To ask about GRA

[HelmetHair1]

Hello all. Long-time lurker but first time poster. I know this isn't strictly an AIBU but I wanted to get people's views on GRA because I'm just filling out the consultation form now.

Like many people, I have some concerns about whether self-ID will enable men to access women's spaces with malicious intentions. I don't have any problem sharing a loo or changing room with a trans woman, but I don't want a man to be able to say 'I self ID as a woman so I should be allowed in' - that would seem obviously stupid and dangerous.

I've just seen that Q6 of the consultation doc asks whether it should be a requirement of self-ID that you make a statutory declaration that you intend to live as your acquired gender for the rest of your life. Knowingly lying when making a statutory declaration is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison.

I didn't really understand the nuances of this so I did some research. Organisations like Stonewall support this being a requirement, so long as it's the only requirement (e.g. no need to provide details of medical treatments or evidence of having lived as your acquired gender for a specified period of time).

I am trying to decide whether this will be enough. I'm inclined to think that this would help solve the problem of men trying to abuse women's spaces - if you have to make a statutory declaration, and falsely doing so is a criminal offence, that will presumably deter people from pretending to be trans in order to be abusive? And it would stop people from claiming to be women or men as and when it suits them - they would have to make a lifelong commitment.

On the other hand, we don't know how seriously any breach of this rule would be taken so it's hard to assess how much of a deterrent it would be. And it wouldn't stop men pretending to be trans over the long term in order to be able to access women's spaces (although I don't know how likely this eventuality actually is?)

What are others' thoughts? Is this a sufficient safeguard? I'm leaning towards thinking that as long as there is a requirement for a statutory declaration I am happy for self-ID to pass, but I still have some niggling uncertainties. Would be interested in hearing others' opinions!

(Sorry this ended up being so long)

You will still have to obtain legal confirmation of your new gender and there is plenty of room to put adequate safeguards in place to protect those at risk
That is a glib comment @Myriad - I keep hearing these 'reassuring' comments about safeguards being in place but what are they, it's impossible to safeguard when perpetrators are protected by law from being questioned, challenged.

@MrBirlingsAwfulWife

I refer you to the terminology in the government consultation:

Acquired gender: The Gender Recognition Act 2004 describes this as the gender in which an applicant is living and seeking legal recognition. It is different from the sex recorded at birth and is instead, the gender the individual identifies with. It could be man or woman. While some people prefer to use ‘experienced’ or ‘confirmed’ gender rather than acquired gender, ‘acquired’ is used in this document due to its specific use in the Gender Recognition Act.

Gender: Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender refers to socially constructed characteristics, and is often assumed from the sex people are registered as at birth.

Gender identity: A person’s internal sense of their own gender. This does not have to be man or woman. It could be, for example, non-binary.

Gender presentation / Gender expression: A person’s outward expression of their gender. This may differ from their gender identity or it may reflect it.

Intersex: An umbrella term for people with sex characteristics (hormones, chromosomes and external/internal reproductive organs) that differ to those typically expected of a male or female. Intersex people may identify as male, female or non-binary.

Non-binary gender: An umbrella term for a person who identifies as in some way outside of the man-woman gender binary. They may regard themselves as neither exclusively a man nor a woman, or as both, or take another approach to gender entirely. Different people may use different words to describe their individual gender identity, such as genderfluid, agender or genderqueer.

Sex: Assigned by medical practitioners at birth based on physical characteristics. Sex can be either male or female.

Transgender / Trans: Umbrella terms used to describe individuals who have a gender identity that is different to the sex recorded at birth. Non-binary people may or may not consider themselves to be trans. This consultation document primarily uses ‘trans’.

There is no different now from the proposed situation, so that should not be a consideration really

Currently, the social norm does not allow a man into the ladies loos/change rooms. If people see a man going in they may challenge them, security can be called etc.

If self ID goes through, any man can walk in. You can’t ask to see a GRC. You can’t challenge them because it’s transphobic. So yes, it does change stuff. Because if the window of the social norm changes men will routinely and commonly access the spaces. And that will embolden predators. There are
far more assaults in unisex change rooms

Knowingly lying when making a statutory declaration is a criminal offence punishable by up to two years in prison. [...] Organisations like Stonewall support this being a requirement, so long as it's the only requirement (e.g. no need to provide details of medical treatments or evidence of having lived as your acquired gender for a specified period of time)

In real terms, this is a completely meaningless, useless non-safeguard, and it seems more like an attempt to shut up or placate fears than to provide women with any genuine protection from individuals who would abuse self-ID.

As other posters have said, the odds are that absolutely nobody would or could be prosecuted for identifying as a woman then re-identifying as a man. Once we move into a legal and cultural situation where self-declared gender identity (entirely subjective and often fluid) supersedes the fixed material reality of sex, then there's very little to say when someone 'is' a woman this week or month or year, and then is not a woman any more. There are already plenty of people claiming to do exactly this, with no way of verifying the degree of their sincerity.

Trying to prosecute someone for making a false declaration would be impossible, unless the individual in question would willingingly state that they were lying.

I also find the emphasis on post-abuse-of-the-system justice rather than actual preventative safeguarding very concerning. So - self-ID is abused, women are harassed or assaulted in previously sex-segregated spaces (particularly prison) but, don't worry: if it turns out the lady rapist in question was not acting in good faith when she self-declared herself female, then there'll be trouble. This person is not just a rapist/abuser, they also made a false statutory declaration!

And, by the way, the reason these debates always end up reducing people to their genitals is because the words 'man' and 'woman' have no use if you remove their signified meanings, ie male-bodied and female-bodied. People have to find a more specific, if indelicate, way to distinguish between the sexes.

WitchyMcWitchface

It is not a glib comment if you consider what the consultation is about. It is about whether or not to make the process to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate less onerous and protracted. There are no proposed changes to the law that changes if and how people can be "questioned" or "challenged". Those protections have been defined in the Equality Act, which is not subject to review at the moment.

And what are all these forms that T people are struggling to fill in. @Myriad. I fill in stuff online all the time , no one queries my sex.
it's disingenuous to pretend that getting a doctors line for a new passport is stressful. You should try getting a passport as a non U.K. born resident, now that's stressful. And that happens every 10 years for passport holders, what's the problem?

Trans people already have the right to access to single sex spaces appropriate to their gender under the Equality Act. Simultaneously, providers already have the right to refuse access to single sex spaces and services by trans individuals providing the refusal is "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim" (an example would be providing a shelter for female rape victims). None of this will change. Everything people are worried about happening has nothing to do with the GRA and everything to do with legislation that has successfully been in place since 2010. You're all protesting almost a decade too late.

@Bowlofbabelfish

If someone asked you for a Gender Recognition Certificate when you walked into a female changing room today, what would you do? If you're a woman by birth you won't have one. If you suggest we ask people for their GRC if we have reasons to believe that they are of the opposite sex then the potential changes to the GRA are nor going to make any difference. This consultation is about making it less painful, stressful and protracted to obtain a GRC if you are trans. It is not, as seems to almost be suggested, a handwritten note in your handbag that says you're a woman and that allows you to walk into a female changing room unchallenged.

And LGB rights involved people coming out, opening up to the world about their sexuality. And obliging the rest of the population to be accepting which theylargely have- which is a great thing.
But T people want the opposite, they want to have secret birth certificates that no one in the land is legally allowed to see, they want to go places and the rest of the population to be prosecuted if they dare to do so much as query their presence. Why can't they just come out in their new gender persona but openly without all this secrecy which is putting others at risk?

@WitchyMcWitchface

Clever you. You should try to change the gender marker in your passport if you have dual nationality. Then we'll talk again about what is easy.

This sort of dismissive replies is hardly helpful. If you want to change the gender marker in your passport you need a doctor's letter. Most GP's will not write this letter, but will refer you to a gender identity clinic instead. If you're under aged you will then have to go to London or Leeds (in England) and wait for a year and a half or so - I don't know what the current waiting times are. If you're an adult you will have an equally limited choice of gender identity clinics and a waiting time of about 3 years at the moment. In order for the consultants of those services to write a letter in support of your passport change application you will have to have a few sessions at least. You will then be asked to produce a legalised Deed Poll stating that you are a man - this is not strictly necessary legally, but the chances are your consultant will demand it anyway. You can then get a passport change. Sound straight forward to you?

Read the message by @peachgreen

Absolutely spot on. We are not talking about changes in the access of trans people to women's only spaces. Only about making the process of changing gender on official document a little kinder for trans people.

If you object to the rights of trans people you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. That ship has sailed long ago.

How do I help being 'born at the wrong time' any more than you can apparently not help being 'born in the wrong body'?

Bunging wrong-sex people into single-sex places makes them mixed sex. I'd like the few places that are single-sex for good reason to be actually single-sex.

And fucking hell, we KNOW we are protesting too late. That'll be because the last set of legal changes were brought in sneakily without adequate care and actual consultation. The end result of all this bollocks is that girls get mixed-sex changing rooms, women and girls get mixed-sex sports, refuges get malicious pile-ons, men talk over and for women even more than before.

It's crap - and you'd like to make it more crap and then jeer that it's too late?

Right.

That’s not what I’ve suggested at all. I’m pointing out that under self ID all spaces become default unisex. We are not currently allowed to ask for any kind of proof thatcthe man in the loo is a GRC holder, so they are meaningless. What is not meaningless is the social norm. Once any man can access any female space, that space is unisex.

Now. Why do we have single spaces at all? Because men are a danger to women. Not all men but we don’t know which ones in advance, so we exclude them all.

All males should be excluded. That includes transwomen.

This is NOT a benign administrative change. It will make the equality act unenforceable. It will make all spaces unisex and all services unisex, and that is a danger to women.

Until you can confidently say that men as a class are not a danger to women, we need single sex provision.

I also firmly believe that, while Fairplay for Women pretend to be campaigners for women's rights, they are, in fact, funded by radical evangelist groups from the US who are using the platform as a vehicle to oppose rights for trans people. I have no direct evidence for that, but there is a horde of circumstantial evidence that arose after the group took out a £ 50,000 full page ad in Metro. But that's by the by

Please could you share some of the circumstantial evidence? Given that your statement that the group 'took out a £50K full page ad in Metro is nonsense, I would be genuinely interested in what else you have found to support the claim of US far-right funding for FPFW (you are not the only person to have suggested this, of course, but no one has yet elaborated for me).

Ok so gender is meaningless really as it is what the individual percieves to be societies norms within a spectrum that overlaps all other genders.

Sex is identified by genitalia at birth. This can be changed by surgery later.

So biological I assume is xx or xy or a different order due to mutation.

So sex (genitalia) segregation gives the female sex (not gender) a safety net of places where there can be no male sex(genitalia) presence. We know that this reduces the risk of sexual assualt through statistcs from around the world.

The proposals are that anyone can self id. It will not be allowed to challenge this and ask for documentation unless police and medical reasons. So sexed areas becone gendered areas with no safeguards at all.

This means that a large group of female gendered people will have access to previously female sexed areas and cannot be questioned in their right or reasons to be there.

Will this make female genered peoplw happier by allowingthem to feel tbey have all the rights of a sexed female? Perhaps.

Will this increase the risk to female sexed people of male sexed violence and sexual assualt? Yes. Because it gives access without question to these areas because to questions is potentially breaking a law.

Therefire the majority of people who will be impacted by this change are female sexed people. This consultation period has not actively or clearly sought to engage with female sexed people, including teenagers on what their thoughts or worries are. This whole process has taken place under a cloak with a 4 month consultation on changing safeguarding rights that took years and lives to be put in place.

So no i don't support it and won't until there is a proper consultation and all parties are given feedom of apeech with no threats or heckling. Where everyone is included and engaged and all positives and potential negatives are put on the table.

Everyone has the right to be safe from abuse and no one has the right to remove this from others without a fll,honeat and open discussion and debate ensuring the enclusion of those who will lose those safeguards.

What rights do trans people not have?

50k?

Hahahah. Take a zero off

Simultaneously, providers already have the right to refuse access to single sex spaces and services by trans individuals providing the refusal is "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim"

But the right to refuse access is being eroded, as is the notion of what consitutes a 'legitimate aim'. Increasingly, anything to do with women's safety or comfort is not considered legitimate enough.

Given the outcry against policies which are seen to be trans-exclusionary (and exclusion = transphobia), many organisations are effectively removing single-sex spaces and provisions. This is happening without much or any consultation with women. Women who disagree are ignored or are themselves excluded.

I know the standard head-pat don't-worry-yourself-about-nothing response about self-ID is that it doesn't affect the Equality Act or really have anything to do with women's rights and spaces at all, but we can all see how the current legislation is being interpreted: women's requirements and security coming very firmly last. Further muddying the waters by introducing self-ID is not going to improve women's rights to sex-segregated spaces. Very clearly the opposite.

@WitchyMcWitchface So much wrong in your last message I'm not sure where to start, but to bullet point it:

• Gender identity and sexual orientation aren't the same thing
• You're lumping all trans and non-binary people in together - some of them want to "pass", some of them are openly and happily trans
• You're also lumping all gay people in together - many do keep their sexuality private or only tell one or two others
• Openly trans people are at a higher risk of violence, hence why many prefer not to disclose that they're trans
• Trans people already have the right to "go places" as you put it, a right protected by the 2010 Equality Act
• Your idea of the motivations of trans people is massively skewed - all trans people want from GRA is for the process of legally changing their gender to be easier and quicker, that's all

@multivac

I was led to believe that a full page ad in Metro costs £ 45,000, so add some editorial and artwork costs to that and you easily get to £ 50,000. Even if it is less, it is unlikely to have been funded entirely by small contributions by individual supporters. The US link (I don't think I mentioned far right) came up in a Facebook post of an evangelical group who made reference to FPFW.
Like I said, most of what I have seen is circumstantial and I do not want to elaborate on that as a result, but FPFW seem to remain silent to the challenges that people have made it seems and give the intensity of the campaign, which clearly goes above and beyond the nature of the consultation, it does ring true to me.

You were led to believe incorrectly. Someone got hold of a rate card for Metro advertising space; but anyone who has worked for five minutes in the media knows that rate cards are entirely fictitious.

So, the rest of your 'evidence' is a tweet from an evangelical group mentioning FPFW (in what context; saying 'when d'you need your next payment?' perhaps?), and other 'stuff you've seen' that you don't want to share?

Are you aware of this country's libel laws?

I'm also deeply amused at the estimate of five grand for 'editorial and artwork costs'. I'd have a much nicer house in that universe!

@multivac

Are you involved at all with FPFW? You seem to take t his rather personally.

@HelmetHair1

Gay rights did not insist I divorce my DH and marry a women or have a gay relationship.

As for bringing race into it, you know that is not the same. Black women using women's spaces do not increase the risk to white women currently using them, which is why that type of segregation stopped.

But men and trans women who both havr male biology DO increase the risk to biological women and therefore this sex segregation must remain on safety grounds.

There is no judgement on having a third space 99.9% of the general public men and women like having their own spaces, if the 0.01% don't like the current solutions, creating their own third space if the safe way to go and no one can answer why trans people reject this obvious solution.

Like I said, most of what I have seen is circumstantial and I do not want to elaborate on

This means "I'll spread around slurs I picked up on the Internet but I shouldn't be made to substantiate them."