Does the government consultation re changes to the GRA start this week? Janice Turner thinks so

[R0wantrees]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/this-gender-battle-is-harder-to-solve-than-brexit-0jc0pn867
Janice Turner The Times:

(extract)
If Brexit is the most divisive issue in British politics, requiring a talent for squaring ideological circles and cajoling compromises from bitter enemies, reform of the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) runs it a close second. The consultation, long-delayed while three successive ministers for women and equalities scratched their heads, is finally launched on Tuesday.

Although even that isn’t official. Bizarrely the government wouldn’t confirm (or deny) the date. But I’ve seen emails: groups will give evidence in late July, a sleepy summer recess slot calculated, perhaps, to contain the GRA firestorm. Some chance.

Opposing forces are drilled for battle. On one side the trans lobby, including Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence, who claim changes to the process by which a trans person acquires a gender recognition certificate (GRC) are merely a tiny administrative tweak. On the other, feminist activists who fear that a legal redefinition of “woman” from biological sex to the nebulous, inner feeling of “gender identity” threatens female safety and privacy....

Most controversially she sought to replace the GRC process whereby a person must live in their new gender for two years and have a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria” (a mental disorder whereby a person feels their identity is opposed to their biological sex). Instead Mrs Miller proposed “self-identify”, ie a man could simply declare himself a woman with no requirement to transition physically.

The report caused a furore. Without hearing evidence from a single women’s group, Mrs Miller also proposed abolishing exemptions to the 2010 Equality Act which allow domestic violence refuges or hostels to admit only biological women. Interviewing Mrs Miller last year, I was flabbergasted by how little she had thought this through. She saw no conflict of rights at all: women, she said, must learn to accept without challenge male-bodied people using their changing rooms."
(continues)

Link to previous thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3269463-Government-response-to-the-petition

The police warnings across a number of threads, coming from several posters, were an extraordinary coincidence.

This is deliberately inflammatory behavior on the part of a person who refuses to take no for an answer and has been reported as such.

It's fine Bewilder, really. I set a boundary via a polite request. It wasn't respected - in fact, it was explicitly disrespected using the word entitled - and I am not particularly surprised by that.

No need to report.

lang

Thats awfully kind of you

Some posters really do struggle with boundries and comprehension

So its really good of you to be so understanding

Just remember that you will need to respond to the consultation in your real life name which, on the basis of past consultations, is generally published.
you need to try harder, your name next to your opinion isnt really very scary
My MP knows my opinions already
(Also by the by isnt it normally that organisations must have their name published but individuals can remain anonymous?)

Also by the by isnt it normally that organisations must have their name published but individuals can remain anonymous?
This was the case with the Scottish GRA consultation, but I don't know whether that's always the case with UK government consultations, as I've never responded to any of them.

I wouldn't have thought the names would be made public. Like, the people running the consulatauon would know, so it cant be anonymous. But a list of names and submissions? That would put a lot of trans people, surely.

Pratchet yes sorry I suppose I meant unpublished rather than truely anonymous

Women have already made considerable progress on a number of fronts
#nodebate - well, it is a debate. That one has gone.
Plans to remove single sex exemptions from the Equality Act - gone
Replacement of sex with gender across local authorities and public sector - going and in some cases gone
Under the radar campaign - gone
Suicide stats - decreasingly used to to exposure as a myth
Silent collusion of media - not gone but exposed

And the greatest victory of all - we are still talking despite mass reports, harassment of venues, a bomb threat, crazy strict talk guidelines, mass twitter bans, doxxing Man Friday, we are STILL HERE and we are still talking.

Viva !

Pratchet women are awesome

Usually you get to choose:

• do not publish
• publish anonymously
• publish with my name

And that has all been in less than a year, Pratchet. Speakers Corner was only last September (sometimes feels like a decade ago!)

It's almost as if the people making these veiled threats suspect that the general public doesn't agree with their perspective and that it would therefore serve their guess better if the public was to be discouraged from contributing to the consultation.

Curious, innit?

Their cause rather than their guess. I think they've already guessed how things will go if the public is able to give its input...

Just remember that you will need to respond to the consultation in your real life name which, on the basis of past consultations, is generally published.

Get stuffed, Snappity with your threatening music. I'm perfectly relaxed about giving my views under my real name. Why would I - or any other woman here - be concerned?

You just have to look at all those hundreds of comments under the trans stories in The Times, AAK, or the reaction to #ManFriday. People don't want males in women's showers, prisons or psychiatric wards. All this wafting around getting influence doesn't amount to convincing ordinary people to swallow this self indulgent crap.

Sorry, by self indulgent crap I am referring to the pretence that identifying as a woman actually changes your sex and that therefore everything we've ever known about safeguarding should be tossed in the corner.

This is deliberately inflammatory behavior on the part of a person who refuses to take no for an answer and has been reported as such.

What you mean is that you dislike people have a different opinion. Sorry. That is debate.

"de·bate
dəˈbāt/
noun
noun: debate; plural noun: debates

1.
a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.
synonyms:	discussion, discourse, parley, dialogue; More
argument, counterargument, dispute, wrangle, war of words;
argumentation, disputation, dissension, disagreement, contention, conflict;
negotiations, talks;
informalconfab, powwow
"a debate on the reforms"
    an argument about a particular subject, especially one in which many people are involved.
    "the national debate on abortion"

verb
verb: debate; 3rd person present: debates; past tense: debated; past participle: debated; gerund or present participle: debating

1.
argue about (a subject), especially in a formal manner.
"the board debated his proposal"
synonyms:	discuss, talk over/through, talk about, thrash out, hash out, argue, dispute; More
informalkick around, bat around
"they will debate the future of rail transport"
    consider a possible course of action in one's mind before reaching a decision.
    "he debated whether he should leave the matter alone or speak to her"
    synonyms:	consider, think over/about, chew over, mull over, ponder, revolve, deliberate, contemplate, muse, meditate"

Your participation here in Feminism and Women's Rights is a lot of things but debate is not one of them.

I wonder if Snappity insists on continuing to talk to people who ask to be left alone in real life too.

The police warnings across a number of threads, coming from several posters, were an extraordinary coincidence.

Weren’t they just?

There are other areas on the net where people congregate and keep an eye on MN. On an entirely unrelated board (to do with antenatal stuff) there seems to be an alert set up for a certain keyword being used in a thread. Once it’s used, the thread is magically joined by four or five people all pressing the same view in similar language.

Similar has happened on a fb mums group I’m on. There’s one topic where the admins actually had to ban talking about it because as soon as it was mentioned a tag team of people with rather extreme religious beliefs always popped up. They then swamped the thread with ‘x is dangerous.’

So the other week we had goady gynae cancer and infertility, then now we’ve had veiled ‘concerned warnings’ and rumblings about the police.

As sweary’s legal advice said - holding a gender critical view is protected under law. If your employer takes action against you for expressing gender critical views they are breaking the law.

IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO BE A FUCKING FEMINIST.

Do not be afraid of filling out this consultation.

I wonder what this week’s threat/goading theme will be? Sweepstake anyone?

there seems to be an alert set up for a certain keyword being used in a thread

I saw a TRA once talk about this

I wonder what this week’s threat/goading theme will be? Sweepstake anyone?

Its culmination of Pride month and the parade in London next weekend. Likely that some posters will be referencing the experiences of the gay community.

Yes, going back to kids and Section 28? Ironic since transitioning is basically a form of gay conversion therapy.

Just remember that you will need to respond to the consultation in your real life name which, on the basis of past consultations, is generally published.

Snappity! Stop scaring the nice feminists you norty thing.

T’will be as pencils says:

• do not publish
• publish anonymously
• publish with my name

Otherwise it could be open to being challenged because, as you noted, it may put people off responding.

Bewilder Rufus AAK

The upcoming consultation has a context that includes safeguarding, consent, boundaries and the integrity of safe spaces.

As I often say around here, the first step in any woman's personal risk assessment about someone who sets her spidey senses tingling is to say no about something trivial and see what happens.

These two points are not unrelated.