Confused - Need Clarification

79 replies

chickenshaslikklambbhuna · 04/11/2018 14:00

This morning I read the paragraph below , written by someone who is well known and fighting against self id & it has confused me.

"The equality act is already self-identification. So trans people can already self declare themselves trans. The gender recognition act is assessed and they want this to also be self ID. The difference being that a trans person could then not just self ID as trans but also as actually female."

I do get that many female spaces are already governed by taboo rather than law. I think what I want to know is. If I found Dick or Dicketta in my communal changing room (it has no cubicles) is this lawful now?

The paragraph in quotes above make it sound like the virtual self id that we have now, means that in reality we have very few truly female spaces in law. Is it true that the only spaces we could ever hope to protect would be very limited to refuges, prisons, rape crisis centres? Could Dick in the FPFW video already access those spaces now if he wanted?

OP posts:

Original poster

chickenshaslikklambbhuna · 04/11/2018 15:29

I find this aspect the hardest part to get my head around. Bearing in mind the paragraph in my OP was written by someone on our side, I felt quite dispirited and further confused reading it.

I do understand Julian Norman's analysis (i think i do) that discusses gatekeeping as a social taboo. Also Kathleen stocks recent twitter thread, giving a hypothetical sleeper carriage scenario as an example of how self id will make women vulnerable should self id become law.

However I don't understand what I could do or legally expect were i to find Dicketta stark bollock naked (emphasis on the bollocks) in my gym changing room. If Dicketta were tell staff she is trans, legally should/could she be left to it?

OP posts:

Knicknackpaddyflak · 04/11/2018 15:09

Saying 'it's already happened and has been happening for years (so why worry)' is one of the strategies to push this through. However look at some of the recent conversations in the press with Whittle who is pushing this at government level, and they themselves flip flop between 'this is a minor administrative change' and 'people will commit suicide if the GRA is not reformed'.

Also bear in mind the research on what happened in Target in the USA and the recent analysis of the 2-3 fold increase in sex based crime against women there. When it was published, celebrated, announced knowledge that people could choose whichever changing room they wanted, it actively promoted and built the confidence of male people to both use AND abuse access to female only spaces, many of whom were enjoying it for non trans related reasons.

It was the promotion/open statement that This is Now Ok that caused much of the problem for women, whose experience wasn't nearly so inclusive or jolly.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 04/11/2018 15:02

Yes we rely on social policing /social norms

And the TRAs are trying to change these social norms so that, for eg, public toilets become de facto mixed sex.

MIdgebabe · 04/11/2018 14:41

Single sex spaces are perfectly legal. Consistent with the equalities act. Although it is unclear exactly what the boundary for reasonableness is, and it is clear to me that that boundary is likely to move if self id becomes law ( that boundary being the one at which each transperson with a grc is entitled to case by case consideration of their right to access the single sex space rather than simple exclusion on the grounds of sex)

Yes we rely on social policing /social norms rather than dna scans at the door. It’s very effective.

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