Is it really all that bad?

[Notevenmyrealname]

I was having a conversation today with a friend who works in HR and is very clued up on the law and equality issues and he was saying that most of the scare stories about transgender stuff are a storm in a teacup. Realistically nobody is going to allow a small group of militant trans activists to remove women’s rights. All the updated GRA will do will allow people who need it a slightly less hassle way to change their gender officially and as it affects such a small number of people (supposedly 1% of the population) it’s really not going to have a massive impact on the vast majority of people. There are no plans to change the Equality Act of 2010, so sex will still be a protected category.
I’ve been trying to read up on lots of stuff over the last month or so and, I have to be honest, really scared myself - particularly reading all the BS spouted by Mermaids. The thought that those people are let loose in schools peddling their pseudoscience to teachers is awful, but again my friend thinks the stuff that gets reported in newspapers is always the worst of the worst as they just want clicks on their pages and I shouldn’t get myself wound up.
I’m actually going to give myself a break from all this over the next few weeks as it’s really getting to me but I was wondering if anyone else thought maybe things won’t be as bad as all the worst case scenarios that are discussed on these boards?
I’m still very much of the belief that gender identity and biological sex are separate things and I think if something could be put in law that makes that distinction clear, surely everything would be fine. Stupid ideology like the crap pushed by Mermaids and the like will be found out eventually and it’s just because they’re riding the wave with the GRA consultation having happened so recently. Teachers are regularly updated on safeguarding and the secrecy aspect would only apply if they thought the child was in actual danger (he gave the example of an extremely religious family who might try taking their child abroad to marry them off or worse, they were from a culture that commit “honour” killings).
Please reassure me that these worst case scenarios are unlikely to happen, or is my friend actually oblivious to very real dangers if these changes go through?

There is insufficient clarification within the EA which as a result creates a discrepancy between the protected characteristic of sex and the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Can anyone tell me what the act actually protects? I understood that it would protect people’s rights in the sense nobody could deny you work or services simply for being transgender. In other words if someone came out trans they couldn’t be sacked or refused service in a restaurant or be subjected to harassment on the grounds of being transgender. This would be a reasonable interpretation.

However, I don’t see how this is being extended to treating transwomen as women.

We aren’t saying Karen White shouldn’t be in a woman’s proson because they are transgender; we are saying they shouldn’t be in a woman’s prison because they are actually biologically male.

We aren’t asking for a particularly cruel punishment because they identify as a woman; we are asking for them to be treated like any other male rapist.

The sports qualifications for trans women are a joke. They are not remotely fair. And potentially dangerous in some sports.

If they were attempting to find a fair way to allow trans women to compete as women the bare minimum would be far beyond what happens now. Arguably there may be no fair minimum and safety should always be the driving factor. If there is any risk of harm - exclude.

But the starting point otherwise still should very obviously have been a handicap system in the same way as happens with pros and amateurs competing. The disparity is at least as great

So your start point is to minimise the trans woman advantage by taking extensive measures across a series of factors which all individually are going to give an edge. Testosterone levels is only one of several. You would also have to measure lung capacity v Female norm, muscle mass, etc. Whatever sports medics say would give an advantage you score against. Combine them all into a built in handicap they must start under.

As a long term post GRS transsexual myself I would not have expected anything less than this as the starting point of any discussion. Yet we are not anywhere near that.

Indeed the testosterone levels are so ludicrous they are many times higher than what most TS who have had GRS routinely achieve. It is about 20 times my own level of T, let alone any actual women's levels. Pretty obviously that alone shows this as nonsense and pretty obviously there is no fairness at all for women here.

This seems to have been done to allow in self ID women like so much else that is going on today - everything is being treated as it must be demedicalised and just validate what someone thinks.

You cannot think yourself into fair competition in sport. Physiology matters considerably in most instances.

This whole thing needs pushing as far as possible as it would be a travesty to see the hard work of girls and women trivialised by someone with clear biological advantages easily destroying years of hard work. Must not be allowed to happen.

I am pretty sure most transsexuals would be right behind you on this as we are not asking for common sense to be replaced by dangerous stupidity in order to placate those who think fair competition can be achieved by thinking you are a woman.

Diagnosed by whom?

And how? Medical professionals are being pressured to adopt the affirmative approach. Kathleen Stock wrote about this recently.

Since July, the Government have been publicising a Stonewall-approved major initiative against ‘conversion therapy’. What seems to have been missed is that, according to the definition of conversion therapy endorsed by Stonewall and others, every single therapist working in the area of gender identity is likely to count as engaging in the very practice which the Government is supposedly keen to outlaw.

Would your clued up friend in HR mind if his 11 year old daughter was exposed to the penis of a 'self certified female' in a 'women's' communal changing room? The same penis which if exposed to her at the bus stop would presumably still be a police matter? (Not necessarily the penis of a TW btw, any old self certified ladycock will do)

Is old Jess Bradley and his shenis a police matter? It seems that flashing your cock if you are a TW is just fine and dandy.

Aaaarggggh - sorry. Jess Bradley and HER shenis.

Would your clued up friend in HR mind if his 11 year old daughter was exposed to the penis of a 'self certified female' in a 'women's' communal changing room?
Obviously he wouldn’t. As I said, I genuinely don’t think he has thought about stuff like this as a serious threat as he has dismissed the TRAs who are advocating TWAW as crazy fringe activists and believes common sense will prevail as it has in many other cases. He didn’t totally dismiss what I said out of hand - if he was that patronising, I wouldn’t be going around referring to him as a friend. It was an equal and friendly conversation and I’ve cherrypicked a few comments that he made for the purposes of this thread. I think he might go away and read up on Mermaids as he didn’t really know about them.

I’d tell him about the 11 year old girl who was traumatised by the 14 year old trans girl masterbating in the school girls changing room. School said there was nothing they could do and the girls mother was called a transphobe on social media for complaining. I saw one post stated that girls masturbate so what was the problem.

Now I don’t know if it’s true but allegedly this trans girl had previously been suspended for sending pictures of their genitalia to schoolgirls and allegedly he no longer identifies as trans.

Noteven he could well be genuine in his ignorance of the full picture. I am on a well known teaching forum and watched a thread get pulled the other day as a few men were aghast at the idea that a man with a cock could/would ever be called a woman. They just didn't believe it would happen. These men were not anti-women at all, just completely ignorant of what is happening because it has all been so under the radar and, crucially, still is.

The thread was pulled as the forum protects 'vulnerable minorities' from criticism!

Meant to say obviously he would. Proofread before posting.

It beggars belief doesn’t it starcross that women and little girls aren’t seen as vulnerable and don’t really matter.

Yes and even more shocking on a teaching forum where the risks to children should be able to be discussed openly by responsible and intelligent adults.
It is not allowed to discuss ROGD or anything related to trans really. It is a blanket shut down with any transgressions triggering a huge influx of complaints from TRAs as the posts get flagged up to them.

Thing is Star that all these people swallowing this crap, when the shit hits the fan, will deny their blanket acceptance of what us essentially a very harmful cult. It will be a case of ‘nothing to do with me mate.’

Thing is Star that all these people swallowing this crap, when the shit hits the fan, will deny their blanket acceptance of what us essentially a very harmful cult. It will be a case of ‘nothing to do with me mate.’

Worse, they'll all be scalp hunting the other way so that nobody remembers what they said and did.

Absolutely they will. Starting with people like LOJ.

EqA 2010 gives sex as one of the protected characteristics. Yes, women (among others) are protected. Yipee!

Trouble is, the GRA 2004 tells us that a man with a GRC is now legally and to all intents and purposes a woman.

Hence, now (and this is the important bit) they come within the "woman" protected characteristic. Because they have a GRC and are now a woman. These men are now women. They are included in the EqA2010 definition of "woman".

Self-ID is this, the same - but on steroids. No gatekeeping at all. A man IS a woman if they say they are a woman. End of. #nodebate

It is a fucking travesty of law and reality,

He's talking as if he's completely a full risk assessment of the situation, when he has, in fact, just said what he thinks based on his knowledge and imagination.

No! Surely not! That doesn't sound like a man at all

Unexpected, seemingly impossible events happen in history all the time. Sadly, we all have good reason to fear the erosion of/assault on women's rights that's going on as we speak today.

Well said. Excellent post.

However, I don’t see how this is being extended to treating transwomen as women.

Ask that question to Gendered Intelligence who wrote the government guidance as a sop to people who wanted the sex exemptions removed from the EA and "non binary" gender identities recognised in law.

Gendered Intelligence suggested to service providers, backed by the EHRC that it's not possible to exclude MTFs from female spaces.

'nobody is going to allow a small group of militant trans activists to remove women’s rights'

Ask him to explore what he has said a bit more.

Who is he thinking of when he says 'nobody'?

What would he think of as an event that would look like the removal of women's rights?

He might think of something like the removal of 'sex' as a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act. But that's not what is going to happen (or not yet, anyway). Instead, just redefine what a woman is. There! How do you define women's rights if anybody can be a woman? Why would a woman need rights anyway, if anybody can be a woman?

The government is publishing documents defining biological sex as something 'assigned at birth' by a medical practitioner. The Minister for Equalities, and the consultation document, said that the starting point for the GRA consultation was that transwomen are women. BBC journalists say things like 'there are a lot of grey areas' about people conceived male competing in women's sport. An NHS service received a request for a female practitioner for a smear test, said that they WOULD provide a woman practitioner, and then sent in a person conceived male who aimed to present as a woman.

What 'authorities' does he think are left to decide whether or not to 'allow' anything? This is being DONE.

If men can identify themselves, via self-ID, into the so-called protected category of "woman", then true "woman" ceases to exist, because men can identify as women, without any of the features and drawbacks of having an actual female body.

Trouble is: women are and have been historically for millennia oppressed by men because they are women. Nothing at all to do with how they identify. It's because they have female biology. Which transwomen do not have.

The same penis which if exposed to her at the bus stop would presumably still be a police matter?

Um, I think all our genitals would be equally guilty under this interpretation of the law. Possession of a sexual organ is not a crime; using it to cause alarm or distress is.