On Gatekeeping

[HairyBallTheorem]

As far as I can see, the main argument for self-ID (over the current system) is that expecting people to get two psychiatrists to sign off on their application for a GRC is gatekeeping.

But it strikes me that there are lots of places where we have, and expect to have, gatekeeping.

I can't just waltz into the post office and get a passport over the counter. I have to supply my birth certificate (or previous passport) and get someone to countersign the application to say that I am really me.

I can't just put my children into any school I want - I have to apply through the local authority's website, and they reserve the right to check that I live where I say I live.

I can't just collect earnings cash-in-hand (well, I can, but it's illegal) - I have to declare those earnings to the inland revenue. I'm issued with an official NI number in order to do this.

Pretty much anything which gives some official legal rights and obligations to an individual involves gatekeeping. Why should "getting one's gender reassigned" be any different?

If we accept that the whole point of a "sex change" is to gain (with, at present, certain limitations) the legal right to be treated as the opposite sex to one's birth sex in most situations, then why shouldn't it be subject to gatekeeping? And if you don't fancy the gatekeeping, well, the brilliant thing is we live in a remarkably tolerant country where dressing how you want and asking to be called whatever you want is perfectly legal (though you won't get the official paperwork that way - but then, I wouldn't get a passport that way either).

Quite.

Jobs and careers also. I can't just identify as a Doctor or a Lawyer, I have to have the relevant qualifications then pass an interview to be allowed to work in the chosen sphere.

Very few things don't have some element of gate keeping or officiating.

Well said.

I'm in favour of gatekeeping. I want to know my gynecologist didnt just walk in off the street.

In this particular case I am not in favour of gatekeeping. Gatekeeping usually relies on some sort of solid verifiable fact to be able to pass the "gate". There is no-way to do this with a GRC - there is no scientifically sound way to prove if someone is "trans" or not. A GRC creates a fiction that someone can change sex, which they obviously can't. Gatekeeping gives this fiction even more weight.

The GRA needs to be repealed. There is no need for it anymore.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I totally agree in theory but given GRC's have been in use since there were just a very small number of transexuals I don't see that as being something that can be overturned easily. Or a very easy sell to the general public who have sympathy for those with gender dysphoria.

It certainly isn't fit for purpose though under an ideology where penises are female and dysphoria isn't needed to be trans but individuals can be coached on the correct things to say.

I still think that a legal requirement of a GRC in some situations is better than nothing. It's self ID that will truly cause havoc.

I do agree - if the only options are a GRC with gatekeeping, or by self-id I'd choose the gatekeeping every time.

It's just that the whole concept of legally changing sex is so very problematic.

But a GRC isn't needed. Men are in hospital wards and prisons without one, they also are taking women only positions with no GRC.

Is it known how many men are denied GRC? Is it public knowledge what the criteria is? Realistically, there is probably very little gatekeeping, in any meaningful way, going on.

Yes. The sex based exemptions in the Equality Act need to be beefed up and actually used, as opposed to all of these orgs being "ahead of the law" following guidance issued by TRAs

It's just that the whole concept of legally changing sex is so very problematic

It is since the TRA's decided to run with it and it became a thing that was outside the constraints of a medical/psychological issue. Add into the mix the concept of non binary, trans femme and whatever other gender nonsense and the whole thing has become like cultural Japanese Knotweed.

Common sense tells you it would be better to get rid of anything gender based that constrains both men and women but instead we all have to try and untangle everything without damaging what lies beneath.

When the 2004 GRA was passed it was assumed that transsexuals as they were called then would have full gender surgery and hormones, and before any protections were brought in this was the only 'transition' feasible (anything else was mere crossdressing etc.). Even then it was not an explicit requirement, though anyone applying for a grc without any medical treatment finds it nigh on impossible to convince the panel they are serious. As many have pointed out, increasingly many do not have surgery and this makes objective justification much harder for gatekeeping. The current school of thought is the patient knows better than a doctor, though in many cases I would defer to my doctor's advice and expertise. Personally I see no problem for the sake of having ID documents as you want so you don't out yourself say buying restricted goods (where age is the key factor not gender), in employment where there are no gender requirements, etc. but where there is a legitimate reason for single sex admission then some external scrutiny is totally reasonable imo. Marriage and pensions were previously dependent on a grc but have been equalised since 2004 so less of an issue where gender is concerned.

Or don't let people change sex, but not allow discrimination based on "gender presentation" for lack of a better word.

Gatekeeping - so that a medical professional can decline to provide irreversible medical intervention if they don't think it is in their patients' best interests. Yes please.

If you are pregnant do you not need two doctors to sign off on allowing you a termination? And can they not also refuse on grounds of conflict with their religious belief?

Let me know when that gate has fallen and then maybe I can bestir myself to care about trans gates. Remind me too as well of the extensive work the trans community has done to dismantle the gatekeeping around terminations and reproductive freedom. 🤔

IMO, the issue may more generally be that gatekeeping goes against the zeitgeist to some extent. In this interpretation, the entire trans tsunami might, in fact, be more of a symptom of a broader mindset than a phenomenon in its own right. I'll try and explain:

Jobs and careers were mentioned as a 'gakekept' area on this thread. But as a manager involved in graduate hiring, I'm actually experiencing that this isn't really 'acceptable' to a certain subset of (predominantly young, white and male - I wonder why) individuals there, either:

The amount of unrealistically high expectations in terms of salary as well as roles that I come across in my recruiting duties is often rather mind-boggling. And I'm not the only manager I know who's had job applicants quite simply refuse to take a rejection and insist they'll have the job anyway.

True, jobs are not as entangled with civil rights as identity is - therefore, firms simply get to have the individuals in question escorted off the premises (and the entire interviewing panel escorted to the nearest pub for some badly needed self-medication). Having said that, the underlying attitude of 'I am and I do what I say I am and do - and others (employers, society as a whole, reality itself...) must accommodate my self-image as e.g. a successful management consultant - and if they disagree it's not acceptable' seems to share at least some characteristics with the self-ID types.

It's essentially the refusal to accept anyone's - even a globally shared - reality if and when it clashes with the individual's self-perception, however skewed it may be, and the demand that self-image be accepted as objective truth. It follows that gatekeeping is unacceptable simply due to the fact that it imposes external perceptions and opinions on the individuals in question.

I'm no psychiatrist, but I'd hazard a guess that it's all a bit narcissistic.

Bossy that's hilarious - "I identify as the best person for this job, so you must give it to me!"

Philosophically, I'm on the side of "dammit, give an inch and look how many miles they went and took", but pragmatically, I'd settle for something like the status quo, with the very clear understanding that transitioning in the legal sense did not gain you access to women's single sex spaces or overstep women's boundaries in any way, and that your birth certificate could have an addendum added to it, but not be replaced.

(The abortion issue has also occurred to me, Madge - and the thought of it tends to reduce me to apoplectic fury, but that's not a good thing to dwell on at this time of night.)

Gosh BossyBitch that's really interesting.

Perhaps it's all intrinsically tied into the social media generation and/or a general culture of self belief. Which in itself isn't a bad thing but it has to be balanced with a sense of realism.

Fascinating stuff!

HairyBallTheorem - thanks for your OP. And MadgeMidgerson, thanks for highlighting the abortion issue and two doctors. That was my first thought as well - the hoops that women have to jump through, currently, in order to access a legal (in most of UK, but not all) procedure called an abortion or termination.

Yep, this whole issue is based on the fact that some men are not having anyone, and especially women, tell them what they can and can't be or do.

It's just a huge mass willy waving exercise. Which is ridiculous really, given that what they are waving their willies about is the right to he recognised as women.

It's just a huge mass willy waving exercise. Which is ridiculous really, given that what they are waving their willies about is the right to he recognised as women.

ROFL

I think it's really important to remember that gender dysphoria is not one thing:
4thwavenow.com/2017/12/07/gender-dysphoria-is-not-one-thing/

There will be narcissists in amongst the mix, but that is not to say all or most individuals with GD are narcissists. I can imagine the prison psychiatrists (who have seen it all, and know the difference) banging their heads against the wall as they can't deny treatment...

@Stopmakingsense, I don't think anyone* (most definitely not myself) argues about GD, which is a recognised psychiatric condition.

Self-ID, however, at least in my understanding, argues that any requirement for a formal diagnosis constitutes unacceptable 'gatekeeping'. I've even seen arguments along the lines of 'GD is not a necessary component of trans - and to say otherwise is transphobic'.

That I find concerning for reasons that - much as I care about feminism - go far beyond the gender debate. No, reality simply doesn't bow to individual preferences. And I worry that the insistence that, yes, it does, too, might ultimately rid us of the shared frame of reference needed to make any meaningful interaction happen at all.

• Anti-psychiatry nutters such as Scientology excepted. I'm pre-supposing 'not obviously insane'.

When a woman can just have a c section, on the nhs, because she asks for one, then we can self id for anyone who wants to have plastic surgery because they dislike bits of their body.

As in, I don't see the former ever happening, because it shouldn't.

Except I can see the later being steamrolled through, with devastating consequences.

Think of the children.

Pretty much anything which gives some official legal rights and obligations to an individual involves gatekeeping. Why should "getting one's gender reassigned" be any different?

Because they're special and the mostest oppressedest and should have everything they want.

It follows that gatekeeping is unacceptable simply due to the fact that it imposes external perceptions and opinions on the individuals in question.

Spot on. I've lost count of the whiney trans allies who've told me "you don't get to decide anyone's gender!". Well no, do what you want. As long as you stay out of women's spaces.