39 Days Left

[PersistenceIsNotFutile]

The public consultation closes on 19 October.

You can find it here:
consult.education.gov.uk/government-equalities-office/reform-of-the-gender-recognition-act/consultation/intro/

Helpful guidance can be found here:
fairplayforwomen.com/full_guide/

and here:
womansplaceuk.org/wpuk-guidance-on-gra-consultation/

You can log in, answer a few questions, safe your spot, and come back to it later.

Don't delay. 39 days left.

I am planning to write to the Cabinet Office complaining about the inaccessibility and poor visibility of the consultation, which I believe breaches their consultation rules (link in my earlier post). If anyone has points they think I should make, please PM. And if anyone knows of an organisation that might be interested in using my draft and sending it, let me know who I should get in touch with. Any letter will be far stronger coming from an organisation.

Had to search hard for this in order to bump it! Less than 3 weeks left now, ladies.

I've started filling mine in this evening and will do it little by little to ensure I don't end up doing a rush job and miss things I needed to say.

Does anyone know what will happen after the consultation? What is the timeline we are looking at for any changes in the legislation? I guess we will need to be prepared for the next stages of fighting this.

need thank you for doing this. I've long thought that one of the disadvantages of ordinary women, particularly those with small kids, is that we're very time poor so anything too difficult is hard to fit in. It's interesting how doing the 'wifework' seems to be something the TRAs don't want to appropriate.

The number of times I've tried to do something to contribute and been interrupted by a crying child......I know that's not inaccessibility as it's probably understood but I do feel defeated by all this. I'm desperate to protect safeguarding for Dds future but I have so much that needs doing for them and elderly relatives in the here and now. I just can't keep up. I keep trying though - and I will fill the consultation in but it probably won't completely articulate all i want to.

Fearandsurprise very good comment.
I get so bloody sick of hearing about the journey of poor TW
No one gives a shiny shit about girls going through puberty, the fear and embarrassment.
The unwanted attention
Yet all these middle age men who are transitioning are not transitioning into middle aged women, but teenage girls.

Managed to get someone else to fill in the consultation today.
They wanted to highlight the confusion in the use of the words “sex” and “gender” in many local government services and other organisations.

Also, good to note that you don’t need to answer every question if you don’t want to. E.g. the ones on insurance.

I have completed the consultation - like your friend @Fearandsurprise, I wanted to really emphasis the mess that has been, is being, and will be created by this interchanging of 'sex' and 'gender'. Many of my responses are based on that. It's the most irritating and unhelpful part of it, people who should know better, talking at cross-purposes all the time but resulting in very real consequences for women and girls.

I found the WPUK and Fair Play for Women guidance really helpful
WPUK
Fair Play for Women

I found that I was having to write out 'biological female', 'biological male', 'male-born with a penis' just to make absolutely sure my answers would not be misinterpreted. By my own Government. What a ridiculous state of affairs! I did actually write that in one of the boxes, that I couldn't believe I was having to specify what kind of female I was talking about!

A non binary colleague has completed the survey.
They are vehemently against gender stereotypes and the “lived in your chosen gender” part of obtaining a GRC is particularly offensive to them.
It sounds like it was much easier to complete if you considered yourself to be Trans.

They also noted that the GRA impacts negatively on their protected characteristics of beliefs, sexual orientation and sex.

9 days left, by the way

@PersistenceIsNotFutile - do you think it might be worth asking MNHQ to edit the title to reflect how few days are left now? Maybe when it's 'less than a week'?

Copied over from the other thread.
The quick & easy email version - takes 1 minute to send.
fairplayforwomen.com/email/

I've just submitted mine. It took me nearly 2 hours and I was furious by the end, but it was cathartic. I will spend some time writing to the Cabinet Office tomorrow about how partisan and poorly publicised this consultation is. I can lift my final question response from my PDF of the survey responses, as I really warmed to my theme. It's absolutely enraging. When you consider that you could only complete the EA2010 protected characteristics if you were trans, the survey is flawed from the outset. They have no solid information about who has completed the survey. It's a complete shit show.

I should add that DH submitted using the FPFW email template in

I'm nearly done, I wanted to make a good job of it and do it properly so it's taken a while, so will be sending off the in next few days.

Can I just ask, has it been confirmed that template submissions won't just be filtered out?

It took me nearly 2 hours and I was furious by the end, but it was cathartic.

Yes, I have found the same. I have had to hold back in places in order to remain polite!

There are a couple of places where I wrote something along the lines "This makes me so cross I want to swear at this point, but won't because I want you to take my points seriously."

Bump

Mine wasn't as evidence-based and rich with links as I would have liked, but I've been putting it off to find time to do the perfect job. I decided I needed to bite the bullet and do a good enough job. There will be other people who have crafted model responses. I got all my key points across with examples of organisations that are in breach of their obligations and trans sportswomen etc.

Finally getting round to this...

Bloody hell they don't half nail their colours to the mast at the get go.

"This consultation does not consider the question of whether trans people exist, whether they have the right to legally change their gender, or whether it is right for a person of any age to identify with another gender, or with no gender. Trans and non-binary people are members of our society and should be treated with respect. Trans people already have the right to legally change their gender, and there is no suggestion of this right being removed. This consultation simply asks how best Government might make the existing process under the Gender Recognition Act a better service for those trans and non-binary people who wish to use it."

I'm glossing this as "this is a rubber-stamping exercise. We've already decided what we're doing, and all we want are people to act as cheer leaders."

There's a lot of questions in there along the lines of 'Do you think that ... will be affected by changing the Gender Recognition Act?'

For example, will sports be affected by changes to the GRA.

It requires close reading.