Trans women are women answers to Terfmore's questions

Lang you old scallywag, you! You only quoted part of that subsection!

General
(1)Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

(2)Subsection - I've omitted this because it's irrelevant to the point.

(3)Subsection (1) is subject to provision made by this Act or any other enactment or any subordinate legislation."

Soooooo your legally acquired gender becomes you gender to all intents and purposes.... EXCEPT in all of the exemptions listed in the act itself (e.g. sport), the Equality Act or others.

AnchorMum  I truly sympathise with the situation with your daughter. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you as a parent. I also agree with you regarding the many different issues involved. What are your thoughts on how we can address these and raise awareness?

Thank you Flowers. I honestly have know idea how to address these issues and raise awareness - apart from tell the truth. The difficulty we have found is that our child, along with many other transitioners, will not engage in meaningful discussion. It gets closed or shouted down. Unless they receive affirming 'cheerleading' from the side, they are encouraged to block communication and will say things like, "I can't keep discussing this with you..I'm too tired to keep debating my identity with you."
No real, truthful or meaningful discussion has taken place of course - just a shutting down of discussion. This is what I was trying to call attention to, having seen a number of these smokescreens in various forms on different threads. I don't want us all to lose the reality of the bigger picture when we're discussing very specific issues.

I think what we're trying to discuss on this thread is how gender and sex can each be framed legally to avoid conflicts between the interests of women and those of transgender people as far as practicable.

I'm am so pleased that different parts of the debate are being discussed in various threads - this is so important and really helps us all to understand the issues involved.

@peakpants why are you happy with the current definition of woman meaning adult female or male with GRC? The definition already includes males. It will still include males- it’s just that a doctor won’t certify that the male really believes he is a woman.

1. Gender dysphoria isn't a belief, it's a neurological condition that can be detected via brain imaging (see www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-17352-8) that is arguably a disability, at least under the social model of disability. The GRA, when viewed through that lens, is a reasonable adjustment to meet the needs of people with a very specific disability. Women don't have to add "male with GRC" to our definition of "women" in order to recognise that male GD patients need access to some female spaces as part of the reasonable adjustments needed to live safely. Most of the people under the trans umbrella don't have GD and so don't need any reasonable adjustments made.

2. I don't get to self-id as having a disability in order to get reasonable adjustments made, I have to provide medical evidence. Why should a GD patient get a right that the rest of us don't get and that can be misused by dishonest people?

3. Trans people are highly prone to suicide attempts. Any population that is prone to suicide attempts should be seeing a mental health professional for risk assessment and to develop a care plan if that risk assessment shows a high risk. That waiting lists are so long is a symptom of mental health services being chronically and severely underfunded and hurts people outside the trans umbrella too. Allowing people to opt-out of assessment by demedicalising a serious condition is IMO outright negligent.

AnchorMum I truly sympathise with the situation with your daughter. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you as a parent. I also agree with you regarding the many different issues involved. What are your thoughts on how we can address these and raise awareness? I think what we're trying to discuss on this thread is how gender and sex can each be framed legally to avoid conflicts between the interests of women and those of transgender people as far as practicable.

Ereshkigal
When we all know they'd like to get rid of all the exemptions and that they are very aware that they don't generally get used because of TRA pressure.

I agree with you about the TRA pressure with regard to people who don't have GRCs acting as though they do. But as I said, earlier, I can't see how the exeptions which also apply to those with GRCs can actually be enforced.

If someone has a female birth certificate, and swears that they were born female, how can anyone prove otherwise? Other than by taking DNA or a full medical examination?

Peak says it would conflict with our obligations under the ECHR.

I do wonder whether there would be other ways of protecting people's privacy involving having forms of ID which do not mention people's sex rather than having this legal fiction that people can change sex (I would need to reread the judgment). I do think the judgment is fundamentally wrong if the only way to protect people's privacy is by effectively endorsing a lie.

The Tories do keep mooting the idea of replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights and letting UK courts have the final say on its interpretation, so never say never I guess...

What worries me here, and on many other threads, is that some posters are deliberately reducing the debate down so that it becomes "nothing to see here, move along."

This reductionist tactic - achieved through the use of stats, links, circular and microscopic arguments, post after tedious post - nullifies engagement and distils the actual reality down to a few "reasonable" headlines.

The actual reality is that the trans debate is multi-faceted and extremely complex. With a huge number of potential problems, worries and pitfalls for our society and communities.

There are so many concerning issues: self-id of course which hides within it so many repercussions, the surge of children and young adults experiencing gender identity crises and dysphoria, the denying of biological reality, the explosion of 'group think' especially among young people, the co-opting of the trans agenda by activists with many radical and disturbing views, the attempts to change (and in some instances eradicate) language and scientific facts, the appropriation of women by men and the threat to our right to safe spaces, the threat to the existence of lesbianism as same-sex attraction, the deep concerns surrounding medicalisation of children at or before puberty, the worries of young adults becoming dependent on hormones and drugs for life, the worries about surgery. All this and so much more.

How on earth can the general public - however intelligent, concerned and informed - be expected to get to grips with all of this in the current climate? When those who question are called bigots, radical feminists, TERFS etc and when politicians, community, health and social workers, GPs, medical and psychiatric professionals are too afraid to speak out as the debate has become so toxic and filled with untruth and mis-speak.

I speak out as someone who has been forced into this debate. My child - after 20 happy years living as a female - suddenly announced she was non binary. Then over the next 6 months developed a dysphoric hatred of her breasts and now says she's a trans man who is pursuing testosterone treatment and a double mastectomy. She is a sensitive and highly intelligent person and this all happened after she went through a long drawn out traumatic experience.

I was a witness to the first 20 years of her life and I question whether she is genuinely trans.

She believes she is. She is convinced. But the stakes are too high - once she has taken testosterone and has surgery it is too late for her to return. She will be rendered sterile and will have suffered irreversible side effects.

I know her and her friends share lists of 'trans friendly' GPs and counsellors, and are careful to give the scripted responses they know will work to get their gender dysphoria diagnosis. And therefore their hormones and surgery. I know they set up an online trail to "demonstrate" and "prove" this diagnosis. There is so much more they do, but you get the picture.

Reducing the arguments down to generic and neutral sound bites is not helpful. It's disingenuous and is another way of closing down the debate. We need to reveal the extent of this, to say the truth without fear, so that we can protect the vulnerable and provide as much safeguarding as we can. With care and kindness and respect to everyone involved.

OldCrone fair enough. I was thinking of physically intrusive. It would only be necessary under exceptional circumstances; for example, if it was suspected that someone was circumventing legally enforced sex based exemptions. If there was no changing of birth certificates in the first place, it wouldn't be necessary of course.

RatRolyPoly
Well, a paraphrase talking about revealing your reassignment status rather than natal sex, but I guess one wording is less contentious than the other where the transpeople involved are concerned.

Can you link to where it says this in the legislation? Or say which section(s) it is in?

How does it work in practice? If someone says they are not trans, but appear to be, is there any way to establish the truth?

flowersonthepiano
If someone took a sterile cotton bud, wiped it around the inside of their mouth, and put it in a sterile tube, I would be able to extract their DNA and determine their biological sex. It's not really intrusive...

I disagree. That is extremely intrusive. Taking someone's DNA, analysing it and that person having no idea how it is going to be stored/used.

(Me) At the moment, given that we can't repeal the bad law which creates this legal fiction

(Merrymouse) Why not?

Peak says it would conflict with our obligations under the ECHR.

I have not heard a single TRA suggest we should uphold single sex exemptions, not one.

They only do it, like Peak is doing, disingenuously to convince women that don't need to worry. When we all know they'd like to get rid of all the exemptions and that they are very aware that they don't generally get used because of TRA pressure.

You have to have legal fictions in law sometimes but that is a really wrong-headed one.

Well, a paraphrase talking about revealing your reassignment status rather than natal sex, but I guess one wording is less contentious than the other where the transpeople involved are concerned

But isn't that part of the problem - for one group of people sex is a contentious issue.

For others it is an unavoidable reality.

Wouldn't it be better if we could talk about sex objectively?

That IS what it says!

No, Rat, that is not what it says.

Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/crossheading/consequences-of-issue-of-gender-recognition-certificate-etc

So saving money for the NHS Ever wondered if this is why it tabled by the government in the first place

In my mind that's exactly why specifically this was tabled. I've read that Maria Miller put forward a number of other suggestions which would arguably be more beneficial for transpeople, but self-ID is a media-friendly change that is more importantly cheap.

In that case, yep, the GRA needs updating. Any updating needs to reinforce that getting a GRC does not mean you change your biological sex, and that, in some limited circumstances you will be legally obliged to reveal your natal sex.

That IS what it says!

Well, a paraphrase talking about revealing your reassignment status rather than natal sex, but I guess one wording is less contentious than the other where the transpeople involved are concerned.

I think the vast majority of people have the attitude of ‘well if you would go to all that trouble then of course you must be serious’, with the idea that in order to transition you have to go on this long arduous journey to get a GRC and no one would do that unless they were in a lot of distress, without considering that self id means that you don’t have to change a single thing.

I’m not going to disagree with your points but that isn’t what the crowdfunder was for it was to test the equality law around self id.

Oh no, I appreciate that. Just confirming to Rat, who seems to think it's a bad thing that some of us wouldn't want to admit, that I definitely think sex-based affirmative action programmes should remain sex-based.

lang

I’m not going to disagree with your points but that isn’t what the crowdfunder was for it was to test the equality law around self id.

My point is that self id has been very badly presented to the public.

This talk of the EA is purely academic anyway. I have not heard a single TRA suggest we should uphold single sex exemptions, not one.
In fact when Jenifer James crowdfunded to test the equalities act she got hounded for being transphobic.

If that was what was on offer we wouldn’t be having this conversation, but it’s not, so we are.

At the moment, given that we can't repeal the bad law which creates this legal fiction

why not?

But surely Teacup its also about having trans women on the list full stop? You want the list to be reserved for natal females?

Perfectly happy to confirm that is my position. I don't think natal males - with or without a GRC - should be eligible for inclusion on any affirmative action programmes to reduce sex-based inequalities, including AWS.

If trans people, or gay people, or BAME people, or any other marginalised group feels that they need and would benefit from affirmative action programmes, I'd be more than happy to support them.

Sex-based affirmative action programmes should be for natal women only.

the only way anyone could prove beyond doubt that they had not undergone gender reassignment would be to submit to an unacceptably intrusive medical examination

If someone took a sterile cotton bud, wiped it around the inside of their mouth, and put it in a sterile tube, I would be able to extract their DNA and determine their biological sex. It's not really intrusive... And if there was a clear cultural acceptance of sex based segregation, as there is now, it would virtually never be required.
The problem arises when we lose cultural expectation of sex-based segregation, which would be strongly 'nudged' by self-ID.

Any updating needs to reinforce that getting a GRC does not mean you change your biological sex, and that, in some limited circumstances you will be legally obliged to reveal your natal sex.

YY. As a compromise I'd be happy with that.

But surely Teacup its also about having trans women on the list full stop? You want the list to be reserved for natal females? That’s certainly the impression I get from the majority of anti self-ID posters on here. They say there is no such thing as a lady brain etc so surely they wouldn’t want people with a GRC on the list either? Because a man can never be a woman. Or have I got that wrong?

At the moment, given that we can't repeal the bad law which creates this legal fiction, I'll settle for only the small number of eligible males with GRC to be on there. That ok with you?