Changing gender without any medical care/advice/opinion - just saying 'I'm a woman' and it being so

[Oscha]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40692782

I feel so naive right now-I didn't think this would really get to this point: So they actually want to make it possible to turn around and say, 'I am a man/woman' without any kind of doctor's confirmation of gender dysphoria?

What the fuck is this going to do to women's prisons? How many female criminals will end up abused, raped, killed by MEN in what should be safe places for them?! This is nothing to do with trans people-this is just going to be taken advantage of by predatory men.

Yes. I don't understand it-I just don't get it. And I really do feel naive because I thought that this kind of madness was just chat on the internet and I had no idea the government was actually considering making it happen.

What can we do about it? The article says 'The government wants people to share their experiences of the health service, in education and at work.' I hope that doesn't only mean transpeople.

Can we launch a campaign, write to MPs, protest, I don't know what?

The Times has a much more critical article in it than The Guardian. It feels difficult to know how to challenge it when so many people are scared of the backlash, although early comments in The Times are along the lines of Is this April 1st?

I was also alarmed they are saying a consultation will be done with LGBT people, but what about women?

Yes, it's happening. And everyone said to those who have been going on about it that it would never happen. I'm scared too. I'm also fucking furious

Statistically, women who have been raped, sexually assaulted or abused is a far big number than trans women, but they will be made to share their private spaces with male bodied people, because said males are 'vulnerable'. It makes me want to weep.

We need to write to your MP and to respond to the consultation. Everyone: we need to do this!

Can someone post the Times article? I've read too many articles this week.

Can you give a clickable link, please?

I don't know how on my phone I'm afraid (didn't all links use to be automatically clicky or did I imagine that?!), but if you copy and paste the link into your browser or google BBC gender it'll come up.

Great. The BBC has a history of abusing women and children because of men in powerful positions. I would have thought they might be more critical.
I think it is insulting to people with gender dysphoria. They will be lumped in with people who don't care about them either.

Times Article:

Ministers will launch a national survey of Britain’s estimated 1.5m LGBT people to help inform policy.

The education department has also announced £3m will be spent on “anti-homophobic and transphobic programmes”. Schools, including faith schools, will be required to include LGBT issues in relationships and sex education.

Greening, who is in a relationship with a woman, said: “This government is committed to building an inclusive society that works for everyone, no matter what their gender or sexuality.

“We will build on the significant progress we have made over the past 50 years, tackling some of the historic prejudices that still persist in our laws and giving LGBT people a real say on the issues affecting them.”

Ruth Hunt, chief executive of Stonewall, the lobbying organisation, welcomed the plans. “We need a simple process which isn’t medicalised, intrusive or demeaning,” she said.

The move will put the government on a collision course with some religious groups. Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “It is worrying when the leaders of the main political parties are so out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people.

“Allowing men to self-identify as female without any medical diagnosis allows them to invade the privacy of women and girls.

“It’s time for a reality check. Some things can’t be changed. May and Corbyn want to elevate the principle of ‘gender self-declaration’. But it is wrong, it is anti-scientific and it is dangerous.”

A source who is close to Greening acknowledged that the proposed changes could be problematic. “That’s why we are going to have a consultation, so we can examine all the implications,” the source said.

A Scottish government spokeswoman said it hopes to have “new arrangements in place by 2020”.

Oh sorry, that was just half of it, full article here:

Tories promote the right to choose your own sex
Transgender reforms for birth certificates
Adults will be able to change their gender legally without a doctor’s diagnosis under government plans that will transform British society.
Men will be able to identify themselves as women — and women as men — and have their birth certificates altered to record their new gender.
Ministers plan to tear up the existing rules that mean people have to live for two years as their desired gender before they can officially change sex.
A consultation on the Gender Recognition Bill, to be published in the autumn, will also include proposals to scrap the requirement that people get a formal medical diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” before applying to switch gender.
Critics warned that allowing people in effect to “self-identify” as a member of the opposite sex, while maintaining the anatomy of their birth gender, would unleash a firestorm of legal cases over access to women-only hospital wards, prisons, lavatories, changing rooms and competitive sports.
Justine Greening, the minister for women and equalities, called the move to give more rights to transgender people the third great “step forward” after equality for women and the legalisation of same-sex marriage in 2013.
The announcement is timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Greening said ministers want to “streamline and demedicalise” gender change to make it easier for people to switch their identity legally.
In future people are expected to be required only to make a statutory declaration that they intend to live in the acquired gender until death — in line with arrangements already adopted in Ireland.
The consultation will address whether those whose gender is “non-binary” should also be able to define themselves as “X” on their birth certificates.
A separate consultation in Scotland will go further than England and Wales by recommending that “non-binary” people should be able to define themselves as “X” on passports. It will also propose a cut in the age at which people can change their gender from 18 to 16.
The plans will be controversial. Prominent feminists including Germaine Greer and Dame Jenni Murray, the presenter of Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, have questioned whether men can become women even if they undergo a sex-change operation.
Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend, a parents’ group, said: “This has huge implications for women. There will be legal cases. The most worrying thing is if any man can identify as a woman with no tests and gain access to spaces where women might be getting undressed or feel vulnerable — like women’s hospital wards, refuges and rape crisis centres — women will just stop going to these facilities.”
Self-identifying was recommended by a parliamentary committee last year chaired by the former cabinet minister Maria Miller and it has the backing of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn.
Greening also announced the government will make it easier for gay men to give blood. At the moment men who have had sexual contact with other men are barred from donating for 12 months. That will be reduced to three months.

Ministers will launch a national survey of Britain’s estimated 1.5m LGBT people to help inform policy.
The education department has also announced £3m will be spent on “anti-homophobic and transphobic programmes”. Schools, including faith schools, will be required to include LGBT issues in relationships and sex education.
Greening, who is in a relationship with a woman, said: “This government is committed to building an inclusive society that works for everyone, no matter what their gender or sexuality.
“We will build on the significant progress we have made over the past 50 years, tackling some of the historic prejudices that still persist in our laws and giving LGBT people a real say on the issues affecting them.”
Ruth Hunt, chief executive of Stonewall, the lobbying organisation, welcomed the plans. “We need a simple process which isn’t medicalised, intrusive or demeaning,” she said.
The move will put the government on a collision course with some religious groups. Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “It is worrying when the leaders of the main political parties are so out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people.
“Allowing men to self-identify as female without any medical diagnosis allows them to invade the privacy of women and girls.
“It’s time for a reality check. Some things can’t be changed. May and Corbyn want to elevate the principle of ‘gender self-declaration’. But it is wrong, it is anti-scientific and it is dangerous.”
A source who is close to Greening acknowledged that the proposed changes could be problematic. “That’s why we are going to have a consultation, so we can examine all the implications,” the source said.
A Scottish government spokeswoman said it hopes to have “new arrangements in place by 2020”.

Thanks Igneo. Interesting that the survey is of LGBT people only.

Ktown I agree. People who are actually trans are not being protected by this kind of stuff.

Why the fuck is this in feminism chat

Ffs this is news that affects ALL WOMEN AND GIRLS

This is the more critical Times article:

Moves to give people the right to choose their own gender have led to a glut of court cases and controversy around the world over access to single-sex facilities.

In the UK, the problem has been most acute in prisons.
A double rapist jailed for life in 1995 for attacking two girls, who had a £10,000 sex change on the NHS and changed his name to Jessica Winfield, was moved to a women’s prison in March this year.
Paris Green, a pre-op transgender killer who was born a man, was twice moved from women’s prison wings and returned to male facilities after having sex with female inmates.
Green — who was born Peter Laing — was allowed to live in the women’s wing of HMP Edinburgh while awaiting gender-reassignment surgery. However, she had to be removed in February after claims that she engaged in sexual encounters with women prisoners. She had previously been removed from Cornton Vale women’s prison, near Stirling, in 2013, allegedly for similar behaviour.
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In America, a ruling in May 2016 by the Obama administration that state schools must allow transgender students to use toilets and changing rooms of the gender with which they identify led to spate of cases where teenagers with male anatomy began using female lavatories.
In New York, a girls swimming team stopped using the female changing facilities after encountering a bald and bearded individual emerging from their shower. The controversy led Republican politicians to introduce a series of “bathroom bills” in individual states mandating that people should use the toilet determined by their birth gender.
In Michigan, a woman had her gym membership revoked after she complained about a transgender person in the women’s locker room.
One of the most controversial issues has been participation in female sports events. In Connecticut, Andraya Yearwood, a 15-year-old transgender student with male anatomy and noticeable stubble who identifies as a girl, has become a star of the female sprint team.
In 2014 a mixed martial arts competitor called Fallon Fox gave a female opponent, Tamikka Brents, concussion and a broken eye socket. Brents said: “I’ve never felt so overpowered in my life.” Eight years earlier Fox had had a sex-change operation from man to woman.

There are also concerns about men who are not transgender abusing the rules permitting those who are to access female facilities. In 2014, Canadian Christopher Hambrook, a biological man claiming to be transgender, was jailed for sexual assault after calling himself Jessica to gain access to and prey on women at two Toronto shelters.
Last year in Idaho, a biological male called Sean Patrick Smith, who claims to be a woman, was arrested for using his mobile phone to take pictures of a woman in the changing room of a Target department store.
• Intersex” athletes — who are born with ambiguous sex organs and have naturally high levels of testosterone — will be able to compete in women’s races at the World Athletics Championships in London next month.
Athletics’ world governing body is preparing to return to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to argue its case that female competitors should undergo corrective treatment to lower any high levels of testosterone so that they can compete on a “level playing field” with other women, who do not have the same levels of the male hormone.

Baalam feel free to post about it anywhere else you fancy on the site. All feminism affects all women and girls so I don't really see your point tbh, but there we go.

my point is that Feminism Chat is a niche topic

Why have we been driven here? Can we not post in normal chat?

Go for it.

I agree with you Baalam: please start a thread about it in a more popular board.

Oscha Thanks for posting the articles and thread.

My head is on fire. We really need to take action now. How DARE they restrict this to LGBT only? Fuck that - I'm responding

This is utter bloody madness.

If this thing does actually happen, I will be taking full advantage. I will change my gender to be a man. Can't wait to walk around on a hot day with my tits out. Because men are allowed to do that.

I've just remembered I am bisexual so I'll get asked. I think that this will make a lot of people think WTF? E.g. Danielle Muscato in a gym changing room with your daughters?

Wonder if a female BBC presenter would get an instant promotion if she declared she was a man 🙄😣

I'm a Guide Leader. As I understand it, is have to allow any male who says he's a female to share a room for sleeping and changing with the girls on a sleepover.
When I'm actually faced with that situation, I will resign.

^ pay rise. My head is spinning so much that even my sarcasm is off this morning!

Herat I really really hope that when people realise that kind of thing will be possible that there will be some sort of revolution. Who would send their daughter on camp in that situation?!