Help fact-check this letter to Liz Truss from 7000+ women

This purports to be a letter to Liz Truss and yet ends, right at the bottom of the page, with the statement "Liz Truss is wrong". I am not sure that is the best way to persuade her of anything, if that is indeed their aim.

I don’t believe the current GRS is accurately described as a two year process. From application to approval is pretty quick.
One of the requirements is evidence of a two year history of wanting to transition. Change the name on your gas bill online, another thing here and there, wait two years and you have a two year evidence of wanting to transition. Someone with access to an address for two years can easily achieve this. Someone without a secure address might find this harder. Maybe providing an alternative way of providing the two year evidence? Perhaps suggesting Stonewall provide a confidential, secure, mailbox to provide an alternative?

The ridiculous reaction to the JKR novel shows the concern of “real trans people” and those close to them of being aggregated with men who according to that novel, wears a woman’s coat once. Doesn’t that mean that having a proper route to trans status is desired by the “true trans” group?

The only reason to object is ideological. Transition is now considered by some as a transphobic term. I think bringing this into the open would be useful, including for those transsexuals being abused by TRAs as “trusc*m”, but who the general public think they are helping by supporting “Trans Rights”.

Where is the evidence that trans ppl have used the single sex spaces that have aligned with their gender this entire time? I kept seeing this argument being made that the UK is full of TW & TM who it seems pass so brilliantly that we’ve not even noticed they were there so really all they’re asking for is to carry on doing what we don’t already notice they’re doing

Given that the vast majority of TW have no surgery & you can’t alter someone’s skeletal structure so you can’t for example guve a man a female pelvis, this argument is just nonsense isnt it?

Isn’t it more - ppl completely noticed they weren’t the sex they were dressed as but thought they’d be kind & not say anything....and because of that TRA decided we literally couldn’t tell the difference between a man & a woman and therefore all women’s spaces must be made available to TW #nodebate #acceptancewithoutexception

Followed by “and as woman is an innate feeling I don’t have to look like one to be one”

I’m wondering how they policed the signatories to the letter to ensure the undersigned were indeed only “cisgendered women”. Biological essentialist gatekeeping transexclusion!

How can a none binary person use the facilities of the sex that aligns with their gender identity?m

But people like Jane Fae gave evidence, Jess Bradley, Action for Trans Health (the trans organisation that wants all trans prisoners released from jail and wants all medication to be over-the-counter), Mermaids, etc.

When women complained, Maria Miller said the only objection she had had was from women 'purporting to be feminists'.

So yes, the report was a one-sided white wash with contributions from many people whose credibility has since been robustly challenged.

The link to the full report is below. The people who gave evidence is at the end. With what has come to light over the last five years, it makes depressing reading.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmwomeq/390/390.pdf

“Trans men, women and non-binary people young and old have always lived among us. They have used the single-sex spaces that align with their gender identity this entire time. The Gender Recognition Act has, for 16 years, provided a mechanism for trans men and women to update the gender marker on their birth certificate.”

Well exactly: there is already a mechanism for trans people to gain legal recognition for their acquired gender.
Some will argue there shouldn’t be any legal recognition at all, but it’s clear that isn’t on the table. All that’s on the table is a potential simplification of the mechanism - up to the level of self ID.
But the existing mechanism is the check and balance. It’s to prevent abuse. It’s not there to persecute genuine trans people. It’s there to stop abusive “cis” men feigning as trans women in order to access women only spaces. We get a glimpse of what the removal of such checks and balances looks like when we see the cases of white people Self identifying as black in order to get grants and posts reserved for black people.
The conversation Liz Truss wants to have (I presume) is whether those checks and balances -which some trans people find invasive - are proportional to the risk and less or no checks and balances would entail.
Here it is relevant to note that even with the existing checks and balances (a 2 yr process I believe) there have been a number of documented cases of TW accessing women only spaces and assaulting them in very Male ways

It's so easy to not to worry about a man intimidating you in prison or a homeless shelter when you can be almost certain that you personally are never going to be in that situation.

The letter also makes no logical sense. Doing nothing ie leaving the GRA as it is, is the least onerous thing for Truss to do. Or are they arguing she should push through (another) bad law without doing any impact assessment?

What do they want her to actually do?

Could the response be a letter that says trans people should have rights, we think the Equalities Act and GRA as written provide rights, existing laws as actually written are quite enforceable, (no more Stonewall law).

Welcome that Stonewall accept no surgeries on children, and that they plan to stand down from campaigning, and will condemn the hate issued to women?

Also welcome investment in trans healthcare to the same standard as to the rest of the population, ie evidence based (NICE review to cover puberty blockers).

Link

www.feministcurrent.com/2020/09/13/protecting-men-at-the-womens-shelter/

This is despite the fact that several countries have implemented similar reforms to their gender recognition laws without any negative impact to cis women whatsoever.

This is demonstrably a lie, with stories appearing every day.

Today's:

In the time that I have worked at the shelter, men have always been welcome to stay alongside the women, on one condition: the men must tell us they are women.

When women report harassment by men in the shelter space, or approach staff to voice their discomfort, my coworkers’ customary response is to ignore the women’s reports completely. They do not record the reports in our daily logs, nor do they mention the incident to a supervisor. They do not confront the man to speak to him about his behaviour. If, while describing the harassment she is experiencing, a woman calls the man a man, or “he” rather than “she,” my coworkers take the time to correct her by pointing out that she is mistaken: this man is a woman.

This piece today has so many resonances with this type of letter. unherd.com/2020/09/confessions-of-a-student-marxist/

I don’t usually post on these things as I sit somewhere in the middle on trans issues.

However, these things really jumped out at me when I read it:

• It calls trans-critical groups ‘hate groups’, reframing debate as hate. They’ve worded it quite carefully, as if it could be hate groups and also and quite separately organisations such as Woman’s Place UK, Transgender Trend and the LGB Alliance, but I am assuming the lack of comma after ‘hate groups’ is deliberate. I have looked up different definitions of hate groups, and none fit these organisations.

• It does not define what negative impact to ‘CIS women’ would be, and ignores negative impact to trans people.

• It is keen to point out that Liz should not be wasting her time on this as there are bigger priorities. If that is the case, since everything has been happily ticking along for decades (their description) it is like they are making their own case to leave things as they are

• The majority of the ‘CIS women’ supporting the letter whose names are mentioned at the bottom are professionally invested in this. As the quote goes, “it is difficult to get a [wo]man to understand something, when [her]his salary depends on [her]his not understanding it”

I thought that the TRAs had been campaigning actively for trans rights? The letter mentions Stonewall, the LGBT Foundation and The Kaleidoscope Trust
Defo Stonewall has been throwing resources at this.

The letter says Liz shouldn’t be bothering her pretty head with trans issues and shouldn’t be wasting her time on this:
The fact that you chose to make this a priority during the biggest crisis the world has faced in decades is even more disturbing. During lockdown...die from COVID-19. Surely these issues are more urgent?
What is going on? Have the TRAs realised that being openly a TRA is a bad thing and they should follow the advice from Dentons to limit press coverage and exposure, to ensure the public don’t find out?

Another quick scan. Noticeable how few mainstream journalists. Could only see poor old Laura Snapes from the Guardian although I'm sure I missed others. Then an acre from publications like pink News (how many people do they employ or are they all "I had an article once that was a glorified blog so now claim I write for them"?).

Many many people with skin in the game - jobs with charities whose income comes from the gender identity machine, academics ditto.

And then a sad list of mothers of trans kids - they are making such difficult decisions and must be so wedded to this world view, because if they are wrong and we are right, then my god the guilt will be unliveable. My heart goes out to them as the poor guidance they have received is unforgivable.

What a sad list.

“This is despite the fact that several countries have implemented similar reforms to their gender recognition laws without any negative impact to cis women whatsoever”

I think there is a thread someone on here which documents individual cases - eg TW assaulting women in women’s prisons

But more generally, once orgs/countries, etc have a policy self ID, they tend to also lose the ability to even monitor the impact on the basis of biological sex, because allowing self id in effect does away with biological sex as a concept. So yeah, sure: once you deny that there is such a thing as sex, you do also magically remove any discrimination or negative impact on the biological sexes because they just don’t exist. So yes, they don’t find negative impacts because they don’t even monitor or look for them, because they can’t, because asking the question would betray the lie that the self id proclaims

At the start This is despite the fact that several countries have implemented similar reforms to their gender recognition laws without any negative impact to cis women whatsoever.
There has no measurement so this statement is without any foundations!

In Canada, for their equivalent of GRA reform, women are still trying to get the impact assessment study legally required before new legislation.

In other countries rape/sexual assault “by women” has increased without any obvious explanation.

So no one bothered about “the negative impact to cis women”, didn’t attempt to measure it..

Actors are known for their intellectual rigor 😂

What a list. The volume of those who are actors, marketers or work in publishing is quite something.

Honestly, this just sounds ranty and ridiculous to me, like most TRA rhetoric. There’s no way Liz Truss is going to take any notice of it. It’s another own goal.