Unintended Consequences of Self-ID Proposals

[Winewinewinegin]

It is becoming increasingly clear to many on here that the implications of Self-ID are far, far wider to groups outside the trans community than seem to have been picked up by MPs and trans-focused groups.

I thought it would be useful to capture some of these (feel free to link to other threads that list them) here. These could be things you have noticed already happening, or things that you are concerned about happening if the change in law goes ahead.

I would LOVE to know what was behind the 2016 rape figures someone shared on here a while back (sorry, not got the link) which showed a big jump in rapes by "women". Only I would stake money that most of them were the sort of "women" with penises (UK law states that rape must involve a penis, so the only way a woman can legally commit rape is by assisting a man to rape someone, which is very rare - unless of course "she" has a penis herself...).

I also worry that we will see a jump in teen pregnancies - partly due to allowing people to self-ID into dorms etc of the opposite sex (e.g. on residential trips), and partly due to the inevitable confusion resulting from confused teaching (though that's not so directly linked to self-ID) - if children are learning that someone who transitions is genuinely now a boy/girl and always was, and that sex/gender is in your brain not between your legs, how can they be expected to understand who can get pregnant and who can make them pregnant?

This is the response from Brighton & Hove Hospital Trust to the complaint linked above- an important safe space for women!

Our breast screening clinic waiting area
We are aware that concerns have been raised around the waiting area for our breast screening clinic at the Park Centre for Breast Care.
We have a small, inner waiting room for the 8,000 patients attending routine breast screening appointments each year. Men are not permitted within this eight-seat waiting area as women attending the clinic have to cross through the waiting area between the changing room and the screening room. The policy has been in place for over ten years to protect the privacy and dignity of our patients and has been welcomed by the women who use our service.
The women who come to this clinic have been invited routinely as part of the national breast screening programme. Patients who have symptoms are invited to our outpatient clinic where they wouldn’t use the single sex waiting room, and are encouraged to bring a supportive partner, friend or family member of any gender with them.

@Nosetothesun Thanks for posting that

However, are they saying that there is a place (outpatient clinic) where they could have taken a male partner? And yet these yahoos chose the women's only area and then complained?!

These ( unwarranted ) demands for attention are so tedious.

One I was wondering about the other day after reading doom and warmongering stories in the papers as Trump, Putin and similar - what would happen if there was another big war that needed a big call up to the army/etc?

Fingers massively crossed that it should only be a theoretical problem - and I suspect society has changed so much that people would be horrified by compulsory call up to something unpleasant and dangerous rather than see it as their duty as in earlier times.

But would it should be thought through in advance of legislation - rather than a knee jerk reaction to an actual need.

Would just men be called up? What about TIM and TIF? Could you use self I'd to get out of it but then revert when the war finishes? What about those people that identify differently depending on how they feel when they wsje up/ go out to party/whenever...would they want such a massive loophole? What about unwanted pregnancies on the front line? Or the risk of war crimes (as victim or committer?

And there's probably lots of other questions and issues around the area I haven't begun to think of.

If there was a draft and men hadn't actually made any changes, would people who know them be interviewed to find out if they were genuine or not?

Upstart presumably in a draft they'd do the old fashioned cup and cough unless self id becomes the new flat feet.

What will happen to the crime of indecent exposure if anyone committing it can just say they are a woman? Even if it is in front of children?
Bit confused by this one. I presume the crime would remain and the person would be arrested.

I worry that it will make gender norms far more solidified in an unhealthy way ie a boy who has some effeminate characteristics (as traditionally perceived) will be encouraged from a young age to consider whether they are born in the wrong body rather than just having permission to be a boy who doesn't fit a very narrow stereotype. And vice versa

Where has all this self I'D and transgender ideology come from? It's such a sudden onslaught.

I've come to the conclusion it's massively Twitter driven especially since Twitter are deleting gender critical accounts yet all the tweets advocating violence towards women are allowed to stand.

What will happen to the crime of indecent exposure if anyone committing it can just say they are a woman? Even if it is in front of children?
Bit confused by this one. I presume the crime would remain and the person would be arrested.

What I meant was if a man did it in the street it would be indecent exposure(?) but if he did it in a female changing room or shower it wouldn't if he said he was a woman and thus he was entitled to strip there?

It's gaslighting on an industrial level.

I can't believe supposedly intelligent people such as MP's can say trans women are women, if they were you wouldn't have to say it. They have to have that mantra because trans women are not women they're men.

I'm finding it all thoroughly depressing.

In addition to all this....what about trans rights in themselves? Trans people have loads of challenges and issues. They risk being lost in all the furore the militant minority have caused.

I think that a condensed version of this list on that petition would have helped it to gain more signatures.

I host foreign students girls only as we have girls ourselves and the students share a room. One turned up very clearly a boy with eyeshadow. Sharing a room with an under 16 girl, under my roof so I am in breach of the language school regulations. But am I in breach of equality legislation if I refuse to host? Dh furious our no boys rule ignored - very rude in his opinion. My primary aged girls baffled ("but he is a boy mummy"). I'm worried about my liability to the girls parents.

Could proponents of self id explain what I should have done in these circumstances?

KERALA1 Legally you can refuse to host, if you don't have the facilities for both sexes sharing. they shouldn't have sent a boy.
Children cannot change sex or obtain a GRC.

Air BNB, or taking in a lodger.

Materialist that is interesting do you have a link to any of that or further details?

I think people working in professions like care will be pressured to identify as gender-fluid enabling them to provide care for patients asking for male or female carers.

We may also have team coaches pushing promising but non-exceptional male athletes identify as female to improve their chances.

Once it comes in, it won't be too long before people who don't want to feel they have to identify as another sex/gender

Terfwarz* in answer to your question. If it becomes ok to say that a man is biologically female then it will be easier to say you are disabled. With biological sex there is male and female. With disability there are many different types and including mental disorders so it is less of a stretch to claim you are disabled. Self ID in terms of sex will open a legal argument for self I’d in terms of other protected characteristics. Disablement is the one which has an entitlement to financial support, housing, transport etc so I think if self I’d comes in this will be particularly vulnerable to abuse. I hope that makes sense and answers your question.

This thread is excellent, I will be using it to hone my letters to my lefty dude bro mp who keeps ignoring me.

All of these things worry me - some I was aware of, others are things that weren't on my radar previously, so it's been a useful thread to read.

One of the things that bothers me most is the long-term implications around the devaluing of truth. Things aren't true just because someone says they are, and yet this law will open a door for that to become a possibility. Anyone could self-declare any medical condition, experience, racial identity and that will become the new truth. It will become so because someone says it is so, and our ability, as a society, to challenge it will have been removed because we have put the feelings and perceptions of individuals above material facts.

hometerf
Unfortunately, the idiocy of Postmodernism seems to have escaped from the confines of the humanities departments of universities. I'm hopeful that it won't survive long in the real world, but it is wreaking havoc in all sorts of ways.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

(I particularly like the quote from Dan Dennett in the wiki link)

What about all of the time and money that will likely be spent defending challenges? Those with legal protection such as the Breast Screen Service / Horton Women's Centre have recently had to field a huge amount of calls & complaints? Services, organisations & spaces that are women-only are rarely awash with funding and resources and are over-stretched. I believe there is currently a women' shelter/refuge in Canada that is being sued...
The threat of legal action in other situations may be sufficient to change policy. I think this aspect of LM's political successes needs further consideration. The school was threatened with legal action (not actually sued as claimed). There will have been a great deal of financial /legal backing for a young person prepared to test the legislation.

What will happen to the crime of indecent exposure if anyone committing it can just say they are a woman? Even if it is in front of children?

Well a TIM did that recently in Brighton iirc. He was outside the kids playground and when caught (not for the first time) he said he was scratching the athletes foot in his groin

And he got off (pun intended).

The personal impact on the women and girls who will quietly stop using what they believed were women-only services & places (because they may not SM activists, but needing safety and dignity for important reasons). These are the absent voices which need to be heard and represented...