MP's will debate changing the Gender Recognition Act

[Witheringtong]

On Monday 21 February, MP's will debate reforming the Gender Recognition Act.
committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/news/160946/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act-to-be-debated-by-mps/

Where do you stand? Since there are only 2 voting options the vote can't reflect all the possible options so you might have to add a comment.
Personally, I dont see how safeguarding or sex based rights can be upheld as long as people can change their legal sex marker. I'm also opposed to convicted sex offenders or violent offenders being able to change their legal details, let alone be places in a women's prison.

AIBU - The GRA should be changed to make it easier for any person to change their legal sex markers, name and birth certificate.

YANBU - The GRA should not be changed.

I voted YANBU but I really think the GRA should be repealed. We should never permit lies to be enshrined in law. This would resolve the issue for detransitioners and close the loophole which makes DBS checks dependent on the honesty of GRC holders.

In the absence of a universally agreed definition of gender identity it should be protected as a belief, non believers should not face punitive action.

Protection for gender reassignment should be maintained as per the EA 2010 but with clarification on what reassignment means. Protection for transitioning individuals with dysphoria needs to be meaningful and not open to anyone who simply says, "I identify as...".

Protections for single sex spaces/services/ participation in sport should be reinforced to protect the rights of women.

@AfraidToRun

Thanks for the statistics. They're helpful.

I meant I'm just generally uncomfortable around men in all spaces because I always feel threatened (trauma history) so I don't know if my own feeling is an appropriate measure to use to steer my opinion. If that makes any sense. I'm not sure it does but it is helpful to see other people's views and I'm taking it all in.

Oh, I see

and good point. There is a lot of "well I don't feel uncomfortable with a male next to me in the loos" bandied about as well - those people are less considerate about whether their own feeling is a good measure!

I would imagine certain spaces are worse and I think it's these we want to protect.

@maddy68

It should certainly be debated. That's the point of democracy.

It certainly should, I wholly agree.

However also worth reminding MPs when contacting about this that this petition (pro self ID) has reached the number needed for a debate.

Any attempt to put up a petition against self ID (I know from Twitter at least one woman who has attempted this more or less purely to check) results in the petition immediately being removed as 'hate speech'.

Women are being expected to join this 'debate' with sellotape over their mouths, and both hands tied behind their backs.

@AfraidToRun

Thanks for the statistics. They're helpful.

I meant I'm just generally uncomfortable around men in all spaces because I always feel threatened (trauma history) so I don't know if my own feeling is an appropriate measure to use to steer my opinion. If that makes any sense. I'm not sure it does but it is helpful to see other people's views and I'm taking it all in.

If only one woman felt threatened by male bodied people in women only spaces due to trauma history would that make it ok? Does she not matter? Don't you matter? And sadly you are far from the only one who feels that way because of past experiences with men, do we not matter either? There is no good argument (except money and women managed it when they had to campaign for women's loo's etc) against third spaces, a gender neutral option for anyone who 'doesn't mind' who they share with or feels unsafe in the facilities for their biological sex. That way no one has to feel or be unsafe, so it's worth considering exactly why the trans lobby don't want that, they want access to women's spaces and nothing less.

@Beowulfa

Ask yourself who benefits from self ID? It's not women and children, is it?

it’s trans people who benefit

Single sex spaces and services exist and are legal for a reason. Why aren't third spaces an acceptable solution?

it’s trans people who benefit

I think that's the point, women and children don't, males do.

it’s trans people who benefit

Transgender people might but transexuals absolutely do not, in fact they will be harmed by self ID and many do not support it.

Repealed. Dreadful law that should never have been allowed to happen. Just shows how low women are In the pecking order that it ever went through.

Are we all writing to our MP about this? You can write you own letter or there's a proforma here: www.womensrights.network/gra-debate

it’s trans people who benefit

It's males who benefit, at the expense of women and children.

it’s trans people who benefit

Only the male ones. The right to access all female areas is a male benefit, not a trans benefit.

Does that benefit justify the cost to female people?

Why are the male people in this situation more valuable and important than the female ones? Do you see how this has just become sex discrimination and quite frankly male supremacism that it is even being considered debatable that some females to lose all access to any resources, facilities and services in order that males can have total freedom of choice from all the resources, facilities and services?

What do we do with the females now unable to access women's resources, services and facilities? How can those women's facilities etc be called 'inclusive' when the job of a women's facility/service is to be accessible to all women and all protected characteristics? (There's nine. Not one. No matter what Stonewall says.)

Can those male people's needs be met in other ways than stripping all female resources away from female people with the heavy cost to female equality, access, inclusion, dignity, safety and autonomy, and the basic human right to not be used as a support animal regardless of consent?

Let's look at some real live current cases:

the MNetter for example who is currently trying to deal with having no access to her local rape crisis service, LA funded, because while transwomen have no less than three different groups to choose from for help with their rape (mens, LGBT+ and women's which is a mixed sex group) females get one option: it's mixed sex. The service absolutely refuses to provide a female only group, even in another building. This is inexcusable dog in the manger selfishness and intolerance. This political position would see female rape victims without support than permit them service where they can be in a female only group. Saying 'no' to male people and 'female people have rights and needs and lived experience too' is 'hate'.

What about the MNetter who was homeless in a tent with injuries for months because her trauma prevented her accessing a women's shelter because they were all mixed sex, and her trying to explain that her needs meant she could not enter such a space involved her being lectured on how the male people came first, their trauma and needs mattered, and if she did not service their need she got nothing.

Are we in bloody Gilead or what?

It is not women who have destroyed all the good will here by providing endless experience of the realities of this political agenda.

What about the male manager of a womens refuge service with massive skin in the game who has taken a women's post and insists that any females entering the service must 'reframe their trauma' and have their beliefs adjusted to male centric service before being permitted help? And who has female people unable to go into refuges and staying in dangerous, lifethreatening situations (common for females but very rare for TW based on evidence given to the Scots govt) because they cannot face a mixed sex environment and their trauma and their needs mean nothing compared to the nurtured and prioritised needs of a male person?

As one leader in the field said on Women's Hour not long ago mentioning two women on her caseload who refused to come to the centre because males were there; this is inevitably going to end in female lives lost.

We have females who have been raped in prisons and mental health wards in the name of male freedom of choice and valuing their identity.

But 'trans people benefit' ?

Not at this bloody cost. No.

I think the GRA should be scrapped now same sex marriage is lawful.

However, I doubt it will be. A legal fiction will be allowed to continue.

I agreed with what Liz Truss said, digitise the process, make it cheaper and more transparent.

BUT the gates need to remain.

More importantly I want the single sex exemptions sured up, we need better legal guidance for organisations so that single sex services and spaces are non debatable.

As long as males get their chosen identity validated who gives a fuck about the sex based reality of women and girls eh?

Every single female disadvantaged or harmed by males who self ID into every single sex space, service, sport, prison is nothing but collateral damage.

To remove female legal protections, and even our right to name ourselves as a separate and distinct sex class so we can advocate solely for female needs is pure misogyny.

Male supremacy and entitlement at it's finest.
If they want it they take it.
If they can't have it we aren't allowed it.
If we put up boundaries they destroy them.

We are 50% of the fucking planet. Being swept aside and ignored to accommodate male feelings.

Same-sex marriage is not the only reason the GRA was created. It was also a result of the ECHR deciding that it was unreasonable for a state to be willing to pay for medical procedures which gave a person body features that appeared similar to the sexual characteristics of the other sex, but then 'out' them by retaining the correct sex markers on their documentation.

The GRA is entirely incompatible with single sex exemptions.

I’d need this poll to include a ‘repeal’ option to be able to vote for it. The GRA is a sexist, badly conceived, nonsensical and outdated piece of law.
Live how you want to live, be happy, that’s great. But we all have a sex, and nobody can ever change their sex. Thinking otherwise is really not helping anyone.

Clear as always *artichokeleaves” . We cannot tolerate this invasion of boundaries any longer. Please can everybody who agrees 3nsure that our MPs know where we stand. They usually say no ne is bothered by this and no one ever raises their concerns. Sometimes when we have written, their admin staff throw our comments way so they never get seen. Please stand up and be counted.

MPs need to know what a massive vote loser anything short of GRA repeal is for them. Neither of the ‘promote self ID’ or ‘do nothing’ positions will actually work for us. Women’s safety, dignity and privacy does matter. I’ll adapt some of the excellent posts on this thread for content.

I'm absolutely for having sex and gender recognised separately.

I do think there needs to a third option for those who medically aren't a clear sex.

But you cannot change sex. On the basis it's a biological assignment and the hormones etc as well as physical characteristics are part of that.

It's a very complex area of discussion and topic of debate.

But I mostly have concerns that all the teaching of this is schools from a young age is encouraging more gender stereotypes rather than making everyone feel comfortable to be who they are.

@Whatsnewpussyhat

I've said this before but either a person can change their gender or they can't. If our society says it's possible to change gender from that assigned at birth then that should be the end of the matter - people should be free to choose their gender and access resources that they would otherwise be barred from, whether it's changing rooms, prisons or elite sport

Can you explain what a 'gender' is?
Nothing is 'assigned at birth'. Sex is observed. Male or female. Simple.

If a few people want to define themselves by outdated, social sex role stereotypes, that's fine. It doesn't change their sex though. And following the stereotypes of the opposite sex isn't breaking stereotypes it is enforcing them further by redefining women to mean a performance of femininity.

People are free to dress how they want and call themselves by whatever name they choose but no, males should not have access to anything female only just because they make an impossible claim of womanhood.

Women should not have their sex class and all safeguarding removed just because a few males demand 'inclusion'.

Explained how I feel but better than I did

Women should not have their sex class and all safeguarding removed just because a few males demand 'inclusion'.

This.

Nor should women's spaces, resources and facilities become inaccessible and excluding of women so that TW can have their preferred choice of space.

Women don't want all the spaces. They want some facilities and resources left accessible to meet women's needs. The TQ+ lobby will not tolerate it. They are absolutely intolerant, exclusionary and oblivious to intersectionality or kindness or anything else but total male ownership and control of all women's spaces. Women will get what crumbs they're given and shut up or else.

And women are the ones accused of being 'hateful'.

It's becoming more and more obvious that the Gender Recognition Act should not be changed and is fit for purpose as it is.

who medically aren't a clear sex

No one isn't medically a clear sex. At least this has nothing to do with gender identity. As far as I know DSD people, in the post part, don't want to be caught up or used in these battles.

Most women would advocate for third spaces for people who don't want to use the services for their sex. This isn't enough for the TRAs though. Nothing apart from complete capitulation is enough.

Ah the balanced MN trans debate where FTM don't exist and any utterance from a TRA is taken as gospel that all MTF think exactly the same and that all women who don't ascribe to their GC views are nothing more than handmaidens with no freedom of thought and no agency of their own