Sex Matters: Digital identity verification can end the gender wars

[ResisterOfTwaddleRex]

Sex Matters have stated that "Digital identity systems could also solve the “gender wars". They say that "The census suggests that as many as 100,000 people may have changed the sex recorded on some of their documents".

What documents? These ones:

"NHS records and government documents such as passports and driving licences do not record sex accurately, since people can change the data that is recorded with a simple request."

We are to believe that this can be solved with something that's: "not a national ID-card system, but rather a means to ensure that digital identity information is standardised and trustworthy so that everyone can prove who they are, and relevant facts about themselves (called “attributes“), without presenting physical documents"

As part of the justification, they say that:

"When government bodies and lawmakers decided to allow individuals to change the sex recorded in government systems, they didn’t think of any of this. They thought they were simply accommodating a tiny number of people, not that they were making those systems unworkable for everyone"

Anyone who's read the Hansard will know that is not correct. The issues we are living through now were raised. Raised and brushed aside.

This is quite without the somewhat blase attitude towards "digital identity", which some might regard as distinctly illiberal, and a very serious societal change, placed in the hands of the state. We are meant to take it on trust that this will work, our data will never be compromised, it will never fall into the wrong hands.

It's not clear why the problem is categorised as "gender wars". What we are currently experiencing is a wholesale dismantling of safeguarding processes and systems. It's a safeguarding problem and it needs a safeguarding approach in order to fix it.

What are we being walked into, and why?

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/digital-identity-verification-can-end-the-gender-wars/

x.com/sexmattersorg/status/1849780109097492497?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

How would centralised government ID get around the fact that it's the government allowing sex changes on official ID?

Quite. Especially with the current government intending to make it even easier for men to change the government record of their sex.

This idea would surely make it even easier for men to ‘prove’ they are women?

OK I know it couldn't be done, but if I was in charge (of anything), instead of any sex or gender questions, all forms would have a simple question - "were you born with a p ⬜ or a v ⬜?"

But what is to stop people lying in their answer?
Or genuinely, but wrongly, believing they were born with one when they had been born with the other.

Sometimes I wonder why Sex Matters are lobbying for certain things, like the one mentioned above, because I'm not sure all their ideas to make sex matter take into account the compulsion to lie and deceive that accompanies some male paraphilias and sexual behaviour.

At times the people in Sex Matters remind me of economists in that they seem to assume that all humans act in a rational manner 🤷‍♀️

Exactly this. And all though I don’t want any men in women's spaces, we are especially concerned about those with predatory intent. And we know that predators lie to get access to prey. Not just women’s spaces but access to children too.

Digital identities would also not address the safeguarding issue with making school children call some men ‘miss’, or teaching small children they cannot believe the evidence of their own eyes.

I don’t think the women of Sex Matters, some of whom I have the utmost respect for on other issues, understand safeguarding at all.

They have never had much idea about safeguarding, and it's not the first time that has been pointed out here. Maybe they need to appoint someone with safeguarding knowledge and experience.

I suppose they are commenting on existing government plans. But the whole project of digital ID looks highly suspect to me.

Here's an example I find especially worrying. I don't want "digital ID" at all for me. Let alone for children, whose data is special category data.

https://x.com/mforstater/status/1849875167209787819?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Seems to emanate from a company that uses facial recognition to determine age - useful if you're a social media company looking to push addictive tech to kids but at what other costs? This is not a route we should be going down as a society.

https://www.yoti.com/business/age-verification/

This is not a route we should be going down as a society.

Absolutely, this seems overly authoritarian and a misstep from Sex Matters.

Slightly confused... I think it's the Government who want to introduce this and not Sex Matters?
So the Government have taken enough interest in what they call "Gender Wars" to be able to use and twist it to their own advantage - so they do know exactly what is going on.
It's insulting to suggest we need an easy digital way to force people to believe tell who is who when we can already see male entitlement from fucking space!

The government does want to introduce it but why support it? And present it as though it's so easy and simple and all our problems will go away? A human rights charity should be chilled to the core by the very notion of "digital identity".

Have people forgotten the uproar over ID cards, or the "like I care" attitude of the state when it disposed of information that caused the Windrush scandal? Why on earth would any even vaguely switched on citizen be happy about this?

I’m very confused by this. How is this going to stop blokes in dresses coming into women spaces?
The ‘gender wars’ would end if people stop thinking it was reasonable for dicks to invaded female only services.

Their best accuracy is 99.8%, lowest 99.2%. Sounds good, but apply that to the UK population and that's between 138,000 and 554,000 mistakes.

And it says it detects bots and 2D images, bur no mention of detecting AI filters.That would be a tech arms race.

The government has allowed anyone to change their legal sex - so a digital identity would have to reflect that. All it would do is give transpeople another form of identification that distorts reality.

Well if they say "a p", I'd personally check!
But no, seriously, there is no way ever. I mean however many times I shout out about not having a p, how would YOU know?
But it's just another possibility - it at least reduces the people claiming that they have both, neither, a fake one of either, etc.

The Gender Recognition Act is a piece of legislation that has had a disproportionately negative effect on the rights of women, girls, and gay people. Its had a chaotic effect on identification, and has blurred the rules about men entering women only facilities. Its not just about toilets, its about prisons and domestic abuse shelters, and male entitlement. I don't think it could have been passed after the Equality Act took effect.

IMO the answer is to fix the root cause of the problem, not apply these bizarre half fixes that will only create more problems further down the line.

IMO the answer is to fix the root cause of the problem, not apply these bizarre half fixes that will only create more problems further down the line.

This. You don't need another form of identification that can be overridden, or forged.

You just need to return to a culture where men stayed out of women's toilets and spaces.

The government just need to agree that there should be no men in women's toilets and spaces. Men might try, but women would feel empowered to say fuck off, just like they always have. oh, and repeal the GRA, because it's a fucking waste of time.

But I doubt they're ever going to actually say that.

In which case they're probably not going to allow digital identification to do it instead.

The government can intervene in this issue whenever they like. They're not.

It seems as if society as a whole are ignorant of the fundamental right of children to be safeguarded from age inappropriate sexual issues. Age is a protected characteristic yet I don't see any politician, lawyer, child safeguarding organisation or anyone pointing out that the PC of gender reassignment should not apply to children as it clashes with their right to be safeguarded as a child.

I don't believe that the majority of the originators of the GRA intended that this should apply to 4 years olds, 8 year olds, 12 years olds etc. Yet everyone meekly accepts the gaslighting of vulnerable children in the interests of the adults pushing "gender reassignment" as a right. Their power - even in the light of the stream of revelations of bad intentions towards women and children on the part of so many individuals from trans lobbying organisations - seems untouchable.

Why is are children's rights to be safeguarded from all this never raised as an issue (except by women's groups) - despite Age being a protected characteristic?

Why is are children's rights to be safeguarded from all this never raised as an issue (except by women's groups) - despite Age being a protected characteristic?

I don't think anyone can deny now that there are plenty of individuals with a dodgy agenda. Many of whom are using the issue of sexuality and how it relates to children to further their own interests.

Barely a day goes by without some paedophile being caught in the crosshairs.

But as we saw from the Deeming case, a lot of people who believe they are 'progressive' are utterly petrified of actually calling it out.

Which is why safeguarding, as I've come to understand it, really works.

Because as a concept, there's absolutely no judgement, whatsoever. Because you treat everybody exactly the same. I.e., everyone is under the same scrutiny.

Personally, I think all the groups like sex matters, LGBA, all the groups who are doing really good stuff, could benefit from somebody like Mrs O, or LangCleg.

"Why is are children's rights to be safeguarded from all this never raised as an issue (except by women's groups) - despite Age being a protected characteristic?"

Only thing I disagree with here is the idea women's groups are covering children's rights to be safeguarded. Sex Matters are expressly NOT doing that with this idea. Not even close. The groups raising safeguarding are Safe Schools, KPSS (mostly for adults before they ceased operating), Transgender Trend and Bayswater. The others - being seemingly utterly opposed to even a discussion on repealing the GRA - sometimes talk about children but they don't get it. From a quick check though, none of then others are supporting this move from SM.

We've got two decades' worth of evidence of the corruption of data, records, and rights to be safeguarded now. It's not being used to fix the problem - and the problem is the GRA. There's no reason at all to further embed the problem in a digital system.

(Also there are some exceptions for Age, in that it does not apply to children at school)

Yep.

Agree with the thread consensus. I have a lot of time for SM, and I think they are good people, but I think they are wrong about this. Of course it's a classic case of. "If it was me, I wouldn't have started from here". Once we adopted the crazy idea of allowing people to change their sex on official docs, driving licences, birth certificated even... And this phoney idea that "legislators believed it (the GRA) would only apply to a handful of rare cases" has been demonstrated to be a lie, which should not be repeated.

Transgender Trend are great at safeguarding. But it’sridiculous to say KPSS and Safe Schools are doing anything— they’re just Twitter accounts and a website with a few links. They get nothing done. Bayswater are good as they have contacts and money but they have been pretty objectionable to too many parents for wrong think etc. Our Duty offer much more support to parents.