yes at last a news article that states that Justine Greening is having private concerns re changes to GRA as it is more complex than first thought !!
I just would like to put it out there as a mum with a teenage daughter that I have been alarmed at the recent proposed changes that would allow any man into any female domain just because they say they identify as female. Having experienced physical/sexual abuse/ stalking in my past and and the 'usual' inappropriate behaviour from males to females in my youth, i do feel that i have a legitimate reason to raise these concerns. From what I have read the changes mean that any man could follow my teenage daughter into a public toilet at night and go unchallenged by any security, other men / women otherwise that person could be accused of being transphobic, that i, or any other women could be have the misfortune of being sent to prison and have to be subject to a cavity search by a male 'because he says he now identifies as a female/woman'?? - that women could be deemed transphobic if they refuse treatment / to be examined by a medical professional if they ask to be seen by a female but then a man turns up whose only feminine attribute is that he says he identifies as a female?? I would not regard myself as transphobic, i have worked with and been acquainted with a number of people who have gone through transition and fully support changes to policy/ways of thinking that allows them to live there lives free from discrimination and abuse. My concern is that these changes may offer some benefits to those with gender issues, at a massive cost to women as a whole, and is opening the floodgates for it to be exploited by the sexual predators/fetishists/opportunists out there (of which there are many!!) moreover surely it is increasing risk to those people who have transitioned as well as if you truely regard yourself as female would you not feel as vulnerable as any other young girl/woman. Also just to take it further - if we are going to readily accept that anyone who says they identify as female has to be treated as such, does this also mean in the future that anyone who identifies as a six year old girl should be treated as such and get to go to school and be exempt from any criminal acts they may carry out ? Because this is the way the current thinking seems to be going and anyone that questions it is the one with the issue - i do feel like the current times could have been written by Margaret Atwood. I recently posted SAGES information to facebook and not one person reacted or shared it - almost as if anyone was to scared to visibilly be seen to support anything that remotely is in opposition to the changes to the GRA (either that or they didnt bother reading it) .