In response to a request upthread, here is my letter to my MP. It's not perfect, but I based it around various ideas from various places. Please feel to mangle, criticise and adjust it as you see fit. In fact, the more it is altered, the stronger it will be, because if an MP gets several identical letters, s/he is going to twig, and think, ah, someone's just cutting, pasting and signing off.
Dear [Name of MP]
I am contacting you as I am deeply concerned about the review of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. On 24th March the House of Commons is due to hear the second reading of the Gender Identity (Protected Characteristics) Bill. The issue that troubles me is that, if this bill passes into law, the only criterion for somebody being declared to have changed their gender would be self definition (exactly how this would work in law is not yet clear; it appears that it would be necessary to sign a legally-binding declaration). It would sweep away the current controls on the process, which require a person to have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, to have lived as their desired gender for a minimum of two years, and to intend to continue to do so for the rest of their life.
I fully support the right of transgender people to live their lives without facing bigotry or discrimination, and I have no objections to sharing public toilets and changing rooms with postoperative transwomen. However. I have deep concerns about gender self-identification becoming binding in law, because this would almost certainly have negative consequences for women and girls, particularly those who are already vulnerable.
What is often not known is that a significant proportion of transgender men are attracted to women, and also do not have surgery. This, coupled with the fact that any man with doubtful aims could claim that he had decided to ‘live as a woman’ (whatever that means), would put at risk women in prison, in psychiatric wards and in women’s refuges. We are already facing the situation where the case of a man charged with two rapes and a string of sexual assaults, and sentenced in absentia, is discussed in the following terms by The Daily Telegraph:
'"Last night, Crimewatch covered the case of Lisa Hauxwell: a sex offender who could be living as a either man or a woman. On the run from a 14-year prison sentence, the offender has not been seen since being convicted of a string of rapes and sexual assaults committed between 2001-2002.
"It has become, sadly, typical to hear of appeals for information on male sex offenders - yet when the perpetrator is female, it always seems much more shocking. "
(See www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/truth-female-sex-offenders/)
The article is illustrated with a photograph of Hauxwell in make-up, with shoulder-length blond hair and elaborate earrings.
Hauxwell is not a woman. Hauxwell was charged as a man (Craig John Hauxwell). Yet, in this article, it is implied that he is ‘female’ and nowhere is it made clear that he is, in fact, biologically male: one can only deduce that he is if one is aware that, in British law, rape requires the use of a penis. This obfuscation can only serve to skew both public perceptions of crime and (depending upon how such things are recorded) the crime statistics themselves. It also implies, should self-declared gender identity become the yardstick of a person’s legal sex, that Hauxwell would be sent to a female prison, despite the fact that he is a dangerous sexual predator who molests teenaged girls (according to the initial BBC Crimewatch page, which is no longer available: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/vz0g2KwjxYsG1dDFGQGlWx/lisa-hauxwell). One wonders to which prison Hauxwell (who has now been caught) will be sent.
Moreover, such a redefinition of what is meant by the word ‘woman’ would allow people who remain anatomically male to compete in women’s sports. The International Olympic Committee has already ruled that transgender athletes can participate without surgery. One might as well abolish women’s Olympic teams completely, since the vast majority of women are shorter, lighter and less strong than the vast majority of men, and hormone therapy (which the IOC does still require) will not completely change that. Indeed, tranwomen athletes will be allowed to compete with levels of testosterone three times higher than the female average (www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/rio-olympics-caster-semenya-how-does-testosterone-affect-athletic-performance). There are also situations (such as wrestling) where the imbalance in physique could be extremely dangerous to female competitors faced by a transwoman.
I would ask you, therefore, to oppose the proposed legislation on the grounds that it would effectively erase ‘sex’ as a protected category in law, and ask for a full equality impact assessment of the proposed changes on women and girls.
Yours etc...