Labour promises to keep single-sex exemptions

Absolutely barking.

twitter.com/languesbians/status/1197477675029409792

The replies here are remarkable. Roz Kaveney seems to think the EqA single sex exemptions were little more than an accident and then there is this corker:

‘... they earlier chose not to allow trans people close enough to leadership to prevent killing us through policies. Where I'm from that's called conspiracy to murder’

Crikey, where is this person from? I’m not visiting anytime soon if not being allowed to talk to the leader of her majesty’s opposition is conspiracy to murder! 😃

I think the thing to take away from this is that Labour have realized that their attitude was going to cost them votes from women and are therefore potentially open to being shifted further if it is made clear that this isn't enough. It's not the concession I wanted but clearly they've realized that they can't just ignore us.

PULL

I just do not know what to do!

Now, mixed sex wards is another matter. When Labour says it's going to end them, it very likely means mixed gender wards.

Feel free to distrust that bit of the manifesto, fellow wims!

The exemptions are real though.

It’s illegal in most cases to ask to see a GRC. Anyone with a GRC also has a new birth certificate attesting to their ‘new’ sex. So in practise if GRCs are given out to anyone it will be very difficult to protect single sex spaces because even if someone is clearly biologically male they will have a birth certificate saying their sex is female.

That doesn't even mean they're going to disallow transwomen on women's wards, surely? This person has read a promise to get rid of wards that allow plain old fashioned men and women to be put in together and assumed it's targeting trans people because this person knows that nobody can actually change sex.

Thought this was worth saving for posterity - non binary Lib Dem campaigner declares single sex hospital wards to be ‘vile hate towards the trans community’.

Kobe Bibbon’s official Lib Dem profile appears to repeatedly misgender they/them. Bad Lib Dems!

mgcb-libdems.org.uk/en/page/ward-longsight

It really is all about them, isnt it

You know how very small children go through a stage where they're completely self centered to the point where mummy not being always available and willing to give them whatever they want can result in screaming tantrums? Like that, but with an undercut and a pink and blue painted baseball bat.

Earlier this year people got excited when Maria Miller (Conservative) conceded that single-sex services must be protected. Then it turned out that she includes 'transwomen' in her definition of the female sex.

Yes. But not the same thing.

Labour cannot mean TW in the bit about EqA exemptions. The only purpose of those exemptions is to exclude TW from certain services and provisions.

Look: I get it. Labour has been hopeless on women. Half its activists are vicious misogynists and most of the rest are pomo-addled. But this is a real concession to XX people aka women. It's not sufficient for me to return to the fold but it's real.

This is an important concession - single-sex exemptions refer to biological sex.

The EHRC guidance says otherwise.

Where someone has a gender recognition certificate they should be treated in their acquired gender for all purposes and therefore should not be excluded from single sex services.

Yes that made me laugh too.

It really is all about them, isnt it

Make me laugh that the TRA's think single sex hospital wards, shelters etc are vile and hateful.

i know nothing about uk law...
so is there any paper providing someone's bio sex info when birth certification document changed following gender?

and is there any law provide difference sex and gender when GRA changed?

and if first GRA changed and then how can maintain the exemption place?

and school & university, gender education will keep going?
labour's LGBTQ manifesto can provide free speech right for not lgbtq pp?

All of this means nothing if men can self id as women, which it looks as though they want to push through.

I am not supported of Boris nor the Tories, but in terms of funding rape crisis they are streets ahead of Labour who for some reason have only recognised domestic violence. And then because they didn't want to hurt the feeling of men in Labour it was always classed as a "housing" issue which is why historically and stupidly, these is not core funding for refuges but they rely on women claiming HB!!!!

The articles quoted above are just people using the issue of rape crisis for an anti Boris story. The problem with the tory funding was they went with the bigger are better, so they allowed refuges to set up rape crisis lines as another source of funding, rather than allowing autonmous locally run rape crisis lines.

I think it is strange how hands off Labour still remains about rape crisis, and in fact Vera Baird who is now quite vocal was when just Labour rather than police commissioner one of the main promoters of DV as an issue and somehow rape not meriting the same need of action.

Its like finding out (sorry I actually dont know her proper title) Camilla now Mrs Prince Charles actively working with rape crisis.

Sorry rambling a bit now, but how the "left" have adopted DV as an issue and some of the right sexual violence.

But despite being critical of so many women's services that have been mission drifted by funding, continue to campaign to keep services going on stop start funding and occasional hand outs.

I hate to say it, but could this be interpreted that GC woman will be made to understand that transwomen are women and therefore covered by the equality act. Iyswim. I might be wrong but this interpretation would square better with the rest.

It's a fair question. Earlier this year people got excited when Maria Miller (Conservative) conceded that single-sex services must be protected. Then it turned out that she includes 'transwomen' in her definition of the female sex.
So I'm cynical and none the wiser about Labour's position, although I agree that it's miles better than the batshit non-man stuff of the Green Party or the open hostility we've seen from the LibDems towards women who have concerns about self ID.

Transactivists suddenly seem to know the difference between sex and gender now that Labour are promising to do away with mixed sex wards!

twitter.com/search?q=Labour%20trans&src=typd

The manifesto is with regard to single sex exemptions in EqA. They're saying they'll make it easier to get a GRC but tighten up the limitations to the entitlements the GRC affords - so protecting refuges, rape crisis services, etc.

This is likely an outcome of the Parliamentary Committee that we spoke about at length here and lobbying by WPUK.

It's much better than I thought it would be - they're not in full denial like the LibDems and the Greens - but I would need much more detail on how they plan to extend, make robust, and enforce application of EqA's single sex exemptions before I put a cross anywhere near a Labour candidate on my ballot paper.

Yes I can agree with all that. I need more clarity on what they mean by single sex, female, woman etc... this is undoubtedly better than the Lib Dems position. However judging by all the letters we have written many of their own MPs have been espousing a very different message right up to the point of this manifesto being published.

Do they have party buy in for this stance or is it election time obfuscation designed to win back the women abandoning them in droves? After all manifesto promises are not legally binding.

The single sex exemptions are limitations to the entitlements conferred by a GRC. Labour is promising to a) retain them and b) encourage use of them by services and organisations.

At the same time, they are promising to make it easier to get a GRC.

The single sex exemptions are for the provision of single sex services, they are nothing to do with gender reassignment.

The GRA 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).

Note it says 'for all purposes'. The new transgender policy for prisons, for example, says "all individuals who are transgender must be initially allocated to part of the estate which matches their legally recognised gender".

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/825621/transgender-pf.pdf

There is something in the EA2010 about ' a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim', but it is quite vague about how this would work in practice, as is the guidance from EHRC.

I think if Labour had offered this a couple of years ago I probably would have been pleased and reassured but it's been left too long and so I'm just totally sceptical that they mean what they say.

At the moment I'm still left feeling that my only option for me as a GC woman is to spoil my ballot paper.

It’s not going down well.

twitter.com/socialrepro/status/1197492641375621120?s=20

Ooooh - tangent - Boris promised to fund 4 London rape crisis centres 10 years ago:
He had to be harangued into it post election and I think less than half of what was promised actually materialised.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/21/boris-johnson-rape-crisis-centres

londonprogressivejournal.com/article/view/547/the-boris-keep-your-promise-campaign

leftfootforward.org/2011/11/boris-johnson-turning-back-clock-for-women-in-london/

People keep adding words into the labour commitment to make it mean what they want it to mean. This is no better than we have at the moment with organisations ignoring the exemptions and women continually battling to keep men out of their spaces. Labour are committed to self ID and centering LGBTQ+ and that is quite clear In their manifesto. How can anyone imagine that this will result in excluding transwomen from women’s spaces?