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)

creating their own third space if the safe way to go and no one can answer why trans people reject this obvious solution

Well, as far as I can see, female trans kids at school (the ones saying they are now boys) accept it quite happily and use the disabled or staff loos rather than the boys' changing rooms.

It seems to be male trans people who want to use female facilities. Why the difference [sceptical] ?

myriad nobody pays the rate card. It will have cost about 3-5k at the absolute most.

It seems to disturb people that FPFW have raised a significant amount of cash from an awful lot of women. I’ve been one of them, putting twenty quid in here and there. I’ve bought an adult human female t shirt. I’ve contributed to crowdfunders. There is no funding from the Christian evangelicals - however much you’d like that to be true. The fpfw money has been given by women like me. In fact, I’m going to bung them another tenner tonight.

The irony of TRA tweets saying that ‘45k should have been spent in refuges’ when if they get their way there will be no women only refuges is startling.

Myriad you don't need to be involved in an organisation personally to call out Bullshit when you see it.
BULLSHIT

I refer you to the terminology in the government consultation:
Gender presentation / Gender expression: A person’s outward expression of their gender.

What does this mean, please? How does one 'present' or 'express' a particular gender? What are the defining factors?

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

Well, you tell me. You've got about the same amount of 'circumstantial evidence' to prove it as you have for US funding for FPFW, after all...

I find it hilarious that the 50k figure is being thrown around still. As was said above that ad would have cost 3-5k maximum. It was funded by (mainly left-wing) individual women.

Not shady far-rights groups or their supporters. Kind, decent ordinary women from many walks of life.

The self-declaration is about legally committing to living as your acquired gender until your death. It would be really easy to tell very quickly if someone wasn't living as their acquired gender and was just trying to take advantage of the possibility of accessing women-only spaces.

Respectfully, who do you think is going to check up on this? Who do you think cares? We have a country where very few women ever get justice having been raped. ISIS fighters have been returning home in droves without facing any consequences having spent the last few years torturing Yazidi women. Disabled people have been dying in extremely bleak conditions because of having to fight for their benefits.

You have too much faith in the government. There would be no checks at all and certainly no consequences for the vast majority of predatory men who want to play the system.

This is about the hundreds of thousands of trans people who find the difficulties in legal recognition of their gender incredibly stressful

Hundreds of thousands?

Gender dysphoria, which is what you have essentially had to have up to now to get a GRC, is an extremely rare condition in the way that it is also extremely rare to get fixated with wanting a limb amputated. I think about 5000 GRC's have been issued up to now. Most people will never meet a transsexual person.

So who are the hundreds of thousands of trans people you're talking about? Could they be cross-dressers, people who fetishise dressing 'as women', 'non-binary' people (who seem to mostly be very confused young people writing online that they just don't quite feel male/female as if anyone feels such a thing) and completely ordinary, heterosexual people like Edward Lord and Meg-John Barker who think that having a sexual kink makes you trans?

The vulnerable trans community is not made up of hundreds of people. Self-id is a negative thing for them because actually they should be accessing medical help as part of their transition.

*hundreds of thousands of

Sex based provision are, and will remain, exempt where this is justifiable and proportionate. There is a description of exceptions in the documents accompanying the consultation. These include, for instance, women's refuges, single sex wards, etc.

This keeps being said but it isn't what is happening on the ground.

Every institution and many individuals have become scared of being threatened or branded a bigot. Sex-segregated spaces have been rapidly disappearing. The women posting in FWR have been documenting them one by one over the last few years whilst trying to communicate that it is happening. The Equality Act suddenly isn't worth the paper it is written on.

People need to understand that self-id equals the last truly female spaces disappearing. It will be possible legally to maintain them but that will not happen in practice. That is why Karen White and the Girl Guides etc etc matter so much in this debate. Never mind what the law says, there is the future right there.

That may be because you have never experienced what it is like to be considered a man when you're a woman. If that happens to you all the time (and, again, if you change gender you change it for life) you will know what it is like. This is one of the main issues trans people experience and one of the main causes of distress and anxiety.

Hi. Me again.

You are free to think some women have penises.

You are not free to consent on behalf of all women to people with penises accessing female spaces. I'm saying no as are lots of other women.

I have a disability. I am having a lot of surgery at present. I have experienced sexual assault at the hands of a doctor and it would cause me acute distress and anxiety to receive medical care from someone with a penis when I've asked to be treated by a woman.

This is all very straightforward.

What is your objective scientive evidence that it is literally possible to be born in the wrong body? How does that explain genderfluid people like Pip Bunce? I have objective evidence of my disability, incidentally, should you require it.

Why should I put aside my distress because if I don't, I'll hurt the feelings of trans people?

Incidentally have you been watching Strictly recently? Do you know Katie Piper's story? She survived an extremely brutal rape. She has written an account of waking up in hospital after the acid attack she then suffered and finding she was being cared for by a male nurse. Her description of her sheer terror in response to that is pretty gut-wrenching to read.

Are you of the opinion too that people like her should accept some women have penises? Do you care about her distress?

That may be because you have never experienced what it is like to be considered a man when you're a woman.

Wait, wait... it’s very unusual for a woman to be mistaken for a man. Even tall women, strong women and butch women are easily seen as women, especially when they speak.

Or do you mean transwomen?

And if so are you saying that people can actually change sex?

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 these were the exact same arguments that were used by white people to defend white-only spaces. They said that black people carried different diseases. They said white schoolgirls would be more at risk from black schoolboys than they are from white. There is a long and well-documented history of white people using the fear of rape by black men as a means of upholding segregation laws and other forms of racial oppression. With the benefit of hindsight its clear that those fears were unfounded, and that the right of all black people to have equality far outweighed the risk of the tiny minority of black men who, it turned out, were rapists. But at the time, those arguments were very real and were believed vigorously by people seeking to uphold unfair laws.

Segregation of black people didn't stop because white people suddenly realised there was no risk. Segregation (which arguably still ongoing in parts of America despite laws to the contrary) was dismantled by powerful civil rights campaigns and by vigorous protest. You'll have seen the photos of white highschool girls screaming abuse at the first black students in their schools following the legal abolition of segregation laws. Don't tell me those girls suddenly realised black people posed no threat and welcomed them with open arms. Black students were unwelcome in 'white' schools for decades after they were legally allowed to access them.

I know it's easy and comforting to say 'this isn't like that' but my biggest fear is that it's exactly like that - I see such obvious and indisputable parallels between this and other civil rights movements. So I want to acknowledge that I have concerns about men abusing self-ID, and I want to know what the safegaurds and legal protections will be. But I also want to be on the right side of history, and I think that requires me to be extremely cautious of any argument which says that 'separate but equal' isn't oppression by any other name, because historically we know that not to be true.

Changing gender doesn't have to be for life though does it? Look at Philip/Pip Bunce. Or the number of trans teenagers who desist in adult life. Even surgery isn't lifelong - prisoner in news recently for having reassignment surgery to become female and then the same in reverse ten years later.

Sex based provision are, and will remain, exempt where this is justifiable and proportionate.

I think it's justifiable and proportionate to want the YHA to offer my polite, shy teenage daughters a single-sex dorm, not one that might contain male strangers of various inner identities.

I assume you'd agree with that, given you think such provisions aren't and shouldn't be affected? Wish you'd tell the YHA this, if so.

Ditto school trips.

Ditto Girlguiding.

Ditto single-sex wards, swimming sessions, psychiatric units, etc, etc, etc.

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.

Exactly @Myriad it relates to socially constructed characteristics nothing intrisic to the person. And it is often assumed from the sex people are registered as at birth i.e. people are expected to follow socially applied stereopypes. An expectation that feminists have been fighting against for decades.

If you remove the social stereotypes and expectations you don't have a definition of gender - you also have no need for the word. You have human beings who have a sex. And each human being should be allowed to express their unique characteristics without prejeudice or discrimmination.

The word 'gender' remains without definition or function as far as I can see.

OP, if you are going to see parallels between this debate and that of inequality between black and white people, do you also see a parallel between someone claiming to be a woman and someone claiming to be black? If, why not?
The correct comparison would be between white people not wanting to mix with black people and women not wanting to mix with men, in certain situations. becoming a trans woman does not make you less of a risk to women than you were as a man. Would you argue for the removal of ALL single sex spaces on the basis that not all men hurt women?

Every institution and many individuals have become scared of being threatened or branded a bigot.

Actually this isn't true - something that I found quite reassuring from my research is that quite a lot on institutions who offer sex-segregated services are already including and supporting trans people and don't think the GRA will change that. Rape Crisis Scotland have really helpful guidance on this. I found that really helpful because if the people on the frontline of helping women in crisis find that they're managing to offer services to transwomen and support the GRA.

In Scotland, the following organisations all support the GRA: Close the Gap, Engender, Equate Scotland, Rape Crisis Scotland, Scottish Women’s Aid, Women 50:50, Shakti Women's Aid, and Zero Tolerance. They are all services which work directly with women, and therefore have really good firsthand knowledge.

Here's an excerpt from an article I just found:

Chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland Sandy Brindley said: “I think the most important thing to say is that [the proposed legal changes] should make no difference to the provision of women-only services – that’s where some confusion has arisen.

“There isn’t any Rape Crisis which would ask to see documentation of gender.”

CEO of Scottish Women’s Aid, Marsha Scott, said the national organisation was not aware of “one incident where there has been any problem for services” around the self-identification policy, but said that a survey of Women’s Aid services was being conducted to gather their views and experiences to inform its consultation response.

Linda Rodgers of Edinburgh Women’s Aid noted that “there are concerns out there that our service could in some way be abused” by allowing people to self-declare their gender, but said this wasn’t something she had heard from the organisation’s staff or board.

“The reality is that any service has the potential to be abused, and we would deal with that, whatever direction it came, from on a case by case basis,” Rogers said. “I don’t think this should be used as a reason to restrict the rights of a particular group.”

I've found this to have calmed my fears hugely.

And the most aggravating issue is former men competing against women in women's events. I'm just sad that people think this is ok.

YES Helmethair1, let's get rid of all Afro hair salons because the only way black people will ever be equal will be if they go to Euro hair salons. Don't let anyone tell you Afro hair is different in any way.

And while we're at it, let's stop screening for sickle cell in Afro-Caribbean populations, too. Forget the data, let's just go with what we wish was true, right?

It is all EXACTLY the same as desegregation.

OP, if you are going to see parallels between this debate and that of inequality between black and white people, do you also see a parallel between someone claiming to be a woman and someone claiming to be black? If, why not?

Gender is not a biological trait passed from parent to child, whereas race is. The two are not comparable!

becoming a trans woman does not make you less of a risk to women than you were as a man. Would you argue for the removal of ALL single sex spaces on the basis that not all men hurt women?

I think what's key is that being trans doesn't make you more of a risk to women either. Sexual predators are sexual predators regardless of whether they are trans or not. They will find a way. If they aren't allowed into women's changing rooms, they'll find a victim another way. Let's not forget that the vast majority of rapists and abusers are known to their victims. You might be able to keep a sexual predator out of a changing room, but you won't stop them abusing someone. It's just a case of where they are able to get access. We have to tackle abusers in other ways (harsher sentencing, better policy training, believing women, cultural shifts etc).

I think what's key is that being trans doesn't make you more of a risk to women either.

I think what's key is that being male DOES make you more of a risk to women.

*YES Helmethair1, let's get rid of all Afro hair salons because the only way black people will ever be equal will be if they go to Euro hair salons. Don't let anyone tell you Afro hair is different in any way.

And while we're at it, let's stop screening for sickle cell in Afro-Caribbean populations, too. Forget the data, let's just go with what we wish was true, right?*

When did I say we had to get rid of Afro hair salons?! I have no issues with businesses that cater specifically to black people. Though as far as I'm aware, white people aren't specifically prohibited by law from going to black hair salons either...

In fact, when did I suggest any of the things in your post? I genuinely can't fathom where you think you're drawing these parallels from?

I'm so confused by whatever point you're trying to make I don't even know how to respond.

I think what's key is that being male DOES make you more of a risk to women.

This has nothing to do with biology. Men aren't more commonly rapists because of some biological urge that women don't have. Men are more commonly rapists because of our cultural history that has encouraged men to believe themselves entitled to sex, and a legal system which makes it incredibly hard to prosecute rape.

Trans women aren't biologically predisposed to be rapists. Men aren't biologically predisposed to be rapists either. The fact that many more men than women are rapists is NOT related to biology (despite that being an excuse many rapists use to justify their behaviour). Therefore biology shouldn't be the determining factor here.

Interesting user name, HelmetHair1.

Its nice that you don't think mixed sex spaces are a problem, but they are not open to use by many BAME women.
I'll thank you not to give away my rights if its all the same to you.