you might as well arrest me now. I'm not calling Eddie Izzard a woman.

Today I have made the extremely difficult decision not to attend local hustings events during this general election campaign. Hustings are usually an enjoyable and interesting part of any political campaign, but sadly the actions of a few fixated individuals have now made my attendance impossible.
The constant trolling, spite and misrepresentation from certain people - having built up over a number of years and being pursued with a new vigour during this election - is now affecting my sense of security and wellbeing. The result is that I feel unable to be focused on giving a clear presentation of the Labour Party's manifesto commitments.

There are some women who get involved and want to be seen to be very woke ... but mostly it is men, and the same men that have trolled me ever since I got elected.
So it looks like, feels like and smells like misogyny, and this is just the latest cause they have latched on to ... The fact that I am blonde — they call me a bimbo. The fact that I don’t like antisemitism. There is always something, but it is always the same people who attack me.