If you're pro Self ID for trans people please could you explain it to me?

[ReluctantCamper]

I have never debated with anyone who's pro self ID because they invariably post 'transwomen are women' on threads and never return.

When I have arrived at a thought out position I'm keen to debate it with others who think differently to test my reasoning - that's how I feel now.

I know we have a number of pro self ID lurkers - anyone feel like explaining to me why it's a good idea?

I promise to carefully read what you say and take it seriously, I don't promise to agree.

Come on, it's my birthday, someone treat me!

@LML83 just out of interest why do you think people should have the right to legally identify as the opposite sex to the one they are born?

The creation of new law should always focus on the intent of that law and make it as narrow and as unambiguous as possible. It should always think about the unintended consequences and how it come be misused. How does that law work for you, but also how does that law work for your political enemy or someone who does not have the same moral compass as you.

Ideology is about the utopian potential vision which doesn't have to work out the practical application or the devil in the detail. It has the luxury of being able to gloss over and ignore the problems of it. It can use propaganda to mask faults.

Politicians who fail to understand how to navigate from ideology to law, are bad politicians as they make poor law makers.

hyperspacebug wrote - "other countries allowed self ID already. What were their arguments and what became of these countries?".

Norway introduced transgender self-identification in June 2016. I think one positive aspect of this is that this legal change abolished the previously compulsory sterilisation of transgender people, so I think it has helped transgender people there much more than proposed UK self-identification law changes would help British transgender people, because compulsory sterilisation does not occur in the UK.

Denmark, Malta and Ireland have also passed transgender self-identification into law.

Sweden abolished the compulsory sterilisation requirement in 2013 but, last I heard, it has not yet passed its proposed self-identification legislation into law.

@vesuvia it is my understanding that despite passing self ID Ireland does not allow males to go into female prisons.

Take a look at this short (at the moment) thread. It seems to show very clearly there are a lot of exceptions which would not necessarily be the case in the UK.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3141014-The-GRA-in-Ireland?watched=1&msgid=75718300#75718300

Do Canada and America have self ID?

@Italiengreyhound why not? those genuinely self id'ing don't do me any harm. If it makes them feel better/normal I don't have an issue.

The issue of stopping people misusing self id is complicated though, and that may be a reason not to.

LM

Do you believe it would make it easier for people though? If it's no longer considered a mental illness and its open to everyone and this reduces the amount of supoort available how can that be a good thing?

I have read this thread with interest. And one thing has come across to me quite strongly in most of the posts by those who are pro self ID.

It appears to me that the majority of these posters do not necessarily really believe "it'll all be ok" but that they so desperately want it to be all ok that they are prepared to twist themselves up like pretzels to make it so. And this even in the face of some pretty compelling arguments that it really won't "all be ok." Including some evidence that the fears we have, have in, many cases, already manifested.

I don't pretend to know their reasons for this almost desperate desire to ignore the clear and present danger before us.
But I suspect it's largely fear.
Whether that be fear that this juggernaut can't be stopped now and we will have to live with it anyway, or fear of being labelled intolerant and bigoted I can't say. Maybe a bit of both.

I want to thank the OP for starting this thread though. It has made the reaons behind the arguments of the pro ID side clearer to me than ever before. I have been knocking about these boards for some time and occasionally been very frustrated by the apparent wilful blindness of some posters.
I may have it wrong of course, but I think I do understand their position better now.
We are all afraid of this (and of standing against it) in some measure, after all.
Some of us more than others.

However, pretending it's not a problem isn't the answer to those fears.

The thing too is the principle - should it be legally possible to 'identify' as something you're not and have that identity treated as if it's as valid as someone born that way?

What about trans abled people who identify as having a disability? Does no harm if someone wants to use a wheelchair or crutches to support their feelings - but should they be registered as disabled, be entitled to make their place of work accommodate their lifestyle choice to use a wheelchair at work, be entitled to use disabled facilities where people who can't identify out of their disability at any moment it's inconvenient have to compete for those resources? What about benefits? Support dogs for trans blind people. Access to jobs and college support programmes for people with autism? What about if they want access to physio or funded hoists at home and wet rooms as 'cis' disabled people have, with a lot of talk about how 'cis' disabled people are privileged? Will that do no harm to genuinely disabled people and their rights and protections?

Trans BAME people?

Trans age people?

These are all actually a thing. Self ID law opens the door to all this, and it will be very difficult to draw lines once it's done. Should these lifestyle choices really be legally catered to and services provided which means sharing those resources with genuine users and spreading them more thinly? Does that really do no harm?

LML83 those genuinely self id'ing don't do me any harm. If it makes them feel better/normal I don't have an issue.

When people talk about 'self-ID' they may be talking about one of two things:

1. self-ID in the everyday sense. We effectively have this already in all sorts of situations. It's not based on law and is subject to legal challenge in situations where it's infringing the rights of others.

2. the proposed legal changes to the GRA. At the moment to get a GRC a transwoman needs to have 'lived as a woman' for 2 years (in practice this means 2 years worth of documents/household bills etc. in the new name) and you need 2 medical reports, one of which has a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Changing to self-ID would mean you can get a GRC by simply downloading and signing a form in the presence of a solicitor.

A GRC is of extremely limited use anyway. The GRA was brought in essentially to allow trans people to marry someone of the same biological sex. Also to allow them to retire at the same age as those of the sex they wanted to be. We now have equal marriage and pension age is due to equalise in the very near future (this year or next I believe?) so a GRC is no longer necessary for those things.

Without a GRC it is already possible to change all your documents except your birth certificate. You can even change the sex on your passport with a letter from a doctor and a deed poll. The vast majority of trans people don't bother with a GRC simply because it's not necessary. It's pretty much obsolete.

Having a GRC makes a difference in a tiny few situations that are the subject of single sex exceptions in the equality act - i.e. exactly the situations we are concerned about:

A GRC makes it legal for a transwoman to stand on an all women shortlist (but labour and libdems are flouting the law anyway and allowing self-ID in the everyday sense for this)

A GRC removes the prison service's ability to apply discretion over where a trans prisoner is housed. A male prisoner with a GRC MUST be housed in the female estate. A male prisoner without a GRC can still be housed in the female estate but a panel of sensible people will make a hopefully sensible decision on a case by case basis.

@MrsGMacGarry

I think that the majority of discrimination that women face is down to the social construct of gender rather than biology.

You've got this the wrong way round.

Gender isn't why women are discriminated against, it's how.

There is no measurable difference between men and women, other than biology.

But they have, historically, still been thought of as too feeble to educate, too irrational to hold public office, too irresponsible to manage their own money and without personal agency to refuse sex. The push for independence and power has always been resisted by men. The first female public toilets were burnt to the ground, by men.

We still have a gender pay gap, women are still routinely raped and subjected to sexual harassment, even teenage boys are considered more competent to speak on behalf of women in public office. And now our boundaries, and means of collectively organising, are being resisted.

Women are not oppressed because of their gender, gender is the means by which it is done.

The trans-ideology rigourously enforces that. If you want to transcend your gender role, you have to change sex. Because those gender roles are fixed and Very Important to maintain.

And yet, it's only biology that determines this hierarchy. Hence men identifying as women being very powerful, despite using gender to keep women in their place.

Just reading the bit about pips - they of the stereotypical standing styles,

"Multiple aspects of our identity, including gender identity/expression, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, disability and religion influence our experiences at work."

NOTE sex is not on the list as far as pips is concerned - no such thing as sexism.

Pips also gets very upset when misgendered (accidentally) at work, however, the idea that all of their work colleagues and staff need to keep two sets of names and pronouns in their head and then change them depending on how pips is standing that day is a ridiculous ask, that is not how people's brains work, we take a while to learn who someone is and recognise them and link it to their name, and then that's kind of fixed, to expect us to process which one each and every time we talk to someone is obviously going to fail. Pips has a LOT of power, so how this plays out for the ones who can't process this quickly / efficiently enough is, well.

This is the ultimate display of male privilege IMO, what this person is doing.

Or, do they expect people to actually recognise and see pips and philllip (or whatever it was) as DIFFERENT PEOPLE???

I don't think it's the latter.

UpABitLate

Gender fluidity, or non-binary is not a protected characteristic. Gender reassignment is.

Him obviously not proposing to become trans full-time, would mean that the equality law doesn't apply to him, surely.

In which case, they can call him what they like. Unless he says that one day he is thinking of becoming a woman, but not the next. That would be exposed as bollocks, pretty quickly.

Datun

Pips has an awful lot of power

They really can't call pips what they like

I doubt they would kepe their jobs. "Hostile work environment" stuff.

The point though is that the human brain doesn't work like this - pips is setting people up to fail.

Yes it's a gaslighty power thing.

Having everyone on eggshells scared to open their mouths with their jobs at risk

meanwhile this incredibly powerful bloke writes articles about how terribly difficult everything is for him and when his colleagues accidentally misgender him on a lady day he has to go and cry in the bogs (ladies) and presumably all the women have to go and comfort him even if they don't really like doing that shit because the feminine gender performance is not just for pips but for all the women around him.

Actually I BET that is a very important thing.

So actually this display forces women inot behaving into stereotypical ways even if they don't want to. I mean if a woman can't be arsed to going and do girly bog comforting then the suspicion will fall on them that they're a bigot and what conseuqnces might that have?

Actually I BET that is a very important thing.

He hasn't asked for anyone's consent, he is following the Harvey Weinstein model of silencing everyone for fear of losing their careers. We have to participate in his sex like or face sanctions.

Sex life!

There are a few, sadly not enough, women only drug rehab programmes. These are significantly more successful than mixed sex programmes for women.

The vast majority of women, especially those starting methodone programmes, have been abused by men. The psychology of an abused women tends towards placating the man around them, keeping quiet and never, ever presenting their own opinion (even if it's in agreement with a man's) because experience tells them that no matter what they do, something will be wrong with it. So they do nothing, they don't engage with the group, or their counselling in general and get dragged back into their old life very quickly.

When you take men out of the equation they have a much higher rate of engagement and subsequently the programme has a much higher success rate.

Self ID will ruin these programmes, the women will read the trans woman as male and react occordingly, the success rate will fall and the programmes will be cut.

We need to keep some spaces segregated by birth sex and I'm at the point where I don't care if a small amount of trans-people (already a tiny percentage of the population) get their dealings hurt.

feelings -not dealings!

OK, I will explain why I am pro self-ID for trans people.

I don't know why I was invited onto Mumsnet as I have never been a parent, but I quite like it. AIBU? asks someone, and people in a friendly reassuring manner reply YANBU. The jokes are great. And then there are a small number of threads where people share at great length on the Transgender Threat. They talk of toilets, prisons, changing rooms, predatory males. So if someone comes on here and says "Trans women are women" but will not engage further, I quite understand. Life's too short, really, to engage with threads of three hundred messages, strongly arguing against trans women.

The language is unfriendly, here, unlike most of Mumsnet. "TIMs" or "TRAs" say people. Most of society will say "trans women". "Trans-identified males" is unfriendly. Well, I have a Y chromosome and a fused pelvis, but English Law, bless its weirdness, says I am a woman. As for "Trans Rights Activists", well, most of us are accidental and unwilling activists, trying to live a quiet life but occasionally speaking out. I don't like the parallel with MRA, Men's Rights Activists, as if we were Gamergate fiends or Alt-Right types. We tend to be mildly left wing. I'm not the one citing Breitbart on this thread.

Why pro self-ID? Because trans women transition in far more unwelcoming environments than England in the Twen-teens. In India, where hijra might work as beggars or prostitutes, people still transition. We've been doing it at least since 500BC- Deuteronomy would not forbid it if no-one did it. It was the most important thing in the world for me. So I saw the psychiatrists, planned and prepared, and started expressing myself female in 2002. I have not presented male since. Estimates of prevalence go as high as 1% of the population, but considerably fewer people actually transition, and self-ID is for those of us who do.

I got a GRC, but needed to pay for a letter from one of those psychiatrists to confirm I was as I said I was. I shouldn't need a doctor to say who I am. I know who I am. People seeking gender recognition will be serious about it. As the Scottish consultation points out, swearing or affirming a statutory declaration untruthfully is perjury. The only change proposed is that those who swear or affirm will not need two doctors' letters. They will have to swear that they intend to live in the acquired gender life-long.

It need not mean that prisoners will be placed where they are a danger to women, on their own say-so. Predatory males might pretend to be trans now, but that is not the fault of genuine trans people, and there are easier ways to get at women. I object to prisoners and predatory males being used in argument against recognition of ordinary, law abiding and peaceful trans women who just want to live quietly.

Here am I, a gender critical feminist using such small platforms as I have to argue that there are no qualities or characteristics which are not in one sex but not the other, and equally valuable in both; and a trans woman subverting conservative ideas of gender by expressing myself female. I observe that most people opposed to self-ID are either conservative, or gender critical and gender non-conforming. Let us break down gendered oppression together. We could achieve so much more, if we could work together.

ClareFlourish Could you please read the post just above yours by HubrisComicGhoul.

How do you feel about 3 services and spaces, for biological men, women and all gender?
If you are opposed to that solution, can you explain how women's services can let trans people in and keep predatory men out? Or explain why trans peoples feelings must come first?

Hello Clare

The language is unfriendly, here, unlike most of Mumsnet. "TIMs" or "TRAs" say people. Most of society will say "trans women". "Trans-identified males" is unfriendly. Well, I have a Y chromosome and a fused pelvis, but English Law, bless its weirdness, says I am a woman. As for "Trans Rights Activists", well, most of us are accidental and unwilling activists, trying to live a quiet life but occasionally speaking out. I don't like the parallel with MRA, Men's Rights Activists, as if we were Gamergate fiends or Alt-Right types. We tend to be mildly left wing. I'm not the one citing Breitbart on this thread.

I'm afraid there are hundreds of TRAs and their supporters who are not trying to live a quiet life. I appreciate you don't like the parallel but many of them are MRAs or at least use the same language.

Why pro self-ID? Because trans women transition in far more unwelcoming environments than England in the Twen-teens. In India, where hijra might work as beggars or prostitutes, people still transition. We've been doing it at least since 500BC- Deuteronomy would not forbid it if no-one did it. It was the most important thing in the world for me. So I saw the psychiatrists, planned and prepared, and started expressing myself female in 2002. I have not presented male since. Estimates of prevalence go as high as 1% of the population, but considerably fewer people actually transition, and self-ID is for those of us who do.

You refer to yourself as having previously been male, having a Y chromosome and expressing yourself as female. You seem to have a solid sense of self awareness but current TRA ideology would deride you as a TERF or truscum because the party line currently seems to be that if you say you are female then you were born that way and a penis is a female sex organ if someone says it is. There doesn't seem to be a lot of respect amongst vocal TRAs for those with a GRC that were previously called transsexuals and have the ability to recognise they are male but transitioned to a legal female status.

I got a GRC, but needed to pay for a letter from one of those psychiatrists to confirm I was as I said I was. I shouldn't need a doctor to say who I am. I know who I am. People seeking gender recognition will be serious about it. As the Scottish consultation points out, swearing or affirming a statutory declaration untruthfully is perjury. The only change proposed is that those who swear or affirm will not need two doctors' letters. They will have to swear that they intend to live in the acquired gender life-long.

I disagree that everyone under self ID will be serious about it. There is already a significant move for people to identify as whatever sex they choose without any alterations in appearance, lifestyle or medical treatment. Then you have the people like Philip/Pippa Bunce who is genderfluid and alternates between male or female depending on how they feel. You may think this is fine but when they skew the stats and pick up awards intended for women in business I think it's a problem.

It need not mean that prisoners will be placed where they are a danger to women, on their own say-so. Predatory males might pretend to be trans now, but that is not the fault of genuine trans people, and there are easier ways to get at women. I object to prisoners and predatory males being used in argument against recognition of ordinary, law abiding and peaceful trans women who just want to live quietly.

The prison argument is used because it is already happening. Male prisoners are placed with women because they say so. If self ID happens this will increase massively. The prison service wrote to the government outlining their massive concerns about the high rate of sex offenders identifying as women.

Here am I, a gender critical feminist using such small platforms as I have to argue that there are no qualities or characteristics which are not in one sex but not the other, and equally valuable in both; and a trans woman subverting conservative ideas of gender by expressing myself female. I observe that most people opposed to self-ID are either conservative, or gender critical and gender non-conforming. Let us break down gendered oppression together. We could achieve so much more, if we could work together.

It's untrue that most women here are conservative, the vast majority are left leaning, socialist and Labour voting types, many are lesbians and many have supported LGBT rights for decades. A few more conservative women have joined recently because self ID is an issue across the political spectrum.

I'm all for working together but you haven't really acknowledged all the points laid out in this thread (assuming you've read them) about the harm self ID will do to women and girls or offered an explanation as to how self ID could be implemented without this harm happening. Saying you don't think it will happen isn't enough.