House of Lords debate #KeepPrisonsSingleSex

We are seeing a steady row back as it is realised: the idealism and hard sell of what the utopia the TQ+ political lobby sold clashes unacceptably with the legal and civil rights of others.

Step one has been to realise: forcing rape victims pleading for a female examiner to get her knickers off, shut up and let someone she perceives as male but identifies as a woman examine her, or go without care is a really bad idea .

Step two has been to realise: forcing abused women to use pronouns of a male attacker against their experience, perceptions and own truth of what happened and thereby subject them to a whole lot of stress and threats that unfairly affects their ability to participate in a court case is a really bad idea .

Now if we can realise that forcing vulnerable women to have males in their space with everyone crossing their fingers that the women are only afraid and humiliated as opposed to actually sexually assaulted, or really badly hurt in a way likely to affect them for the rest of their lives? Is a really, really bad idea....

that would be a good next step please.

And then that female people need access to public services, facilities and resources too.

It cannot be exclusively about the needs of a male person who is trans. Other people matter too.

This is where we need wholesale reform now. Separate the EA2010 into individual Sex/Race/Disability/Sexuality Discrimination Acts. Trans to be a protected characteristic ONLY if the person has a recorded GRC otherwise what's the point and it doesn't override sex-based or other rights anyway. The current legislation is not fit for purpose and in the interests of true equality we need to nip this creation of a sacred, unquestionable caste in the bud right now.

This.

Exactly this.

It has been tried and proven that to try and do 'equality' as one big lump just ends with the most powerful and vocal group dominating the interests and visability of all others. It's decreased actual equality and inclusion and become a fight for one characteristic to be visible and met to the exclusion of others, particularly where, as grown up conversation has to face, wishes and needs conflict. The T in particular cannot held in the same brief as female interests (I would say women, but that will be read by some as a mixed sex group hence all the problems resulting for females, culture is also an issue of clash, belief is an issue of clash, and I suspect disability will swiftly become one too.

These must be separated out into individual briefs, represented by those who focus only on the needs of that particular group and their representation, (and are aware of the need to be wary of political capture), and those groups need then to present their briefs separately to permit law and policy to meet all needs and find alternative solutions away from this ridiculous idea of 'lets exclude all of x to prove we care enough about y'.

Grown up politics. Badly needed.

One point I want to make is that in general society may not care about women in prison but...now that any sex offender can be locked up with vulnerable women the fear of being caught will be zero, infact being caught and locked up will be a goal for many.
This will increase sex offences for every woman and child.

The Gender Recognition (Disclosure of Information) (England and Wales) Order 2021

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2021/1020/contents/made

Disclosure for offender management purposes
2.—(1) It is not an offence under section 22 of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to disclose protected information if the disclosure is necessary for a purpose set out in paragraph (2).

(2) The purposes are—

(a)the probation purposes,
(b)the performance of functions relating to prisons or prisoners of—
(i)the Secretary of State, or
(ii)a relevant contractor, and
(c)any other purposes connected with the management of offenders (including the development or assessment of policies relating to matters connected with the management of offenders).
(3) In this article—

(a)“the probation purposes” has the meaning set out in section 1 of the 2007 Act,
(b)“relevant contractor” has the meaning set out in section 14(9) of the 2007 Act, and
(c)the reference to prisons or prisoners includes a reference to—
(i)young offender institutions or persons detained in such institutions, and
(ii)secure training centres or persons detained in such centres.

In the document linked by Redlake previously, this is the only line which relates to any other protected characteristics -

'3.13 Other Equalities Considerations
3.14 All protected characteristics are considered when making decisions about individuals who are transgender.'

That's it.

That is about disclosure where it is known. It still does not compell a person to produce their GRC. They may even have lost or destroyed it.

Your earlier argument was that the MoJ had no right to know about it. There are official records of the GRC as well as the copy given to the holder.

Sorry referencing the poster who says that GRC is confidential

This says you are wrong re offender management

committees.parliament.uk/publications/7597/documents/79615/default/

I can't help but see that expressing support for this dysfunctional system makes very clear that the worst aspects aren't bugs, they're features.

The more that the arguments in support are developed, the clearer this becomes. We saw that in the House of Lords last night.

No wonder Dentons were so firm about keeping things under the radar and not engaging in any debate.

Nobody has the right to see a GRC.

In some circumstances they do:

From the legislation:

(4)But it is not an offence under this section to disclose protected information relating to a person if—

(d)the disclosure is in accordance with an order of a court or tribunal,

(e)the disclosure is for the purpose of instituting, or otherwise for the purposes of, proceedings before a court or tribunal,

(f)the disclosure is for the purpose of preventing or investigating crime,

(g)the disclosure is made to the Registrar General for England and Wales, the Registrar General for Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland,

(h)the disclosure is made for the purposes of the social security system or a pension scheme,

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/22

You seem to think this indicates that the MoJ have no right to know whether someone has a GRC. It appears to me that (d), (e) and (f) say otherwise.

This section appears to be mainly for the use of people (such as employers) who have obtained this information in an official capacity, and prevents them from making this information public. It is not to make the possession of a GRC a secret that absolutely nobody else can know about.

Not even exploitation.

You cannot have a law that says any man can be given access to women, on the basis that the women need to provide validation for an untruth.

If we have sex segregated exemptions built into the equality act, there's no point in having a GRC. What does it do?

Currently the only thing it does is make it impossible to enforce sex segregation that the government built into the act to make the GRA fair!!!

It's a complete shambles.

I'm so open to exploitation that it's positively dangerous.

As pp said, the "privacy" aspects of the GRA are a loophole that badly need closing.

You missed the word "voluntarily". Nobody has the right to see a GRC.

And given that it's now a piece of piss to get one, with even the fee being waived, look at all these trans organisations desperately lobbying to have even questioning whether a man has gender dysphoria being ruled as conversion therapy!

You've got to have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria to get a GRC, they cry! The only criteria for which is to say it out loud.

Again, being able to acquire a piece of paper which gives men, including convicted rapists, access to incarcerated women, purely on the basis of their say so, is not something that helps your argument.

The fact that you can't see and continue to ride it triumphantly towards what you see as a victory, is truly disturbing.

Trans people have told him they will commit suicide rather than go to prison.

Surely that applies to other people too, not just trans people.

You missed the word "voluntarily". Nobody has the right to see a GRC.

In which case, what’s the fucking point of schroedinger’s document?

The GRC should be abolished and the GRA repealed. Reinforcing a lie does no service to the needs of anyone except the liar. Born in the wrong body is complete nonsense and pretending you can change sex is dangerous . Why the law has been changed to benefit what used to be a very small group of men, is unacountable. The brainwashing of otherwise apparently sensible MPs is astonishing. Than you to Kate Coleman and those that spoke up for the amendment .

The ridiculous thing is there's a very good chance the prison authorities know exactly who is male in the female estate even if officially a GRC prevents them being recorded as male. I'm fairly sure every prison guard could tell you who they are because without the wizardry of soft lighting and photo filters we can tell who is male and female accurately probably about 99% of the time. So all this stuff built into the GRA about privacy is largely nonsense anyway.