MPs letter re GRA proposed changes

[NellieEllie]

Put it off for ages as I knew Id turn it into a production number and I don’t really have the time.. I’ve collected loads of links and articles and the subject is just SO HUGE because every time I go to make a point, I feel I have to explain several other things to get the whole scary picture clear.
Anyway, I’ve listed main concerns re self Id as
Ideology TWAW - denial of reality
Freedom of speech issue - people shamed/risk jobs for speaking out. All debate on proposals silenced.
Children - affirmative approach/ experimental puberty blockers/autism/ girl/boy stats/ school policies/ Tavi
Sport
Police - arrests for non crimes & crime stats
Safeguarding women/girls - changing rooms/toilets/ girl guides/schools/refuges/prisons
Political parties. - no political party taking lead on opposing changes/all compliant.

Not necessarily in that order....

Now, I’m intending to briefly summarise the above areas, and then do attachment with links/info on each one? That way I figure he’ll at least read the summary and then, possibly the extra stuff. Obviously I’ll paragraph and do layout as punchily as poss. Also want to give background on Stonewall and re definitions of “trans”, and Mermaids as inappropriate signposting.
So, wondered if this covers everything? And if someone else or organisation has done something similar to save me time! I think with this MP (old, Tory, very traditional) probably won’t have reached his radar, so I wanted to set it all out as clearly as possible.

Mention capture of all the unions (TWAW) so that staff wanting assert their right to single sex facilities or raise concerns with their employer do not have confidence of union support in the event of a dispute.

It feels like you may need to focus? What do you hope to achieve? What do you want to see as a result? If you want him to oppose self Id, then the link between GRA and children receiving hormones is not direct and may make messages confused.

I would make the main letter very terse ( that’s me anyway). People absorb information in predictable ways. Give him too much and none of it will stick.

I would also just raise the easy to understand concrete issues in the first case, unless you know he is an abstract thinker.

Yup, short and to the point.

Start with where he is... Is he a Tory or Labour or Lib Dem?

Tory - he'll respond to the big three, I think: unfairness in women's sports, the horror that is locking up male-bodied rapists with women, premature medical treatment and blockers for children.

Labour or Lib Dem - you'll have your work cut out as most of them only care for how woke they come across. Go for facts, facts and more facts. But again, focus on a handful of key issues - the fact that the Tavistock now have clinicians resigning over the issue, maybe sports with a load of stats about women's versus men's physiology.

Other issues like all women's shortlists are unlikely to make any headway - if Tory, he'll think all women shortlists are an abomination anyway, if Labour he won't give a shit.

Thank you. I think I’ll keep it brief then. He’s a Tory, but Midgebabe I do think there is a link between self Id and giving children puberty blockers. There has to be no GD diagnosis, their self Id is affirmed, no questions asked....

I agree to focus, not try to fit in everything.

And a thought on what outcome you would like is important. Needs to be laid out clearly. And preferably relevant to the MP - is he on any committees, have any particular crusades, etc?

I'd imagine

Self ID
Children/schools
Prisons/healthcare

Are the issues most likely to benefit from MPs awareness/involvement.

Sport (to my relatively uninformed knowledge) seems a bit separate, but MPs will potentially have direct influence on the issues above.

It’s not that there is no link, it’s just that best progress is made highlighting the top three things that will make easy sense.

More than threee things, people forget.

Easy sense = reduce the brain power required , we are all lazy

Fermat makes good suggestions

Sport however seems to be an easy to understand one ... whenever it first erupted with McKinnon was when people ( fellow climbers) started trying to make me aware of the issues.

You might also personalise one of your themes. When I wrote to mine, I mentioned my eighty nine year old relative with dementia and feeling safe with carers. Obviously that doesn’t fit with your topics, but if your MP has an aging parent, something like that might hit home.

Good point AnyOldPrion, I’ll do a bit of research.
I think sport IS a good one to mention just because I think everyone will either watch/participate or know someone that does. And it goes direct to ideas of fairness and “sportsmanship”. This MP is old school.

I do think there is a link between self Id and giving children puberty blockers. There has to be no GD diagnosis, their self Id is affirmed, no questions asked....

I completely agree. It's the push to medically and surgically transition children which gives the impression that most adults seeking a GRC have had full SRS which we know isn't the case. When people realise that the majority of TW do not have "bottom surgery" they see the potential for self ID laws to be abused.

In my experience MPs want to be asked to do something realistic and concrete if they agree with it. What do you want to ask them to do?

You could suggest your MPs call for review of the Gender Recognition Act. Point to the ‘it will never happen’ thread to give reported examples that it IS happening... also that the single sex exemptions are not being used through fear and ignorance, with a detriment to women, many organisations don’t really understand how it all works, so a lobby industry has grown up to give a certain slant on things and encourage such organisations to ‘get ahead of the law’ ie to be illegal and enforce self ID etc.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread?pg=4&order

Regarding children, you could ask your MP to write to the Chair of the House of commons’ Health and Social care select committee to ask the committee to carry out an enquiry which means MPs can then speak directly to:

-Young people, parents and detransitioned young people about their experiences.

-all of the medical and psychological professional societies and medical royal colleges, the BMA (the doctors’ trade union) and the regulators of medical or psychological practice like the General Medical Council (GMC) about what they are seeing happening to children and young people around this.

-Plus any organisation who supports research and evidence based medicine, especially in the NHS- like NICE, the NHS in each UK devolved nation, but also the government departments in health, the medical and scientific research funders,

-Plus childrens’ and young people’s paediatric medical groups and bodies.

Select committees have to look at the evidence from all sides which is very important in such a sensitive area:

You could emphasise that this is an urgent and fundamental children’s health issue.

It seems completely unacceptable that all these questions have already been raised in the media (cite the Times whistleblowers’ articles) and yet these concerns have not been looked into properly by an impartial body yet.

Id agree with looking for a specific outcome, and focusing attention, based on that MP's known interests or constituency issues if possible, also something that is close to your own heart.

I picked the use of an incorrect definition of sex (as something assigned by a clinician at birth) in Government documents when writing to my MP. It is still something that makes me furious. Government documents become LAW. Also, my MP was previously a science teacher, and is a Lib Dem so should have respect for the rule of law.

Sadly, my MP is Layla Moran. She has still never replied to this letter (and it was a letter, with a stamp, not an email, because i thought she would be less likely to ignore it. Ha!) And shortly after i sent it she stood up to say that she only dealt with people based on what she could see in their eyes, as she could see their souls there. How that relates to being an actual liberal democrat in a society where you dont all get to look every one of 60 million people in the eye, but have to make written laws and civic structures and institutiond, is beyond me. So, manage your expectations.

I have been concentrating solely on the preservation and upholding of women's hard-won sex-based rights. These rights are enshrined in UK law. Reforming the Gender Recognition Act would render these sex-based rights meaningless.

You cannot uphold women's sex-based rights if you will not acknowledge biological sex.

How can women's sex-based rights be defined and protected if the definition of woman is changed to include men?

The GRA was an ill-considered piece of legislation that came about because same-sex marriage didn't exist, and so a transsexual woman could not marry a man (because they are both male). The transsexual woman in that case was April Ashley. She married a baron.

Now that anyone can marry anybody, the GRA is no longer needed and should be repealed. It was only ever there to provide a legal fiction. There's a whole history behind it, and it is a minefield of preposterous nonsense that has no basis in fact.