What is the law regarding "misgendering" in the UK?

[cromeyellow0]

Many people assume that the law compels us to use preferred pronouns.

This is not explicitly stated in the Equality Act 2010. Possibly one could interpret failure to use someone's preferred pronouns as harassment, but that seems like a stretch to me (hopefully someone with legal expertise can give proper insight!).

Mermaids and perhaps some police forces want to treat misgendering a crime--to get ahead of the law, as the Labour Party would say.

To quote Susie Green: “We had to get the police involved because a young student was being regularly misgendered by his tutor. The tutor dismissed it until he was informed that it counted as a hate crime.”
www.pinknews.co.uk/2018/02/24/a-charity-called-the-police-on-a-teacher-who-misgendered-their-student/
(Ms Green's legal qualifications aren't known to me. Nor do we have the police's or the teacher's account of this incident.)

Language has meaning and it shapes our outlook. Some groups have no word for left or right, only clockwise, anti-clockwise, seaward and landward - if you’ve lived for centuries on a small island that makes sense. Some have no real numbers, only 1,2 ‘many’. There’s a group somewhere that will be baffled and offended if you do not indicate HOW you know what you’re saying (Jenny has a new baby (verbal knowledge, visual confirmation.)
It’s fascinating. And in our culture sex based pronouns exist. For the law to imply that a transgender person has actually changed sex rather than simply being afforded the courtesy of an honorary memebership, is troubling to me. Because it is demonstrably false and I expect the law to be based on reason and facts, of emotions. Should it not be reason stripped of passion?

We cannot be legislating belief or on peoples feelings. The blasphemy law Blair almost got through nearly did that.

Countries that have law codes that enshrine things like blasphemy are basket cases, all of them.

The law needs to be based on reality, not people’s feelings.

But there isn't a law specifically covering misgendering is there? Isn't it covered by other laws, dependent on context, and even then, as Speedy says not really clear because of the lack of case law?

For the law to imply that a transgender person has actually changed sex rather than simply being afforded the courtesy of an honorary memebership, is troubling to me.

If you want to blame someone, then it's the European Court of Human Rights who started this. The Gender Recognition Act basically came about because the UK lost a case brought in that court by a transwoman who wanted to change their birth certificate. The court held it was a breach of their right to privacy to not let them change it.

I can post a link to the judgment if anyone is interested. I think the reasoning in the section on science would probably annoy a lot of people here. To paraphrase, the court basically says 'The reassignment surgery is very good nowadays. You can't change chromosomes but you know there are intersex people so maybe that doesn't matter...'

I think the judgment in that case is horribly flawed but I have mixed feelings about this issue overall. If it's best for people with gender dysphoria to try and live as if they were the opposite sex then I think with appropriate safeguarding it would be best to see if we can achieve a situation that everybody can be content with. I don't agree with self ID though.

WorkingItOutAsIGo

perhaps for me the GRC is key here and if someone is legally categorised as a woman I will use female pronouns.

Well yes. And I totally understand this point of view.

Theoretically, a GRC is conditional on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. A diagnosis that should preclude someone with AGP.

It's no surprise that only 1% of transwomen have GRC.

It's also no surprise that the elimination of criteria is being pushed.

I don't think having a GRC makes a man any more of a woman. It certainly doesn't mean they suddenly conform to female pattern behaviour or female violence.

It should mean, though, that they're not fetishists about womanhood.

The reason I can agree with this compromise, is down to numbers. They would be negligible. Are, in fact, negligible. One percent.

TW had no right to attack her, but I cannot see how it can have been motivated by her age.

The women who are most maligned in all this are 'second wave' feminists, who are generally older feminists, still flying the flag since the 70s and 80s - these are the targets who the attacker envisaged when going out to 'fuck up' some 'terfs'. The insult itself is an age thing.

In the past you had yobbo skinheads attacking on the basis of 'race' - generally picking on people of the same sex and age in the street fights.

These new young thugs who want street fights are picking on older women. There's no doubting age is a factor in this - there have even been overt calls amongst younger feminists for older feminists to 'step aside' because they think they are saying new and original things and older feminists are out of touch.

I'm loving the idea that if a young male person beats up a women over 60 BUT the beating wasn't specifically because she was over 60 then, well, that's not so bad then, right? Can't call it a granny bashing because the motives weren't specifically to bash a women over 60, and also she's quite fit.

I feel like I've had variations of this conversation with men approximately eleventy billion times.

Can't call it a granny bashing because the motives weren't specifically to bash a women over 60, and also she's quite fit.

Indeed - 20 years ago, if a woman in her early 60s was beaten by a male or group of males in their 20s - there would be no dispute and the headlines would be all "granny-basher thugs do a,b,c" even if the victim would be insulted because she was still fit and considered herself young. It certainly wouldn't have been described as a 'scuffle' or 'brawl' - it seems that the taboo of attacking people from an older generation has evaporated at the same time as the taboo of males bashing females in the street.

Fair enough. I won’t argue the toss over it. I was just pointing out that the term granny bashing usually refers to elderly people being mugged and attacked simply because they are elderly. MM was at a protest and there are high tensions between these two groups. I think had she been a man she may not have been punched, but had she been 45 I don’t think it would have made much difference.

Also, the suggestion that it was ‘not so bad then’ does NOT come from me. I never said it was not bad and TW was rightly convicted for it. It was an unjustified attack. I just said it’s not granny-bashing.

I just said it’s not granny-bashing.

She is a grandmother, and she was bashed, therefore, (although the assailants wanted to steal her rights by force, rather than her handbag) it most definitely was 'granny bashing'.

They wouldn’t have hit her if she’d been a six foot six bloke. Because they’d be too scared of being hit back.

They hit her because she’s female, and older and thus an easy target.

Okay, it was granny-bashing.

The pronoun issue is unlikely to come up in a personal context, as most people use "you" when talking to someone.

The two areas I have questions on the application of the rules are:

1. Pronoun use when talking about someone you know personally but who is not there. (I'm particularly thinking about in situations where e.g. Alex Drummond's colleagues might misspeak accidentally or not)
2. Pronoun use when talking about an individual who is widely known to be transgender, in a discussion where that person is not present.

The press guidelines have already been updated by trans activist pressure groups to ensure we have the absurd situation where a convicted rapist with a GRC is referred to as she but is that just industry standard or legal requirement now?

Datun yes, that lays it out clearly. And I agree, to call a transwoman with a GRC 'she' should be viewed - as it has been for ever - as a compromise and a courtesy, not a right that can be demanded.

But the idea of poor MM being forced in court by a judge to use pronouns which are not only a lie but which she most likely knows are giving untold pleasure to her assailant - when MM is the victim - sends shivers down my spine.

Sorry - v late to this fascinating discussion - SusanBunch your 9:52 post on p3 quoted part of the GRA, I think as: “If the acquired gender is the male gender, then the person’s sex becomes that of a man” - right there is the mixing up of sex and gender which is so fundamental to this whole thing!

If legally, MM could initially refer to the sex if the defendant, just to make it clear who she was identifying, and then be asked by the judge that for the rest of the session, could she (MM) please refer to the defendant’s chosen gender, I imagine it wouldn’t be such an issue. She would not have to deny her reality, but the defendant’s chosen pronoun could be used in a kind of ‘we are referring to gender here, not sex’ way.

I know it is almost impossible to repeal laws, but I really wish the 2004 stuff could be rewritten to keep bio sex as unchangeable, incl birth certs etc, but keep and strengthen protections for GNC.

Really interesting and respectful discussion, this.

It isn't good manners to take things that belong to other people but people ignore that so we have theft laws.

It's not generally considered good manners to murder people but some people are very rude and uncouth, so we need laws to punish them. If people only had better social skills we wouldn't need them!

macaroon yes I agree. It’s completely confused and uses the terms interchangeably. It does need redrafting.

Can laws be redrafted if they become unfit for purpose, SusanBunch? It would be so helpful in so many ways!

How does that work? Civil servants? A draft process? Consultation? I wish I hadn’t trained to be a teacher sometimes and knew more about the law!

I think transgender people and women could all really benefit from these things being clarified.

Can laws be redrafted if they become unfit for purpose, SusanBunch? It would be so helpful in so many ways!

How does that work? Civil servants? A draft process? Consultation? I wish I hadn’t trained to be a teacher sometimes and knew more about the law!

Amendments are legislated in much the same way that any Bill/Act of Parliament is. This is, in fact, what the Tories are (were?) proposing to do, but in the opposite (wrong) direction.

Details here;

www.gov.uk/government/news/new-action-to-promote-lgbt-equality

We’re all free to lobby our MPs on the issue.

Ah thanks Battleax - I have been to see my MPabout this but hadn’t thought of the proposals as an amendment in the same way.

Regarding beingelderly andfrail. Actually those concepts have changed too. I am alittle older than MM and no taller,slightly smaller i think at 4ft 11ins. I am def not frail looking, and in the strongest sense ,not frail at all. But had i been assaulted,as she was, i wld have been in piain for weeks,even from the camera tussle. It is an assumption that she was not hit bcos of age( and physicality). I know i have been in situations when i have that i have managed to ‘front out’ but nowadays, no one believes i could physically defend myself. Truth is, aperson as small as a five foot female, will not have the muscle,bone, reach or mass of bunched fist to land a significant punch. She was more than twice his age,and foot smaller. He was in a hoodie and jeans at the assault,and its no suprise MM didnt refer to him as female,as she experienced him,as well as philosophically viewed him, as male. Can anyone countencance forcing a female to refer to their sex attacker as she or even they? I am polite to those that are polite to me. So eone attacking me is impolite to say the least. No law compels a victim to be graceful,that is simple sexism on show imo. Little lady must be nice at all times.

It's not generally considered good manners to murder people but some people are very rude and uncouth, so we need laws to punish them. If people only had better social skills we wouldn't need them! Exactly, so we have laws to force/encourage people to behave in a civilised way to other people. In the same way the law gets involved in hate crimes, no need to be rude to people because they are female/black/gay/disabled/trans. Let's just treat each other with respect.

Great, I don't believe in gender so I couldn't possibly "misgender" someone.

the law gets involved in hate crimes, no need to be rude to people because they are female/black/gay/disabled/trans

The law doesn't get involved in hate crimes against women though.

to dispel some (bad faith imo) rumours:

• no one is saying that you have to get someone's gender right first time or it's a hate crime
• gender expression is a protected category. this means that if you deliberately target someone and treat them in a cruel or degrading way because of their gender identity then you are discriminating against them. deliberately misgendering someone in order to treat them cruelly or degradingly (even if you believe that you should be doing this - which makes you a nasty person tbh) may form under this definition of discrimination NOT because you used the wrong word specifically, but because you did it on purpose knowing it would cause harm to that person because of their gender identity. This would be the same if you deliberately used slurs against a gay person, for example, even if you genuinely believed that it was good and right to do it.
• hate speech is not the same as discriminating against someone under the equality act, although hate speech is obviously a form of discrimination.