I am Janice Turner's No 1 fan - another excellent article

How come the trans community just get what they want, when they want it?

It took women years to get anywhere and we are still not taken fucking seriously.

Mixed wards are not common. The govt has committed to phasing them out and hospitals are fined for breaching standards on mixed wards.

Your argument that they are common anyway and so everyone is totally at ease with mixed wards, mixed changing rooms, mixed prisons only tells us what it is you actually want to achieve. Women are not ok with any of the above.

We know it is not just a small change in an administrative procedure. The people that demand this change already demand more of society, on social media and in the way the current laws are implemented than was ever intended. You don't even have to go to court with anything - individual, organisations and companies are threatened with the laws on hate speech and back down and keep their head covered.

They are not going to stop. If this is passed, they will be emboldened to push boundaries as far as they can and will have the technicalities of the law on their side.

Strange,
There has been a massive campaign which was supported by all political parties that mixed sex wards were humiliating, undesirable and should be eradicated. I have no idea what your experience of childbirth and hospital admittance for gynaecological problems is, but I have had plenty of experience and have no wish to end up on a mixed sex ward for this or in fact for any other medical issue.
And I am not alone!

I'm sorry, but I don't seem to have made myself clear.
the point I was trying (but obviously failing) to make is that the changes to the Gender Recognition Act are concerned only with the administrative procedure for obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate, which has much the same everyday significance as a birth certificate. You are not asked to produce your birth certificate in order to get into a public toilet, or a hospital , or a sports centre, or a rape centre !

In particular it would not affect access to public toilets, because there is no existing law that prevents anyone from using either toilet. Nor would it affect the ward someone is put on in hospital -- partly because mixed wards are common anyway, and partly because the hospital would surely go by your medical records rather than expecting to see your birth certificate or GRC?

Possibly more later -- gotta go!

The conflation of sex with gender, which this proposed change in the law would reify, is harmful.

AFAIK none of us want any discrimination or segregation on the basis of gender. I would like to see it become a redundant concept, not for it to be reinforced. Sex, on the other hand is real. Its effects are real.

I have great sympathy for them. They are often abused and excluded by transactivists.

Me too.

Transgender males should have the decency and the respect for woman's boundaries to stay out of sex segregated female spaces.

That's completely it. And women absolutely know.

It's ludicrous, that the very men who are insisting on access, because they are women, act exactly like the men that women use those spaces to avoid.

The men who fail to understand all this, and therefore blithely demand access to women spaces, are the very men who should not be granted it.

YY! Absolutely.

Some trans women understand this and do not demand access to female spaces. I have great sympathy for them. They are often abused and excluded by transactivists.

The men who fail to understand all this, and therefore blithely demand access to women spaces, are the very men who should not be granted it.

Exactly what I was trying to say but much pithier!

This shouldn't have come to this. Transgender males should have the decency and the respect for woman's boundaries to stay out of sex segregated female spaces. But many of them have no empathy for women. It's about personal "validation". That's really the long and short of it. Boundary violation is a huge red flag. They should be content with a third space when offered and the pressure should be on authorities and organisations to provide those gender neutral spaces. Not force women to share with males in intimate situations against their will.

StrangeAdventure

The difference is, at the moment, women can and do ask men to leave their spaces.

If the changes to the law go through, any predator in the country has got a pass. And women can't do anything about it.

Men who are not interested in intimidating women, or violating their boundaries will not take advantage of it.

My DH, for instance, wouldn't dream of using a woman's space. Even if his motives were entirely innocent, he knows it could make many women feel uncomfortable.

So you're left with people who either don't care, or who want to intimidate, or worse.

Part of the problem with this, is that many men don't understand the reason why women are comfortable.

It's that very lack of understanding that women find worrying.

And of course, the many men who thoroughly enjoy intimidating women have to do very little. A man doesn't have to break any laws in order to intimidate a woman.

And yes, it's not necessarily about the threat of rape. But despite that, it's very telling that people think well if someone is going to rape you, that's a crime and they can get arrested.

I'm not sure you've heard of schrodingers rapist, but that's what women live with all the time.

The men who fail to understand all this, and therefore blithely demand access to women spaces, are the very men who should not be granted it.

displays a quite spectacular lack of empathy.

Stunningly surprising, that.

What then is the point of a GRC StrangeAdventure?

GPs are simultaneously telling their patients that they cannot change their name or gender -- so a Male-to-Female who is a year or so into the compulsory "Real Life Test" demanded by their GIC finds themselves being called "Mr John Smith" in front of a crowded waiting room.

GPs have no control over names. You can change your name by deed poll any time you like, you don't need your GP's permission.

Just to add, Strange, that I shouldn't generalise about sexual abuse survivors. Perhaps there are some who are okay with self ID and males in female spaces. However I imagine that very many aren't and that these people outnumber trans women.

Strange I don't mean to be rude but this comment:

"Perhaps that's understandable, because it will have no impact whatsoever on the lives of anyone who is not a transitioning transsexual. In particular, it will not have any effect on so-called "women-only safe spaces"."

displays a quite spectacular lack of empathy. Can you really see no reason why, e.g. one of Britain's many thousands (millions?) of sexual abuse survivors might not want to encounter people with penises in refuges, hospital wards, changing rooms and so on? Why is it okay for them to be triggered but not trans women?

If anyone's interested, I've just completed our LA's e-learning module on how schools are now expected to approach transgender issues.

It's jaw-dropping.

Just google GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Surrey) and select "caring for gender non-conforming young people" from the drop-down list - anyone can do it, you don't have to give any details.

BeingrippedoffHelen Webberly is has saved the sanity and probably the lives of hundreds of people by being brave enough to prescribe very modest doses of HRT to transsexuals trapped in the very long waiting lists for appointments at one of the few specialist clinics. As you (rightly) point out "the General Medical Council puts pressure on GPs to prescribe for people waiting to be seen at specialist clinics". If more GPs followed the GMC's advice, Dr Webberley's services would not be required. Perhaps even more significantly , patients would not resort to buying HRT from uncontrolled sources over the internet, and GPs would not be handing out antidepressants as a "sticking plaster" solution.

I appreciate that inappropriate use of HRT is "potentially very dangerous long term". But is a bridging prescription the couple of years that it takes for a transsexual to get from GP to GIC endocrinologist really "long term"?

I don't doubt what you say about patients' notes, and I understand (and share) your concerns. It seems ridiculous that CCGs should be wanting vital information expunged, whilst GPs are simultaneously telling their patients that they cannot change their name or gender -- so a Male-to-Female who is a year or so into the compulsory "Real Life Test" demanded by their GIC finds themselves being called "Mr John Smith" in front of a crowded waiting room.

Strangeideas At last you and I agree about something!
Most people haven't got much idea of the Gender Identity Bill.

Perhaps that's understandable, because it will have no impact whatsoever on the lives of anyone who is not a transitioning transsexual. In particular, it will not have any effect on so-called "women-only safe spaces".

In the UK, there is no legislation that excludes women from mens toilets or men from womens toilets. A man whether he is intending to commit rape or is simply bursting for a pee does not have to put on a dress and go through the palaver of getting a Gender Recognition Certificate in order to go into a Ladies loo.

Nor have I ever heard of anyone being asked to produce their birth certificate as evidence of their birth sex in order to use a public toilet.

So changes to the administrative procedures involved in obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate are not going to make any difference to this!

Nor will the changes have any effect on the existing laws against rape, sexual assault, assault, etc. If a male-bodied person commits rape or sexual assault, then they can still be prosecuted for it, regardless of whether they have a gender recognition certificate.

I think it's a shame that so much of the recent coverage given to this very minor piece of legislation is scaring ppeople into extreme reactions, because it doesn't reflect the truth of the matter -- that this concerns an administrative procedure that is very important to a tiny number of people, but will have no effect whatsoever on anyone else.

As I said earlier, the ethics review training I was given made it abundantly clear that the primary purpose of ethical review was to ensure no reputations damage to the university. So I can well imagine us refusing this kind of researching that basis.

The bit about the danger of harassment to the researcher is (and should be) an ethical consideration but should not be something used to prevent research. It can be addressed with a risk management strategy.

And, yes, it is incredibly difficult to get utterly mundane research with children through our ethics review process. It appears to be easier to get approval to administer untested drugs to people (and with no proper protocols for doing so in some cases) than to simply talk to children. Sometimes the process is utterly absurd.