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.)

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

Sex is a protected category too. Good luck trying to challenge "cruel" or "degrading" behaviour towards women.

When transactivists threaten me and call me a TERF cunt are they discriminating against me?

Oh btw the protected characteristic is gender reassignment, not "gender expression". Whatever that means.

Oh btw the protected characteristic is gender reassignment, not "gender expression". Whatever that means.

Not in criminal law.

Speedy yes please link to the case

“ 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”

I call your bluff. Prove it. I think this is 100 words for snow cereal packet nonsense.

press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo3684610.html

Speedy yes please link to the case

Here you go:
www.bailii.org/eu/cases/ECHR/2002/588.html

The IMO somewhat frustrating section on medical and scientific considerations that relies on the existence of intersex people starts at para 81.

This case is very significant because I know that some people on here would gladly do away with gender recognition certificates, but we couldn't do this without violating human rights according to this judgment.

Yes of course @thanksforthatamazingpost

alex.francois.free.fr/data/AlexFrancois_SpaceDirectionalsMwotlap_OL2003.pdf

The island of Mwotlap, which is just north of Vanuatu. There is also an Australian Aboriginal group i think with different ways of looking at cardinal directions.

If you’re interested in this stuff the late great Oliver Sacks has also written about it. I believe Noam Chomsky has as well, in ‘mouthful of words’ (although I don’t agree with all of his work, it’s interesting stuff)

Orange wasn’t thought if as a separate colour in Britain until oranges were imported - it was just yellow red.

I think t

Sorry - I think also green and blue were regarded as the same colour in China.

The British ECHR court case linked by Speedy85:
The medical and surgical acts which in this case rendered the gender re-assignment possible were indeed carried out under the supervision of the national health authorities. Nor, given the numerous and painful interventions involved in such surgery and the level of commitment and conviction required to achieve a change in social gender role, can it be suggested that there is anything arbitrary or capricious in the decision taken by a person to undergo gender re-assignment. In those circumstances, the ongoing scientific and medical debate as to the exact causes of the condition is of diminished relevance.

But the ECHR now (in their latest trans case, France 2017) says that to require medical & surgical intervention is a violation of human rights!
making recognition of the sexual identity of transgender persons conditional on undergoing an operation or sterilising treatment to which they did not wish to submit amounted to making the full exercise of one’s right to respect for private life conditional on relinquishing full exercise of the right to respect for one’s physical integrity.
www.echr.coe.int/Documents/FS_Gender_identity_ENG.pdf

First transsexualism is real because no one would undertake invasive surgeries on a whim. Now those invasive surgeries are a breach of human rights. The trajectory of ECHR judgments is getting close to self-identification.

We’ve got a problem then haven’t we?

Because if we believe that “three” and “blue” are social constructs, then believing that you can have a girl brain in a boy body seems quite a mild position.

This smacks of “coming of age in Samoa” naivety to me.
Oliver Sacks reference please.

Thanks Speedy!

I'm sorry if this is a stupid question but I was wondering this morning whether misgendering someone because you don't agree they are the gender they say they are can be seen to be on a par with say describing gay people as an abomination because of a religious belief?

Is that how it's seen?

For me personally, I am happy to be polite to someone if they want to be called whatever they want to be called and do my best to abide by it. It's not always easy - I have some people close to me who changed their names for example and I struggle not to let their former name slip out at times.

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or make them feel as though I am deliberately trying to be nasty to them. However, I also feel very strongly about what I feel is gaslighting - to feel forced to say something that I don't think is true in a way that suggests I do believe it's true.

I'm worried about being forced to say things I don't truly believe. I want to know if it is cruel and degrading for me to say I don't believe in my heart that transwomen are women, even if I am prepared to go for a 'middle ground' - which is to use 'she' and the person's new name if that's what they want?

I just don't know where the line is - because I suppose the logical progression from being happy to respect a name, etc. even if I don't believe someone is, in fact, a woman, is to accept that person in all women's spaces, etc. even if I don't believe it?

I'm highly confused at this point.

The colour blue is not a social construct. It exists regardless of language, as do the rules of mathematics. The point is that language shapes perceptions, not that it can change the nature of the universe.

Ok I’m going to suggest that these number/colour analogies are counterproductive and confusing and send the discussion down a rabbit hole.

“Are you a papist?”
Seems like a better example.

Thousands more out there.....

I just don't know where the line is - because I suppose the logical progression from being happy to respect a name, etc. even if I don't believe someone is, in fact, a woman, is to accept that person in all women's spaces, etc. even if I don't believe it?

Yes.

I think the point was that although different languages have different ways of using pronouns and gender, in English pronouns have a clear meaning and it is disingenuous to pretend that meaning isn't there.

But the ECHR now (in their latest trans case, France 2017) says that to require medical & surgical intervention is a violation of human rights!

True. Although I think many will be glad that the court said in the same case that it's OK for countries to require a gender dysphoria diagnosis before recognising a legal change of sex (personally I do worry that the court will change their mind on this in another 10 years or so, but it's good law for the time being).

To be fair though, the British GRC system that was introduced following Goodwin never required surgery, so it doesn't change the status quo in the U.K.

Because if we believe that “three” and “blue” are social constructs, then believing that you can have a girl brain in a boy body seems quite a mild position.

No that’s quite the opposite of the point I was (clearly rather badly) trying to make.

My point is that language has meaning to the social groups involved but it doesn’t change the observable reality. Blue has a definition, three has a definition. They exist as concepts. They are real.

Someone said that language was just a construct so pronouns don’t matter and my examples were supposed to counter that - just because someone on an island north of Vanuatu doesn’t have a word for left, it doesn’t mean left doesn’t exist.

We have sex based pronouns in English and they have meaning. The concept of sex has meaning. And if we can’t use the words WE have to describe sex and the oppression that derives from it then we are forced into some odd subjective world where reality is subservient to feelings and opinions. The fact that the law has fudged the wording doesn’t mean humans can actually change sex - they can’t. That’s an observable, verifiable reality. If we are forced to refer to that person as the opposite sex it skews our perception of reality is what I meant.

That was my point. I’m on the same side of the argument as you here. Clearly a point poorly made 🤦🏻‍♀️

I'm afraid the law cannot mandate perception. Human beings recognise sex in virtually every case. Women have not been unknowingly sharing spaces with males for decades. Much as transactivists might want it so, the law can never dictate who perceives what.

And even if a law with such a mandate were to be passed - "misgendering" is automatically a hate crime whether hate is involved or not - there are people much more unpleasant than feminists who will, eventually, make that clear. The hubris and blinkered echo chamber of this activism is taking us closer and closer to a very nasty backlash. And many of the middle class cheerleaders will simply move on to the next bandwagon, leaving the rest of us bearing the consequences.

Yes that’s what I mean - if we are forced to use language that we know denies reality, where does that leave us? Because we cant even talk about what we see in front of us and want to name, so it skews the perception of the debate.

If our bloke from that island was crossing the road in central London, he’s going to get run over pretty quick if we tell him to look left before crossing. Only with the correct language to name his situation can he understand and cross safely.

You cannot legislate belief.
Belief is based on faith.
Faith denies proof.
Accurate, precise, agreed upon language is important. Have you seen the other thread on the Colorado midwife survey to ‘gender inclusiveise’ midwifery language? It’s utter bollocks - if we can’t call a cabin a vagina we are in a very dangerous situation.

A cabin? A vagina...

thanks Hypermice,

the bloke crossing the road scenario is very clear.