‘No suggestion of amending the Equality Act’

In this document www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what_equality_law_means_for_your_business.pdf on page 24 it says:

"It is not necessary for [a transsexual woman] her to have a GRC to have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment."

So does this not mean that anyone can have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if they say so??

Because the ‘clever answers’ will make people angry with them. Why would they want to admit they want to keep the customs union, free movement etc? That would kill the vote, they are playing a long game and positioning the EU to take the flack for that.

Successive governments have carefully controlled the narrative re free movement for decades, freely allowing and encouraging immigration whilst avoiding spending on services we need then spinning the media and the public into ‘taking out jobs’ and then condemning them as racist... That was the context in which the vote took place. I think it took them by surprise that the vote came out as leave TBH but now they are managing it in their interests...

You can also use sacrificial lambs to convince ‘lessons have been learned’ - May is in this position right now. She will understand her job is to cling on until it is politically expedient to chuck her under the bus. I would not be surprised at all if she has known this re Brexit right from the very beginning.

Hmm. If the government do really know what they are doing, why don't they just come out with their clever answers?
It would save all the bickering and resignation threats, and gain them credit at the polls for being so clever.

Getting the public to accept objectionable things is much easier if you get them to believe that you don’t know what you are doing but your heart is in the right place. People may well forgive you and give you another chance if you also ridicule and toxify your political opponent.

When I see an interest which fits with a political philosophy and a policy program then I conclude it is more likely than not that there is design.

I don’t believe that it is likely that incompetence is the explanation when something is coming from a government. I accept that there is a possibility that it may be but spinning things as incompetence/managed incompetence/incompetence by design is a well known tactic used by those in positions of power in order to achieve ideological aims.

Oh offred: I think we are very similar. I see design everywhere, and specifically on this issue.

There are divisions within both Labour and the Tories. It is incredibly naive to think that the government isn’t exercising control over the public narrative and doesn’t know what it is doing...

Even the stuff about May being incompetent is calculated and controlled in order to benefit the party IMO.

They know what they are doing re both this and Brexit.

Sorry, that's wrong.

In both cases they have twisted and turned, different members have continually contradicted each other and then changed their views.
It is most definitely cockup rather than conspiracy.

And that's from a swing sometimes Tory voter. I am a single issue voter now.

Y offred. The only people who truly understand this and deplore it are the class analysts on the left.

What's even scarier is that it will be our fathers, husbands, sons and brothers who allowed it to happen. While our sisters and daughters who collide will eventually suffer, just as we do.

Equally, trans people will end up with the same problem...

Yes pratchet, can no-one see why that would appeal to the tories?

I think we should note that if 'gender' wins, there is no going back. Women will have all the rights on paper, but none in reality. We will be in a worse position than when we had no rights in reality and none on paper. We won't be able to fight to get our rights back because the language we want to use will be illegal. It will be illegal to fight for women's rights. And if we try, we will be told those rights are already in place. Except the 'women' in the legislation won't be us.

They know what they are doing re both this and Brexit.

Re Brexit they have calculated that it is better to spend years making it look difficult to achieve and positioning the EU as ‘to blame’ for what, IMO, they have known for years was always going to happen; we keep the customs union including free movement etc and we agree on paper to keep social contract and oversight by courts but have no say in the democratic structures and the government then sets about finding creative ways to dismantle social policy etc (if they don’t get kicked out). They will make a big deal about how oppressive the EU is and how hard they have worked but that ultimately ‘if we want to leave we don’t have any option because bad EU who we all know is bad’

Re this they will position it as a marker of how socially liberal they are, nice tories, use it to get centrist votes and then set about using it to as a weapon against discrimination protections.

Pretty convinced of all that TBH.

I can’t stress how dangerous it is to believe those in power just don’t realise what they are doing...

Re: the OP

It's a lie, and we must proceed on that basis.

GladAllOver, I agree with that analogy. And they have handled both about as badly as each other with no real plan or direction in mind and reacting only to who shouts loudest as the latest path to follow until someone says the opposite and they think - oh, wait a minute.

And in both major decisions, if we are not careful, we will end up with a fudged mess that will advantage nobody and make things worse than they were before.

I think the government are in the same position with this as with Brexit - they just haven't a clue what they are doing.

I agree with Ereshkigal 100%
I think we are being lied to.
It's bad for transsexuals and women.
Go back to articles written a few years ago - getting a GRC was written about almost as guaranteeing you be treated as your acquired gender at all times and get access to all the facilities of the opposite sex. Specifically prisons.
Now they're telling me getting a GRC really won't matter?
Something doesn't smell right.

IMO the erasure of transexual and replacement with transgender is part of the wider movement to replace sex with gender.

I don’t believe you should trust that transsexuals will still be protected after any changes simply because the word is used anymore than women and homosexuals should trust they will be protected simply because the words are used/defined in relation to sex.

These changes are a Trojan horse IMO.

I totally agree that's how it should be. And you may be right that the assumption is it is just about words.

But I have wondered why the whole GRA and EA is framed around the word transsexual and that word has been eliminated in the consultation. Apart from by those who have been so diagnosed who have seemed to reclaim it recently one by one.

Legally it could be argued that the act refers to transsexuals which is something that involves a specific medical diagnosis. Which existing GRC owners have but future ones will not if it is eliminated. Transgender is not a medical diagnosis but a broad, rather vague spectrum.

A test case at least could be based upon that difference if there is no alteration to the wording and problems ensue after wider access from self ID who have never been assessed.

I don't agree that they will get a less effective version of the GRC. I think it will be considered as having the same weight as the current one. I don't want anyone without a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to be legally considered a woman for most purposes. I don't want the protected characteristic of sex diluted by a large influx of biological males who suddenly find it easy to get "female" status.

The quotes from law above refer to transsexuals. Not transgender. And the transgender people and the government seemingly want to eradicate that term as it is not in the consultation.

As a transsexual that's fine with me as I refuse to self ID as being transgender anyway and am happy with my medical diagnosis as transsexual.

At present only those with a GRC (4990 of them, 3000 transsexual women) have obtained a GRC under the criteria of transsexual.

If the Equality Act is not being touched I would argue those are the only people who WILL be covered by those protections and the rest who get the new version - or GRC lite as we might call it - will not on the basis they are doing so via a lower bar of being non medically diagnosed and so just self declared transgender people.

I knew the attempt to kill off transsexuals and medical assessment would end up backfiring on the activists one day.

Maybe it just has without them noticing.

^Service providers should be aware that where a transsexual person is visually
and for all practical purposes indistinguishable from a non-transsexual
person of that gender, they should normally be treated according to their
acquired gender, unless there are strong reasons to the contrary.^

But that paragraph uses both terms sex and gender. Does the legislation define them both, or explain the difference?