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)

So one minute HH1 is saying "sex isn't something you can change" and then the next minute they are saying that they can't define woman.
Somebody is very confused.

" your gender is man "

What does that mean? The consultation gives the following definition:

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.

Socially constructed characteristics - not 'man' and 'woman'!

You talk about gender with such confidence but it remains meaningless.

We actually have legislation that confers a legal status they cannot define......

Do you really believe that? Do you really think that your identity would instantly change and you would right away feel like a man and know yourself to be a man? I cannot even begin to fathom feeling that way.

Yes, I do really believe that. Man and woman are biological states, nothing to do with identity.

Maybe you're actually gender fluid and that's why you can.

Yeah maybe. Or just not into stereotyping men and women.

just not into stereotyping men and women

Exactly jellyfrizz

Gender only exists because of stereotyping.

Just read through the thread. I give helmethair the comical ali award for propganda and half truths. Plopped in there just before the consultation closes.

Self id is not a benign change. If men can easily become women we lose the protection that single sex spaces offer (and I know no single sex space is 100% safe but why make them unisex and less safe?)

If we can't define ourselves separately from males we can't say when we are losing out to males (pay gap) or where our behavior differs from males (crime rates).

A system for getting a grc for the dsyphoric already exists. Medical gatekeeping needs to stay.

Please also drop the parallels to black civil rights. Black people only wanted to be seen as black people but not treated in an inferior way. Here you are asking us to see men as women. That is different.

Op i see you didn't address my post about having a disability and having been the victim off assault and not wanting to be treated by anyone with a penis regardless if what gender they feel they are.

Having shared something so intimate online it would be decent of you to address it.

Am I supposed to swallow my distress because to do otherwise would upset a trans person?

If scientists could invent a procedure that put you - your sense of self and everything that makes you who you are - into a biologically male body, it wouldn't make you a man. It would make you a woman in a biologically male body. That is the best way I can understand it myself.

And that is why the debate is so frustrating. People are starting from a belief like the one you state above. That there is an innate sense of "you" that is separate from your physical being and that this feeling has a "gender"!

Your belief has no greater validity than a belief in fairies, angels or life after death. Maybe all these things will one day be proven to exist - but until that happens I prefer laws to be based on facts as we currently know them.

Obviously I meant the some people are starting from a belief that the one you stated

I have to go to work now, so I won't be able to respond any more tonight. Hope everyone has a good evening / weekend.

You too! Don't worry if you didn't manage to get past Question 6 before work OP, the consultation deadline has been extended until Monday at noon.

Wasn’t it soooooo lucky that Myraid came along at the right time to answer HH1’s questions
Gosh, that just such an amazing coincidence
Great news that the deadline has been extended

Your parallels with black people don't work. A black woman is a woman. She is no different to a white woman. At all. It was wholly wrong for society to ever say otherwise. If you look at the fact that people were scared of black men, say, and argued that they might rape white women, well first of all there is no proof that black men are inherently more likely to be rapists and it is the act of excluding and oppressing black people which has led to many living in extremely deprived communities with higher crime rates. Desegregation should in theory always lead to lower crime rates because people are finally (hopefully) being treated decently and like equals instead of animals. Shame and poverty and fear and generations of trauma cause crime.

Men and women are objectively different. Not only are they different but men as a class are far more violent. They commit a lot more crimes. It is absolute bullshit to say they do so because of having a particular gender identity. Where is the science supporting that? Where is the science supporting the fact that gender identity is even a tangible, objective thing?

Now that is no way the same as saying men are biologically driven to rape but it is a crime which is inextricably linked with physical sex. It always will be. Trans men, for example, are not going around committing sexual assaults because they have a supposed male identity.

It is terrible to refuse to allow black people into the same schools, hospitals and public buildings as white people. Saying to a man, no you can't enter a women's refuge, a female hospital ward or a female prison is not anywhere approaching discrimination. Men's facilities which are quite appropriate for their needs already exist. I would be so insulted if I was black and you told me the two were equivalent.

I wrote that for the lurkers btw. I know you aren't listening really.

Sorry that comical ali award (showing my age) is a joint one. Myriad - take a bow.

Who was it that pushed the GRA through in the first place.

To answer my own question: apparently it was the ECHR.

You can't legally change your sex, because sex isn't something you can change.

I don't think we currently have a really good definition of what woman means.

Both from the OP.

Glad that's clear, then. Sex is unchangeable, adhering to a fixed set of legal/scientific definitions.

But also we can't define what a woman is.

Please support the GRA so it becomes simpler for people to self-define as something which has no definition.

Also, women? (I am addressing females, my neutured male cat, a small blue cushion and the plane going by outside: words are such random, fluid, meaningless soundy things). Please understand that belonging to a class which has no meaningful definition will in no way affect your rights, spaces and protections. You may want to discuss this further, but unfortunately the veracity of our claims are so self-evident that we cannot allow any discussion of it whatsoever.

Just to say. A statutory declaration is really just to make it clear that it’s an important statement. If you declare at a point in time that you INTEND to live as a woman for the rest of your life, if you then stop doing so, you would not be prosecuted. Why? Because no one can say you were lying.
At the time you could have INTENDED to do so, but have now changed your mind.
The only circumstance where prosecution woukd be possible is if there is evidence that, at the time you had no such intention eg you wrote to a friend saying that you had no such intention.
The stat Declaration is no safeguard.

Jellyfrizz is completely right. The world would be a far better place if we all could just accept that it's fine for men to be gentle/like dresses and makeup and equally fine that women can be assertive and enjoy football (feel free to add your own stereotypes).

Then you could maintain everyone's right to privacy, dignity and safety in their sex segregated spaces. Women could discuss issues arising out of their biology without being accused of hurting the feelings of people who don't have those issues.

Women and girls wouldn't be excluded from female activities because of the presence of male bodied people. Opportunities created for women wouldn't be taken by men.

Sadly it's easier to take the route of promoting stereotypes than actually making everyone more accepting of difference

nellieellie

Well exactly!

I didn't know anything about the Gra until I came across it on here. I decided to look into it independently and joined some transgender forums and feminist forums to find out more.

I quickly realized that many of the men claiming to be trans have a sexual compulsion for wearing women's clothes. There's always some bad Apple's so I joined other sites. More bad Apple's, and intense amount of hatred for women.

I've read some seriously disturbing threads from some "transwomen" . Enough for me to be certain i don't want to take the risk of being in an enclosed space with them. Before anybody asks do I believe that these men are transwoman, No, I don't. It doesn't matter what I believe, they will be able to self id and gain access.

A quick Google of men in panties shows the fetish for it and the willingness to travel to get into a unisex changing room.

gendercritter "Self-id is a negative thing for them because actually they should be accessing medical help as part of their transition."

I do wonder when the penny will drop for all these people desperate to enable trans people to access the GRA (which they can already access) that once the government has made things a bit easier they will probably be cutting back on services for trans people. After all, if all trans people need to do is legally identify as the opposite sex, then why supply medical services! After all Theresa May has argued it is not a medical issue. How do people think they will get counselling and treatment on the NHS if it is not a medical issue.

HelmetHair1
"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." Yes because they "...have become scared of being threatened or branded a bigot."

Women only hostels are terrified of losing their funding if they do not accept trans women. Do you not see this?

HelmetHair1 "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."

But it is, are you in the UK? I am .... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law

"Rape is a statutory offence in England and Wales. According to the law, rape occurs when one person penetrates another with their penis without the consent of the person being penetrated."

jellyfrizz
"I'm not really sure what you'd lose by self-ID coming into law."

"The ability for women to define themselves by their biology."

If you are so sure it is all fine why not take UpstartCrow's suggestion ...

"Go campaign for unisex spaces you can all share, show us how safe it is and invite us to join you. That would be a genuine grass roots movement, not a supremacy movement."

HelmetHair1 I just think you have no understanding of biology and how it effects people's lives.

"I am very sympathetic to the view that because trans women don't experience the biological reality that women whose gender corresponds with their sex do, they can't actually have the experience of being a woman." Ok, you feel sympathy but you can't make that person into a woman. Because woman isn't a costume you can put on. It's a biological reality. And we have only got to this place where a man who raped teenage girls (PLEASE let that sink in) was and is housed in a female prison, because of denying basic reality.

PS the consultation has been extended so don't forget to join in!

fairplayforwomen.com/email/

Oh goodness Helmet where to start...

I think the definition of the word woman is different to the measure of being a woman.

I have no idea what this means. What is 'being a woman' and what units do we use to measure it? Is there a scale somewhere? Is it in newtons or volts or maybe it's in lipstick? Ooh ooh I know, it's the mermaids Barbie/gi Joe scale isn't it?! Soooo progressive.

Definitions are just rules about what words refer to which we invent and amend as necessary. I don't think we currently have a really good definition of what woman means.

I have a really good definition of what woman means. Adult. Human. Female.
Definitions are commonly understood to aid us in communication. If words have no meaning, we may as well go back to grunting and pointing - but we'll still point out that there are discrete and objectively observable categories - the small gamete people and the large gamete people. So play whatever word games you want, humans are very good at recognising sex and we are also good at pattern recognition to categorise stuff.

But in terms of how we measure what it means to be a woman - I think the only valid measure is the innate sense a person has of their own gender. Their own understanding of what their identity is. If your identity is woman - if that is who you know yourself to be - it's who you are.

Maybe you're using a 'not very good' definition of the word measure here...
In any case, why would humans categorise people using what they can't observe or measure or indeed even define, over what they can objectively and easily observe with their senses? An objective gender identity is just... irrelevant.

If scientists could invent a procedure that put you - your sense of self and everything that makes you who you are - into a biologically male body, it wouldn't make you a man. It would make you a woman in a biologically male body. That is the best way I can understand it myself.

Sigh. No. This is silly. You have no evidence that this is what would result. It is just as likely, in this hypothetical scenario, that you would feel like the body your self resides in. I mean, we absorb our knowledge of ourselves and the world through our bodies, our brains are a part of that body, having a male body means I would experience life through a male body which would fire synapses in my brain as a result.
In any case, discrete biological categories are based on observable biology, not on esoteric innate essences. Categorise yourself as whatever special gender identity you like, but as you so eloquently phrased it earlier "sex isn't something you can change."
So, use different words to recognise your gender identity, but, as you agree, gender is different to sex so use different words to communicate it. Woman and man for sex - adult human female/male. Feminine and masculine and whatever else for gender identity.
Get the language clear and then we can actually try to sort this mess out.

Gosh, I just had this same conversation about language (not on the subject of gender) with my 11 year old. He answered a question with "No....actually yes" and I may have ended the lecture by bleating like a sheep to illustrate how lost we would be without clear language...

An objective gender identity is just... irrelevant

Obviously that should be a subjective

But I mainly wanted to challenge the revisionist history of civil rights movements which was put forward earlier.

Are you American, OP? You don't appear to have a very good understanding of the civil rights movement.