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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

What positive outcomes would you like to see from GRA reform?

42 replies

Wanderabout · 22/07/2018 15:15

One thing I would like to see and that urgently needs done is (in Rowantrees words):

"clarify and make explicit the difference between sex and gender and recognise the widespread confusion /potential risks / issues / obfuscation and / or misunderstandings which currently exist."

It needs to be explicit about the confusion and issues and address this clearly in legislation and/or practice.

The original GRA was designed as a legal fiction for a tiny number of gender dysphoric transexuals. We now have mass confusion about girl brain vs boy, magical thinking and biological denialism.

The purpose and meaning of enabling anyone to be legally recognised as the opposite sex needs to be crystal clear.

What else?

OP posts:
Angryresister · 23/07/2018 08:55

Yes , while dysphoria should be treated as a psychiatric disorder, this should not entitled anyone to change their documentation or have access to the opposite sex protected spaces, or have cosmetic changes funded through the NHS. In fact if you have a Certificate at all, it should just say as an addition that gender is ..., but it has no actual effect in practical terms.

Baroquehavoc · 23/07/2018 09:16

Wouldn't it be nice if women were allowed to distance themselves from transwomen the way that transwomen are allowed to distance themselves from men?

We need this to happen. Whatever difficulties male transpeople have, it doesn't alter the fact that female people have needs and wants that are distinct from them. The GRA needs to recognise this.

WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice · 23/07/2018 09:28

We need this to happen. Whatever difficulties male transpeople have, it doesn't alter the fact that female people have needs and wants that are distinct from them. The GRA needs to recognise this.

I completely agree.

But then what would the GRA actually be, because this would mean an end to changing birth certs from M to F?

WhereDoWeBeginToCovetClarice · 23/07/2018 09:40

Why is the law currently allowing only people with this psychological disorder to have it legally affirmed?

How did this ever happen?

If you will let people who have a disorder where they believe they belong to the opposite sex change their documents, why not people with others. For example - how about transabled people competing in the paralypics or getting a Blue Badge and DLA?

How about being able to have a different weight recorded in boxing - middle-weight identifying as featherweight?

How about the Peerage? Why not let some people be recorded as the descendents of certain Lords and entitled to inherit land?

If someone genuinely has dysphoria about these things which is persistent and unchanging, surely they also have the right to be legally affirmed and entitled to the name and all the rights, protections and provisions of the people they claim to be?

What is the difference with sex dysphoria? I can't see it. Please explain.

Bloodmagic · 25/07/2018 03:23

"The original GRA was designed as a legal fiction for a tiny number of gender dysphoric transexuals."

I honestly think the GRA needs to be completely revoked. It was nonsense to begin with. There's no need to let someone legally change sex when they can't physically change sex. Gender reassignment is already a separate protected characteristic, but males with gender reassignment surgery should NEVER be counted as female under any circumstances.

Scrap the lot.

Honestly, that little bit of legal fiction is what got us into this nonsense in the first place, it created a benefit to those who want to lie about their sex and set a precedent that everyone else should go along with it.

THEN add 'gendered expression' to the list of protected criteria, meaning that a man can't be discriminated against for dressing/behaving in stereo-typically feminine ways and a woman can't be discriminated against for behaving in stereo-typically masculine ways. Clarify that this is secondary to existing sex based segregation, i.e. women can have separate sports teams and women who don't dress/behave in typically 'feminine' ways cannot be discriminated against in them, but men are still excluded regardless of appearance/behavior.
Transgender men can't be denied housing based on them being transgender and dressing in 'feminine' ways, but they can be excluded when the housing is female only.

When this happens (I have confidence that sanity will eventually prevail) it will be an outrage among those who have already transitioned. I do know some transmales who have convinced themselves that they are 'literally female' now that they've transitioned. That is what legal gender recognition promised them - cut off your dick, take drugs forever, permanently physically mark yourself as 'other', and you WILL be female. It will all be worth it in the end. We will put it on all you documents, and let you into the women's sports teams and facilities because you will really BE a woman, or at least close enough as makes no difference. To go through all the suffering and then be told "PSYCH! You're still a man! Changing sex was never an option, you've maimed yourself for nothing! No women's anything for you, get back in men's facilities and spaces where you always belonged but now without your genitals or a functional endocrine system." there's going to be mass suicides. All they ever needed was some proper therapy and a dose a feminism, and instead they've been led along a path of drugs and surgery that goes nowhere. It's a tragedy, but the longer it's put off the more people that will be drawn into the lie and end up suffering.

Bespin · 25/07/2018 07:27

so that would be a no then, so far only the op as actually come up with something that is A actually related to the GRA not the equality act and B an achivible outcome.

OldCrone · 25/07/2018 08:06

The original GRA came about because of a case in the European Court of Human Rights, where a transwoman had been 'outed' to her employer because she couldn't change her NI number and they knew through this that she had worked for them before as a male.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwin_v_United_Kingdom

The ruling required the UK to make provision for such people (fully transitioned transsexuals) to change their legal status. AFAIK there was no requirement for new birth certificates to be made available, just that the individual should be able to have some sort of legal recognition as their acquired sex.

My feeling is that we should be working towards a society which is more accepting of diversity. We should accept men who want to look like women and vice versa. We should accept that being a man does not necessarily mean being masculine, and a new category of transwoman would be fine. Women should be able to choose to be transmen.

The original ruling would never have happened in a more enlightened society, where difference was tolerated. People who have transitioned should be able to live their lives free of stigma and discrimination. People should not have to hide their past or the fact that they have transitioned, because it shouldn't matter.

Trying to hide the truth, and fabricating legal fictions to aid this, just causes divisions in society and makes people less accepting of diversity.

The transgender movement seems to have come about from people being pushed into narrower and narrower gender boxes. But instead of letting us all escape the gender prison, it just lets people jump from one box to another. And we're all supposed to pretend not to notice when they do so.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 25/07/2018 08:34

And that OldCrone is the heart of it.

A year or so ago that is probably what I was feeling. I have always been accepting of trans people, couldn't care less if a man looked feminine or a woman looked masculine. I was a young adult through the 80s, some of my earliest hetero crushes were on men with lots of make up, some in dresses. That's how 'uncaring' we were back then.

I really don't understand why this generation is suddenly all for having discrete boxes in which they must lie, or jump from/to in order to be, well, something or other!

It would be far more freeing to simply live as you choose, regain some of that flower power, hippydom and mix it in with the spirit of Adam Ant and Bowie. Just live your gender bending lives and sod the labels.

But that attitude seems to make me a hidebound T word, and I simply 'don't understand'.

Well, that would be right. I don't understand why so many young people are so eager to build themselves a restrictive box in which to live. I thought youth was about railing for freedoms... having more not self imposed martyrdom and a self restricted identity!

Fairenuff · 25/07/2018 12:26

Males as a class are a risk to those weaker or more vulnerable than them because they are more violent and commit more crime and prey on women and children.

Let's make some safe spaces for those people at risk from males as a class.

Into all these safe spaces go the females and young.

Some people who were born female start identifying as male. They are called transmen but often they are still smaller than other males and at risk.

So lets let them still use the female safe spaces as they do not carry the same risk as a male born male.

Often they do not have a penis for example.

OK great.

So now we have safe spaces for females, young and vulnerable transmen.

Some men are born male but now identify as female. They are transwomen.

They also want to use the female safe spaces because they say there are at risk from males as a class.

Law is put into place to allow these vulnerable transwomen to also use the safe spaces.

Ok great.

So now we have safe spaces for females, young and vulnerable transmen and transwomen. They are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Men as a class are not happy about this. Men as a class also want access to female only safe spaces.

How about, anyone male can also use these spaces.

Well first they need to self identify as female. Nothing else. No therapy, no hormone treatment, no surgery, no change of appearance.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Great.

So now we have females, young, vulnerable transmen and transwomen and all males in these safe spaces.

They all are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Except that they are not.

Allowing self id takes away that protection by putting men as a class into the safe spaces.

This is what I would like to see addressed properly.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 25/07/2018 12:59

Fairenuff Will you stop making sense, It's really fucking boring.....

Grin
OldCrone · 25/07/2018 13:04

Fairenuff

Anyone who doesn't get it after reading that, doesn't want to understand.

garam · 25/07/2018 20:17

*Well first they need to self identify as female. Nothing else. No therapy, no hormone treatment, no surgery, no change of appearance.

Nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Great.

So now we have females, young, vulnerable transmen and transwomen and all males in these safe spaces.

They all are safe from men as a class who, remember, are a risk and the reason that safe spaces were created in the first place.

Except that they are not.

Allowing self id takes away that protection by putting men as a class into the safe spaces.

This is what I would like to see addressed properly.*

Thats how it has been for 8 years, basically just saying 'I propose treatment' would protect you under gender re-assignment, and yet there are no significant problems arisen since the EA 2010

OldCrone · 25/07/2018 20:47

Thats how it has been for 8 years, basically just saying 'I propose treatment' would protect you under gender re-assignment, and yet there are no significant problems arisen since the EA 2010

That doesn't change your legal sex, though. Only a GRC does that. How can there be a protected characteristic of sex in the EA2010, in any meaningful sense, if everyone can choose their legal sex?

theOtherPamAyres · 25/07/2018 22:39

I would like to see a move towards a change in the terminology that describes transition.

A Feminine-trans (person) for Transwoman
A Masculine-trans (person) for Transman

For three reasons

  1. 'Feminine' and 'Masculine' describe the gender social constructs. TransWOMAN and TransMAN imply a change of sex.
  1. The terms do away with the need for words like Transchildren, TransBoy, TransGirl - labels that imply an inevitable journey into transition.
  1. The terms describe perceptions and feelings (of femininity or masculinity) rather than biological facts.
Crazy3 · 25/07/2018 23:03

I want the law to acknowledge the truth too.
You should not be able to rewrite history.
Perhaps papers to represent gender change may be helpful for people who want them but only in the case of surgical change not just the way you feel.
You should not be able to be legally considered female if you have a penis and are not actually a female. I.e born a girl.
I want to be referred to only as a woman or female as I was born a girl.

Ereshkigal · 27/07/2018 02:20

And there is the biological elitism out in full force again wanting to relegate trans women, based on their biology, to be a separate group with fewer rights.

There is no "biological elitism" (lol) here. We just don't believe they are women and don't accept that they have the right to use women's facilities with us. We don't wish that they should have less rights. It's simply that violating female people's boundaries and riding roughshod over their rights to privacy and dignity isn't really something a male person can claim as a human right.

ReluctantCamper · 27/07/2018 08:33

relegate trans women, based on their biology, to be a separate group with fewer rights

I'm going to ask this really loudly for the benefit of the people at the back

WHAT RIGHTS DO TRANSWOMEN NOT HAVE NOW THAT THEY NEED?

never seen a sensible answer to that one, but hope springs eternal

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