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.

But I don’t understand why we can’t just have blokes who like wearing make up and dresses and all that so I’m very much a dinosaur.

Welcome to the fellowship of dinosaurs 🦕

The only things assigned at birth are stereotypes and prejudices. And as gender is nothing but stereotypes and prejudices, you could well say that gender is assigned at birth. But sex is not. Sex is established at conception and observed at birth (or before). Sex is entirely factual and inflexible. Gender OTOH is not.

@Ionlydomassiveones

“It’s hard AF being trans, why make it harder ?”

It’s hard AF being a woman when men can just say they’re a woman and take away hard won protections, dignities and safety.

Exactly this. If anyone wishes to call me a TERF for suggesting that sex-based womens rights should not be eroded,bring it on.

Yes! It is PEAK MALE PRIVILEGE to "identify" as a woman when you are not a woman. It's also IMO an expression of sexism.

When a male leans toward stereotypical "female" associated dressing, style, make up habits they then have to self identify as a woman.

I don't understand why they can't remain male and wear these clothes, style etc. Eddie Izzard opting in and out of "girly" expressions is the ultimate male privilege and completly sexist at the same time.

These ideas around what it means to be female went out with the arc. So, why is it OK for MEN to perpetuate them. I don't understand and apologies if this doesn't make sense, I find it all so upsetting and frightening.

I feel like this perception of "feeling female" involves women not being allowed to be in positions of power, authority and depicts us as fluffy, cute, vapid and non threatening. Stepford women..

EnOeuf thank you and if you’re ‘a dinosaur’ for thinking that way, then I am too. But you know what, none of us are ‘dinosaurs’ in the sense of having uselessly outdated and rare ideas though.

All the kids in my family, for example, know perfectly well that you can’t actually change from one sex to the other unless you use magic, which doesn’t really exist. They know that there’s nothing wrong with wearing what you comfortable or asking for your preferred haircut or whatever. They know that people who make s big fuss about things like toys or clothes or hairstyles being ‘just for girls’ or ‘just for boys’ are silly people.

The female kids also feel very strongly about not having boys and men around when girls are toileting and changing. They hate getting changed in the primary classroom for PE with the boys around and hate boys or men being anywhere nearby when they use the toilet.

This is a normal healthy stage of development as far as I’m concerned. It will help them to keep them safe in the future as they get more independence from their parents. Well, it will provided the rest of society doesn’t fuck it up for them by taking away single sex toilets and changing rooms and then lying to them that there’s no problem with doing that.

It is PEAK MALE PRIVILEGE to "identify" as a woman when you are not a woman. It's also IMO an expression of sexism.

This and everything else you said, VioletLemon. I completely agree about why it’s so insulting but can’t express it as clearly as you have. Thank you.

Also, it’s an even peakier peak male privilege to eroticise that identification as a woman because of the shame of ‘being a woman’ rather than being a man. And the thrill of ‘transgression’. Which is part of it for some men.

And is why I’m completely uninterested in how anyone ‘identifies their gender’, I’ll always see biological sex. Meaning that I don’t want any men in women’s and girls’ spaces. I don’t want us to be the unwitting props to male sexualised ideas while we’re undressed, getting changed or using the women’s toilets, FFS.

I have no idea why it is acceptable to anyone to expect women to have to deal with all that. When men don’t have any of the same issues to deal with in their toilets or their changing rooms. It’s textbook sexism.

Apparently women’s widely-held wishes and privacy and dignity and personal safety are completely dispensable with because we are just women. Sexist. And whereas men must get whatever they want, even when what they want is horrible for other people. Sexist again. Even when it puts women at greater risk of sexual assault (as mixed sex toilets have been proven to do). All of that is sexist AF.

I wish there was a third option to vote for on this AIBU, to repeal the GRA. I think the only way to sort this out is to repeal the GRA and then all people can rely equally on the Equality Act that we already have.

The GRA should not be amended to make it easier for people to change their legal gender.

It should be amended to define the words and concepts that it actually uses, and to stop using the words "male" and "female" as though they were gender identities.

How did it even get passed? Surely that’s a reason to repeal it. How can you have legislation about a concept that isn’t actually defined.

@Slothtoes

How did it even get passed? Surely that’s a reason to repeal it. How can you have legislation about a concept that isn’t actually defined.

I assume parliament was distracted by Iraq and fox hunting and forgot how babies are made.

@Slothtoes

How did it even get passed? Surely that’s a reason to repeal it. How can you have legislation about a concept that isn’t actually defined.

It is an example of incredibly bad law making.

Rather being demonstrated by two court cases coming back with conflicting answers because the terms were never defined. (Largely incase male people were upset by the definition.)

@Slothtoes

How did it even get passed? Surely that’s a reason to repeal it. How can you have legislation about a concept that isn’t actually defined.

During the debates (I'll see if I can find the relevant Hansard bits) some MPs commented about it being bad law and what would happen if a man wanted to compete in women's sports etc. This was dismissed as being ridiculous.

IIRC one reason the GRA was passed to allow same sex couples to marry before this was legalised, as they became, in the eyes of the law, a heterosexual couple - but I might be over simplifying.

Also it was only ever expected to be something that affected a very small number of people (less than 5000) rather than the hundreds of thousands that now identify as trans of some flavour or another (thanks to Stonewall's definition)

IIRC one reason the GRA was passed to allow same sex couples to marry before this was legalised, as they became, in the eyes of the law, a heterosexual couple - but I might be over simplifying.

It was.

Trans people got the right to marry someone of the same sex over a decade before gay people did, but this never seems to get mentioned when they are talking about how they are the most discriminated against people ev-ah.

This was dismissed as being ridiculous.

Quite.

It would be equally ridiculous to believe that once women's rights are eradicated and uncooperative females just no longer allowed inclusion or access that in some way presents inconvenience to males, that this agenda will be done. We are still on the thin end of the wedge.

We also need a government capable of realising that the age of fair play and standards is long gone (have you met our PM?) and law now has to be made in the full expectation of some manipulative wanker seeing how far they can push and break it and exploit it without the faintest trace of conscience.

This is in a nutshell why female people need sex based rights. Male people will not be reciprocal in care and respect, or in allowing them equality or permitting access without it being embedded in law and there being consequences involved for breaching them. Rather like car theft, burglary and speeding. The political lobby who brought us to this position have demonstrated repeatedly and vigorously that they don't do good will, kindness or equality.

api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/lords/2003/dec/18/gender-recognition-bill-hl

Lord Tebbit:
Sex cannot be changed. It is no good the Minister shaking his head. Sex is decided by the chromosomes of a human being. If we have XX chromosomes, we are women; if we have XY chromosomes, we are men. I might perhaps accept the Bill if an additional requirement for registering changes of gender were that it had been discovered that those concerned had inappropriate chromosomes for the sex in which they had been registered. That is the only way in which the Bill could avoid telling a lie. So far as I know, there is no law nor any known medical procedure that can change the sex of a human being. The Bill purports to do so. It is therefore an objectionable farce.

and

The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, properly referred to some of the problems in sport. When a six foot eight inch, 22 stone lady turns up to join the hockey club and denies that she has changed gender, who can attest to the contrary? Her birth certificate will have been altered and it will be a criminal offence for anyone to reveal that fact. Just how do we proceed in that matter? It is no good saying that we can leave it to people in the sporting associations. We cannot. That is impossible.

Wow, Nancy, I hadn't seen that sport comment from Lord Carlile before

And here we are ...

Personally the thing I disagree most about is the fact that it changes a historical record of fact, which I don't think should ever be ok. If necessary, issue an addendum, or a correction, or whatever, but a historical record should stay, just as the original cert stays on record when children are adopted, and a new adoptive cert is issued.

'If a woman who has lived her life as a woman, has been registered at birth as a woman and has borne children decides that she wishes to change gender to become fully a man, and the birth certificate is rewritten to reflect that, who is the legal mother of those children?'

Asked by Ann Widdecombe (I am NOT a fan - but another good point raised)

From api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/2004/feb/23/gender-recognition-bill - thanks to Mr David Lammy as previously mentioned on this thread I think.

@TurquoiseBaubles

Personally the thing I disagree most about is the fact that it changes a historical record of fact, which I don't think should ever be ok. If necessary, issue an addendum, or a correction, or whatever, but a historical record should stay, just as the original cert stays on record when children are adopted, and a new adoptive cert is issued.

Yes, this is both insane and also a good example of what is happening here.

Not yet read it and not sure if it's complete but this seems to be the Hansard record from today (the one quoted above is from 2003, for clarity!)

hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-02-21/debates/56E94FB0-8DC6-45A0-8EA7-F20208B3E175/GenderRecognitionAct

Only part way through and I see the common contradiction:

Lloyd Russell-Moyle "Instead, we should talk about the practical things that the GRA and GRC do. It does two practical things, and nothing else. It does not give someone rights to anything other than the following two changes: a birth certificate and pension rights. We should limit the debate here to that."
(...)

Elliot Colburn: "I think the point of a gender recognition certificate is the difficulty that trans people have in getting their legal gender recognised by very many bodies."

"The second ask was for the removal of the spousal veto, which requires a married transperson to obtain consent from their spouse before getting their legal gender recognised. "

FFS this is disingenuous and everyone knows it

"there was a call to remove the need for transpeople to provide evidence that they have lived in their so-called “acquired gender” for two years prior to obtaining a GRC. That was condemned very strongly by both sides because it was felt that it reinforces gender stereotypes, and because there is no agreement on how to define or prove that someone has lived as a man or a woman for two years before obtaining legal recognition of their gender. "

so close to getting it....

We should limit the debate here to that.

And not to the consequences of reissuing birth certificates that falsify the record?

And not to the consequences of imposing compliance with this falsification upon others?

FFS this is disingenuous and everyone knows it

The whole approach is disingenuous.

colleagues should not be having these big, grand debates about trans issues and feminism.

IE Shut up about those pesky women. They have nothing to do with this.