Your point of view is always invalid

   Back home after a weekend being seditious. My experiences as a transgender person in employment have led me to over the last few years spend a while of my time doing my best to advance the awareness of workplace rights for transgender people under the auspices of my trade union. So it was off to a seaside resort on a chilly November day for a weekend annual conference. Taking stock of the previous year, learning new things, and looking forward to the next.
    Interestingly it was not just LGBT people present. People involved through other minorities, as well as a good number of workplace reps keen to understand more about workplace rights for people like us. And also a group of retired trade unionists. Useful people to know, this last group, for with their lengthy experience there is little they do not know about the intricacies of a harmonious workplace.
    As you might expect from such a gathering, there was a significant array of political activists. My interest in trade union membership is as a means to advance workplace rights for people like me, I'm a member of no party. Others however come to it through left-wing politics.
    We've seen what feels like a decade of political news in the last couple of years, and particularly with respect to the recent American election it seems as though we've lost the ability to find our common ground. I was pleased to see a spirit of  broader political consensus and engagement from a section of my trade union friends, but it saddened me that among another section there was only room for their narrow brand. The damage wrought by this kind of blinkered view is only too obvious every time we turn on our TV sets, and to see it on the increase here doesn't bode well.
    The retired members didn't have much time for it I was pleased to see. I watched three of them take down a hardcore socialist - all questions about Karl Marx and calling people "Comrade" - with a loud discussion of the praiseworthy works of Tony Blair - centre-left former Labour Prime Minister, reviled by those on the far left. When our zealous comrade had stalked off in a huff it was very amusing indeed to see three old guys who are probably as true to their political principles now as they were in the 1960s break down in helpless laughter. As I said to them, I need to watch and learn.
    I will engage with anyone who will listen on the subject of trans rights in the workplace. Whoever they are, and whatever their politics. Good people can be found in nearly all parts of the political spectrum, just as can arseholes.