House of Commons Library Gender recognition and the rights of transgender people 16/07/2020

Only just caught up with this. Thanks to all.

Interesting thread, bookmarking 👍

I agree, it seems odd not to have explained the reasons why Oxford and the others have withdrawn the toolkits or at least give a bit of background.

Someone earlier in the thread said that Cornwall had withdrawn their guidance, and I didn't check, but I have now seen that Cornwall isn't on Safe Schools Alliiance's list of councils which have withdrawn their guidance, and it is still on the Cornwall council website.

The briefing doesn't make it clear about why Oxfordshire withdrew their guidance and how the withdrawal was linked to the judicial review. What they say is almost identical to the statement from the Oxfordshire council website. Link

They then provide a link to the earlier Cornwall guidance from 2014 with no indication that this guidance is very similar to the Oxfordshire guidance which was withdrawn because of the judicial review.

This is what they say about the Oxfordshire and Cornwall guidance:

Several local authorities have published guidance for schools, but this has sometimes proved controversial. For example, in May 2020 Oxfordshire County Council said it had taken the decision to withdraw its Trans Inclusion Toolkit and that they would instead adopt expected Equality and Human Rights Commission guidance. At the same time, the council said it was withdrawing from the judicial review of the Toolkit which was expected to be heard in Autumn 2020.

In England, in 2014, the DfE’s advice on The Equality Act 2010 and schools noted that “a partnership of bodies in Cornwall have produced a useful guidance document for schools and families.”

I believe that Cornwall have refused to withdraw their Guidance, so far. But the reference to Wrexham's has been taken out - and there is a section early on about the history of the paper that mentions the Oxfordshire CC "guidance" court case and the consequent withdrawals by some councils.

New version is now out.

researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8969/CBP-8969.pdf

The Cornwall schools guidance is still included. I thought this had been withdrawn.

Under the section about definition of gender reassignment, the following example is given: "Example: A person who was born physically female decides to spend the rest of his life as a man. He starts and continues to live as a man. He decides not to seek medical advice as he successfully passes as a man without the need for any medical intervention. He would be protected as someone who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment."
Interesting that they use FtM example here. Interesting that I got deleted for discussing and suggesting possible implications :)

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1284757886632169472.html
From Maya, well worth reading the whole thread.
This, in the House of Commons Library Briefing is shocking. "Legal commentators have expressed concern" ... That the Equality Act is being interpreted as allowing males to be simply excluded from group counselling for female victims of sexual assault commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-brief…

They think women who have been traumatised by male violence should have their boundaries pushed before they can get help. They think the professionals meant to help them should be forced to first ask them if they could be inclusive of a vulnerable male ...

How on earth did this get written and signed off? (by how many people?) Who are these legal commentators? That part of the briefing is written by @dougpyper - he is a researcher with knowledge of employment law. He turned to Blackstone's Guide to the Equality Act

Lots of the posts interest me, but it is the work you are doing that I find really compelling. I do not, now, have the capacity to be a big part of this debate (though the mental faculties are holding up well) but I can cheer on those of you who are digging deep.

I will contribute by writing letters, encouraging and passing on whatever information I can, to those in my circle, who haven't yet caught up

Top work to the quick of the mark downloaders and archivers. Yes all of you contacting the Commons library office. This is really important to get right, MPs make the law on these issues and they really trust these briefings.

That's an excellent response from hatpinwoman. Thanks for posting the link

Presumably this has been produced by civil servants. Wonder if it's worth raising issues with MPs.

janeclarejones.com/2020/07/17/gender-recognition-and-the-rights-of-transgender-people-a-response-to-the-commons-briefing-paper/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

HoC Library is normally pretty good about showing versions of documents
but the experience of COVID guidance shows us that revisionism is the order of the day now

well done to the downloaders

Hoc library have replied on twitter to a trans activist asking why it has been edited. The thread also includes links to the original & revised documents as Google docs.

twitter.com/commonslibrary/status/1284126762004353024

interesting that you say the link to the Wrexham document still works. It's the same here. I've been checking periodically since I had confirmation from the Ed.Auth. to say they were withdrawing it immdediately, but the link still has pride of place on the front page of DD1's school website

After Denbighshire council said they had withdrawn their Transgender Policy for schools, they removed it from their own website. I asked them to confirm whether all schools in the county had been informed about the withdrawal of this policy and they said they had.

It's still on some school websites, though. These two came up on the first page of a web search.

www.rhylhigh.denbighshire.sch.uk/assets/gender-identity-policy-and-implementation-guidance-(1).pdf

www.stasaphvpschool.org.uk/perch/resources/gender-identity-and-implementation-guidance-policy-v2.pdf

Please email and correct them re the NHS reference - it sounds as if they're willing to amend very quickly.

I've had a further email thanking me for raising the matter. They

"are in the process of updating the briefing to include the legal challenges to the guidance. In the meantime we've removed that section. We hope to have the new version in place by the end of today."

I'm impressed at how quickly they've responded tbh - I didn't expect to receive an answer at all as it said at the end of the briefing paper that they only respond to MPs or members of their staff.

@FOIrequester - interesting that you say the link to the Wrexham document still works. It's the same here. I've been checking periodically since I had confirmation from the Ed.Auth. to say they were withdrawing it immdediately, but the link still has pride of place on the front page of DD1's school website

I suspect using the phrase 'observed' at birth could be judged to be them not being impartial; 'assigned' much as we hate it is in common use.

But 'assigned' is not a neutral expression. There is a reason why it was removed from the NHS gender dysphoria pages, and this report should reflect that. NHS has also removed the link to WPATH guidelines, but they are referenced in the report as best practice for adolescent trans care?!

I glanced through it quickly, earlier, and was pleased it had David Davis's comments, at length. That seemed progress - at least the silencing of women was acknowledged. And the Civitas study, plus some really good pieces, were cited as sources.

Reading it through more slowly tonight (I downloaded both versions)... it's anything but even-handed. They removed the pages of advice because they've been successfully challenged as unlawful, and you pointed that out. They'd lauded them as best practice, before.

Others have noted the firmly approving reference to Stonewall (who train just about all universities and every branch of government, as well as most corporations) and the side-eye with which they refer to Fair Play For Women.

Says it all, that an organisation advocating for trans people is paid by the state to tell them what to think, while grassroots organisations run on a shoestring to defend women's rights are given short shrift. Tell me again: who are the most marginalised people in this scenario?

I'm glad the information has been removed but surprised that it appeared in the first place - surely the news that these guides have been withdrawn by so many councils would have been flagged up somewhere?

I think this just shows how effectively the media have been silenced on this. Has there been any press coverage at all?

The link to the Wrexham guidelines still works, although it’s not on the Wrexham Council site, which should have been a cause to check whether it had been withdrawn.

The link to the Welsh Government's Transgender Action Plan is to the copy supplied as a response to one of my FOI requests (gov.wales/atisn13341). Although the Welsh government told me that they weren't going to withdraw this document, it disappeared from their website following my FOI requests about the Equality Impact Assessment. Again, because this document is no longer on the main Welsh Government site, there should have been some checks made to see whether it had been withdrawn.

Top work to the quick of the mark downloaders and archivers.

@OHolyJesus - I think we can assume that they've deleted all the contentious references. I'll definitely update if I get a further response or an acknowledgement of what steps they've taken.