Women & Equalities 22nd April 2020 - YES!

The significance of this is that a government minister gone on record. That’s massively important and means she can be held to account.

Mermaids are not happy, which makes my day! Still being all wide-eyed with their " Well of course we support Ms Truss, but single sex must include all women (ie blokes)" shit. I think they know the Woke express may have started to run out of steam...

Well that’s three steps in the right direction.

I’m so grateful to all the women who have been fighting for this. I’m certain there will be need for more strength in future, but Thank you everyone who’s efforts have got us this far.

I feel a bit teary. It feels like someone sensible and grown up is in charge!

Makes me so glad I woke up to this in time to do a submission to the GRA consultation.

I've already seen some violent and abusive tweets about Liz Truss. I hope she's got her hard hat on.

Secondly making sure that transgender adults are free to live their lives as they wish without fear of persecution, whilst maintaining the proper checks and balances in the system.

This isn't support for self ID, it underlines sex as a protected characteristic and clarifies the existing protection offered to both women and trans people by the Equality Act;

it is not permitted to discriminate against a person based on their trans status, and
refusing a trans person access to a single sex space on the grounds they are a different sex is not discrimination.

I think her statement was pretty unambiguous, so while yes it comes down to the definition of sex, I don't think the tone of any of it suggests she is planning on fudging this. And why would the tories want to fudge? 80 sets majority, pandering to trans bollocks at the expense of women/girls is a vote loser, killing self ID is one of the many things people expect from them.

Yes there is an incredulity in the responses that you don't find in women as we generally unsurprised at having our rights curtailed.

happydappy2
I expect this is the first time that the TRAs (on or off twitter) will ever have encountered someone with influence saying no. To date they have been able to appropriate women's spaces, identity, sport and the rest with no challenge at all from government. All the professions, businesses, M & S etc bowing down to them. Until today.

I am cautiously optimistic, but as always it will come down to the definition of single sex.

Sounds sensible. Glad they appear to be thinking it through properly especially the under 18's.

Finally! Well done her-she will have so much support.

Listening to the TRAs on twitter its quite ugly....

I think this is very important. There will be the expected twitter meltdowns with the usual bullies shouting and threatening but at last we are hearing a government minister speaking out with confidence.

Thanks for the share token - extra protection for single sex spaces sounds great

Quote from the Times article:
Ms Truss told the Commons women and equalities committee that there would also be additional protection of single-sex spaces to ensure that women and girls were safe in places such as changing rooms and lavatories as well as women’s refuges, by excluding other people where necessary.

Share token:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d91e02a0-84a9-11ea-b876-ef9d21d57c48?shareToken=fd852a6511edabaaf87844435487ff92

The responses on Twitter are to be expected, and Ruth Hunt has appeared to bang her drum.

she has said trans people have the right to live as they like ie self id and therefore erasing women.

I dont think she's said that. She was quite specific about needing checks and balances so I think that's self-id out the window.

Honestly, I get the impression that she's going to be saying what most of us are thinking: be as gender non-conforming as you like and that will be protected (e.g if you are male you can't be fired for wearing make up if women are also allowed to wear it) but you can't enter single sex female spaces.

And that transgender people can live as they like including the right to say TWAW?!!!

People have the right to say TWAW until they're blue in the face. That's free speech. They don't have the right to force everyone else to believe it though.
Same with living as they like. They can present as whichever of the 72 genders take their fancy. They just don't get to override womens rights or spaces when they do it.

This is hugely promising from Liz Truss. Thrilled to see it.

I liked her focus on examining evidence. So much TRA rhetoric centres around completely fabricated statistics. Once these are officially unpicked, that's one major pillar of TRA destroyed.

I am cautiously optimistic. I anticipate a huge trans reaction to this and lots of threats, bluster and anger.

I hope Truss et al stand firm when shit and fan connect.

It's definitely encouraging, the fact that she's mentioned single sex spaces, checks and balances and the under 18s shows that the message has been getting through. Thank you to those who have been raising this issue for so long with so much grief x

@stumbledin I don't think that's what she's saying. She specifically says single sex spaces will be protected, then goes on to say that trans people can live as they like with the appropriate checks and protections in place.

That in my reading is very clearly not self ID indeed I think she has killed it.

And personally, I don't think there will be a backtrack as i think this is a conscious strategy by the BJ government. They know self ID is a vote loser (polling etc), and they just watched multiple politicians' careers go up in smoke on this issue in the last election and Lab leadership process. Multiple wins for them to not do self ID, protect women and girls (eg sports) and kids.

Sorry - she has said trans people have the right to live as they like ie self id and therefore erasing women. All she has said is the under 18s shouldn't take decisions that cant be reversed. Which effectively should be happening now but some medical practitioners have drifted down the affirmation route.

And as if to emphasise the Equalities Committee's priority the first conference they will hold will be on LGBT rights (interestingly it appears the Q has not been included!).

So this is a good political strategy for them. Protect children.

Adults can do what they want.

If this is what they actually hold to, then it's good news!
How long before they backtrack?

So I want the unit to become much more focused on analysing that data, looking at it very closely, and then working to a hub and spoke model with the rest of Government - so whether it’s the Home Office on issues of crime, whether it’s the Department of education on issues of education

A particular focus is going to be women’s economic empowerment, and I think this will be particularly important as we leave the immediate issues of Covid and then to the recovery., Of course we’ve had success in terms of getting more women employed ever before in the UK

A step in the right direction surely.... [fingers crossed]. Of course, if the department upholds that TWA W instead of TWA TW, it might yet mean a watering down of any strengthening of provisions enough to be meaningless instead of making additional provisions that don't erode women's rights unfairly. However, I am hopeful.

Times article as well

I thought you would be interested in this story from The Times Transgender law will change to protect under-18s, Truss signals www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d91e02a0-84a9-11ea-b876-ef9d21d57c48?shareToken