GRA and Equality Act

Not wishing to make this just about toilets but in terms of employment it is not true that legally people can just choose to use the opposite sex toilet. In Croft vs. Royal Mail the court found in favour of Royal Mail when they asked a man who had declared his intention to change sex to use the disabled toilets. The women Croft worked with objected to him immediately being given access to the women's toilets (at this point Croft had not undergone any physical transition). One of the key points made was that the point at which someone 'becomes' the opposite sex and should be treated as such is not the point at which the individual declares the intention to change sex, and that it should be considered as more of a negotiation that considers all parties. A summary of the case is shown below:
"Acquiring the status of a transsexual did not carry with it the right to choose which toilets to use. In the particular case of toilet facilities the employer was not bound by the employee's self-definition in determining whether the change to female gender had occurred. (5) The moment at which a person in C's position was entitled to use the female toilets depended on all the circumstances.
The Court of Appeal approached the issues by considering section 82 of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 as amended, which provides that the category of persons who are not to be discriminated against on grounds of gender reassignment includes persons at all stages of gender reassignment under medical supervision. The Court of Appeal accepted that this includes pre-operative transsexuals. However it did not follow that, when considering less favourable treatment on grounds of gender reassignment, that all such persons are immediately entitled to be treated as members of the sex to which they aspire. Thus the court said that merely being a pre-operative male to female transsexual would not enable a person to use a female toilet."

You don't need a GRC to change sex on your passport, just a doctors letter, for a driving licence you don't even need that.
As you say retirement age will be the same in a couple of years so what does that leave? Feelings basically. The meaning of female is being erased coz feelings.

Zhora has made a very good case for the repeal of the GRA. Thanks for standing with us, Zhora.

Tedious that you're ignoring the legal facts.

I'm not. You are misrepresenting them as various people including me have pointed out to you.

We've had these discussions at length before here with other TRAs. Why not look them up?

You can use it as you would a birth certificate for some documents such as passports. I believe it would also change things like the date you received a pension but obviously that will be wiped out by the retirement ages being brought together. For some trans people it's a psychological thing, they just feel it's personally important to them to have that document. I guess that's a bit similar to some couples who think marriage is important and others who regard it as a meaningless process to them personally.

You don't need a GRC to change sex on your passport, just a doctors letter, for a driving licence you don't even need that.
As you say retirement age will be the same in a couple of years so what does that leave? Feelings basically. The meaning of female is being erased coz feelings.

I keep having to come back to the same answer.

Likewise people have to keep telling you that you're mistaken/misrepresenting the situation.

Tedious.

Therefore, using Zhora's argument, the GRA is redundant and should be repealed.

This. Hope Zhora will join the campaign to do so.

All a GRC does is legally change the sex of the holder. If Zhora is to be believed, this has no legal effect on anyone. A legal document which is of no use in legal terms has no point to it. Therefore, using Zhora's argument, the GRA is redundant and should be repealed.

Zhora - try looking at it from the perspective of the women-only organisations rather than the individuals.

Because at present only a small number of people have a GRC, for the reasons I set out in my long post above, most organisations are able to justify a blanket exclusion of the male sex, and can easily deal with the handful of people with a GRC on a case by case basis. If there are a large number of people with a GRC then a blanket exclusion will be much harder to justify and it will become unworkable to consider each GRC holder on an individual basis. What will end up happening is that the organisations will have to operate a general policy of including transgender people with a GRC, and only exclude them on a case by case basis, which will arise only when the transgender service user has harmed, or attempted to harm a female service user.

This also disregards women's need for all female spaces for reasons that fall short of actual harm, such as distress and anxiety at being in close proximity to a male.

just add, the GRC, is not the instrument that makes a trans person their new sex, and does not give any “sex based” protections.

Yes it does. Males with GRC are protected sex characteristic female, males without are protected sex characteristic male.

This is a key point that both sides tend to ignore or forget and the government has ruled out any changes to the EA for the present. So, those exemptions will still work in exactly the same way under a streamlined GRA.

No they won't. The possession of a GRC is likely to strengthen a discrimination claim to the point where it wouldn't be possible to exclude a MTF with a GRC because it's a much higher bar to demonstrate proportionality. So letting lots more males into the female sex class waters down women's sex protections. And even the notion of a disadvantaged sex class.

To those who think it is a positive move to erase a transgender person's past, read this:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-offender-seeks-to-wipe-crimes-as-aman-from-record-qfk5w68lb

'A transgender offender is seeking to delete from her record two crimes that could only have been committed by a man.'

• A right to removal, if established, could cover rape, another crime that can legally be committed only by a person with a penis.

Trans people with a gender recognition certificate are legally entitled to keep their birth gender secret.*

Still think that's cool? That the man who committed unspeakable crimes as Ian Huntley would now like those erased as he identifies as a woman.

Might as well abolish GRCs altogether if there's no real point to them, surely?

What do you think the point of a GRC is, OP?

Zhora
If, as you maintain, a GRC has no effect on the life of the holder, I assume you have filled in the government consultation and have said that no changes should be made, or that the GRA should be repealed. If there are no benefits to having a GRC, there is surely no point in obtaining one. Is that your view?

A simplification of the process in terms of getting a GRC doesn't equal more trans people.

No, what it will mean is more paedophiles and rapists who will pretend to be trans in order to gain access to victims. Look at the quote from Dr James Barrett in my post this morning.

Do you understand yet? If there is no gatekeeping then bad men (not genuine transgender people) will use the law for the wrong reasons. This has nothing to do with genuine transsexuals, some of whom have spoken out against changes to the law for this reason.

Well,thank you *Zhora I will feel free to add to this

I personally think the law is actually quite clear on this (if fundmentally and abhorrently flawed by stealing women's morally inalienable rights in the first place, amongst other flaws).

Single sex exemptions can apply. Needs of competing groups must be balanced (again even if the premise is flawed) and if exemptions are to be made, the least discriminatory option should be chosen.

The problem we have I think is in getting men/organistions to give any importance to women's needs when they do the balancing; women rarly score any points. This is the misogyny.

Reading one of the prison judgements re the male who was moved to a women's prison, the other day I was struck by just little weight the judge gave to the consideration of the risk/ suffering to women, and how dismissive his attitude. He briefly and superficially acknowledged a risk, but as if it were merely theoretical rather then being the suffering of actual human beings, woman) and so scored it as of little to no importance.

ALL the importance was given to the needs/ suffering of the male. Women scored 1 out of 10 for severity of needs, the male scored 8 out of 10 = male wins on balancing. The biased misogynist judgement makes bad law even worse and this is not justice or equality.

Women's toilets (and other spaces) were always for females Zhora only morally bankrupt people would argue otherwise. TRA attempts to re-define words to include transwomen as women to try to justify the unjustifiable theft of women's rights is not as clever as you think it is. The desperate acts of unstable and irrational men.

As Barracker said on the Debbie Hayton thread, even having a GRC gives "a legal mandate (from men over women) It is not a moral one. It has always been immoral.

Thistledew's post of 00.08 is an excellent summary of the law and problems with it, in my view.

I would also add that the Codes of Practice which accompany the Equality Act (and are not law but guidance to which courts/tribunals must have regard) seem to me to go further than the legislation.

For example, the Code makes a lot of how well a TW passes - basically saying if they do they should normally be allowed to use services in their new gender. I don't see how this is sensible. And I think the widening out of what discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment means (so that it includes permitting transwomen accessing women's sex segregated services) comes from the Code, I don't think it is clear in the wording of the Act that this is what the Act means.