Letter from Mark Harper MP about single sex spaces

[BooRadley35]

I sent the following email to Mark Harper (MP for Forest of Dean) on IWD's (this was cut and pasted from here with a leaflet from Resisters).

"Dear Mr Harper

I am contacting you to ask if you can write, on behalf of your female constituents, to the Minister for Women calling for clear guidance to be published on single sex exemptions to the Equality Act. Please see attached leaflet.

The EHRC guidance on single sex spaces and gender reassignment is really weak and confused. This puts women and transwomen at risk of humiliation, and leaves service providers with impossible tasks such as deciding if some one is visually and for all practical purposes indistinguishable from a member of the opposite sex.

I hope you can take up this cause and push for clear guidance on behalf of women within the Forest of Dean and across the UK"

I have now received the attached response - basically fobbing me off. However the handwritten note does say he will raise it with the Minister for Women if i am not happy with his response.

Could you wonderful people help me write a clear, succinct response which he can pass on? Basically saying that they need to do a lot more to ensure the safety of women?

Thanks!!

Heartening that he actually read your email and has responded, as well as sending the bland brush off.

I would probably focus on his last paragraph: is he saying that because the laws are there nobody commits the crimes? Do women in refuges have to wait until a crime has been committed by a predator using self id to gain access before they can call the police to remove "her"? It all sounds as though he hasn't really thought through how self id can be abused. Perhaps point out the stats on the number of sex offenders who are now claiming to be women so they can be moved to a women's prison: does he really believe that 48% of trans women prisoners are sex offenders or could it be that some rapists are taking advantage of the system.

He's wrong that there are 'robust risk assessment procedures' which can protect women in refuge.

If it wasn't possible for the prison service who have significantly more time, resources, access to pre-sentence reports etc then how could it be in a refuge situation?

A risk assessment which cannot identify a person 'being male' in refuge situation will not protect women who use it.

People who believe that such 'risk assessments' are the answer have never worked in Safeguarding or have an awareness of emergency accomodation or the needs of women fleeing abuse and/or violence. Not least as it demonstrates a lack of awareness about the focus of assessment process in the VAW sector & the circumstances in which referrals are made.

At best, a risk assessment would access police information about previous convictions/allegations. It is well known that many violent crimes by males against women & children are not reported and poorly prosecuted.

It would be good if he consider Karen Ingala Smith's evidence this week:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3592260-Karen-Ingala-Smith-in-Parliament-now-on-single-sex-refuges

see also her WPUK speech which explains the assessment process:

& also read Fairplay for Women's report:
fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FPFW_report_19SEPT2018.pdf