Sex Matters - Respond now to the consultation on digital ID - 5th May deadline

Ok

@BusyAzureTraybake no because it’s entirely biased. I will look at the consultation. There’s a lot of misunderstanding around digital ID.

You would benefit from re-reading all your posts.An apology is meaningless if you can't see what it was you said that caused the problem.

Now you really are putting words in my mouth. I said I was sorry, didn't mean to be patronizing, I just see this differently from you. Whatever, I won't post again..

Knotty,
I thought others might be interested in different points of view. I have also reposted your original link to Sex Matters info on the consultation so that it wouldn't get buried, and readers would be able to access it and respond. I'm not trying to convince anyone not to complete the consultation, but I don't think anyone should just fill it out the way Sex Matters wants them to. People can think for themselves.

Your argument is that because some women cant meet the burden of proof, that those who already do shouldn’t get digital ID. It’s an odd argument tbh because it doesn’t really matter if the ID is digital or not - some people have reliable ID and some dont. So no one will be worse off than they already are.

ok, I take your point, but I was mainly arguing that women shouldn't need id to prove we are women. I still believe that..

I don't use AI, in fact I don't know how to use AI. Everything I wrote was what I genuinely believe, and I definitely am not writing this for the benefit of men. What a bizarre thing to assume, just because someone has a different opinion on how we should be approaching the threats to women's spaces. I really care about this and have a family member caught up in it as well.

I've read your posts for years, followed your work on the NHS audit, so I'm sorry you feel I'm pulling for the " other team" - well, I guess that's just the way it goes online.. You don't know me, I don't know you, whatever.

Sorry for taking up so much of your thread.. I'll leave it there, doubt anyone is reading it anyway.

Does this help?
https://sex-matters.org/posts/publications/putting-sex-on-digital-id-a-briefing/

saying a lot of things that some perhaps wouldn't agree with,

What, like insinuating that I was some sort of racist Nazi? Why the fuck would I want to agree with that?

I'm really sorry, it wasn't meant to be patronizing, I just meant that I realize I've responded a lot to this thread, saying a lot of things that some perhaps wouldn't agree with, do I genuinely was appreciative that some stuck around to respond.

I am also one of those women, and I think we are all trying to get to the same place, even if our ways are different.

this topic is exhausting. We are more than this.

@ @BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth

It's a lot of hard work, and many, many women have put their careers, their friendships, and their safety on the line for a better life than we have now.
Yes, I'm one of them.

Thanks for contributing.
Crikey, could you be more patronising?

Before I could respond to this I’d need to understand what the ID is trying to achieve. Initially it was mandatory for RtW, I gather it is now optional and I don’t entirely understand what the purpose is now? Does the purpose require sex to be proven?

I'm sorry you feel that it's a nightmare. It's certainly not a dream to me, not sure where you got that from! It's a lot of hard work, and many, many women have put their careers, their friendships, and their safety on the line for a better life than we have now. I believe we will get there, but trying to fence off every last available avenue of approach by men and their activist minions will never work.

They will find a way around the female sex marker if they want to. It might work for some women for a while. It will never work for all women. We have to make the government enforce the law.

You don't need to respond, I just think women reading this thread might want to hear a different point of view. Thanks for contributing.

Except these two things are not mutually exclusive. We can have no sex marker (if we cannot be certain it will be accurate) and we don't need to go down the route of self-id, because we have the Equality Act 2010.

We need to use the law, not build more and more "impenetrable" walls around women ( such as female sex marker to access female spaces) just because men won't hear the word "no."

Where does it stop? How far do we fall back to, again and again, just because of men and their unreasonable demands? What happens when men decide that "accurate female sex marker" includes some men?

Where do we fall back to when that happens? (because they will try it)

@BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth
I just don't believe that is how it is going to pan out. Sorry, there is no more I can add. You have your dream, I have my nightmare

If, as you put, "the power and determination of the forces behind this movement" is so all-encompassing, what makes you sure that if a sex marker is put on digital ids, it will be accurate, completely 100% verifiable, and immutable for every single digital id? Do you not think that those driving this, if they are so powerful, will find away to make that marker mean whatever they want it to mean? If this is indeed the way we are going, and there's nothing we can do to stop them, then your "accurate sex marker" will mean nothing eventually anyway.

If this is a war, and we are in danger of losing it (I'm not convinced), then the way to win the war is to fight back (as we are doing) and change society back to the way it was when the social contract between people included an absolute certainty about who was a woman and who was a man. It might seem like that was 100 years ago, but it was barely a decade or so ago.

The way to win the war is not to require women to continue to agree to being put into smaller and smaller boxes " for our safety." We should require men to behave like civilized human beings and obey laws that require them to stay out of female single-sex spaces. We have the law, and it will work for us, and we should use it. That is how we will win the war.

Being Irish and living in the UK, is quite different to being a female Somali refugee with uncertain status, both socially and legally. If she is in need of female domestic abuse services and has six children, I don't think she should be required to prove she is female to access those services.

The Irish have an irrefutable right to live and work in the UK, and Helen Joyce speaks from a place of privilege.

I can see the argument for and against including a sex marker, but I come down on the side of including it.
I see the future as a very dark place for women. I think we are winning the battle but in danger of losing the war. I don't think we should underestimate the power and determination of the forces behind this movement. This isn't just a few men with a fetish.

Knotty, it's still insulting (the possible routes, not you!)

Everyone knows who the women are.

Now, we're supposed to have to prove it, in order to complete our second-class status to men?
No. Just no.

So they’d have to have their DNA registered? Like common criminals?

Bollocks, if sex is not included then there is no effing reason for gender to be included. If sex is included, I would bet that gender will get shoehorned in.

It’s a bit like saying if we don’t demand ethnicity be included, then we run the risk of religion being included.

I return to my original (I think) point:

We as female human beings should not have to be required to prove we are female in order to access female single-sex services and spaces.

We know we are female and so does everyone else. We have spent years on this forum saying to anyone who will listen that everyone knows who the women are! And so they do. As do we. And we don't need doctors to confirm this.

I do not want sex recorded on any digital id, voluntarily or not, if it cannot be accurately verified. For some actual women, it will be impossible to produce paperwork.

If I complete the consultation, I shall be stating exactly that.

If we are worried about men, however they identify, accessing female spaces, the only sane thing to do is require the men to prove their birth sex.

@BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth @SpiritAdder

If digital ID becomes compulsory in the dystopian future we seem to be heading for, then it will be better for women as a sex-class if that class has already been recognised officially and not replaced by gender.
If you prefer not to have sex included, and I understand your reasoning, then we run the risk of gender being included instead and then we can kiss goodbye to women as a sex-class.