Article in Counsel magazine on GRA reform

[Bronners78]

This article by an employment and equality barrister has been shared on twitter, I thought it might be worthy for discussion here.

This paragraph I think is particularly pertinent:

Properly analysed, it is questionable whether dangerous men would abuse an amended (easier) gender recognition process in order to change their legal sex (to female) for the sole purpose of accessing women’s spaces. Under the current regime, people are not in general required to produce a copy of their birth certificate to access single-sex facilities or services. Should a man wish to use deception to access such services or places with dangerous motives, he will seek to do so without needing to acquire a GRC. More importantly, there are existing protections in the criminal law to prevent such activity.

www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/gender-recognition-and-trans-equality

Public service announcement reminder.

Yes I saw the discussion and the suggestion on Twitter to post this here. There are other legal opinions. That isn't a particularly erudite argument - it's based on lazy speculation about male behaviour and is nothing new. We have had this same discussion over and over again here. Have a little search. We don't need to be "educated" thanks.

And yes. Thanks for PSA.

Surely a key issue is women's and girls' right to challenge? And feeling confident enough to do so?

Oh it's a PSA. Sorry.

it is questionable whether dangerous men would abuse an amended (easier) gender recognition process in order to change their legal sex (to female) for the sole purpose of accessing women's spaces

FOI requests (see BBC Reality Check etc) have demonstrated that 48% of trans prisoners are sex offenders vs < 20% of the general offender population. Now, this suggests that either a) dangerous men are abusing gender recognition processes in order to access women's spaces or b) trans people are disproportionately likely to be sex offenders. My view is that the first explanation is by far the likeliest. What do you think OP?

Sorry!

Thats dangerous nonsense. Laws dont prevent criminal activity, they just spell out the penalty for certain behaviours.

A birth certificate will keep an offender out of a woman only space in the same way that a restraining order will prevent a man from killing his ex in front of her children. i.e. it won't.
Biological men should not be given access to women only spaces and services. Women cannot challenge someone who looks like a man in a women only space until it's too late and someone has been harmed. Their presence prevents some women from being able to use the spaces that were designed for them.

Given how hard it is for women to get a prosecution even when there's evidence of extreme harm such as being stabbed in the neck, raped, hit with a cricket bat & forced to drink bleach, or trafficked and forced to work as a prostitute; the attitude that it will all work out ok is at best naive.

There are already discussions on this on the Jess Bradley thread & the WEP threads as the author is a pro-trans government advisor. Just in case anyone is interested in a discussion with full disclosure.

HTH.

I didn't notice it was by McCann.

Claire McCannn^
Claire is an employment and equality barrister at Cloisters, with a particular interest in transgender rights. She acted for ‘C’ in her human rights challenge of the DWP’s retention on its computer systems of data revealing her trans status, which was heard by the Supreme Court in 2017.

And lost, I think?

Poorly written article. Needs to define 'sex' and 'gender' and make a distinction between the two. Stuff like this is meaningless drivel:

Moreover, for those who identify as non-binary – that is, identifying as either having a gender which is in-between or beyond the two categories ‘man’ and ‘woman...

'Man' and 'woman' are sex categories. A gender category in between them just means gender-non-conforming.

Thank you for bringing that to my attention Sturdy.