The Times Lead Story - Labour Set To Annihilate Women's Rights

You admitted that you don't care about trans widows.
"And the "annulment" - well I would be more sympathetic about it if people weren't such total arses to me on here."
I was married to a man who used to say he wouldn't be violent if I behaved myself. You sound just like him.

There's no such thing as "living as a woman" anyway, so removing that condition is meaningless.

How often do doctors refuse to give a medical report, or give a report that doesn't support the transition? I imagine it's vanishingly rare, so it seems like this is another non-change.

I hate the whole premise of the current Act, and the ridiculous nonsense around "legal sex", so I would definitely like to see it changed in a significant way. But I'm not convinced the potential changes mentioned here would make it much worse?

Just checked out my independent candidates and one of them sounds great. It is a wasted vote but better than not voting or voting for Labour.

I'm basing it on
A- your not giving a fuck attitude
and
B- you saying on a thread recently that you no longer supported trans widows because I don't think women should be shunned for attending legal marches

If you do give a fuck, maybe show it by listening to women who know more than you instead of blithely assuming you and Kier know best.

It's not about the spouse having plenty of time to act - it's about the fact the responsibility is on them to act to end a contract which will be automatically and unilaterally altered in a fundamental way by the transitioning party automatically unless the spouse takes action.

With something as important as a marriage contract, it's not just or acceptable to say "right, your marriage contract is changing and we assume you agree to this change if we don't hear from you by x date". This is a marriage, not a credit card.

The two parties enter into the marriage contract as two distinct legal entities, and transitioning converts one party into a new legal entity with fundamentally different legal features.

This isn't like when a company changes its name and you can easily go on companies house and check its old name to show this company is still on the hook for the same contract - this is more akin to when a company fundamentally charges its nature (e.g. a limited company listing as a plc or other change of majority ownership), which obviously affects the other party to the contract and may well have affected their decision to enter into it in the first place.

A change that alters the fundamental nature of the other party in a business contract, would typically be an automatic breach of the contract in order to protect the other party (and so consent would be required from the other party to enable the contract to continue) because changing the fundamental legal personality of one party necessarily changes the contract, and one party can't change a contract unilaterally.

PPs have cited religious and administrative reasons why the spousal exit clause might be needed, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that a person has a right to consent to marriage and to refuse to marry if they wish. If the person they married doesn't legally exist anymore, they shouldn't be forced into continuing the contract with a different legal entity chosen by the original spouse.

To deem inaction as implying consent for a marriage contract is to force people into a new marriage without their actual consent. Can you imagine if silence implied consent for entry into marriage in the first place? This is no different.

Having read all your comments, I can see you are mostly just afraid of men.
I’m very sorry for the things that must have happened to you to make you fear men this way. I hope you all come to terms with it.
I personally feel there are some bad people in the world, some are men and some are women.
I don’t live my life in fear of anyone, and in my 41 years have never come to any harm at the hands of anyone male or female. I’m obviously lucky.
I don’t think this board is the place for me though, so I’ll leave you to it.
I hope that the day that trans people are as accepted as other previously marginalised groups that you are big enough to admit you over reacted and won’t sound like the racist and homophobic grandparents we are all slightly embarrassed by.

I would argue that we are already being subjected to mass conversion therapy, of all of us. We are being coerced into accepting the notion of gender identity as fact, even during routine interactions. The diversity monitoring part of the application form for a job I recently applied for asked me for my gender identity but didn't offer "no gender identity" or "no belief in gender identity" as an option. The nearest option was "prefer not to say", which could be interpreted, or in my case misinterpreted, as "I have a gender identity but it's none of your business". The religion question had "no religion" as an option.

This isn't just a fight for women's rights, it's a fight for mental integrity and the right to free thought.

I would argue that we are already being subjected to mass conversion therapy, of all of us. We are being coerced into accepting the notion of gender identity as fact, even during routine interactions. The diversity monitoring part of the application form for a job I recently applied for asked me for my gender identity but didn't offer "no gender identity" or "no belief in gender identity" as an option. The nearest option was "prefer not to say", which could be interpreted, or in my case misinterpreted, as "I have a gender identity but it's none of your business". The religion question had "no religion" as an option.

This isn't just a fight for women's rights, it's a fight for mental integrity and the right to free thought.

Don’t they see that even by speaking of going in to change [their] gender identity, they are assuming that it is a given that everyone has a gender identity [which could be different from their body]? This is in itself a preconception.

Yes. Exactly Scrolling.
To me, this is the core issue that need to be addressed first.
The issue of belief in gender identity hasn't been resolved, and until it is (if it can be), there should be no legislation based on it.
We have simply been told it exists, but I don't think it's ever been tested- (or satisfactorily defined even)- and it is certainly widely contested.
That's what needs to be argued I believe.

I really think some of this will come down to the medical/scientific side. The legal and policy elements can only do so much otherwise.

The fact is that gender ideology is predicated on scientific nonsense.

The old idea of sex dysphoria had at least the element that it really did seem to describe what some people seemed to experience, and I think this is why early on it was impressed upon the public consciousness that this was what transition was about - alleviating what might be a very real experience for some people of feeling acute distress about their sexual organs and also their sexed body in a social context.

It's still entirely up in the air whether transition, even just social transition, really is a very effective way to deal with this for anyone. Totally apart from the legal elements, what it might mean for women, and so on - we don't know if it even works better than the alternatives, long term, for people who suffer sex dysphoria.

I think until medical people start speaking out that there is no such thing as a "trans" person, that this is not any kind of medical condition, but at best an attempt at a treatment for a condition that may have origins in things like sexual trauma, and there is nothing to "convert" someone to or from in these scenarios, there won't be a good basis to build policy.

Of course I know about the reason for it.
I'm saying that with the 2 year "cooling off" period there is plenty of time for annulment/divorce so noone needs to be forced into a same gender marriage.

I've had an excellent response from my local Independent candidate to my query on women's rights & GI. He has also prioritised safeguarding, so I will not have to waste my vote now. Check out your Independents if you have that choice.

Interestingly, he mentioned that he's hearing from many disaffected Labour voters like me.

There’s just been a summary of the newspapers on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and Labour’s mishandling of gender issues was up front and centre.

So much for nobody ever mentioning it on the doorstep!

There’s just been a summary of the newspapers on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and Labour’s mishandling of gender issues was up front and centre.

So much for nobody ever mentioning it on the doorstep!

And stop telling me I "don't give a toss about trans widows". You know fuck all about me and are basing that on the fact I'm a labour voter. It's ridiculous.

I really think some of this will come down to the medical/scientific side. The legal and policy elements can only do so much otherwise.

The fact is that gender ideology is predicated on scientific nonsense.

The old idea of sex dysphoria had at least the element that it really did seem to describe what some people seemed to experience, and I think this is why early on it was impressed upon the public consciousness that this was what transition was about - alleviating what might be a very real experience for some people of feeling acute distress about their sexual organs and also their sexed body in a social context.

It's still entirely up in the air whether transition, even just social transition, really is a very effective way to deal with this for anyone. Totally apart from the legal elements, what it might mean for women, and so on - we don't know if it even works better than the alternatives, long term, for people who suffer sex dysphoria.

I think until medical people start speaking out that there is no such thing as a "trans" person, that this is not any kind of medical condition, but at best an attempt at a treatment for a condition that may have origins in things like sexual trauma, and there is nothing to "convert" someone to or from in these scenarios, there won't be a good basis to build policy.