Does theDBS Sensitve Application Route for trans applicants undermines the value of a DBS check and pose a safeguarding issue

The sensitive dbs route is not the same as everyone else's. If that was the case a different route wouldn't be needed!

It picked up a former name I had.
I didn't use the name on any documentation and hadn't used it for 30 years.

The DBS process just checks that nothing exists in the name you put down on the form.

You can call yourself whatever you want, it doesn't make any checks it just searches the name, against the address, that you give.

Back in the days of paper forms, my name was misread and I got one in a completely different name. I was a bit surprised they didn't flag up I apparently didn't exist...

I lost faith in the DBS process when my DD got one in her made-up chosen name which she had absolutely no ID relating to. I have no faith at all that if someone chooses not to give their former names that the process would pick up on this.

Some posters think that if they throw different allegations around it will distract women from the core issues:
No sacred castes.
No exceptions to safeguarding practice for anyone, no matter how much they whinge.

It is an offence to carry out a DBS check for a role that does not need it.

Competing in a sporting competition is not one of those roles
therefore utterly irrelevant to a discussion about the DBS process

Sports people don't need a DBS check though so that's irrelevant. It's relevant if they're looking to work with children or vulnerable adults. As for rabbit holes, no. I'd say more like an attempted derail.

If a woman applied for a role that needed a DBS check and the employer, unsure of their sex, was allowed to confirm it with the government, the worst thing to happen would be embarrassment, or maybe the woman would be offended.

If men are allowed to gain access to roles they shouldn't because the system is doing its best to conceal their sex, the worst thing that could happen is abuse.

Just like with questioning women in sport. Its embarrassing to claim a woman is male, but its dangerous to claim a man is female.

@MissingLynks suggested we were "whipping yourself up into a froth about a what-if scenario you've imagined in your head"

Thank you @POWNewcastleEastWallsend for reminding readers about Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Younger readers may have forgotten, or didn't know.

Holly and Jessica might have been mums themselves by now, posting on Mumsnet about their own children.

I wish that this were a what-if scenario.

There has been threads on here, where random athletes have been "accused" of not being female. Maybe mistakenly, maybe by trolls. They are then deleted when the error is confirmed. It does happen.

We've descended so far down that rabbit hole now that we're seeing sportswomen - especially when they don't fit within a particularly narrow and homogenous aesthetic definition of womanhood - being driven out of their profession due to harassment.

Who? Peter Tatchel's frail, tiny transw footballer, whose always getting smashed by rough women? And who exists only in his head?

"apocalyptic trans singularity"

In laymans terms? Please put the dictionary and/or AI down and talk like a normal human being.

I can't understand what the rest of your post is saying. I'd need a translator.

Also you didn't answer my question about which sportswomen are being driven out of sport. But that's because you made that lie up on the spot, didn't you. Just as you won't answer what sacrifices you've made. You just like all TRAs, refuse to answer any questions at all. You don't engage in good faith. Just like most TRAs.

Greater awareness of transition as an option at a younger age combined with fewer social barriers to transition forcing people to remain in the closet. It's one of the key GC talking points, isn't it? The notion of this approaching apocalyptic trans singularity?

As the total number of people accessing treatment increases, even if a tiny proportion of those people are able to do so in a timely fashion, then the number of people who win the genetic lottery that means they are able to pass in adulthood will also increase in proportion to the overall total.

Why on earth was there such a frantic effort to trojan horse a regression of transition options for under 18's despite it being a proven pathway for 16-18 year olds for literally decades even before the Dutch protocol was implemented? Why is there now a completely nonsensical drive to prevent it for under 25's that fails to stand up to any logical argument whatsoever and isn't even in alignment with the ridiculously conservative recommendations of the Cass report?

Fortunate young transitioners who are reliably able to assimilate into society really throw a spanner in the works, don't they?

"we're seeing sportswomen - especially when they don't fit within a particularly narrow and homogenous aesthetic definition of womanhood - being driven out of their profession due to harassment."

Like who? Are you talking about males with a DSD who were incorrectly registered female at birth, were masculinised at puberty and have been allowed to compete unfairly in women's sport despite having either failed cheek-swab sex-tests or refused to take them?

Or do you have someone else in mind?

Wrong. Men are not as good at sex recognition as women are - and you prove this. Even trans mens have the female facial skull, female limbs, female hips, gait etc etc.

we're seeing sportswomen - especially when they don't fit within a particularly narrow and homogenous aesthetic definition of womanhood - being driven out of their profession due to harassment.

Please name just one woman where this has occurred.

It's going to get worse as the number of trans people who demonstrably do convincingly pass under the radar increases

How are the numbers who pass going to increase? What change in biology that enables people to 'pass' is different from biology that has been occurring since day one? What is different with bodies and mother nature of today that didn't exist decades ago? You are deluding yourself and desperate to promote your ideological view that does not have any grounding in reality.

Yes. I agree.

My concern about the dbs contributing to males getting access to women only spaces and opportunities is mainly theoretical.

But it does allows people who believe TWAW to turn a blind eye because they have so much official proof that the holder of the dbs is a woman.

I think you're severely overestimating this, especially in the case of trans men.

It's true that with sufficient training and practice you can learn how to identify many of the 'tells' of a history of transition, and a sizeable portion of trans people who started treatment well into adulthood will never reliably 'pass', but the number of (often hilarious) false positives that crop up constantly on social media (not to mention those absolutely bananas 'transvestigation' groups) tells me that there's a heavy degree of confirmation bias involved.

We've descended so far down that rabbit hole now that we're seeing sportswomen - especially when they don't fit within a particularly narrow and homogenous aesthetic definition of womanhood - being driven out of their profession due to harassment. It's going to get worse as the number of trans people who demonstrably do convincingly pass under the radar increases and the desperation to find and humiliate them in order to salvage the tattered 'we can always tell' ideological standpoint intensifies.

Because you do not need a GRC to make use of it.

There is no requirement to have had surgery or taken drugs to get a GRC.

Regardless of the fiction in the paperwork
the true sex of an individual will be obvious to those around them
within minutes for > 99% of cases

The GRC is supposed to be significant and offer the holder protections not given to non grc holders of the same sex.

So why doesnt the DBS treat the GRC holder more favourably than a person who hasnt been through this significant process? Why can't the DBS state that the person has been through this meaningful process? It already provides other very sensitive information.

I suspect its because with a female birth certificate, a female dbs and all other id in their new name, a grc holder is indistinguishable on paper from a woman. And if the holders 'passes' as the opposite sex, the dbs is a significant factor in a male person having access to female only employment, or treated as female in the workplace.

All other people going through the service will have their orginal birth certificate and can be outed that way.

The dbs will say its the employers responsibility to confirm sex through the birth certificates or grc. The two certificates arent comparable in that its odd for someone to claim that they dont have a bc, but not that they dont have a grc. Thats why i think the system is designed to help men conceal that they have a grc.

The dbs checks only crimal history, and is not a design to confirm sex, therefore shouldnt have sex listed, especially when they allow anyone to request the wrong one to be stated.

The applicants don't have to produce the GRC. So yes it has been designed so that anyone can use this loophole.

I think we need to ask why they didn't stress test this by thinking through 'can a convicted paedophile get a clean DBS' as they obviously could. Maybe the minutes from this decision making process needed to be FOI, to see why they allowed this humongous gaping hole in the system.

@illinivich
It is permitted to ask for birth certificate.
It is permitted to ask for GRC if paperwork does not match reality.
It is permitted to reject those of the wrong sex no matter what the paperwork implies

I was replying to your comment, "The DBS protects the GRC holders privacy by allowing anyone to hide their sex and previous names."

Did you mean that by allowing anyone who claims to be trans to use the "Sensitive Application Route" that you believe that the DBS deliberately designed the system intending to disguise which "trans applicants" actually have a GRC?

What the DBS is actually doing is, to put it another way, preventing the employer from being able to operate Safe Recruitment Practices when the applicant uses the "Sensitive Application Route".

A GRC is not required in order to use the DBS "Sensitive Application Route".

Yes, i know. Its been discussed at length on this thread.

If someone applies for a woman only role with a female birth certificate, and a female dbs, is it be possible to confirm their actual sex?

Can employers check the dbs register? If the applicant has gone through the hassle of going through the sensitivity route, are they likely to admit they have a GRC?