Would you back self ID if...

[daimbars]

Once a trans women got their GRC they had to wait a period of time (say 5 years) before they were able to have the same rights as all women? For example they would only be able to apply for a job as a women’s officer, appear on a female only panel or to compete in women’s sport after five years of lived experience as a woman?

Someone I know is meeting with her MP to discuss how to propose this legislation. She thinks it will address possible repercussions from self ID and stop it being abused. I thought it was an interesting idea I could get behind.

Why the defeatism from you and peak?

Because of the government's position on it. Seems to be little room for negotiation on self-ID coming in. Can't really see them at the same time rushing to table a law along the lines that you suggest.

Oh and the fact that trans people are already using female facilities and women are complaining but the government and the opposition don't care.

I mean, maybe I am being overly pessimistic but I can't see a wholescale change on this, one that would be out of line with the whole of the rest of Europe. Who would actually bring that about from the current political parties that we have?

It’s not defeatism.

I think the battle for female toilets has been lost. I don’t think a person with a grc has any more claim to be in the toilet of the opposite sex than a person without one but I don’t think that bell can be unrung.

I think there are battles that can be won - prisons, refuges, sports, aws etc - where the arguments are unanswerable except by saying, explicitly, “Actually we don’t care about the rights of women and girls” I think establishing the need for some spaces to be single sex by concentrating on those where there is no case by case work-around possible, and where there is a practical mechanism to enforce the boundary,makes it possible for those protections to be established, protected and extended

It is defeatism: you cannot appease this movement. That has been tried. Nothing will appease, no suggestions, no solutions. Mixed sex toilets are NOT a solution. It is defeatist to suggest they are.

Mixed toilets are not an attempt to appease. I know very well that people who want affirmation of their identity as women do not want unisex toilets. What they want are women’s toilets with them in them (sorry that’s awkward phrasing, I’m trying to avoid the whole pronoun bullshit)

where the arguments are unanswerable except by saying, explicitly, “Actually we don’t care about the rights of women and girls”

Exactly. That is my view too. Don't make the argument about whether they are real women or whatever. It just makes feminists look mean and transphobic to the outside world. Saying you want to repeal the GRA and get rid of absolutely any mechanism whereby someone could legally be recognised as the opposite gender also comes across as mean and transphobic and requires a serious justification for reversing the past 14 years of law on this area. Not going to happen.

Saying that you are generally happy for trans people to be treated as women but just not in certain limited circumstances, you flip the argument and trans activists now have to explain why that should not happen. And the only thing they could say is that women's safety/dignity doesn't matter or that fairness of competition doesn't matter. That is a harder argument to make. If you are fighting for your 'right' to always use male pronouns when referring to trans people, you look like the baddie. If instead you are fighting to preserve fair competing in sport, you look more concerned with preserving your own rights than limiting those of others.

you cannot appease this movement. That has been tried.

What has been tried to appease the movement?

Appeasement has been tried. We had a system in which women gave up some of their rights, with grace and patience, over single sex spaces. It wasn't enough. Just as, as Ocarina points out, mixed sex spaces won't be enough.

Plus, the Equality Actbis also at risk and we must defend it at the same time as fighting self ID.

Okay, but if you look at the current political climate we have and who we have in government and parliament and the different political parties we have, who do you realistically think is going to say 'okay, let's repeal the Gender Recognition Act and let's overturn all court decisions that allow a person to change gender legally'? Who will take that step? Theresa May? Jeremy Corbyn? Someone else? How will we go from a position whereby the government has announced its intention to allow self-ID and back trans people unequivocally to it saying 'no, let's not do that'? Which politician will say 'okay, let's ignore the fact that scrapping the GRA will be in breach of our human rights obligations', the obligations that led to the act being enacted in the first place?

Talks of feminist utopias are good up to a certain point. When it is blindingly obvious that a particular route is not going to work, flexibility is needed in order to reframe the argument and preserve some rights for women, but conceding that others will probably have to be given up and prioritising which are the essential ones and how we can meet everyone's needs within the current climate.

Plus, the Equality Actbis also at risk and we must defend it at the same time as fighting self ID.

I remember being told to fuck off of the FWR boards and accused of being a TRA when I said that the Equality Act was key to the debate rather than self-ID and that we shouldn't entangle ourselves in debates over what makes a real woman... Not by you to be fair, but by a few other regulars on this board. Glad to see that some people are now seeing its importance.

I've always seen its importance. I understand the issues. I still have a major issue with changing the GRA. Don't be so fucking patronising. You get told to go away because you seem to think you should get to dictate what other women do to challenge the trans agenda.

Don't be so fucking patronising. You get told to go away because you seem to think you should get to dictate what other women do to challenge the trans agenda

Right back to you. Your tone equally comes across as dictatorial and not allowing other views. I think that is the danger with online forums where people have different views. I am sure you don't intend to sound like you are dictating and nor do I and I don't tend to tell you to go away from the boards even if I disagree with your viewpoint.

Anyway, that is beside the point and there is no point in derailing anything. I saw that there was a meeting about the review into the Equality Act but that there were mixed reviews on it.

I really don't care what you think of my tone. I am pointing out that you haven't "educated" people here about the EA as you patronisingly think. It's all so deliberately obfuscatory and takes time to grasp the ramifications for women but most FWR regulars understand the issues with it.

For some reason self id is being introduced very quietly. We are going to have two sets of people with equal rights to the words women and female in law. Nobody is telling women this, yet it's women who are expected to understand and accept everyone into their spaces. And then have the additional burden of campaigning for safe unisex facilities or single sex spaces if they are unhappy or unsafe.

Are previously single sex spaces going to be legally renamed single gender or unisex? Are these safe unisex spaces going to be a legal requirement before or after self id becomes law? Or do we have to pretend that we still have sex segregation?

But most of your posts are hectoring women why they should change their focus. Many of us have considered this issue at least as much as you. And we disagree with you.

Sorry Baroque, cross posted to Peak.

OK. Fine. I didn't say I was educating anyone at all. My point was it seems to make a difference who is saying something, even if they are effectively saying the same thing.

FWIW I do agree with some of your points.

Unisex cubicles are not the answer, they take up too much space to be practical. Venues have to provide a certain number of toilets per head.

They are also linked to increased violence towards women.

Are previously single sex spaces going to be legally renamed single gender or unisex? Are these safe unisex spaces going to be a legal requirement before or after self id becomes law? Or do we have to pretend that we still have sex segregation?

As far as I can tell, it will be a pretence that we still have sex segregation (but with the trans women are real women argument). I don't think anyone in government has actually suggested a requirement for safe unisex spaces- it was something a pp brought up and I agreed that it might actually be more of an opportunity to ensure safety and dignity than the current situation we have.

Saying that you are generally happy for trans people to be treated as women but just not in certain limited circumstances, you flip the argument and trans activists now have to explain why that should not happen. And the only thing they could say is that women's safety/dignity doesn't matter or that fairness of competition doesn't matter. That is a harder argument to make. If you are fighting for your 'right' to always use male pronouns when referring to trans people, you look like the baddie. If instead you are fighting to preserve fair competing in sport, you look more concerned with preserving your own rights than limiting those of others.

We’ve tried this - they don’t say “women's safety/dignity doesn't matter or that fairness of competition doesn't matter.”

They say Transwomen ARE women and just because their 6’2” masculine body doesn’t fit our narrow definition of what a woman should look like we need to stop being bigots. They say “some women have penises, get over it”.

OK, Upstart but the problem seems to be that then we are stuck with the current position where male bodied people are using 'single sex' facilities and female bodied people are uncomfortable with it.

I actually think the stats on increased attacks are based on where you have individual stalls and a shared sink areas. Men can loiter there and attack women and they do (my friend was a victim of an assault in a unisex toilet in a nightclub). But if it opens up right onto e.g. a shopping centre or a coffee shop, then I can't see how it can be more unsafe. There would be more room by getting rid of the shared sink area and urinal area. I don't think space is as much of an issue as people think. In some countries, single unit toilets are commonplace.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

Precisely MyRelationshipIsWeird. That is the entire purpose of 'Transwomen are women'. It's meant to shut down the route to sex-segregation so you can no longer make a distinction between women and [redacted].
They don't have to say "We don't care about women's safety or rights" because they have already redefined the word to include them. As frustrating and disheartening as it is to see the capitulation of the powerful to this chicanery, this is precisely why we are all in uproar about the definitions of words, because those are the weapons we are fighting.

Asking us to concede on the words and focus on more subtle appeals to reason and decency is like asking us to fight off swords with throw cushions.