Harriet Harman webchat - her responses to the self-identification question

This whole self very thing is ridiculous.

Datun is right and I've said it for ages, there's needs to be a third category of gender, that of trans, trans woman and trans man. Anything else leads to a conflict of interests.

No man can ever become female, they can identify as whatever they want but legally trans woman protects them and protects woman. I just cannot wrap my head around why this is so ducking difficult for people to grasp.

Women do not want to let biologically male people into their sex segregated spaces, which is perfectly acceptable and arguing that sex is a social construct and their penises can be female is total twaddle and gaslighting bullshit.

TRAs are expecting WOMEN to put their own oppression and safety concerns aside for them and crying about the high suicide stats and murder rates, do you know I genuinely believe that if trans folk were more open and honest about their trans status then the violence and abuse stats would start to fall. Homophobic men being duped into close sexual encounters by transwomen when they discover a faux vagina or ladydick are going to respond with violence. That's not ok, never will be, we've been advocating against male violence as a movement for decades, but how about instead of asking for us to enable their delusions and perpetuate this cycle we all just say nope, here are some trans folk and aren't they lovely just the way they are no matter what they wear or what hormones they take or what surgery they have. Acceptance not more layers of deception and lies

I agree with Barracker's take.

I completely agree Datun.
I just think people take a journey to get to that conclusion.
I think they resist accepting it because of the immense pressure of "transwomen are women"

It's the only logical and fair conclusion, but one does have to resolve the conflict between treating people how they want to be treated vs treating them how it is fair to treat them - which involves saying no to them.

But prawn is right. The needs of women and transwomen conflict on the basis that the one wants what the other has. And anything less will create a backlash.

Frankly I'd like to see trans-people get a legal definition of 'trans-people'. It's a protected characteristic and cannot be discriminated against. Entirely separate to the category of man and woman.

Therefore sex discrimination can still be in place and can't be automatically countered by 'men breastfeed too', for instance.

It would be much easier to stop discrimination towards trans-women, as well. They get discriminated on the basis that they are men dressed as women, not that they are women. It would really separate out the basis for discrimination and you could define different abusive acts accordingly.

I think Harriet is new to this and hasn't yet been through the thought process of HOW it is possible to allow two conflicting definitions of woman to exist simultaneously.

However, she definitely recognises and is distinguishing between the two groups. This means that she is not going down the path of "there is no difference and only bigots suggest otherwise".

Harriet wanting to find a way to protect both groups is good. Most of us want this. Many of us have already been where Harriet is now and subsequently gone through that thought exercise before coming to the realisation that it can't be done with two different definitions. It needs to be done another way entirely, which recognises the different characteristics and needs of the two groups and protects them accordingly.

The fact that she appears to be at the beginning of the process is encouraging to me, given that the alternative is to reject ANY differentiation between women's needs and those of transgender people.

I wish we didn't have between now and Friday to convey to her the importance of this though.

I'd imagine how it would work is like this: Say a a man is reported to be hanging round inside the ladies loos or changing rooms but when the police are called he claims to be a woman. The police look him up and establish that he's, for example, a registered sex offender. This automatically disqualifies him from declaring himself a woman so the police arrest him.

It would mean, I'd guess, that anyone convicted of sex or violent crimes would not be entitled to self identify.

Trouble with all this is that, not having any idea about some random man's record, women and girls are unlikely to challenge this theoretical man in the first place for fear of being branded a bigot. Also there's the truth that female socialization deters most women and girls from forcing a confrontation. If we're scared of someone we tend to go quiet.

Plus we know that only a very small proportion of sexual assaults and rapes end up in court, let alone with a conviction. The fact that someone isn't on police records doesn't mean they don't pose a risk.

I don't think anything will be acceptable short of a simple rule that you use the facilities that correspond with your sex. That's essentially what we've always had, and transgender individuals who genuinely pass as the opposite sex have been able to break the rules. Given that the only transwomen I've ever seen who look convincing are very petite gay men that works fine. I have not yet seen a sex offender who claims to identify as a woman who doesn't look entirely male, though of course the same is true of transwomen in general.

I can't think of any way both women and the mishmash of identities that travel under the trans umbrella can get what they want. We don't want them in our spaces whereas they won't be satisfied with anything less than full validation.

If the suggestion is for self certification. Presumably that is done on a laptop and is a piece of piss. She is saying the certificate can be appealed. So if someone is caught in a crime, they can have their certificate revoked.

But since asking for proof of transgenderism is discriminatory, how the hell is that going to work? You can't ask to see the certificate!

Sorry, Harman. I'm not British so she's not well known to me. But I am watching very closely the advance of legislation that abolishes sex-based protections for women across the world.

Yes, CaroleService.

Many posters were effusively thanking Harmon for engaging on the issue and 'recognising the problems with self-identification', but if you read her answer closely she actually re-affirmed a commitment to self-ID gender identity legislation.

It means nothing to say that you want to 'balance the needs of trans people and women', if 'women' is going to include men who say they 'feel like' women. The meat of Harmon's answer was this:

Self-identification should not be absolute in cases of individuals where it's not appropriate. The point is to identify a process which goes with the spirit of self-identification but is proof against those who would abuse it, like a self-certification process but one which allows for an appeal against it.

So it sounds like she is for introducing a clause in the legislation that allows the government to refuse gender ID change in extreme cases like Ian Huntley, but still abolishes 'sex' as a legal category. This will help the government by allowing them to put a stop to gender ID changes of high-profile inmates like serial killers, which might embarrass politicians and cause the public to question the wisdom of this legislation, without mitigating at all every other predictably disastrous consequence of this move for women.