Sunak would amend the Equality Act

rewriting the English language so we can't even use words like 'man', 'woman' or 'mother' without being told we're offending someone."

I can't wait to be able to start using these words again without threat of retribution.

Bring it on.

I think it's quite clear from both of their perfomances recently that women's rights are now at the forefont of the British public's minds, maybe even the most important issue to them right now.

People born male should respect that women have a right to safety and dignity and single sex spaces where someone who has a Penis does not there.

Well, they've made it clear they won't so the only way to ensure the safety, dignity and privacy of women is to force them to do so.

The obvious thing wrong with the Equality Act in my view is the existence of "gender reassignment" as a protected characteristic. The definition is woolly and meaningless:

"A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex."

What on earth does "other attributes" mean? What even does "reassigning the person's sex" mean?

If you're going to have trans identity in there, you need a watertight definition.

I agree @RoyalCorgi the whole thing is a woolly mess and Rishi Sunak is right to say this:

The worst offender in this regard is the 2010 Equality Act, conceived in the dog days of the last Labour government.

It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.

Any legislation must have clear definitions.

No-one can change sex, it cannot be re-assigned and that needs to be made clear.

The intersection between the GRA and the EqA is also problematic, both rely on hideously regressive sex based stereotypes which are downright insulting and offensive.

I think both need to be re-written and I question the merits of keeping the GRA at all.

Clearly defined terms and absolute lines need to be drawn, no room for obfuscation or misinterpretation.

I never thought I'd see two politicians going head-to-head on the basis of who can support women's rights the most tho.

It's amazing to see and regardless of who wins the leadership contest the next few years are going to be fantastic for women and girls.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/29/rishi-sunak-protect-words-man-woman-mother/

Headline: Sunak vows to banish Leftist 'woke nonsense'

Extract
Rishi Sunak has vowed pledged to protect the terms "women" and "mother" as he blamed the Equality Act for promoting "woke nonsense".

He is expected to say: "What's the point in stoppping the bulldozersin the Green Belt if we allow Left-wing agitators to take a bulldozer to our history, our traditions and our fundamental values. Whether it's pulling down statues of historic figures, replacing the school curriculum with anti-British propaganda, or rewriting the English language so we can't even use words like 'man', 'woman' or 'mother' without being told we're offending someone."

While Mr Sunak will insist the Tories have "zero interest" in inflaming current controversies around contentious social issues, he is set to highlight the use of existing laws that are being "used to engage in social engineering to which no one has given consent."

"The worst offender in this regard is the 2010 Equality Act."

"It has been a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsenses to permeate public life and it must stop. My Government would review the Act to ensure we keep legitimate protections while stopping mission creep."

"Our laws must protect free speech, block biological men from competing in women's sport and ensure that children are allowed to be children."

He has pledged to produce clear guidance explaining sex in the Equality Act means biological sex and self-identification does not carry any weight in law.

"I never thought I'd see two politicians going head-to-head on the basis of who can support women's rights the most tho."

I know! It's incredible how much things have now changed after years of us banging on about it.

I'm so glad they are talking about this.

It needs to be no longer seen as a minority issue.

I don't think either of them will actually change the law but guidance/ practice should change.

This is such an interesting discussion - and much needed to be had in government. It's also a real rebuttal to the sneering posters who pop up on here to lecture us that our concerns are not shared by the general population - yet here we are. Women's rights, language, sex ed in schools, sport all being addressed by tory politicians!

Exactly this. 'Dog whistle' is the perfect expression

Fgs. I'm not seeking to 'initiate hostilities'. I don't think Sunak gives a toss about women's rights (or trans rights, or the rights of BAME people, or gay people, or anyone else). He's saying whatever he can to get elected, which includes appealing to people's basest instincts.

If he were to say, in essence 'genderism is becoming a bigger issue, and the pendulum has swung too far in favour of the TRAs. We need a rebalancing of women's and trans rights' then I would applaud that.

But that isn't what he said. He's wittering on about 'woke nonsense' like a Mail Online sub-editor.

He's not a friend of gay people, or black people, or women, or trans people, or poor people (especially poor people), or anyone. Few of the Tories are (and yes, I recognise there are comparable problems within other parties)

Agree about “woke nonsense” - terrible phrase to use that suggests he’s desperate to win votes in a policy area he hasn’t understood. The idea of a “dog whistle” is way overused but that’s an obvious sop being thrown out to any reactionary bigots in the Tory party he can scoop up.

How about just getting rid of all nonsense from policy and making laws based on scientific evidence and a balance of rights as a general principle?

Some posters never realise that throwing around insults just confirms that they have no credible arguments to bring to a debate.

A very well executed "oh, I didn't mean you..."

It's easier to back-track in writing than it is face-to-face, isn't it?

Please note that thedancingbear initiated hostilities at 11:08am with the comment "bigots and arseholes".

I'm sure that if we reply in kind, we'll be the ones in the wrong.

I do consider racists, sexists, homophobes (and, yes, transphobes, which isn't the same as being GC) to be bigots and arseholes, yes. Don't you?

Well, Labour and the Lib Dems WOULD throw women's rights under the bus, so that is the lowest bar to improve on.

Bigot and arseholes. Nice. Perhaps some of these people do care about mutilation of children and dignity of women.

This hits the nail on the head. The choice of language 'woke nonsense' tells us this is nothing to do with rebalancing legislative approaches to sex and gender. It's clearly about winning votes from bigots and arseholes.

People need to be careful who they jump into bed with, because they risk their own rights being chucked under the bus.

I think this is actually a better suggestion. Stonewall et all have pinned everything on 'gender'. So if you allow them to have 'gender' in any fashion they want, including GRCs, etc, but just clarify existing laws to make it very damn clear that sex is the legislative criteria, and that single sex exemptions are exactly that and can't be over-ridden by 'gender', then gender becomes what it is - an arbitrary collection of stereotypes about how we present.

Who is saying oh shit what did we do achillestoes?

I'm not on Twitter, so I don't get the 'flavour'.

Can you summarise?

'This includes making sure the “Trojan horse” Equality Act is clear that sex means biological sex and clarifying that gender self-identification has no legal force.'

Okay, that sounds pretty much like what I'd just posted! Fair enough, Rishi.

Have cakegender, catgender, agender, nonbinary, any gender you want in any configuration and change it at will.

Just keep men out of women's spaces.

Yes. And it's perfectly obvious that he's only saying it because Liz has prioritised it, as she recognises its importance.

I want to see this issue as front and centre as it can be, but it's not particularly impressive when it comes across as a desperate bit of reed bending to curry favour.

All you need to do, Rishi, is clarify the difference between sex and gender and make sure that legislation clearly and firmly protects sex, as the EA states. Remove any confusion, use people's sex in health records, stats, prisons, etc, and nobody will give two hoots what anyone wants to claim as a 'gender'. You can swap them weekly, daily, hourly, who cares! Have a GRC, have ten!