Tom Harris, former MP, apologises for voting for Gender Recognition Act 2004

I don't think so: too old, too short, no connections that I could find to the North East, The Labour Party or Trade Unions.

Also no North East MPs signed the "Bellinger EDM" in 1998 calling on the Government to "bring in reforms to guarantee civil recognition of an individual's corrected sex".

https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/14707/elizabeth-bellinger

I am getting very suspicious of Angela Clayton though!

PfC Vice Chair, heavy involvement with trade unions, along with Stephen Whittle responsible for getting the GRA2004 through. Looks pretty hefty and right hair colour and style. Trying to imagine pinning the clothes and hats I remember on the photo and it could well be Angela.

No North East connections that I could find but maybe that is a red herring?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Clayton

However, another flippin North East Labour MP connection has turned up: PfC stand at 1997 Labour Party Conference with Mo Mowlam:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_for_Change

Ironically, I have got a photo of myself with Mo at the same Conference - taken in the Ladies Toilets!

(Three photos attached but I am not sure if photos are allowed now.)

Very interesting, thank you. This is what has happened in most countries - the legislation has been sneaked in.

Both before and after the Labour victory in the 1997 General Election, Blair roamed around trade union, TUC and Northern Labour meetings trailed by his entourage or sometimes accompanied just by Cameron and/or a very large man in a big hat, dressed like a "stately as a galleon" grande dame from a Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple mystery.

Was it Elizabeth Bellinger?

BBC NEWS | England | Lincolnshire | Transsexual marriage not legal

Norman Tebbit was not alone in raising reasoned objections and foreseeing many of the problems that have plagued us. Vulvamort aka HairyLeggdHarpy's Twitter/X threads are a wonderful if horrifying repository of prescient quotes from Hansard:

https://x.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1177699186361458688

Hilary Armstrong's characterisation of the GR Bill as a "trivial subject" shocked me but it is part and parcel of how the Bill was introduced by stealth and then steamrollered through by the Labour Government. I will come back to Hilary but first to Baroness Blatch, who opposed the Bill.

There is a long post here about other objections that were raised in the Lords during the passage of the Gender Recognition Bill, including a quote from Baroness Blatch about the unparliamentary, underhand way that the Bill was introduced in order to avoid alerting the public and press. This suggests to me that the Government was aware, or at the very least concerned, that the public would not support the Bill:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5129872-new-video-akua-reindorf-maya-fortstater-and-helen-joyce-on-the-equality-act?reply=137206179

Baroness Blatch raises the point that the Bill was not listed in the Queen's Speech but was introduced into Parliament the very next day following the Queen's Speech:

Baroness Blatch:
". . . this Government have little time or regard for the history, conventions and traditions of this or the other place. There is a universally accepted convention that a line in the gracious Speech should state, Other measures will be put before you". That line is included to allow the government of the day the flexibility to introduce legislation later in the parliamentary year that had not been foreseen at the outset or in response to an emergency situation. However, the Government introduced the Gender Recognition Bill—not mentioned in the gracious Speech—the very next day. The Bill must have been in print even as the gracious Speech was being made."

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/2003/dec/04/address-in-reply-to-her-majestys-most-1#S5LV0655P0_20031204_HOL_158

This resulted in the Bill not being picked up by the Press.

Pilfering some content another Mumsnet post, this time about the paucity of press coverage of the Gender Recognition Bill:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5015686-5015686-gender-recognition-act-2004?reply=133344042

1 Jan 2003 - 1 Aug 2004

The Guardian: nothing
The Independent: nothing
The Times: nothing
The Telegraph: nothing
Daily Express: nothing
The Mirror: nothing
The Sun: nothing
Evening Standard: nothing
ITV: nothing
Channel 4: nothing
The BBC: one mention in the last paragraph of a review of the film "Boys Don't Cry"

The victims of prejudice - BBC News
Chris Summers
26 Dec 2003

First and last two paragraphs:

"On 26 December 1993 a young transsexual was shot and stabbed to death in the United States in a crime which later became the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Boys Don't Cry. Ten years on, her family are still seeking justice and dozens of transsexuals continue to be murdered every year."

"Gwen Smith said many US states had now introduced legislation to combat discrimination against transsexuals - the UK is set to introduce its own Gender Recognition Bill next year.

But she said: "Changing people's attitudes is a slow process. It's an evolutionary process and it will take time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3219591.stm

How about the Daily Mail - which I would not have touched with a bargepole back then! The earliest mention is 29 Jan 2004.

Ephraim Hardcastle
29 Jan 2004
"The Government has consulted sporting bodies about its Gender Recognition Bill for transsexuals. Among them: the British Disabled Fencing Association, the English Ladies Golf Association and the British Weightlifters Association. It's possible to imagine that men who've changed into women might outperform other members of their chosen gender in disabled fencing and ladies' golf, but weightlifting?"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-229405/Odd-conclusions-Lord-Hutton.html

Widdecombe's grunt was a fair impression of a truffle porker
Quentin Letts
24 February 2004

Scathing commentary on Parliamentary proceedings in terms that would see this post deleted. First and last paragraphs:

"YOU can always spot ' em. It' s something to do with the hands, the feet and the voice. Really, it's impossible to disguise."

"Everyone is so ( properly) concerned about being kind to transsexuals that they presume any related new law, no matter how mad, must be passed."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-259590/Widdecombes-grunt-fair-impression-truffle-porker.html

Something amiss? It is if this lunacy is not halted
Jeff Powell
01 March 2004

Jeff despairs at the future of women's sport. To avoid the Ban Hammer, just first and last paragraphs again.

"TAKE heart Dwain Chambers, all is not yet lost. There may be a way back into the Olympics after all - through a loophole in a woman's dress."

"There is nothing some of these guys won't do to win a gold medal."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-230424/Something-amiss-It-lunacy-halted.html

The sexual identity free-for-all
Melanie Phillips
28 April 2004

I think I might get away with the first paragraph and then the last few but the whole thing is worth a read.

"Almost without notice by the public, an astonishing proposal to falsify sexual identity and make criminals out of people who tell the truth about it is on the way to being approved by Parliament."

"The Bishop of Winchester has been a lonely voice speaking out against it.
Yet no bishops voted on the third reading in the Lords, because they were at an official dinner instead.

Even more startling, the Synod devoted the very next day to debating issues of human sexuality - yet managed to ignore the Gender Recognition Bill, the greatest challenge ever made in this country to sexual identity.

The Government presents this Bill - which has been forced upon us by the European Court of Human Rights - as an issue of rights and privacy.

But no one has the right to expect public servants to promulgate a lie. And it is hard to imagine a more public matter than redefining what it is to be a man or woman.

More profoundly, this Bill continues the systematic attack being mounted upon all moral and social norms, to the extent of challenging what it is to be a human being.

It illustrates how our society is unravelling through the substitution of irrational feelings for demonstrable facts. For the arguments behind this Bill are no more reasonable than saying that, if someone believed sincerely they were a chicken, they should have a birth certificate declaring they had been born a chicken.

The general silence and acquiescence in the face of this are simply astonishing. It's as if the nation is anaesthetised.

The outcome will be a sexual identity free-for-all and a further descent into a moral vacuum."

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/columnists/article-259516/The-sexual-identity-free-all.html

That's it for the Daily Mail until the next article in 2010.

-----

Before I get back to Hilary Armstrong: one of the objections raised during the passage of the Bill was the "privacy" aspect. I had not realised until listening to Michael Foran's podcast yesterday that Goodwin's main case was NOT about marriage but about "privacy" of his transsexual status.

Goodwin was a hulking male so nobody could have failed to notice that he was a man. However, he was not only delusional about his appearance but also paranoid. He imagined that his employer had found out from a previous employer that he was male and that his current employer had then told his fellow employees and that, as a result, they were "gossiping" about him.

THIS is the effin basis of the nightmare that we have not yet escaped - the paranoia of a delusional man; and this is why Press For Change championed Goodwin - not marriage rights but secrecy!!

Keeping Sex Private (Part 2) - Michael Foran
20 Sept 2024
"One of the central issues that has arisen in terms of the relationship between trans rights and women’s rights is whether trans people have a legal entitlement to keep information about their biological sex at birth private.

In this episode, I’m joined by Tim Pitt-Payne KC, one of the UK’s leading privacy and information law barristers to discuss the law in this area. This is the second of three episodes on this topic. This episode applies the general legal principles discussed in Part 1 to the case of Goodwin v United Kingdom. It then explores whether there is a legal right for trans people to keep their biological sex or information around their gender history private and, if so, in what contexts."

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/keeping-sex-private-part-2/id1754957520?i=1000670154256

Alastair Campbell

We all know that Campbell still considers the concerns of women in this matter "trivial" even irritating.

From 2000 - 2003 he was Downing Street's director of communications and spokesman for the Labour Party. So Campbell would have been responsible for the omission of the Gender Recognition Bill from the Queen's Speech in 2003 and the subsequent dearth of press coverage.

(Keeping the next part brief, I know all this stuff and more through involvement with the trade unions and TUC in the North East from the mid 1980's - mid 2000's.)

Hilary Armstrong

Hilary was the MP for North West Durham from 1987 - 2010, having lost out to Tony Blair when seeking selection for the Sedgefield seat in 1983. She was made a life peer in 2010.

She and Tony Blair worked closely together.

Tony Blair and his Transvestite pal

Both before and after the Labour victory in the 1997 General Election, Blair roamed around trade union, TUC and Northern Labour meetings trailed by his entourage or sometimes accompanied just by Cameron and/or a very large man in a big hat, dressed like a "stately as a galleon" grande dame from a Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple mystery.

It bugs me to death that I cannot remember this person's name.

Well before 2003, Blair once turned up unexpected at our Regional Women’s Committee (Union meeting) with matey in tow and introduced him to us. When Blair had done chatting and was making his leave, matey went to take a seat, clearly pre-planned. The Women's Committee Chair was having none of it and sent him packing.

All staged by Blair to get his mate installed in the Women’s Committee. Long before the GRA.

I do not know if Blair's pal was connected with Press for Change. I have searched the PfC archive and dug as deep and as wide as I can on the internet but cannot find hide nor hair of him.

However, until proved otherwise, I am left wondering if the coordinated stealth, steamrollering and "gold plating" of the Gender Recognition Bill owes something to the friendship between Blair, Cameron, Armstrong and that Mystery Transvestite.

Stop genderists from gatekeeping self-identity!

Stop genderists from gatekeeping self-identity!

And if anyone can self id their sex, why not anything else. Best way to ridicule the notion is to call them the Rachel Dolezal Gender Campaigners

I was interested in a report in the Observer today that the Trainline's AI bot has been merrily assuring adults that yes, they can travel on a child's ticket. And if you’ve got an off-peak ticket it’s just fine to start your journey before 9:30. Apparently the bot has now been 'withdrawn'.

I mean, if I identify as an off-peak child, why the hell not? Bigots! Justice for the bot!

Now it's my firm belief that PfC were being disingenuous all along

They most certainly were. There's lots about them on this thread from 2018.

Let's go back to 2007 | Mumsnet

The link should take you straight to an excellent post by @PencilsInSpace which ends:

Throughout all this cosy consultation period (Chritine says they knew they were getting somewhere when the best biscuits came out at a private chat at the Home Office) PFC simply failed to mention that when they said 'trans' this included every cross-dresser and knicker fetishist in the country.

PfC were the main pro-trans campaigning group prior to the GRA. Right from the start, blurring the boundaries between transvestite and transsexual (via the new term 'trans') was always their aim.

From what I can remember and have read since, it was seen as affecting a very small number of people - it was incredibly well evidenced in terms of the numbers who would apply for a GRC.

One of the main reasons for it though was to avoid having to legislate for same-sex marriage, which is why civil partnerships happened at around the same time. There didn't seem to be much of a women's rights angle at all and I think this was the bill where there was no evidence offered by any women's organisation at all.

Firstly I think it is very important we stick with the stated intention of the law. Not let misinformation makes us think we have to buy into it.

And as I am not claiming to have status this figure was also mention in the deplorable fiasco that was the WEC trying to belittle and bully Lady Falkner. Not only by her but by one of the sneering Labour mean girls saying as it is so few why are you bothered.

And also by (sorry name escapes me but known to you all) well know GC legal person who pointed this out that self iding etc., isn't covered by the law and TRAs just have to learn to live with. In yet another infamous Guardian article when they tried to distort what she said and then had to clarify their original article title was wrong!

So as they say - hold the line.

If Stonewall and all their handmaidens want self id to be legal let them start trying to put that through Parliament.

Some of us may have been niave or even unaware when the GRA was slipped into the EA, but now they would not be able to say its just about being kind.

And if anyone can self id their sex, why not anything else. Best way to ridicule the notion is to call them the Rachel Dolezal Gender Campaigners.

Bookmarked to read in the morning but "if only I'd known" annoys me.

It is very bizarre though, it was only ever going to work for a few homosexual relationships since most don't involve anyone transitioning.

I suspect that the Haley Cropper effect may be an element, that's the kind of person they were imagining would be prevented from marrying and it just seemed mean.

If they wanted a middle way some kind of registered partnership would have made a lot more sense.

Yeah, I haven't been through Hansard for the Equality Act, but the debates on the GRA are all about "the 5000 transsexuals in the country". One of the European court cases (I don't think it was Goodwin, but I mix them up sometimes) had said surgery couldn't be a precondition of legal recognition, but MPs and peers debating the issue clearly believed this was a provision for transsexuals who had either had SRS or who were on a pathway to SRS.

I think that's consistent with the wording of the PC of GR in the Equality Act, where the mention of changing physiological attributes of sex seems to assume people who have had/are on a pathway to SRS, but the wording is ambiguous so as not to require SRS, and that ambiguity is the little loophole that self-ID climbed through.

I don't believe MPs at the time were unaware that fetishistic transvestism existed - it's never exactly been esoteric knowledge - but only dinosaurs like Norman Tebbit were rude enough to mention transvestism, and I've no doubt the briefings from Press for Change would have stressed that this had nothing to do with fetishism, it was a special carve out for lovely gentle transsexuals just trying to live a quiet life and it would be strongly gatekept.

Now it's my firm belief that PfC were being disingenuous all along, but that wouldn't be obvious to an MP with limited time and resources being presented with what they were told was a trivial issue, but one that would put them on the right side of history, and if they needed more encouragement, Hilary Armstrong would tell them the PM wanted this, and weren't they ambitious to have a future career?

There will be others here much better informed, who've read Hansard from the time, but my hunch would be that at the time it simply never crossed anybody's mind that more than a few thousand people would claim to be transgender and claim any special status as result. Most people knew about cross-dressing and transvestites, but I think that was regarded as a facet of gay culture and something people very much did behind closed doors in clubs or with friends, not at work or school or anywhere much in public. The idea that people (almost all male) who were clearly doing it as a fetish would claim that this was gender reassignment in the same way as the people who'd been attending gender clinics for years, gone through psychotherapy and were often having medical treatment would have seemed unthinkable. Even more unthinkable that the rest of the world would go along with it. And yet here we are.

(FWIW, I don't think the people from the gender clinics should have been allowed to change their birth certificates or other documentation either. But at least they'd been subject to some official gatekeeping.)

Very interesting article thank you @fromorbit and refreshingly clear.

The PC doesn’t, but the Supreme Court case was about people with GRCs and whether the protected characteristic of sex was biological or “certificated” (although men without GRCs were using them to claim self ID by the back door).

Press for Change were working hard behind the scenes. Their plan (you can see it on old versions of their website) was to influence policymakers.

MPs have to rely on briefings and information from others - they don’t have huge offices and staff, and have to vote on many different issues. There aren’t nearly enough hours in the day for them to do all their own research on every issue discussed in the House.

So if a trusted lobby group and/or the House of Commons library briefing and/or the briefing from the relevant Government Department and/or Select Committee report and/or a colleague they trust all say ‘this is trivial, few people will be impacted’, then I can see why an MP wouldn’t investigate further. No quick or easy way for them to know if this has all come from one influential lobby group, and is very one sided.

But the PC of GR doesn't just cover those 10000 with a GRC. You can argue it was only meant to, but the vagueness of 'intending to undergo' and 'other attributes ' means the PC covers way more people. It's so vague it allows self ID, there's no requirement for meds, surgery, anything other than intentions, which are not measurable or quantifiable.

the real problem arose when self ID was given the same status as having a GRC.

But never in law.

This is just another example of how Stonewall misinformation has been more powerful than fact.

And that what is nothing more than a social trend has been elevated to the status of a law.

Which leads to asking why so many politicians continue to talk as though the Supreme Court ruling has impacted all those people who are making a life style choice as oppose to the less than 10,000 who meet the criteria of protected characteristic of gender re-assignment.

I think the UK government was presented with a conundrum. The ECHR had said there was no reason to stop people marrying same-sex partners, even though back in the early 2000s hardly any European countries permitted it. The age of consent for gay men had only just been reduced to 16, the same as for heterosexual sex. Gay rights was still a very live issue, in a way that is probably difficult for anyone under 40 to grasp now. I think the GRA gave the government a way out that didn't seem to rock the boat in the way that legislating for same-sex marriage would have done.

Totally agree (esp about Sylvia Herman - always had a soft spot for her). It seems incredible now (& actually seemed a bit odd at the time, though I was not as focused on the issues and was generically “be kind” then) that they did not try to solve the problem by legislating for equal marriage. That would have been far more sensible.

The gay marriage aspect of the GRA is a weird thing, to me. Why not just allow gay marriage, instead? Why was falsifying legal documentation seen as preferable? And what about any gay couples involved? If two men wanted to marry, what would they do? Draw straws as to who should be the woman?

In particular, opposition to the Act was seen as mainly restricted to those who opposed gay marriage.

This is very true. Tebbit's speeches in the Lords debates are amazing to read now, because he predicted many of the issues that would arise in later years. But it would be a mistake to think he was a champion of the LGB - I'm sure he'd admit to being an old man with old fashioned attitudes - and this made him easy to dismiss.

It's interesting, though, that he immediately saw the issues for women's sports, while feminist Labour MPs did not.

I put some of this down to it being a proxy for gay marriage. The Blair government wasn't ready to legislate for gay marriage, so for lots of Labour and Lib Dem MPs (and Tory wets, who weren't whipped) it was a cheap and easy way of signalling that they were on the right side of history.

And the small number of opponents were largely people who would oppose gay marriage when it came up later. If there were any closet terfs on the Labour benches, they were absolutely silent at the time and none have identified themselves since. Tom Harris is the only MP to my knowledge who voted in favour and has since owned up to having doubts.

Interesting that Lady Hermon voted against. I don't know her reasons for doing so, but she's always been basically a good egg.

This is such an interesting thread, thank you.

The thinking of it as "trivial" really struck a chord.

In 2011/2012(?) I overheard a friend and a friendly acquaintance (both woke v lefty men, all in our 20s) discussing whether trans women should be allowed in women's spaces.

I had protested alongside these men against austerity, cuts to public services and state benefits, particularly disability benefit changes. We lived in a poor area with high unemployment.

When I overheard their conversation, I inwardly eyerolled, as it seemed such a trivial, fringe issue. I remembered the conversation as my reaction was the seeds of my later opinion that the Left had deserted ordinary working class people. My internal reaction was along the lines of "Why the fuck are you wasting time talking about such an obscure issue? What kind of intellectual wankery is this, when there are people facing real problems, and you have practically convinced me thousands of people are going to starve to death living in tent cities and workhouses within the next few years?!!"

Oh, how I regret not knowing what I know now and joining the conversation! I never believed one could change sex but thought it was a vanishingly rare incidence of a few gentle effeminate men who were no harm.

Both men discussing this were full on TWAW within a few years. (I was GC by 2015 thanks to this board). I guess whoever was arguing against males in women's spaces found it easier to join the crowd than apply the critical thought they'd displayed earlier...

Anyway. I can see how it might have seemed trivial. Then again, where objections were actually spelled out - surely then you would actually take the time to think?

Thanks for the link @fromorbit and to everyone for the interesting discussion.

I do remember the passage of the Act and think @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
(and Tom Harris) are absolutely right that very few people predicted how the legislation could be used. In particular, opposition to the Act was seen as mainly restricted to those who opposed gay marriage.

I naively assumed that it would help a small number of transgender people. With hindsight, the real problem arose when self ID was given the same status as having a GRC. What I think very few of us are aware of are the links between MPs, the judiciary and pressure groups when it comes to legislation of this sort that was not driven by one particular political party or wider movement among the general public.