No clear definition of 'woman', 'man', 'transgender', 'identify' and a whole list of words. We have no idea, as we answer the questions and add our comments, whether we are talking about allowing only those with gender dysphoria to obtain a changed birth certificate or whether any relaxation of the rules/ self ID will apply for every fetishist, cross-dresser and paedophile sheltering under Stonewall's umbrella. Remember, Stonewall says Inclusion Without Exception.
An almost complete lack of concrete ideas about how any relaxation of the current rules would work. Too many permutations (retain medical assessment, relax medical assessment, ditch medical assessment? Two years of evidence of commitment, one year, six months, no evidence of intent required? Different rules for young people? Simple online self ID with no requirements except to tick the box declaring intent?) that leave people with too many options and too many variables to take into account. We end up in a haze of confusion.
No mention of very obvious implications around sex (if anyone can be a woman, what is a woman, what about the Equality Act?), faith (there will be some women who will feel unable to continue using what are currently single-sex facilities) and disability (both around neurological difference and the need for single-sex facilities) This alone suggests to me that any decisions taken as a result of this consultation would be open to challenge because it will have signally failed to take into account the full impact of change.
Freedom of speech. Women have been prevented from gathering to discuss this issue. How can a public consultation be expected to work if the population most likely to be negatively affected is frightened of being seen and heard to air their opinions?
Misinformation. Only yesterday Ruth Hunt of Stonewall stated on Radio 4's PM programme that the law accepts transwomen are women. The law doesn't. The EA differentiates sex from gender reassignment. The GRA offers a route to a legal fiction. When the CEO of Stonewall is able to tell such lies and not be corrected, what chance is there that many of those filling in the consultation will have any real idea of the implications of any changes?
Language: the language and the level of literacy required to understand the complexities of this consultation are set very high. This is exclusionary, as is the fact that many of the questions are about as yet unformulated proposals.
Checks and balances. The thrust of the consultation is entirely one-way: things are beastly for transgender people so how can we make things better? Apart perhaps from the question on divorce, nowhere is there any hint that checks and balances may need to be built into the system. Will people be allowed to change their mind and legally revert to their original sex if they want? What, if any, checks will be imposed? What unforeseen consequences might we be able to predict?
The entire consultation is not fit for purpose because it's posited on the premise that this is just a minor tweak to an existing law with no real downside. It fails to acknowledge the gravity of potential fall-out at every level — from the mundane (women abandoning gyms and swimming pools) to the loss rights and protections under the law.