Regulatory capture

[LangCleg]

We've had two (well, one still standing) threads on Accenture and its inclusive LGBT event excluding lesbians by power of the state over the last couple of days.

We've also discussed the way in which the policy-setting leadership of other companies, state institutions (for example the police and the NHS), charities (for example NSPCC) and third sector orgs (for example Girl Guides) have enforced the top-down imposition of Gender Identity ideology despite obvious practical and ethical issues and conflicts of rights.

I came across someone remarking about the concept of regulatory capture on Twitter in relation to all this and, since we've also been discussing the actual power relations behind various oppression narratives, I wonder what everyone thought.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are prioritized over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".

There are two basic types of regulatory capture and the second rings a few bells:

Non-materialist capture, also called cognitive capture or cultural capture, in which the regulator begins to think like the regulated industry. This can result from interest-group lobbying by the industry.

What do we think? Are there parallels?

From the OP of that thread:

However was extremely disappointed to find this guidance from ACAS:

http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/6/7/GenderreassignmenttdiscriminationNov.pdf

It not only states that employers should have a policy that allows trans employees to use the toilets of their new gender, it does not mention at all that others may have protected characteristics which mean this is a problem for them, and it presents what in my view is an extremely unlikely example of three women physically abusing a transwoman (p27 and 28)

Acas published guidance with the Govt Equalities Office in February advising employers to report gender pay gap data based on their employees' self-identified sex:

www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/9/p/Managing_gender_pay_reporting_07.02.19.pdf

WPUK wrote to Penny Mordaunt about it: womansplaceuk.org/gender-pay-gap-letter-to-penny-mordaunt/

Hmmm Acas.
I used their template to write our equality and diversity policy a couple of years ago.

When I checked it recently, lo and behold, the word gender was there.

In one particular sentence, sex was in brackets after the word gender.

At the bottom of the template it reads...

Note: this template is an example an employer can adapt or develop to meet its needs. For more information, see the Acas guide, Prevent discrimination: Support equality

Thanks to MN I have had my eyes opened.

I went to the Acas website specifically to get correct information.
Information that would stand up in court.

Gender is the slippery word that sneaks in and renders it as useless.

Gender is the slippery word that sneaks in and renders it as useless.

Yes, it is. And as your experience shows - regulatory capture leads to the law not being applied.

Absolutely Lang

Replacing the word sex for the word gender is a deliberate act to deceive the public.

Arghhh, that came out wrong.

What I really meant to say was.
Replacing the word sex for with the word gender is a deliberate act to deceive the public

Listening to DeRay Mckessen (of Black Lives Matter) on R4 this morning made me think of this thread.

When asked about what he’s learnt about power he said ‘... language is often the first act. The act of definition is a fundamental act of power’.

It’s at about 26.45 here:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0004lf0#play

Bumping to add this thread about the Bench Book that institutes self-ID for defendants and recommends reporting restrictions/private hearings if birth sex needs to be revealed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3591213-Mail-article-Judges-are-ordered-to-allow-transgender-defendants-to-be-addressed-as-the-gender-of-their-choice-during-court-appearances

Post from theOtherPamAyres on the thread:

The Judicial College produced the guidelines.

The Judicial College is part of the Judicial Office. It's an unelected civil service, really. The HM Goverment site tells us that it works with (but not for) the Ministry of Justice

The Judicial Office supports the judiciary across the courts of England and Wales, and the non-devolved tribunals across the UK, by providing training, legal and policy advice, human resources, communications and administrative support.

The front-line people are Judges, magistrates, coroners and tribunal staff.

In other words, they make policy and issues 'guidance': except it's more than that. Ignore the advice at your peril because it will provide litigants with grounds for appeal.

Without so much as an impact assessement or consultation with interested parties, they are a law unto themselves.

Regulatory and policy capture at its finest.

EdExcel exam board, having been trained by our favourite lobby group on making curricula inclusive (FFS) have been busy replacing the word sex in biology exams with the word gender. Students who (correctly) point out that chromosomes do not determine gender will be marked incorrect. Thread below details whistle blowing and a complaint by FPFW.

Ideology now capturing exam boards.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3601670-gcse-biology

Policing
It was 2005 and a Guidance document landed.

It was about the Gender Recognition Act and had been written for the Association of Chief Police Officers by their LGBT Portfolio Group

At the back, was a list of organisations that might help Forces further including GIRES, Press for Change, Mermaids, Beaumont Society, the FTM Network and others.

The striking thing for someone who had to implement the guidance was the repeated warning that police officers would face disciplinary procedures and possible criminal proceeeding by disclosing information about the person with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

So far, so good but there was a problem ahead.

There are regular updates to the Codes of Practice in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (ie in 2019 there's a new section on availability of sanitary products)

One such update (can't remember the year) said YOU COULDN'T ASK THE PERSON WHETHER THEY HAD A GENDER RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE,
(Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Code C, Annexe L)

This was unprecedented and strange. The people appointed to establish and check the identity of an accused and investigate them, couldn't ask a simple question. Self i/d was in. The police were not in a position to distinguish GRC holders from other transgender detainees.

Remember - the officers were under the impression that they would fall foul of the law if they outed someone with a GRC, so all Ts had to be referred to by preferred pronouns and "acquired gender" (sic).

The secrecy and use of preferred pronouns had an effect elsewhere - on the courts and on press reporting in particular. We are scandalised when sexual offenders are called 'she' in news reports - but editors are only repeating official police statements.

Did the Association of Chief Police Officers get the wrong advice from their LGBT Portfolio Group? How far were the LGBT Group steered by lobbyists - and why did they work with lobbyists in the first place? What idiot thought that the Gender Recognition Act prevented the police from asking for key information?

What gullible idiot put the need for confidentiality and sensitivity for trans offenders before the public interest in accurate descriptions of offenders?

Original Source: ACPO: The Gender Recognition Act 2004, Guidance for Police Officers and Staff, written by Sergeant Julie Challoner, Devon and Cornwall Police, LBGT Portfolio Group.

On the financial connections between the Guardian, BBC, Channel 4, Mermaids, GI etc

You are right @TheOtherPamAyres - they have got the GRA wrong. I was reading up the same documents the other day

The current Guidance says:

www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/detention-and-custody-2/detainee-care/equality-and-individual-needs/#trans-individual-detainees

Trans-individual detainees

"It is important that trans-individual detainees receive the same respect and dignity as any other members of the public. There is also a requirement to be sensitive to the dignity of police officers called upon to carry out procedures such as strip searches.

Trans-individuals includes a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (previously referred to as transsexual) and also a person who adopts, fully or partially, dress, appearance and/or behaviour normally identified as belonging to the opposite gender (previously referred to as transvestite).

The term also applies if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of that sex. That person is not required to be under medical care to satisfy this definition.

In law, the gender of an individual is their gender as registered at birth unless they have been issued with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA), in which case the person’s gender is their acquired gender. Annex L to PACE Code C provides useful information on the approach to be followed to establish the gender of the detainee for the purposes of a search or procedure."

So what does it say in "Annex L to PACE Code C" ?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729842/pace-code-c-2018.pdf

This is the relevant section of Annex L:

"4. When establishing whether the person concerned should be treated as being male or female for the purposes of these searches and procedures, the following approach which is designed to minimise embarrassment and secure the person’s co-operation should be followed:

(a) The person must not be asked whether they have a GRC (see paragraph 8);"

Paragraph 8:

"(c) Disclosure of information

8. Section 22 of the GRA defines any information relating to a person’s application for a GRC or to a successful applicant’s gender before it became their acquired gender as ‘protected information’. Nothing in this Annex is to be read as authorising or permitting any police officer or any police staff who has acquired such information when acting in their official capacity to disclose that information to any other person in contravention of the GRA. Disclosure includes making a record of ‘protected information’ which is read by others."

Section 22 of the GRA:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/22

22 Prohibition on disclosure of information

(1)It is an offence for a person who has acquired protected information in an official capacity to disclose the information to any other person.

(2)“Protected information” means information which relates to a person who has made an application under section 1(1) and which—

(a)concerns that application or any application by the person under section [F14A,] [F24C, 4F,] 5(2) [F3, 5A(2)] or 6(1), or

(b)if the application under section 1(1) is granted, otherwise concerns the person’s gender before it becomes the acquired gender.

(3)A person acquires protected information in an official capacity if the person acquires it—

(a)in connection with the person’s functions as a member of the civil service, a constable or the holder of any other public office or in connection with the functions of a local or public authority or of a voluntary organisation,

(b)as an employer, or prospective employer, of the person to whom the information relates or as a person employed by such an employer or prospective employer, or

(c)in the course of, or otherwise in connection with, the conduct of business or the supply of professional services.

(4)But it is not an offence under this section to disclose protected information relating to a person if—

(a)the information does not enable that person to be identified,

(b)that person has agreed to the disclosure of the information,

(c)the information is protected information by virtue of subsection (2)(b) and the person by whom the disclosure is made does not know or believe that a full gender recognition certificate has been issued,

(d)the disclosure is in accordance with an order of a court or tribunal,

(e)the disclosure is for the purpose of instituting, or otherwise for the purposes of, proceedings before a court or tribunal,

(f)the disclosure is for the purpose of preventing or investigating crime,

(g)the disclosure is made to the Registrar General for England and Wales, the Registrar General for Scotland or the Registrar General for Northern Ireland,

(h)the disclosure is made for the purposes of the social security system or a pension scheme,

(i)the disclosure is in accordance with provision made by an order under subsection (5), or

(j)the disclosure is in accordance with any provision of, or made by virtue of, an enactment other than this section.

(5)The Secretary of State may by order make provision prescribing circumstances in which the disclosure of protected information is not to constitute an offence under this section.

(6)The power conferred by subsection (5) is exercisable by the Scottish Ministers (rather than the Secretary of State) where the provision to be made is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament.

[F4(6A)The power conferred by subsection (5) is exercisable by the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland (rather than the Secretary of State) where the provision to be made could be made by an Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly without the consent of the Secretary of State (see sections 6 to 8 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998).]

(7)An order under subsection (5) may make provision permitting—

(a)disclosure to specified persons or persons of a specified description,

(b)disclosure for specified purposes,

(c)disclosure of specified descriptions of information, or

(d)disclosure by specified persons or persons of a specified description.

(8)A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

(My bolding above).

Section 22 is only about disclosing information once acquired. It does not say anything about the police not being allowed to ask if they have a GRC or to see it.

Section 22 is also clear:

. . . it is not an offence under this section to disclose protected information relating to a person if the disclosure is for the purpose of preventing or investigating crime,

Thread about EHRC and, in particular, the recent revelations about communications with Mermaids:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3613391-The-Equalities-and-Human-Rights-Commission-one-of-the-roots-of-regulatory-capture

Today (15/06/2019) we learn in the Times that EHRC were keen to prosecute discrimination cases against schools and services, in collaboration with Mermaids. They are nowhere to be seen when it comes to the 'sex' protected characteristic. Funny that.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/stonewall-is-using-its-power-to-stifle-trans-debate-say-top-academics-dtswlcl0n

Times article on letter of pushback from some academics against academic regulatory capture:

Stonewall is using its power to stifle trans debate, say top academics

‘Diversity training provided to universities by the pressure group Stonewall is a threat to academic freedom in which “tendentious and anti-scientific claims are presented . . . as objective fact”, according to a letter to The Sunday Times signed by more than 30 academics.

The academics say that unless Stonewall clarifies that it “fully supports academic freedom of thought”, universities should “sever their links with this organisation altogether”.

The letter, which has been signed by several Oxford professors, comes as it can be revealed that universities have spent nearly £1m on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) training by campaign groups over the past five years.‘

From:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/feminists-celebrate-u-turn-on-self-identification-in-scotland-as-women-s-prisons-review-trans-policy-gr3vtzwj9?shareToken=2d4f2cac75664b077b32fd4f81128f91

The group Engender, which calls itself “Scotland’s feminist policy and advocacy organisation”.... Engender’s income last year was £335,000, of which £301,000 came from the Scottish government

Scottish Trans Alliance, part of the Equality Network, a state-funded LGBT lobbying body, helped to devise the policy... The Equality Network’s income last year was £466,000, of which £427,000 came from the Scottish government

More at this Twitter thread:

twitter.com/DidyouRedo/status/1143247909762342913?s=19

As ItsAllGoingToBeFine commented:

Effectively ScotGov is paying orgs to lobby ScotGov (and paying some orgs multiple times under multiple names)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3625439-The-Times-Feminists-celebrate-U-turn-on-self-identification-in-Scotland-as-women-s-prisons-review-trans-policy?pg=1

The Prison Service have been captured, PSI 2016-017 (pdf) makes that clear. 6.2 indicates that the judiciary may also have been captured, at least in respect of the interpretation of human rights law.I would love a journal citation for the assertion made in 6.27, but there isn't one. I'm guessing that they refer to the RaRE report, but it would be great if I didn't have to guess.

Issues with that report based on a first reading:

• stage one (P1Q) disproportionately recruited Londoners by putting ads in the LGB&T press but then putting posters only in London, which would reduce the ability of the study to consider attitude differences related to geography (e.g. northern "gallows humour" that is a coping strategy that emerges in communities where a lot of people work in dangerous jobs like mining and fishing), and the impact of rural living on LGB&T people.
• The P1Q sample only had 35 people in it and the P2Q sample had 23 people in it, how can you extrapolate from that?
• "What would you say can cause... in LGB&T people?" type questions are inviting interviewees to speculate on the motives of others, rather than stating their own motives.
• Trans people were twice as likely to consider themselves disabled compared to non-trans people, and were also twice as likely to attempt suicide. LGB people were more likely than straight people to consider themselves disabled and were also more likely to attempt suicide. This looks to me like there might be a correlation between disability and suicidal behaviours, yet no attempt was made in the study to control for disability.
  • corollary to the above: no research appears to exist (I just looked) into the suicide attempt rates of disabled people compared to everyone else. We know that some disabilities, especially depression and other mental health disorders, have suicidal ideation listed as part of the symptom cluster. Yet no one seems to have to studied the rates of suicidal ideation and behaviour in disabled people.

Interview with Marcus Evans, ex governor of Tavi & Port, on R4 Today. He specifically mentions capture:

"political forces are infiltrating a clinical system - children come in with fixed ideas - there is only one answer: transition."

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3645516-Today-R4-now-puberty-blockers

Academics speak of their experiences of capture and the chilling effect it has had on their work and professional life. To be read with the Times letter, mentioned a few posts upthread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3628474-Kathleen-Stock-on-academic-freedom?pg=1&order=

Bumping this most excellent thread with these two articles by Elsa Egret about how regulatory capture happened in Bristol.

Or 'policy laundering' as this article by Mary Harrington puts it: unherd.com/2019/12/three-cheers-for-2018-the-year-of-uncivil-society/

medium.com/@elsaegret/abusive-misogynist-activist-writes-nhs-policy-in-bristol-21dd02cc4c9c

A (likely AGP) TW has written NHS policy for trans ppl that will impact on many other ppl (all ignored, no EQIAs etc):

''Would someone who, over many years, calls women cunts and bitches be invited to write NHS policy that will negatively affect women? We can only hope not.
Is there a different standard when the word is ‘terf’ instead of ‘cunt’?
Is someone who has given indications that they may have a paraphilia which involves fetishising female anatomy the appropriate person to write NHS policy that will influence the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people, and which will affect women’s access to healthcare?''

medium.com/@elsaegret/stitch-up-bristol-fashion-f1eb298e28da

Bristol was the Jam Jar, masked protesters invading the venue, trapping women on the stairs:

''Local equality and hate crime charities SARI, The Diversity Trust and Bristol Zero Tolerance were quick to respond — in June 2018 they organised a meeting in the City Hall and invited local politicians, police, representatives of the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England, and, of course, women’s organisations. The problem had to be dealt with.
The problem being… the women who dared to assert that women and girls have sex-based rights in the UK.''

Sorry, forgot to make the important connection in my post - the NHS policy is written by Cheryl Morgan of Diversity Trust but published by SARI.

These are two of the publicly funded lobby groups which have doing policy capture locally, including holding a secret meeting for police, universities, city council etc about 'anti trans activism' as a response to the intimidation of women meeting peacefully to discuss their legal rights

Oh, thank you for updating this thread with the concept of policy laundering. I keep meaning to and then forgetting. This twitter thread also expands on it:

mobile.twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1210621877292556288

And here is the brief Wiki article:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_laundering

Policy laundering is the disguising of the origins of political decisions, laws, or international treaties.

One manifestation of policy laundering is claiming a different underlying objective for a policy than is actually the case. The usual reason for politicians following this approach is that the real objective is unpopular with the public. The usual process is to conflate the issue being addressed with an unrelated matter of great public concern. The intervention pursued is presented as addressing an issue of great public concern rather than the underlying objective.

Lang thanks for starting it!

Interesting that Eric Pickles was on this in 2015, and Cameron was on about lobbying five years before... It's Lord Pickles now isn't it? Maybe we should get onto him there.

I do think 'training' and 'guidance' bought in by public sector is definitely a big part of the sidestep since then.

Mary Harrington describes it so perfectly:

''The whole cycle amounts to a process of laundering, by semi-independent bodies, a series of policies the government already wanted to adopt so they look as though they come spontaneously from the society upon which they will in due course be visited.

The result looks like a thriving voice for civil society in the national debate. But in reality it is more like the government having a conversation with itself, via a series of proxies. Meanwhile, that part of civil society without insider status sits scratching its head trying to work out which form to fill in to get a seat at the table.''