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

I totally agree with this Tempest, but I fear that things have moved so far from that now- as we can see in the language of everyone referring to 'trans children' (see Wes Streeting) even when discussing implementing Cass.
Everyone has forgotten so quickly this previous understanding. The concept of children 'being trans', and of gender identity as an immutable characteristic and hard fact, have been so successfully and deeply embedded now. In an incredibly short time, and as if that has always been the understanding.

The way of the world moves so quickly now, I think people struggle to hold threads of understanding across time.

For so many people, it's as if their brains have been wiped clean of everything they understood before, and they can't even see what we understood before to be real- and as still held as true by other people.
They don't even realise that there IS an alternative to this new belief they have accepted so readily.
Hence, only being able to conceive of any challenge to the ban re gender identity (or the approach you outline) as support for conversion.

It's so mad, it does my head in even trying to explain it!

Innit tho!

Bring it on, sez me; let's hold the politicians' feet to the fire while we have their attention ✊

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.

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.

It's all bloody go today isn't it?

Thank you for sharing that.

re
Clearly if someone is going in with a preconceived intent to change someone’s sexuality or their gender identity, then that is abuse

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.

This statement jumps to a conclusion that precludes the possibility that other factors might be behind the feeling of gender incongruence.

They have it upside down in my opinion.

Why don’t they mention that one very real and present conversion practice is that of inducing possibly gay children to mimic heterosexuality through harmful trans body modifications, when being gay would not have caused them harm at all so long as they had felt they could be accepted and happy that way?

There is no mention of children in care, or the otherwise traumatised. Or observance that some children may be copying their friends who like them are looking at trans forums on their smart phones, alongside self-harm and anorexia sites. After they have already been primed about pink and blue brains in the wrong gingerbread body while they were at primary school. Why has there been a very sudden and recent increase x thousands of children saying they are trans?

Is there a written, modern analysis of conversion practices as they happen in the U.K.?

A year or so ago Channel 4 found one example from the 1960s, and even they said, quietly, after having interviewed the poor person affected, and shown how awful this had been, that this did not happen anymore.

But, if awful forms of conversion are indeed being practised, mightn’t they be illegal already?

Thanks for the link and the share token. While I was reading it I noticed another article, that imo is a bit slight/really plays down the batshit

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/what-labour-key-figures-think-gender-trans-issues-fz9z352tp

https://archive.ph/cBAam McFadden's not a bad'un

Fucking idiots. They were never listening.

Now this:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/7543b6e2-6ac7-4e4b-bb71-5f0a8030d32a?shareToken=b1f85781d4d8e767d1a8ec96eb7cc830

And the award for handwaver of the year goes to......

CassieMaddox

Yes.

For a Catholic looking to leave a marriage there are two separate process.

They can apply to have the marriage annulled within the Catholic Church. This is a well established institutional process and it's not that uncommon. Each region will have it's own tribunal that handles this stuff. Lots are granted annulment but also lots aren't.

Legally, the person generally has two choices, at least in countries where divorce is legal - apply for annulment if it's applicable, or divorce.

So you typically get three final possibilities that are ok by the Catholic Church: a) one you get a church annulment, and a legal annulment. Probably the least common, there are actually more grounds for church than legal annulment. b) church annulment, legal divorce. This is probably the most common scenario. People who do this are free to marry in the Catholic Church again. Or c) Church does not grant an annulment, but there is a legal divorce, so while they are legally no longer entangled the person is not able to remarry in the Church. This isn't necessarily considered a lesser outcome from a religious POV, it's recognized that even if the marriage is valid from a religious POV, it may be necessary to protect the other spouse or children from being linked legally, for example, to a drug addict.

And didn't that turn out well for the OU.

The racist and homophobic grandparents we are all slightly embarrassed by comment is extraordinarily reminiscent of the racist uncle attempted smear of Jo Phoenix by her OU colleague.

Pathetic really.

Piss off with your sanctimonious ageist bullshit

Up with this sort of thing!

Piss off with your sanctimonious ageist bullshit

Say what you really feel EdenPalmersTerfAuntie

Piss off with your sanctimonious ageist bullshit

If ‘living as a woman’ is a nonsense phrase and impossible to define, as you keep insisting, how can any male born person be said to be trans? Isn’t being a trans woman just…living as a woman?
On your other points, other posters have patiently explained the significance of these changes to you, particularly as regards the marital exit clause. You’re not listening.

I asked my Labour candidate on the doorstep "What is a Woman". He danced on the head of a pin. The splinter up his arse from sitting on the fence trying to work out how to answer the question left me feeling Labour most certainly cannot be trusted on women's rights and safe spaces. No vote from me.

Exactly. I am also disabled and am seriously considering voting Tory- not because I expect or want them to win, - they won't - but to try to ensure that the new Labour government has a decent sized opposition to contend with.

A landslide victory at this point would be disastrous for women and children.

So far, based on Labour's own manifesto and general rhetoric, the ONLY real difference between them and the Tories is the "Trans issue" as they would have it.
Pathetic!

Please let's not make Whittle an authority on this.

https://whittlings.blogspot.com/2014/04/every-person-has-rights.html

Even the annoying Stephen Whittle thinks it's an important right for a wife to be able to dissolve her marriage however she thinks fit before it changes its essential nature.

What's been announced (leaked?) is very vague, and I suspect that no-one has really worked through the implications. But at best it looks like the imposition of a two year timetable on the dissolution of the marriage, shifting the balance of power away from the non-transitioning spouse.

The 2-year cooling off period doesn't make sense to me either. If they are worried that people might make a mistake in wanting to change their 'legal sex' perhaps amending the GRA to allow people to reverse their GRC at any time should be added instead. The cooling off period is purely there to make it sound like they've built in some sort of safety measure but it doesn't hold up to logical scrutiny or hold much power in the way of stopping someone from changing every other legal document to the new name + gender.

It's pointless tinkering around the edges, which is very much in keeping with Labour's aims and manifesto i.e. we're not the Tories, we're not going to make any changes to Tory spending and welfare targets, we aren't going to make any changes re Brexit, but somehow we'll make things better. We're offering a nice red-coloured velvet glove to go over the iron fist.

The whole premise of GRA2004 was to pretend not to legalise same-sex marriage whilst in fact legalising it for people who are willing to jump through certain hoops, in response to a ECtHR ruling.

We now have same-sex marriage so I'm really not sure what GRA does apart from cause problems for women.

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

You are correct it is sexist, misogynistic nonsense which is why the whole thing should be ripped up.

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?