I had a really encouraging meeting with my (young, male, Tory) MP a few months ago to discuss my concerns around the impact of the proposed GRA reform, and he has been pleasingly proactive in forwarding my written concerns to Baroness Williams, Minister for Equalities.
I got a written response from her this morning with an invitation to go back to my MP with any further thoughts. The letter was, disappointingly but unsurprisingly, full of platitudes and not particularly encouraging. The paragraph I am most keen to respond on is attached regarding the supposed safeguards in the Equality Act.
I am planning to reply along the lines that it’s unacceptable to start from the position that trans women are to be accepted into single sex places and pass the buck to individual organisations and women to decide whether there are grounds to exclude them, especially as we have seen that women can’t rely on the police to support them in this situation. I was also planning to refer to the example of the Scottish rape counselling centre that had funding withdrawn for excluding men, to show that organisations may be too nervous to exclude even if they have the legal right to do so.
If anyone else has any ideas/examples/thoughts that I can blatantly plagerise in my response, please do let me know- I want to use the opportunity to include as many points as possible!!!
Thanks