Why biological sex was silenced

[BovaryX]

Sex cannot be changed. It is no good the Minister shaking his head. Sex is decided by the chromosomes of a human being. So far as I know, there is no law nor any known medical procedure that can change the sex of a human being. The Bill purports to do so. It is therefore an objectionable farce

TimeLady linked to an article which gives a fascinating insight into the history of the GRA and the lobby’s ideology written by one of its proponents. The deliberate manipulation of language in the GRA was a key aim. The intention was to displace biological sex and relegate it to a subordinate role below gender. To render it irrelevant. It was successful.

The sex/gender distinction is demobilized both literally and legally...Gender now determines sex

Fifteen years later, the implications of this radical policy are explicit. In 2004, denying the existence of biological sex would have been met with derision. This morning, the leader of the Lib Dems disputes its existence a couple of days before she expects people to vote her into power. This lobby believes if it can rigidly control language, it can remodel external reality according to whim. If you can confine biological sex to a dusty attic, performative gender can take centre stage. This demolishes the foundation of women’s rights. It has serious implications for gay rights. There are few politicians with the integrity or gravitas to challenge this agenda. In retrospect, those who objected at the time deserve respect for their critical analysis.

People used to believe all sorts of rubbish eg. that the earth was flat and a woman was made out of a man's rib. Doesn't mean it's true though, so I think we can disregard that argument.

I guess this is the Laquer they're citing - a historian and sexologist

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Laqueur

Back to Mediaeval thinking?

The one sex model described by the historian Laquer is the man /non man mode of thinking , women weren’t ascribed a sex as they were considered to be inferior to man ( a la Green Party in the 21st century). A very different concept to thinking there is one sex with different attributes. Basically its all bollocks as in the real world we all know there are two sexes - with attention seeking prats on both sides.

Well, I have got to the end of this mind-bending piece.

I have to say that it's hard to understand exactly what they are saying.

It seems that legal measures had to be taken because post-operative transexual people existed in a legal wilderness. Fair enough.

This was a fait accompli presented by the medical community because, through surgical and hormonal reassignment, they had produced a separate physical category of person - someone chromosomally one sex but altered to resemble the other. So, the law was enacted without any philosophical debate about sex v gender because it was a practical step to answer a physical reality.
It was also accepted that someone who was prepared to undertake such a drastic physical reassignment was truly dysphoric - they truly believed that they had been born in the wrong body; that is the outer actions were congruent with an inner reality even if there was no scientific proof that such a mistake of birth could exist.

But even before this had been accepted, activists were arguing that some dysphoric people could not tolerate treatment - perhaps for health reasons. This put a crowbar into the legislation and opened up a chink for activists with a much broader gender agenda. These are the gender flat earthers and I really wish we could disregard their arguments.

So when the legislation was passed they ensured that sex and gender were conflated so that legislation which was proposed for a physical category of people (post-operative transexuals) became applicable to a whole new psychologiocal category (gender identity) who could argue that sex is binary but that male and female exist in one body and it is how you identify internally that determines whether your sexed body should be recognised as male or female.

This was a massive change to the way that we have seen biological sex for thousands of years and came into law without much debate because it was originally seen as a practical step to give post-op transexuals a legal status.

So Lord Filkin (who?) was able to casually state:

the Bill is about legal recognition and it will define a person�s sex in law. We consider the arguments about the meaning of the words �sex� and �gender� to be beside the point. There is no stark dichotomy between the meaning of the words. Language, as I said, is fluid. Our sense of the words �sex� and �gender� has changed over time and no doubt will do so in the future. While the meaning of the word �sex� is not the same as that of �gender�, the word �sex� is increasingly in use in ways that go beyond a narrow biological definition (House of Lords Report Stage, Hansard 29-01-04, col. 366).

So sex no longer has a 'narrow' biological definition and anybody can be a woman if they say that they feel like a woman. A man can have a vagina and a woman a penis. And so say all the major political parties.

Bad laws can be changed. This is all going to have to be sorted out in the courts.

Just found this:

It is important to note that the law in the UK treats the terms sex and gender as interchangeable. This is shown by the Gender Recognition Act allowing someone who is changing their gender to change the sex marker on their birth certificate.

www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/whatisthedifferencebetweensexandgender/2019-02-21

Thanks, Bovary, marking to read later.

You know what's simplistic? Saying that if someone believes that they are a thing then they are in fact that thing. It's toddler level logic, and those espousing it should be embarrassed. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't hellbent on removing even the right to object from anyone who opposes them.

It is important to note that the law in the UK treats the terms sex and gender as interchangeable. This is shown by the Gender Recognition Act allowing someone who is changing their gender to change the sex marker on their birth certificate.

Yet at the beginning of that page they say

Sex and gender are terms that are often used interchangeably but they are in fact two different concepts, even though for many people their sex and gender are the same.

Further down they also say that the UN are using sex and gender interchangeably and appear to concede that this confusion is causing difficulties in data collection.

They also say that the characteristic 'gender identity' may be so small as to make data collection difficult. But they are operating according to a principle of 'no one left behind' so evidently prioritise the most vulnerable and marginalised.

This is why it is useful for TRAs to tread the line between avoiding mental health labels whilst having gender identity categorised in terms of the vulnerable and marginalised. This explains the false narrative of the increased likelihood of a transgender person being murdered.

Once the actually vulnerable transgender people have been used to gain gender identity a global priority status they can then use this as a door to enforce their radical view of sex.

This includes comparing sex segregation to biological apartheid which excludes women with male-appearing bodies.

I also think it includes a massive push to eroticise the self which is why they seem so keen to talk to young children about masturbation.

clitherow

Thank you for the abridged versions ; there's a lot of word salad in the original Whittle piece.

We appear to require clarification in the courts of what is meant legally by sex and gender, because there's still clearly confusion at the highest level. In the Mary Whitehouse/Carry On films era, people used gender as the polite word for biological sex and it's hard to know if that still the case today or whether the intent is deliberate conflation.

If in law the two words are indeed synonymous, then that law needs to be changed. The fact that the primogeniture ruling was included suggests the majority at the time of the GRA didn't believe people actually changed sex; it was an administrative fudge. I don't understand why this couldn't be used as a point of challenge.

If in law the two words are indeed synonymous, then that law needs to be changed.

I absolutely agree with you. But the politicians are the lawmakers and this is why this election has been so worrying. There is obviously no appetite in any political party to revoke the category of 'gender identity'.

The problem is that this is a deeply philosophical issue that reaches right into the heart of what it is to be human. If we are going to change thousands of years of agreement regarding biological sex, then the implications of this should be clear to people. The trouble is that we are also being let down by academia.

Academics should be researching this issue and then explaining it to people in language that we can understand. It should not be left to a few indignant lay women on an internet forum.

But academia was one of the first institutions to fall and there appear to be few who are able to understand, let alone explain what is happening.

A few of them have realised, but, too late, and only when their own position is being threatened.

I am a bit despondent at the moment - you might be able to tell!

Sex is preceded and exceeded by gender by the terms of the GRA. Sex is determined by gender identity, the social role one chooses to take. For the GRA, the body is irrelevant

This is the core ideology. Biological sex is an irrelevant footnote, its status that of a dusty relic. Performative gender takes center stage. Subjective feelings trump external reality. 15 years ago, Lord Tebbit’s analysis was uncontroversial. 15 years later, those who try to assert a belief in biological sex are persecuted, sacked, demonized, silenced. Whilst politicos line up to peddle this radical, incoherent agenda.

There is obviously no appetite in any political party to revoke the category of 'gender identity'.

The problem is that this is a deeply philosophical issue that reaches right into the heart of what it is to be human.

This is why Maya's case is so important. If it is decided that the belief in 'gender identity' is a religious point of view, rather than a fundamental part of everyone's being, then it puts 'gender identity' into a different category, which we are free to believe in or not believe in.

This means that the government could not demand that we believe in gender identity any more than they could demand that we believe in Christianity. It would then just fall into the category of protected religious beliefs - some people believe it, and their right to their belief should be protected, but nobody can be forced to believe in it and follow the requirements of that religion.

"gender identity chosen for them by the midwife when s/he pronounces the sex of the baby."

Why not let's muddle up gender and sex to make things even more confusing.
The sex of the baby is decided quite a while before it makes an appearance in the World.

This is a fascinating document, describing the parliamentary process and discussions leading up to the GRA

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP04-15/RP04-15.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjd-b6ivavmAhVMKBoKHSwgCT8QFjAGegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3whXRdgIFO8w_7pVWVlWzW&cshid=1575994616312" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP04-15/RP04-15.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjd-b6ivavmAhVMKBoKHSwgCT8QFjAGegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3whXRdgIFO8w_7pVWVlWzW&cshid=1575994616312

Discussion of the use of gender v sex on pp 25/26

osed system interferes to some extent with people’s freedom to be who they choose. However, it considered that a person’s sex or gender has important legal and social consequences and affects the rights of others and so the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that people who take on a new legal status can establish to the satisfaction of an official that they meet certain criteria. People can choose whether or not to apply and the procedure is to be confidential.

They seemed to forget that it affected other peoples rights by the time of Maria Miller's report.

Yes, things have moved on considerably in the last 15 years, haven't they? The proposals seem positively benign back then.

If in law the two words are indeed synonymous, then that law needs to be changed.

I am guessing that what they mean by this is if you look through all the relevant laws that talk about sex, some may say sex, but others gender, even when they meant sex.

If so, then straightening it out would mean amending all those instances where they say gender but mean sex.

Goosefoot

Ah, I see what you mean; that starts to make sense now.

This is a fascinating document, describing the parliamentary process and discussions leading up to the GRA
<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP04-15/RP04-15.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjd-b6ivavmAhVMKBoKHSwgCT8QFjAGegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3whXRdgIFO8w_7pVWVlWzW&cshid=1575994616312" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP04-15/RP04-15.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjd-b6ivavmAhVMKBoKHSwgCT8QFjAGegQICBAB&usg=AOvVaw3whXRdgIFO8w_7pVWVlWzW&cshid=1575994616312

There are so many red flags in that document that it is hard to know where to begin.

They appear to accept that introducing a legal status for people who are chromosomally one sex but want to be treated as another is a dangerous step:

" it considered that a person’s sex or gender has important legal and
social consequences and affects the rights of others and so the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring that people who take on a new legal status can establish to the satisfaction of an official that they meet certain criteria."

But they do not outline or investigate what the rights of 'others' are.

The Bill, on the other hand, celebrates that they are going further than they were required by international law in establishing a broad category of 'transexual person' who would then have all the legal and social rights of the opposite sex.

Stephen Whittle's voice rings through the entire document:

'Stephen Whittle, Vice-President of the pressure group, Press for Change, has stated that, although the Gender Recognition Bill is not perfect, it is the best of any such legislation in the world: the principles embodied in Goodwin will have been extended way beyond what the European Court of Human Rights insisted on. As such those principles are a statement of parliament's intention of what it wishes to achieve rather than a re-statement of the bottom line. That will give any court much more power of interpretation than
otherwise.Goodwin and I simply required that people be issued with birth certificate showing their new name and gender."

Whittle is positively jumping for joy because the legal spadework to establish the primacy of gender identification over biological sex is clearly being undertaken here. All the legal rights of biological sex are now transferred to 'acquired gender' including the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act.

It is full of inconsistencies and contradictions that should have been of great concern to commentators of the time and which are only expilcable if there was an underlying ideology guiding the process rather than logic and clear legal reasoning.

It is made clear that legislation is difficult as:

'Rosie Winterton said:
Although we have considered whether any practical adjustments can be allowed in the meantime, we believe that primary legislation will be needed before the judgments in Goodwin v the United Kingdom and "I" v The United Kingdom can be implemented. This is partly because there is no legal definition of a transsexual person and apparatus for formal recognition needs to be established.

So the inability to define the term 'transexual' was identified as a problem and then the bill made it impossible to arrive at a definition.

This it does by constantly contradicting itself.

They said that to protect the stability of legal and social structures the committment to live as the other sex must be firm and permanent whilst acknowledging that:

'Many people revert to their biological sex after living for some time in the opposite sex, and some alternate between the two sexes throughout their lives.'

They specifically tie 'transsexualism' to dysphoria and explicitly exclude crossdressers and people making a 'lifestyle choice' but then fail to define gender dysphoria. They say that dysphoria is not a mental illness whilst not saying what it is (other than to describe some of the 'symptoms') whilst listing all of the emotional and psychological issues that often 'accompany' dysphoria. But the remedy to 'dysphoria' is surgical intervention.

They then begin the removal of the need for surgical intervention and open up the legal system to gender identity by opening up legal protection to pre-op transexuals and to people who 'cannot' undergo surgery.

I could go on but then, with the benefit of hindsight, we know that the failure of this document to define terms or the respective rights and responsibilities of society versus those who wish to convince society that their biological sex is at odds with their psychological sex has been catastrophic. The largely undefined category of 'gender' has now spilt out into other pieces of legislation, statutory guidance, into schools and onto our television screens.

You are now whatever sex that you say that you are, whenever you say it and to challenge this is a hate crime (sorry, incident).

This bill clearly did not have as its aim to extend rights to post-operative transexual people but to radically alter the definition and legal and social understanding of biological sex.

You are great at unearthing documents TimeLady !

How can we have a legal woman who is a man? How can any Government create and dictate such a ridiculous and nonsensical category? It is against all reality, natural senses and scientific fact Baroness O’Cathain

TimeLady, another superb link. Notable points. The Gender Recognition Bill was triggered in response to a ECHR ruling following a court case Goodwin v UK govt. The Bill exceeded what was required by European Court. Stephen Whittle said that if it passed, it was the best of any such legislation in the world The Joint Committee noted the use of gender not sex.

Gender is a matter of a person’s psychology and social role and depends upon the person’s view of himself, herself... while sex is principally concerned with physical characteristics

Lord Tebbit, Lord Chan and Baroness O’Caithin raised objections. Lord Chan was a paediatrician

More medical research is needed into transsexual people in order to provide them with appropriate support. The Gender Recognition Bill assumes that the condition is already a discrete and agreed medical condition, which is not the case Lord Chan

One of the things which persuaded parliament to pass the GRA was a reluctance to contemplate legislation to allow same sex marriage. Another was the estimate that the GRA would only affect a small number of people (about 5000, the number who currently have one).

All this has been conveniently forgotten by the people pushing for GRA reform.

OldCrone, yes, that’s notable in the link, the Government’s determination not to allow same sex marriage. It’s quite striking that the risk assessment identified two groups at risk. People suffering from gender dysphoria and the UK government’s risk of being sued. Women were not considered at all. The word used throughout the document is transsexual. But the deliberate intention to replace and demote biological sex is crystal clear. Lord Filkin said this

We consider the argument about the meaning of the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ to be beside the point. There is no stark dichotomy between the meaning of the words. Language, as I said, is fluid