SCOTTISH GRA REFORM ANNOUNCEMENT BROUGHT FORWARD

[Mbwashenzi]

It was going to be announced on the 25th - now moved forward to Thursday. Anyone going to join me in the public gallery at Holyrood??

twitter.com/wornoutmumhack/status/1140953953758261248?s=19

I have mixed my metaphors instead of swearing. That's how angry I am.

Because if you are really serious about your last hope of gaining independence, this could be exactly the right own goal that sinks that ship.

There was an independance rally in my small West coast town last Saturday and I don't believe the people who came all the way from god knows where (loads of the participants where very clearly not local) in their Saltire draped cars, with the Saltire painted on their and their children's (including tiny babies) faces and driving vans with "Scotland Freedom fighter" painted on care about any of this at all. I think Nicola Sturgeon could torture a puppy on live TV and they'd still wave their "I'm with Nicola" banners.
I do hope there are SNP members who do care though.

Yes, you're probably right, Igneococcus. Hardcore SNPers care for no issues as much as they care for independence.

But most people are not hardcore, and the people they need to convince to swing that independence vote are - I suspect- very likely to care. This doesn't just need to be SNP members, either. To win an independence referendum, they'll need cross party appeal.

And if Sturgeon comes out with stuff like this: ' I am a lifelong feminist. Issues about women’s rights and the protection of women from abuse runs very strongly with me. The Equality Act already allows for trans people . . . to be excluded from women-only spaces if that is justified and the proposals here do not change the Equality Act.”'

then she either is being rather dim or disingenuous.

The exact and precise issue with self ID is that it threatens the Equality Act, because there will be no marker that differentiates between a trans person and anyone else. How can she not understand this? It's fairly simple.

I agree Scrimshaw. There is a hardcore that will not be swayed no matter what happens, the rest are the important ones. I just wish any party would break rank on this issue. Where is Ruth Davidson on this?

Pat Kane got handed his arse on a plate last week for telling us to ignore the pesky self ID problem because it will risk independence. Tough shit.

The huge problem is the lack of anyone else to bloody vote for.

Igneococcus I am not an SNP member but I support independence. Passionately. Yet, I do not want an independent Scotland where women's sex-based rights have been lost.

This might be the first time in my life where I have to decide between two causes that matter hugely to me and to the future of my children, but I know what I am prioritising and why. Because of everything I have learnt around the issue in the last 18 months and my own life experiences, I fear that while independence can be won later, women's rights, once lost, will be much harder to regain.

As a lifelong Green Party voter and having never voted Conservative before, I am now prepared to throw my support behind any candidates who stand up to defend women's sex-based rights. Even if that is a Conservative. I'd much more happily support Labour or the SNP, but I don't hold out much hope that they will field local candidates who will commit to supporting women's rights.

Scotland remaining a part of the UK will not immediately make our lives worse, but losing our rights - whether within or without the UK - definitely will.

I was an SNP member but I resigned over this issue and told them why. I am now politically homeless.

I would ask that we all continue to challenge this. The Scottish Government have not completed a full impact assessment on the proposals and have ignored the rights of women and girls based on the protected characteristic of sex. That is the start of any challenge

Women and Girls in Scotland have some useful resources on this
Four demands wgscotland.org.uk/actions/
and a useful fact sheet
wgscotland.org.uk/factsheets/

I would also recommend forwomen.scot and and Scottish-Women.com
all grassroots feminist organisations set up to protect the rights of women and girls

The Times are allowing good comments on that article-someone has stated that GRCs should be abolished, as people cannot change sex so why are politicians pretending it is possible.

Don't be daft @Igneococcus you've no idea what those people think about anything.

I'm pretty desperate for independence, especially in light of Prime Minister Johnson but this is the one issue that gives me pause. They've got this so so wrong that it's left me feeling like I have to choose between independence and women's safety.

Of course, we're all politically homeless on this issue right now, so that's another concern. Just don't judge, is what I'm saying.

If we remain part of the UK, will women's rights be any more protected? Is Westminster going to continue on this self ID path, or will they wait to see how it plays out in Scotland before deciding?

Would love it if all the women going after an announcement blockaded the male loos in the building 'self IDing' XD

I do hope there are SNP members who do care though

There are. I'm one.

To be honest though, I don't appreciate the tone especially given the aiming at Scots.

We have enough shite to put up with without threats, sort your own parliament out thanks.

What Lisbon said ☝️

It's just the same rhetoric pro-Indy people always face. We must all be rabid SNP-ers who would kill our grannies for Nicola Sturgeon. The tone of which carries more than a whiff of misogyny itself, BTW.

We must all be rabid SNP-ers who would kill our grannies for Nicola Sturgeon. The tone of which carries more than a whiff of misogyny itself

This. But I suspect it's the anti Scots shite which bothers me more. Aiming snide remarks at us and our parliament, when Boris is about to get in as leader is frankly spectacularly lacking in self awareness.

How hot on women's rights will he be?

The recent arguments about the census give me some hope.

This.

Once the issues were pulled out in conversation, there was a real moment of... 'oh'. And then reality took over. And sensible ways forward were found.

Nicola's talking out of her bum trying to defer the outrage and realisation of what this means for as long as possible. You cannot bring out self id while protecting single sex spaces, the two things are mutually exclusive and she knows it. If you agree men are women if they say so and must be therefore treated exactly as if they are women, you've just deleted women as a concept and thrown biological females to the wolves. On the grounds that people with penises matter more than people with vaginas.

Sexism. Own it.

I care far more about staying in the UK than whether or not the Scottish government changes the GRA. If this loses support for the nationalists, crack on. I don't think it will. I don't think most people care.

Totally agree @InTheHeatofLisbon

As a nation we can elect a rampant racist misogynistic narcissist but Scottish people are wrong for supporting a leader who has generally shown herself to be human, canny, and benevolent. Wrong as shite on this issue though she surely is.

'You cannot bring out self id while protecting single sex spaces'

Yep. It's one or the other. Either we have single sex spaces or we don't.

There's a Witches Well at the other end of the Royal Mile from Holyrood.

www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-witches-well-edinburgh-scotland

Would it be a good spot to launch a protest against our elected representatives collective gynaephobia?

LassofFyvie Given that GRA reform was first mooted by the Conservative Government and the fact that all the other parties support self-id, I don't see how this would lose the SNP any more support than all the other ones do.

I still want independence, but for now I am determined to focus my energy on defending women's sex-based rights and campaigning against legal sex self-id. It's the more urgent issue right now.

And knowing other independence supporters, it's simply not true that they don't care about anything else. And at least one new women's rights group actually grew out of an independence campaign group, so there are plenty GC indy supporters.

Women are politically homeless - self ID will hurt any party that supports it. I know women who have left Greens, SNP, Lib Dems, Labour... More likely that women will not vote at all, or spoil our ballot papers...
I'm hoping tomorrow's announcement will indicate a watered-down form of self-ID that has no legal force, as a sop to the TRAs. But then we will have to start the fight to get women's rights MUCH more concretely defined and protected in law, including the right to hold all-female meetings and events.

I think that's the best we can hope for @Mbwashenzi

Whatever ground the TRA lobby gains, it's merely a starting point. That is another fact that the numpties in politics won't acknowledge. This is not the end game, it's just the opening moves.

The only fair, human rights based solution is third spaces. Which meet everyone's needs but require government to have the guts to say firmly, we respect your choice of identity, we respect your need for different provision and safety because we get male violence is a huge issue, and here is the plan to enforce third space roll out nationally with funding, but your sex is not the same as your gender, and single sex spaces are for that sex only. End of. Line is here. X number of refuges will be gendered, X will stay single sex. And there will be robust protections for women to protect single sex spaces and to back up organisations who have to deal with someone of one sex trying to use facilities for the other sex, instead of their own sexed facilities or the additional ones provided. And the GRA goes because what's the point, self ID as you like. That will be absolutely respected. It just won't be regarded as legal status of the opposite sex.

Cue: Rage.