What do you say when people say that Canada, Denmark, Ireland, Argentina and Malta all have much easier ways of getting a GRC and there appears to be no issue?

[yetanothertranswoman]

It's an argument I see a lot. Look at these countries - in Canada, you need a doctor's letter and that's it.

Ireland - has self ID without a doctor.

People who say look at these countries, there's been no issue - so what's wrong with self ID in the UK.

How can that argument be countered?

I still maintain that issues relating to gender conformity/non conformity and transgenderism are secondary to the key issue (incl. that of self ID).
Society needs to determine when and where single-sex provision is desirable and make sure legislation provides for this. The reasoning for most single-sex provision involves affording safety, dignity and privacy.
The debate can then move on to trans people - will the inclusion of male bodied people deny female bodied people the safety, privacy and dignity the same- sex provision is designed to afford? If so, then an exception to allow this to happen shouldn’t exist.
The debate also needs to look at the safety, dignity and privacy of trans people and how to provide for this.
The key thing is no groups dignity, privacy and safety should trump anyone else’s.
Both sex and bring trans are protected characteristics. In the UK, impact assessments should be undertaken to provide protections for these groups.
I am interested in knowing more about whether impact assessments have been undertaken in these other countries, the methodologies employed and the findings.
Safety, privacy and dignity are human rights. It is not OK to make decisions about protecting human rights based on ad hoc accounts/ reporting of ‘problems’.
It is in the interest of everybody for decisions to be made after full exploration and analysis.

I am interested in knowing more about whether impact assessments have been undertaken in these other countries, the methodologies employed and the findings.

I'd have my doubts. Certainly there's been no reference to one, or one published afaik for Ireland.

Canada has had problems.

I've only lived in Malta, and it's a very different place to the UK culturally.

I might also add that Argentina, Ireland, and Malta all have yet to legalise abortion (in Argentina and Ireland, in theory it's available if the mother is in danger, but we've seen how that works in practise, in Malta, abortion is flat out banned). One might point out how interesting it is that transwomen get rights over their bodies before women do in those countries, and wonder what it might be about transwomen that made that happen

women's rights to organise and associate as a biological sex are underpinned by informal rules in society. Women feel they can challenge men who they feel should not be there. Self-ID shifts the burden of proof massively

Thanks Debbie, I think this is key but I've found it hard to articulate

I'm in Canada. There are issues; no one talks about them for fear of sacking, closure of services and even arrest.

This^ (I'm not in Canada, but have friends and family in Canada.)

And as other people have said - how would official data be of any use, if the data that is gathered is meaningless, because you can't tell from the info received who is male, female, trans, whatever? It's nonsense.

My brother is a journalist in Ireland working mainly with a mainstream newspaper and sometimes does freelance research for RTE. This is most definitely causing problems in Ireland, but nobody is speaking out about it. As with Target in the US, the main problem is voyeurism. Ireland has protected sex segregated spaces (I don't think the UK will?), but obviously no one polices the pub/club toilets, and the law change means that most people think TIMs have a right to be in them, especially in Dublin.

The average Irish person is very interested in politics, far more than the general public in Britain I think. I'm amazed this law change got through with so little comment from the media.

Another reason to ban self-ID from women's spaces is not just to protect women from possible attack, but also to protect transsexuals from being attacked by women.

Yes, I feel very sorry for transsexual women at the moment. They have safely and respectfully used women's facilities for decades (and the respect was mutual). Then the trans gender hijacked the cause, lumped them in with cross dressers, fetishists etc. and now emotions are running high. Women are angry, it is possibly going to end badly for transsexuals. Many of them don't like what's happening any more than we do.

I'm going to write a considered response to this thread for the benefit of others, but OP- you're wrong, there have been issues and/or these countries have made exceptions- e.g. in Ireland you go to prison with people of your own sex (as in if you are MtF you go to prison with men because actually in the end you are viewed as a man in the eyes of the law). But I don't think you actually want to understand anyway.

The biggest, long term problem with society wide self-ID, I think, is statistics. Long term, self ID will harm women, and by that I mean people born with XX chromosomes and the corresponding reproductive biology.

In life, people with XY chromosomes have advantages over people with XX chromosomes and so if they start identifying as women, maybe after they've got their first job, or stated on a career track in STEM, or in their 40s or 50s when they've already achieved success, that will start to skew statistics. People will say the gender pay gap is closing, there are more women in STEM, there are more women on boards, but it will be transpeople skewing those figures. So initiatives to help women may be stopped and it will be women (with XX chromosomes and the burden of reproduction) who lose out.

Also, in crime it will become impossible to distinguish crime committed by MtF trans from the rest of the population. This has huge implications for keeping women safe.

The true, long term impact of Self-ID can't be judged for years.

But it's also lying to say it's not causing problems now.

A few fun facts about the Irish Gender Recognition Act (2015)-

-You can't apply if you're married or in a civil partnership, which must hugely limit the number of people who can apply.

-It makes specific provisions about the recording of crimes "using the anatomy of a particular gender" i.e. rape.

-The Gender Recognition Certificate can be revoked by the minister in specific circumstances.

The clause about not being able to apply if you were married has since been removed Lady.

There were 89 applications for a GRC in Ireland in 2015, 110 in 2016. 8 in total for those aged 16-17.

Still looking for 2017 figures.

Nobody knew about the GRA in Ireland- there was no public discussion of it at all, and now TRAs are lobbying to have it extended to underage teenagers. TRAs and their handmaidens have hijacked mainstream feminism, even the Repeal the Eighth movement, causing deep divisions which we really don't need. More shit will be happening down the road, I guarantee.

Yep I can confirm this, I found out about it on this forum infact

Those countries have effectively made indecent exposure and voyeurism legal in women's spaces, while they remain illegal in public spaces. You would expect iffeces to fall. In addition reporting them is a possible hate crime, sonyou would expect reports to fall also.

randomstabbing.tumblr.com/post/144989720467/the-tip-of-the-iceberg-please-add-to-this-list

Someone posted this on another thread. This is a collated list of 'this never happens' incident. Paul something or other also wrote a paper on the Target rise in sexual assaults but he's been discredited because he's a christian apparently.

Catholic countries have easy GRCs because they're homophobic, not because they're progressive.

The spin is quite something though. Someone even earnestly told me on Twitter the other day that TERF feminists are lobbying to keep the 8th amendment in Ireland

Ffces I mean offences

Catholic countries have easy GRCs because they're homophobic, not because they're progressive.

I think that's an unfair statement to make about Ireland tbh, weren't we the first country in the world to vote Yes for gay marriage, that isn't exactly screaming homophobia.

Ireland voted for SSM by popular vote so I don't think self ID was brought in here out of homophobia but out of a 'sure why wouldn't you, what harm could it be, don't they have it hard enough' sort of an attitude. Also from a lack of interest or care about the potential impact on women's rights.

The spin is quite something though. Someone even earnestly told me on Twitter the other day that TERF feminists are lobbying to keep the 8th amendment in Ireland.

I saw this but I've no idea what the source of such a claim is. Apparently Irish 'terfs' are so incensed by self ID that they will vote on mass against repeal as some sort of revenge - total nonsense.

I saw this but I've no idea what the source of such a claim is. Apparently Irish 'terfs' are so incensed by self ID that they will vote on mass against repeal as some sort of revenge - total nonsense.

That makes zero sense

Ah I found the source of the claim. Just one tweet and I can't imagine there's much support behind it at all.

twitter.com/lucyeired/status/972242581668155398

Ah I found the source of the claim. Just one tweet and I can't imagine there's much support behind it at all.

lies lies lies imo. The 8th is an extremely feminist issue, sounds like they're just trying to make feminists out to be a bunch of idiots really, doesn't it?

There were 89 applications for a GRC in Ireland in 2015, 110 in 2016. 8 in total for those aged 16-17

I've heard that as well - that there hasn't been an increase in people 'self ID' ing - despite having the relatively easy option of doing it.

You cant so much as go to school, have an account, go to the gp without a pps number in ireland, and pps number is always going to contain information F or M so i dont know how somebody would self id in ireland tbh, not sure they could.

Ireland and Malta, those meccas of women's rights.

Not for this thread but I have lived in both the UK and Ireland and on a day to day basis I bizarrely found the UK more obviously sexist. Gender roles in terms of SAHM were much more entrenched in the UK. I think that women are held more “mystically” in Ireland culturally, ie the saintly Irish Mammy. However Magdalene launderers and no abortion tell their own stories.

On topic I think coming out as trans in a huge step in Ireland when absolutely everyone knows your business. Small country no hiding out. Nipping down to collect your GRC is not like nipping into Tesco, it is a big deal and is treated as such. The UK is too big to have the naturally holding to account virtues of a small population.

sounds like they're just trying to make feminists out to be a bunch of idiots really, doesn't it?

Yes it does, a gross exaggeration of the reality. One tweet from someone I don't know anything about and suddenly there's a massive movement to vote against repeal

Based on the numbers, the trans population in Ireland is really so small and awareness of the issue of self ID is so limited, you can't conclude one way or the other, based on the Irish experience, if there would be issues in the UK.

The Faculty of Advocates report (response to the GRA consultation in Scotland) that was shared on here pointed out that the countries that have introduced self-ID have only done so very recently and there has not been time for any real assessment of the implications yet. So that was a legal take on the situation.

Also as others have said, most of the countries that have introduced it are not the same as the melting pot that is the UK at present. There’s a lot of simmering anger and resentment, or at least that’s how it looks from the media. I live in a Scandinavian country. There’s relatively little sexism and minimal crime. Also plenty of money for provision of properly set up gender neutral facilities. Great prison services, etc, etc. So lots of the problems would be minimised because of the overall setup.