It was the Gender Recognition Act that messed everything up

[jellyfrizz]

The ongoing hostilities between 'TERFs' and trans is so sad to see. Feminists and trans people should be natural allies as gender is what is harming everyone involved in this.

Feminists fully encourage, support and engage in gender non-conformity and not being defined by your reproductive system.

The obvious solution would be reduce gender's influence by creating laws that protect people however they present.

Instead an Act was created that enshrines gender. We should be pushing for people to be accepted however they present instead of making them conform to our binary society and encourage people to deny and hide their past by changing birth certificates etc.

We should be pushing for a society where people can be trans and proud, where being trans isn't even a thing, just people going about their lives.

I really think the GRA has pushed the situation to this point and should not just be reformed but scrapped altogether in favour of new laws to protect gender non-conforming people from discrimination. A gender recognition certificate does not protect people from stigma or discrimination despite what MPs might like to believe.

I agree. If I remember correctly the GRA says something about once the Gender Recognition Cert. has been approved the applicant can get a birth certificate stating their new sex - so totally confusing gender and sex.

If only they had said instead, 'Great, call yourself Nancy, wear a floral frock and ask people to call you she - but sex cannot be changed on medical or legal records', we would not be in this mess today.

Recording sex is important for medical treatment, research, criminal statistics, planning for education & other services, recording inequalities in roles, pay, etc, etc. If a person identifies with certain sex role stereotypes, or gender, go for it, but nobody else really cares, and it certainly does not need a legal marker.

The whole idea of legally changing sex is ludicrous and yes, the GRA certainly needs reform, but not in the way the government wants. Just scrap the whole thing!

You raise an interesting point. The GRA was a consequence to a large degree of various adverse human rights judgments, which held that the Uk government was discriminating against transsexuals.

However, a lot of that discrimination was essentially incidental to other anomalies/discrimination in the law which have in large part been resolved by other means now. The biggest issue was that transwomen with male partners couldn't marry because they were legally male. This is no longer an issue. There were also issues about the inability of transwomen to access the preferential state pension age (again- not a live issue any more!) and a lack of protection from workplace discrimination (a job now done by the Equalities Act). In short, a lot of the human rights rationale for the GRA no longer stands (though some does).

Unfortunately for critics of the GRA, it would I think be extremely difficult to repeal it in human rights terms because of the extent to which recognition of a new gender is now commonplace in Europe. The European Court of Human Rights would I think take a very dim view of an attempt to repeal.

In short, a lot of the human rights rationale for the GRA no longer stands (though some does).

What rationale still stands Furry?

Do you think we can reach a point where gender and sex can become un-conflated (de-conflated?)? Because recognition of a gender should be totally possible without denying people's history. E.g. having passports, drivers licences' etc. that show both sex and gender identity.

The European Court of Human Rights was concerned about the lack of recognition of transition on official documents such as passports and driving licences. They also felt there was a problem where there is a disconnect between a person's legal status (birth sex) and 'social reality' (where gender reassignment surgery has taken place paid - especially where it's paid for by the state).

As to disentangling sex and gender in the legal framework, it's tricky. Gender identity is recognised as a protected characteristic, separate from sex, under the Equality Act (i.e. you can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity). However this (important) exception aside, I don't think there is scope for gender identity and sex to legally co-exist because they're two alternative mechanisms of categorisation which are necessarily in conflict. The purpose of legal/official recognition of sex (or gender is the current rather confused conflation) is to allow us to segregate people for various purposes (i.e. the prison estate). For this purpose, you've got to use either sex or 'gender'- you can't use both.

Hypothetically you could include both sex and gender identity on passports and other official docs but I don't see that it serves any purpose. We have to pick one to use for legal categorisation. Once you do that, the other isn't really relevant, is it? If we operate categorisation by biological sex, then gender identity is as irrelevant to the state as sexual orientation. I guess if you categorise by 'gender' then biological sex might remain relevant for identification purposes, but this is probably a bit old hat in a world with biometrics!

Disclaimer: I haven't thought about it from quite this angle before (and I'm posting while putting the DC to bed ) so I don't rule out the possibility that I've missed a legal angle from which sex/gender identity disaggregation would be helpful!

Sorry- addendum on the human rights case law. The case law deals entirely (I think I'm correct here) with post operative MtF transsexuals and it's important to remember that. I think the human rights argument that you should allow legal transition is much much stronger in relation to an individual who has had full GRS and has lived as the acquired gender for a number of years, than in relation to a self identified transwomen who make no attempt to pass. For example, the individuals who brought the legal cases wanted (for example) to not have to disclose their previous sex to their employer. There's a strong claim to privacy in relation to that information if you've lived as the acquired gender for a decade. If you have a beard and have only self-identified as a woman for a week- that interest isn't there.

Thanks for the response furry.

So, if the purpose of legal categorisation is for segregation then wouldn't there be a biological reason behind that segregation? E.g. So that prison doesn't enable unwanted pregnancies.

So doesn't segregating by gender identity rather than sex negate the whole point of segregation in the first place?

That's certainly my view jelly.

I keep meaning to trawl through the records to see how far (if at all) it was recognised during the passage of the GRA that we were shifting from sex to gender for classification. I suspect it wasn't.

Gender identity is recognised as a protected characteristic, separate from sex, under the Equality Act (i.e. you can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity)

No, it isn't. Gender reassignment is the protected characteristic. Miller's failed bill sought to change this to gender identity but ran out of time, thank fuck. It would have meant we had to accept a far wider variety of non-binary, genderqueer and non-men type males in female spaces than we currently do. It would basically have protected a feeling in a man's head.

The idea that gender non-conformity should be the protected characteristic instead of either gender reassignment or gender identity has legs I reckon.

• It would protect trans people from discrimination without them ever having to claim to be the opposite sex, unlike gender reassignment

• gender non-conformity is visible. Unlike gender identity, protecting it doesn't present the problem of trying to make laws around feelings in people's heads

• Protection of gender non-conformity would protect ALL gender non-conforming people from discrimination, not just trans people.

Part of the reason I think it has legs is because on Wednesday night I actually discussed this idea with a couple of young TAs at Speaker's Corner (before everything kicked off) and they were quite amenable! We fell out again shortly afterwards because they would not accept that we also needed some spaces to remain sex segregated.

Heartbreakingly, one of the TAs I was talking to about this was then violently shoved and intimidated by one of Maria's attackers when she tried to stop him hitting Maria. From about 0:25 in . Looks like she's learning the hard way, poor lass

There was an elderly transwoman on here a year or two ago who said she was shocked, but pleased when she found out she could legally be a woman. It hadn't stopped her prior, though. She hadn't asked for it, either.

It was legislation designed for a specific purpose which is being exploited. Whoever wrote it certainly wasn't a feminist. Or a realist.

Or a biologist.

No, it isn't. Gender reassignment is the protected characteristic.

You're right Pencils, although according to ACAS the gender reassignment category is very broad including anyone 'proposing' to change gender and states that there doesn't have to be any surgical or hormonal intervention.

m.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2064

So pretty much just someone saying they feel like the opposite sex then.

BetsyM00

Or a biologist.

I disagree that feminists and TAs should be natural allies.

Feminists want to dismantle gender but many TAs fetishise it.

This is very interesting and exactly the sort of discussion i was hoping for on wednesday night before we were thrown out of the venue. It should be possible to have laws that protect trans rights while maintaining basic protections for women. For example i understood that decisions on putting trans women in female prisons is still made on a case by case basis, there's no absolute entitlement (in england anyway) which seems sensible to me although clearly in Ponting's and some other cases the decision was wrong. Can anyone confirm that's how it works?

This thread has helped me (finally) sort out in my head what I think, and how I am going to present my arguments to my MP.

I have a gender non-conforming 19 yr old DD, on the autistic spectrum, who currently identifies as male. I would give my right arm, well, OK both arms and both legs, if she could live her life happily using whatever pronoun she wants, dress how she pleases, without feeling the need for hormones or surgery.

So separating gender from sex (the adjective from the noun as I see it) is what we need, instead of confusing the two.

Btw she can now, with no additional legislation, simply with a deed poll and a letter from her gp confirming her intention to live in her preferred gender, get the sex on her passport changed from female to male.

So yes it is gender non-conformity which needs to be protected from prejudice and harassment.

Keep biological sex unchanged, (since it can't be changed), for those areas of life where it really matters but don't put obstacles in the way of those who want to change their gender. Continue to dismantle those laws and constructs which constrict human beings from doing what they want because of their sex. Then I might be able to sleep at night.

If I remember correctly the GRA says something about once the Gender Recognition Cert. has been approved the applicant can get a birth certificate stating their new sex - so totally confusing gender and sex.

I think this is the crux of it; the confusion of sex and gender.

I liked a page from Feminist Current and Faceache, with its odd algorithm, has decided I'd like this bunch.

I think the use of language has confused it.

Apparently, lesbians who avoid trans women are transphobic and cis-people (men?) who prefer transwomen are fetishists.

The post came with a thank you to the TERFs for sharing the post, publicising it and getting it 800 likes.

I suspect it's more to do with people not reading the content first.

I liked a page from Feminist Current and Faceache, with its odd algorithm, has decided I'd like this bunch

The MN algorithm has been showing me, for several days now, loads of adverts for men's cheap clothes aimed at the under 30 age bracket. Heaven only knows how that works as it could not be more wrong.

I'm getting M&S and Parcelforce.

Nope. No idea.

I wonder why they constantly include non-binary.

What's in it for them?

Strength in numbers I guess. But they seem very different religions - trans think gender is innate, and non-binary think it's fluid.

Just another contradiction of trans logic.

I used to think feminism and trans activism should be allies but now think anything but completely dismantling the system of gender will just hurt woman more.

This is an interesting article - ignore the religious publication title - it is a secular legal argument

www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/03/supreme-incoherence-transgender-ideology-and-the-end-of-law