Who is trans - re GRA?

[loveyouradvice]

Surely for the GRA this is the nub of it....

Who qualifies as trans? Someone who has gender dysphoria or anyone who wants to?
i.e. who qualifies to be able to change their gender legally

It is interesting that both this i.e. WHO do we recognise as trans for the purpose of legally changing their gender.... and the impact of someone changing their gender legally are NOT spelt out clearly in the consultation.

Both are rather glossed over.

Penalty under the Perjury Act of up to 2 years in jail for a false declaration.

Do you think a potential sex offender would be put off by the threat of a couple of years in a comfy open prison? That's assuming that anyone can prove that he's not 'living as a woman'.

Access to women's spaces are controlled by the Equality Act and not the GRA. So the GRA reform would have no impact in this area.

Another lie. You're full of them today, Sarah. The bar to excluding someone with a GRC is much higher than that for someone without.

Agree OldCrone. Impossible to prove whether someone is “living as a woman “ or not. Look at Alex Drummond ! If “woman” is reduced to some winga wonga essence, then it is completely unprovable, as it is based on belief, not fact.

MsBeaujangles
I don't understand how anyone can think that the categories of 'women' and 'females' will means anything of any significance should the changes be made.

Isn't this just a way of removing the protected characteristic of sex? If anyone can identify as a woman, then the sex-based protections for women and girls will disappear.

Access to women's spaces are controlled by the Equality Act and not the GRA. So the GRA reform would have no impact in this area.

Rubbish. If trans women can self ID as women and legally become a woman there is absolutely nothing that can stop them entering women's spaces.
Remember, we are not allowed to refer to trans women as men. Everyone, including the Equalities minister is declaring they are women: therefore we would never be able to challenge a trans woman in a female space without falling foul of the law.

Remember, we are not allowed to refer to trans women as men. Everyone, including the Equalities minister is declaring they are women: therefore we would never be able to challenge a trans woman in a female space without falling foul of the law.

But if there is nudity you could segregate on penis / no-penis so long as no reference is made to sex.

But if there is nudity you could segregate on penis / no-penis so long as no reference is made to sex.

Snappity - do you realise what an absurd thing you have just said?

Snappity - do you realise what an absurd thing you have just said?

It is not absurd. Because it is not aligned with legal sex, any discrimination claim would be indirect not direct which means it is relatively easy to defend as a "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim". No change of law. No worry about exemptions.

SirVix, I have no idea why your post was deleted. It in no way registered as offensive let alone offended me as a transsexual woman.

SarahAr, if this really is only a minor thing and so few will bother applying then why on Earth is there such a huge push to introduce it?

To suggest it is onerous to get a GRC and change legal sex on a birth certificate. Well too right. It should be!

This is not going out and buying a lottery ticket. It is a fundamental change to your entire status and one that effects interaction with society permanently.

To suggest it is a bit too much like hard work so get rid of all the barriers and we will just sign a declaration does not inspire me in the slightest to think those wanting this REALLY need (as opposed to would like) to alter their legal sex.

And something like this surely has to be granted in case of need not in case of well I would like it if its dead easy to get.

Anyone for whom this matters should be hauling themselves over hot coals to do it and not saying - well only a tiny few of us will bother and most just aren't that fussed.

And its not really the GRC or birth certificates that matter. Its all governed by the EA anyway.

Why should we go through all this fuss to give so few something they don't think matters much and that they could get right now anyway if they would put in the effort, but its really too hard at present to bother?

Stick with the rules we have. Make the effort if you want to change your life like this so much. And if it doesn't really matter that much - well then don't.

Not to mention ANYTHING that makes it easier for someone like that sex offender in prison on page I of the Sun today to be deemed a woman and sent to a jail with women despite having an intact male body and able to have erections and assault women -

Surely nobody think that is a good idea?

Changing legal sex SHOULD be hard not a doddle.

@homefromthehills I thought your post raised many interesting points. The traditional acceptance of transsexuals by women has been based on the lack of risk to women , as well as some level of sympathy and understanding, of how feeling at odds with one’s body can be an experience in common.
The new trans activism is a threat to that. Women do not want people in their space who could be a sexual or physical threat. They don’t want sexual fetishists. They want single sex provisions , such as prisons, to remain, because anything else puts vulnerable women at huge risk of assault. Lumping transsexuals in with fetishists and all sorts of other people under the “trans umbrella “ is not at all what the public ( as far as I can tell, locally ) imagine is happening. I completely agree that the public as a whole need to be properly informed and to be given a voice on this.
I wonder what you, and other transsexuals , if you know any, feel about possible changes to legislation, and what the impact on you might be ?

The new trans activism is a threat to that. Women do not want people in their space who could be a sexual or physical threat. They don’t want sexual fetishists. They want single sex provisions , such as prisons, to remain, because anything else puts vulnerable women at huge risk of assault. Lumping transsexuals in with fetishists and all sorts of other people under the “trans umbrella “ is not at all what the public ( as far as I can tell, locally ) imagine is happening. I completely agree that the public as a whole need to be properly informed and to be given a voice on this.

This is exactly the point. I know more than one politician who is wholly unaware that the people pushing for this change are not simply 'transsexuals', but many who can be described more widely and for whom there might well be different motives.

I know more than one politician who is wholly unaware that the people pushing for this change are not simply 'transsexuals', but many who can be described more widely and for whom there might well be different motives.

Perhaps we need to be clearer about the language we use. The people who are a problem if self-id comes in are the cross-dressing fetishists. If we use the term 'transwoman' to refer to both them and transsexuals, we are clouding the issue, and its not surprising that people don't see the problem and think we're being transphobic.

What do you think the outcome would be if the general public or politicians were asked 'Do you think cross-dressing fetishists should be allowed to change their legal sex?' In fact, I'm about to write to my MP. Maybe I'll ask him.

Yes I agree OldCrone . I think it has obscured the issue.

Penalty under the Perjury Act of up to 2 years in jail for a false declaration

This is insane. Criminalising detransition? Completely bonkers.

But if there is nudity you could segregate on penis / no-penis so long as no reference is made to sex

Why do you want to reduce people to genitals?

Why do you want to reduce women to 'some people in the no-penis group'.

I thought I'd heard it with non-man. Now 'no penis'. Noooooo this isn't insulting to women at all

Pratchet

Criminalising detransition? Completely bonkers.

This is just one of the things they haven't properly thought through...

SirVix there are an increasing number of transsexual women who have gravitated together over recent months - individually recognising what is going on. Often belatedly as we have tended not to be part of any trans community.

Unlike trans people today who seem to transition to BE trans and make a noise we are the opposite. We transitioned, overcame dysphoria, settled down and got on with life. Often for a long time.

So many TS are seeing this and waking up to it much like women on here are doing - belatedly - because of the sudden fuss in the media and the things being claimed as trans out there that might as well be someone speaking Martian from our perspective.

They often have zero connection to our experience or life and seem equally absurd to us as they do to you.

We have individually reclaimed the word transsexual in a fascinating display if like minded thinking recognising that the GRA is clearly written about and for TS and the government and trans activists seem desperate to eradicate us as 'old fashioned'.

We may be and a revolution might be coming but we know that we are being used as canon fodder and do not like that.

I don't know a single TS who now wants to be called transgender or identifies as part of that umbrella. More say that the moment they see what is going on in 'their' name.

One of the biggest unpublished moves of recent months has been how many transsexuals have reached 'peak trans' like women have.

But there are few of us (5000 or so in the UK), most are still unaware or have not been brave enough to face the wrath they can see those of us who do support common sense and women on social media get from trans activists.

We are told we are traitors who are risking lives because we think we are better than them and are selfishly protecting ourselves and denying them as a consequence.

This certainly is not how I see it but the aggression from trans activists deters plenty of TS who are just getting on with life from speaking out and potentially being viewed as a hate figure on both sides. It is not what we are used to or have ever been looking for.

It is not just the trans activists they fear, of course, women are hardening against the 'trans agenda' the more ridiculous it gets with periods being appropriated and men having erections and assaulting women because they are regarded as women and transferred into a female jail.

We see how dangerous and wrong this is but some TS fear being perceived as part of that mentality by women out there who have little experience of us to know there is any difference.

A few of us do talk on line and are active on Twitter. And two or three go out there and write articles in the media. 17 of us got together and wrote a plea for women to be included in proper discussion in the Guardian a few weeks ago. We have been utterly hated for that because we referred to fetishists in the piece.

A counter piece against it was signed by over a thousand trans activists. Showing the disparity.

That is the problem, we do not have the numbers, or the visibility or the desire for political activism, so the ones who are out there are making as much noise and trying to speak sense on Twitter hoping to get across that the trans community is not as united as it probably seems on many things.

And that some of us really are on your side and hope to make that clear by reacting sensibly and gender critically to threads where trans activists attack women for not saying what they want.

We will write to MPs, collectively and together responding to the GRA consultation. But any impact we have will be minimal because there are much larger numbers of feminists and trans activists.

A few more are joining the fray every month so visibility might increase. But we can only do what we do and say what we say.

Debbie Hayton is a star in all this. It was she who inspired me to come out in public on Twitter over these matters. I trust her and am impressed with her objectivity and willingness to face the barrage.

She deserves and is slowly getting more support. But it is a hard road to walk on and I suspect most TS will just put their heads down and hope it all goes away. I have concluded we cannot take that chance.

What do you think the outcome would be if the general public or politicians were asked 'Do you think cross-dressing fetishists should be allowed to change their legal sex?'

The outcome of this might not be as obvious as I thought. I just mentioned it to DH and he said 'They'll just think you're a bigot who thinks transsexuals are cross-dressing fetishists'. I now have to re-write my letter to my MP to make completely clear which groups of people I am talking about, and the distinctions between them.

Perhaps we need to be clearer about the language we use. The people who are a problem if self-id comes in are the cross-dressing fetishists. If we use the term 'transwoman' to refer to both them and transsexuals, we are clouding the issue, and its not surprising that people don't see the problem and think we're being transphobic.

That's the clearest thinking I have seen yet from anyone on the gender critical side.

I don't know a single TS who now wants to be called transgender or identifies as part of that umbrella. More say that the moment they see what is going on in 'their' name.

In my experience that's an exaggeration. What I have observed is that during the upheaval of transition, many people need a new social life and, facing very regular discrimination, become activist - and because they don't yet pass are necessarily out. During that stage, they tend to think of themselves as trans. Once transition is in the rear view mirror, many (but not all) settle down and just want to integrate and the transgender label starts to feel alien.

A few of us do talk on line and are active on Twitter. And two or three go out there and write articles in the media. 17 of us got together and wrote a plea for women to be included in proper discussion in the Guardian a few weeks ago. We have been utterly hated for that because we referred to fetishists in the piece.

I think you are over simplifying the issue. Among transsexuals, trans men have very different objectives to trans women. Most have a metoidioplasty - if they have bottom surgery at all. Only a minority have a penis constructed. In 2004 most countries were changing birth certificates based on surgery but some prominent trans men fought that and we got a gender dysphoria diagnosis instead. I suspect the FTM lobby this time is strongly behind Self-ID for the same reasons - most trans men do not get full bottom surgery. So they find common cause with the transvestites.

Some GC women would like to eliminate the existence of trans women (trans women being a tool of the patriarchy to undermine the sex class women). The first step is to eliminate them from public life.

Oh don't be so ridiculous GC women would like to eliminte transwomen..yeah, sure.

None are women, let's face it. If they don't fight, then women can't fight for them.

It is likely that an individual would have to declare they "intend to continue to live in the acquired gender until death". Penalty under the Perjury Act of up to 2 years in jail for a false declaration. So no "anyone" would not be able to change their gender under a reformed GRA.
But it would be impossible to ever prosecute anyone because how could it be proved that the person wasn't living as their acquired gender? Are they no longer trans if they wear "men's" clothing?

Access to women's spaces are controlled by the Equality Act and not the GRA. So the GRA reform would have no impact in this area.
And if it is impossible to define who is or isn't a woman then how are sex protections enforced?

But if there is nudity you could segregate on penis / no-penis so long as no reference is made to sex.
"Excuse me miss, can I just ask you to show me if you have a penis?"