I've written (again - got no reply last time) to my MP, and this time I have also written to the other candidate, as it's not that safe a seat. Here is my letter to the MP. The other one has some LM specific concerns in it too.
Dear
I'm a signatory to a petition that has recently been published.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/2141188_
The petition asks that women be consulted about the potential impact of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. The change would allow people to legally self identify as their chosen sex.
I want transgender people to live the lives they want to live, to be safe and to have a voice.
But I feel that the way this law is being positioned makes it potentially detrimental to biologically born women and girls. This is because no protection has yet been built in to prevent people from self IDing as a particular sex for reasons that have nothing to do with their gender identity.
I believe that anyone should be allowed to self identify as their chosen gender, (gender is a social construct) but I feel very cautious about people being able to self identify as a particular sex ( which is biological).
The Equality Act 2010 provides that some spaces should be segregated by sex. For example - women's refuges. I believe that these provisions should stay intact in order to protect women and girls from people who may manipulate self ID precisely in order to gain access to single-sex spaces. Other examples are: prisons, health provision, sport. I hope you share my concern that Self ID will have the impact of distorting crime data, which in turn could detrimentally influence public policy.
I am particularly concerned about the government's attitude in recent times, which seems calculatedly to promote trans rights at the expense of women's rights, through the GRA. For this reason, I am currently unable to vote Conservative.
As I have explained, I feel it is vital to promote the right of trans people to live the lives they want to live, be safe and to have their voices heard. But not where this institutionally and societally impinges on the rights, safety and voices of others.
The current trans discourse on this issue is, frankly, misogynist. I appeal to you to do some basic research on social media and witness this for yourself. It seems to me that one aspect of the GRA is to give the 'extreme trans' lobby influence which is disproportionate to the issues they face, given the current protections under the EA. Some of them also seem to have taken it as licence to abuse and silence anyone who wishes to debate the issues.
The petition I have linked above is asking that women are consulted about the proposals. That's all. If you agree that women should have their own voices in this debate - and in fact that there should even be a debate - please do let me know.