I'm one of several women who wrote to Anne Main (Conservative MP for St Albans) prior to the GRA consultation closing. I gave my email careful consideration and it turns out her staff have either not read it beyond the subject title or decided to ignore the content completely:
_
Dear [ ],
Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns with me.
I want to assure you that this Government is committed to working for transgender rights and to promote equality in society. We have already made significant progress in this area by drawing up guidance for all employers and service providers as part of a £3million programme to tackle transphobic bullying head on. The Government have published an action plan that will aim to improve the lives of the LGBTQ community.
The Government acknowledged that the gender recognition process is not currently working which is why they commissioned the recent consultation with the aim of reforming the existing system. The consultation provides information about how to reform the GRA and further, to make it less bureaucratic and intrusive for transgender people. The consultation included recommendations such as:
No medical diagnosis or presentation of evidence for trans people to get their identity legally recognised
Recognises non-binary identities
Gives all trans people, including 16 – 17-year-olds, the right to self-determination, through a much simpler and more streamlined administrative process.
Following its release, those who work in the Government Equalities Office will carefully consider if safeguards are needed and what they might need to be.
However, I agree that more must be done to help transgender people with the unique and frequently difficult challenges that they face. It is utterly unacceptable that they face some of the worst discrimination in our society and this consultation is the first step forwards in addressing the difficulties that they face.
I am looking forward to the publication of the Government’s response in due course.
Thank you again for taking the time to write to me.
_
For anyone interested, here was my email to her:
Dear Anne,
I have just responded to the government's Gender Recognition Act consultation, as has my mother who also lives in St Albans.
I hope this is already on your radar, but if not, I wanted you to know how important it is to me and other women for single sex spaces to be preserved. Spaces where women are vulnerable or at a disadvantage to men have been sex segregated for many years for good reason: toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons and sports.
The Equality Act 2010 permits men to be excluded from single sex spaces, but this exemption will be rendered useless if every organisation is supposed to decide whether excluding a particular man is a proportion means of achieving a legitimate aim, every single time a man attempts entry, and at the risk of expensive litigation if they get it wrong.
Men who 'identify' as women, however sincerely, are not in fact women. Men (regardless of how they identify) are far more likely than women to commit violent crime. Men who decide to identify as women do not suddenly become low risk, and they do not suddenly stop being sexually attracted to women.
It is not just a question of safety, but also privacy and dignity. If I was to ask for a female nurse/doctor to carry out an intimate examination, it would be distressing to be unable to object to being examined by a man just because he identified as a woman. In some religious groups women are not permitted to mix with unfamiliar men, so if all public spaces became prima facie mixed sex, these religious women will have to stay at home.
There is also sport. Women and girls will be less likely to participate in sport if they are competing against men and boys. However much men suppress their testosterone they still have the benefit of larger skeletons, larger muscles and larger hearts and lungs. Can you guess the sex of the person who won the women's 2010, 2011 and 2012 English fell-running championships?
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/14/champion-runner-lauren-jeska-jailed-for-attempted-of-uk-athletics-official-ralph-knibbs
I am concerned by the fact that small children are being encouraged to think of themselves as transgender when for most, the feeling of not fitting in or not feeling right in their body is an adolescent phase. Children should not be encouraged into taking hormones that will render them infertile or into mutilating their healthy bodies. The government, charities and schools are being advised by Mermaids UK - the CEO of which took her son to Thailand when he was 16 to be castrated.
The only MP brave enough to have spoken out about this is David Davies:
twitter.com/DavidTCDavies/status/1045288789608992769
twitter.com/DavidTCDavies/status/1041095111134900229
It's disappointing that no women MPs have put their head above the parapet. I hope you will be the first!
I look forward to hearing from you.