Consultation on Self ID to progress

[Pratchet]

Whatever is motivating these female MPs to undermine women's rights, the battle to preserve our spaces is about to get very busy indeed.

A woman is an adult female human, of the sex that gestates and bears young. I am Spartacus. Women rise #wegotthis

I think you're right hot Didn't someone mention upstream about putting out adverts. Would that be more cost effective or affordable

I'm pretty sure it would be more affordable than a legal challenge.

Yeah it was me. I think the only way of getting anywhere with this is to make sure as many people as possible know about it. Obviously it will have to be done sensitively, we don’t want to be accused of transphobia, so it should be framed as a safeguarding issue, which it is. It would need some serious thinking about but I’m sure there are plenty of more than capable people who would be willing to contribute, myself being one.
Also I have reservations about a legal challenge and not just the cost. In order to make anything stick we would need concrete evidence of things like the rates of sex offending in the trans population and currently there is no official figures for this because the Ministry of Justice doesn’t record this data.
We need to get the word out there, because the only way it can be prevented is if as many people kick up a stink as possible. The legal challenge angle is a possibility but fraught with pitfalls, finance not being the least of them. At least if people know about it and it is pushed through, we might have a chance of raising the funds necessary to take it to the High Court. Otherwise I think it will just be a case of waiting for something horrible enough to happen for people to start asking questions, and I don’t want that to happen.

I'm not really sure what a legal challenge would be mounted against.

It would seem very odd to try to argue that the government had no right to conduct a public consultation about amending the GRA. And if, following the consultation, the government decides to go ahead, it would have to find a slot for a bill in next year's legislative programme, which I suspect might not be easy. So nothing's going to come into force for quite a while.

And if a bill is introduced, the key thing would surely be to lobby MPs to oppose some or all of it. Again, I can't see how a legal challenge would come into it if a bill was going through parliament and was still possibly subject to amendment.

I think the main thing is to be ready for the consultation document to be published and to try to mobilise opinion when the proposals are clear.

Or am I missing something?

I'd contribute towards ads in the mainstream press. What about a letter to The Times (or any other newspaper) undersigned by lots of us? Some people would need to put their real names to it, but perhaps we could also use our MN names? Might be a daft idea but it would be free at least

I'd put my real name to it

It would seem very odd to try to argue that the government had no right to conduct a public consultation about amending the GRA.

That wasn't what I was suggesting. The Scottish consultation for instance presupposes that gender self ID is being brought in and all the questions are framed in that way. It's not supposed to be a fait accompli, it's supposed to be at a "formative stage". They must be able to change course based on the responses. Also when designing the consultation all stakeholders have to be taken into account.

There are guidelines around consultation which are not binding but consultation processes which are considered unfair are open to challenge.

https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/global/en/what/articles/index.page?ArticleID=en/Public-sector/ThePubliccLawDutyyto_Consult

I am not saying there would definitely be an opportunity to do this.

Ereshkigal - thanks for explaining. That makes sense.

I'm still inclined to think we'd get further publicising the fact that the consultation isn't being done objectively (if that proves to be the case) and including that criticism in responses than trying to stop the consultation - but I guess we need to wait for the consultation document to appear and take it from there.

the groups we would want to respond need to be well aware of this consultation and ready to respond.
They need to get all their contacts to do so too. They need to have their briefings on the issues and arguments ready to go when the consultation opens.
Does anyone remember those old feminist network telephone trees? We need the modern version of those. All of us can pass on the link to the consultation and a briefing note on it to our social media networks to highlight that the consultation is open, what the end date is, and to circulate briefings.

This will need to be done more than once- 12 weeks will seem a long time but it goes really quickly and we don’t want people who would respond to run out of time.

As many letters to mainstream papers and Man Friday and WPUK events as possible to keep energy and public and media interest up.

I agree. I agree with you and others that a legal challenge would be costly and difficult. It's more a last resort suggestion if they fail to consult properly.

I’d be interested in helping with the ad/signing a public letter etc.

It does raise an interesting point though (the public not being aware). All of the media attention so far has been from the trans POV, so I imagine that even if many people aren’t that interested, it’s seeping into their subconscious and becoming more “common” to them. Coupled with the tenacious link through the “t” in LGBT, it might be enough for people to accept the changes without paying any attention to them.

When I think about the way I, and many other people I know, spend time online, we tend to either gravitate towards forums/groups that share our interest (hello feminist board) or the polar opposite when we want to confront the things we don’t like (commenting on twitter feeds, for example). On this sort of issue, those polars won’t include the “average” member of the public who knows nothing about this.

We need to raise the issue in other groups. We need to speak to people who are not feminists or transsexuals.

We are talking about an advert, which is a great idea, but I think we also need to harness the power of the internet, and systematically place images/ads/posts etc. in forums and on websites that will make the normal person on the street give a shit about it.

And that most definitely includes men as a target audience. It would be foolish not to.

We need to start putting cards in public loos etc.

That’s a good idea!

Public loo campaign would be great.

Brilliant idea Ereshkigal

I would happily put cards up in women’s loos etc- we need an easy, eye catching design (cock and balls in red circle type design with text such as would you want a penis in here?) and link to women’s place, fair play to women.

I can also add real name to any open letters.

Sorry to recycle posts but As and when there is a consultation it will still need to go through Parliament to change the law to allow legal self ID.

So as well as responding to the consultation we will need to write to our MPs in our own words, and meet them in their surgeries to help them to understand the risks of legal gender self ID and about the need and value for women only spaces. The consultation will be an opportunity to write to MPs so they can understand the results of the consultation when that is presented, in the context of already understanding women’s concerns.

There needs to be a broad range of objections and people who object to legal gender self ID.

MPs also need to hear from voters who are against legal gender self ID and who support and promote gender stereotypes via eg their religious beliefs. They need to make the point that as a key part of living and working freely while observing their religious beliefs they also require women’s spaces.

MPs also need to hear from trans people in great numbers about how gender self ID will not be good for them- like the recent letter in the guardian.

MPs need to hear from LGB people about how their sex-based preferences are at odds with the current self ID agenda. Also stating that their LGB identity and consent is being put under pressure by a T dogma that says sex based sexual preference is transphobic.

This requires all of us to reach out across political divides to talk about this and not just preach to the converted in our own political or faith community. More in common, etc.

Crowdfunding of adverts has worked in the past. If everyone who signed the Govt petition gave £10, we'd be at "bus ads" funding.

I'd love to write to my MP about this, but I don't think it will go anywhere. Firstly, he's SNP who are pro self-ID. Secondly, whenever I've written to them about something going on at Westminster that could technically be discussed in the Scottish Parliament, I get a "don't care, take it up with your MSP" response from him - when there are no rules prohibiting him from contributing towards discussions on devolved issues in Westminster

This is obviously happened as a result of the Stonewall meeting the other day. They want to speed it up.

The Scottish Consultation was pointless because it was used as a distraction to push through other legislation that changed the meaning of 'female' while no one was looking.

Christine Burns and Stephen Whittle got the original GRA pushed through on a technicality - under the wire so no one objected.

Basically these are sneaky people with a plan to get their way and get around democratic process, so we need to pay attention to other bills on the cards and pay close attention to what is being voted for on a particular day.

The consultation will likely be a distraction while TRAs are going into overdrive, lobbying behind the scenes. We need to be hyper vigilant.

Good point.

There must be lots of us who would help with a campaign....I will!

What concerns me is how threatened many are likely to feel about speaking out against the proposals in a public consultation. ( I wonder if we need to draw attention to how intimidated people feel speaking out as a part of the messaging of the campaign).

Without women’s refuges and lots of women’s organisations speaking out I think it will be very hard to win the argument- are there any refuges that have expressed concern ?

I can tell you something: I don't think MPs and others in power who are only vaguely aware of this issue understand why we talk about children. To them it sounds like we are saying all trans people are paedophles. There is zero understanding of the complexities of this, and how organisations such as WA and GG have been infiltrated. We will sound like tin foil hatters. We do sound like that now, toant people. If we say 'children have been weaponised by TRA' (which they have, they the fake suicide stats) they will think we are utterly insane. That's how little they understand it.

It's just a warning: children are exploited hugely by TRA and it's all about #protecttranskids. It is the most amazingly successful PR in absolute discord with what they are actually doing. But it has worked. An intelligent man I know thinks that chdren can k ow their gender identity age two. Unpacking that is so hard. First you have to say there's no such thing as gender identity and they simply don't believe you. It is so ingrained ed I. The zeitgeist that this non existent thing is actually real.

Thinking aloud.

What about a glut of images of women (and girls?) of different appearances, head and shoulder shots, with a black masking tape cross over their mouths? Carefully posed/shot so there is no inference of porn/sexualisation, of course. Or something similar (a hand obviously not hers pressed over her mouth?). If I saw that I’d stop and wonder what it was for.

Silenced women.

Hmmm.

Could create a lot with that, actually. Silent protests. Opposite of the stereotype of the nagging women.

Silence is really loud when you use it effectively.

Urgh. I have to say I'm not super hopeful about this whole thing I'm afraid.

Whilst the Government has to consult when the proposals are in their formative stage, they can have a preferred option and even if the public overwhelmingly hates something they can basically say 'Thanks for telling us your thoughts, but we're going to go ahead with what we wanted anyway'. It can effectively be a fait accompli as long as none of the politicians are silly enough to say anything which gives this away.

Further, legal challenges for unlawful consultation are essentially at best a delaying tactic. If a Court holds that the first consultation was unlawful the Government can rerun it until they get it right. This might be a good strategy if one of the parties was against the proposal and the plan was to try and delay things until the next election, but Labour seem even more gung-ho.

Sorry, I'm just feeling a bit like this is all hopeless tonight. I guess all we can do is respond and hope the Tories realise this might cost them votes...