Boris Johnson comments on GRA - Q&A with Pink News

[stumbledin]

Hardly worth noticing, but for info PN asked:

Why weren’t reforms to the Gender Recognition Act included in the Conservative manifesto?

We are carefully considering all responses to our consultation and the next steps. These will be announced in due course. It is vital that the next steps on any potential reform of the Gender Recognition Act are carefully planned and have the right backing, so they can have a positive impact on the trans community in the UK.

We had more than 100,000 responses to our consultation and have met with 140 organisations to ensure that we have taken into account views and concerns from all sides of the debate.

www.pinknews.co.uk/2019/12/10/general-election-stonewall-lgbt-foundation-consortium-letter-unite-government/

Didn't James Kirkup say that it was someone completely unexpected in the cabinet driving self id? Ever since I read that I've wondered which one it is.

Totally agree about the cabinet person, but another reason for not doing anything over the past year - they knew an election was coming and didn’t want to open a can of worms? Then it can be dealt with or quietly shelved after the election. I appreciate it’s an optimistic view.

My feeling is that the responses to the consultation will have been something like 50/50 or 60/40 or 52/48, each chunk of which will have been very strong in its views. I would imagine the views expressed will have looked like two very separate peaks with a very small middle ground (hard to imagine what that could even be, personally).

I can imagine a civil servant saying 'Minister, views are rather evenly divided on this' and a SPAD in the background saying 'Fuck no, Minister, this has all the hallmarks of a pile of shit that you will not be able to avoid getting on your shoes. Shelve it, stall and feed a bit of information to a few friendly journos to get a steer on what the uninvolved public feel'.

then I do start to wonder what they're afraid of

I have been mulling this over too as it just doesn’t stack up.
Gay marriage worked for politicians because there was overwhelming public support for it and lots of goodwill to be gained from changing the law.
Changing the GRA does not benefit political parties on a massive scale at all as trans people represent such a small percentage of the population and there is no groundswell of public support. So who or what is the benefit for them? Money? Yes possibly in the LibDems case, but the rest of them?
As has been mentioned before, Ruth Hunt doesn’t get parachuted into the Lords without some serious establishment backing. So what are we missing? Who or what is the link?

I think Permanent has it right. Remember Stonewall-backed orgs getting primary school children to send in prefilled responses and other classy behaviour. They will have had a lot of strong views from both sides.

I don't do conspiracy theories. I don't think it's that organised.

The simple explanation, that every party dreads looking homophobic now, is the right one IMO. Those who lobbied Stonewall for LGB to include the T, and then Stonewall's heft as a lobbyist, have done this. The concept of trans theory being homophobic, which is obvious when you think about it, has been thoroughly buried and it's all about being nice and kind and lovely photo ops with furries engaged police officers at Pride.

Actually I don't mean to sound that cynical. It's a good thing that politicians want to make people's lives easier, that they want to be progressive. It's just they're not asking the hard questions of the smiling faces handing them a lovely gift wrapped policy with rainbow ribbons on it.

I think you're totally on the money Permanent.

Didn't James Kirkup say that it was someone completely unexpected in the cabinet driving self id? Ever since I read that I've wondered which one it is.

Me too.

I agree with most of what Permanent has said.

And although there is evidence of outside groups planning their lobbying I expect party why they have got as far as they have is that old cliche, male networks. These are created at schools, universities, work, let alone political parties.

I expect it was all some great male bonding thing and nobody even thought what about women.

As was said at the time, the do gooders in Parliament thought they were being nice to a tiny minority when passing the GRA, and had no idea or wouldnot have been able to think about the unitended consequences for women.

Boris isn't a conservative in the social sense though. He's a deregulating market free marketeer and social libertarian. His instinct would be to be perfectly happy with GRA reform as a libertarian individualist.

That said, he's spent this election saying "one nation" a lot even though he is not from that wing of the party, so he's aware this is the public mood at the moment.

Just like Labour, it depends which wing of the Tories holds sway.

I don't think we should underestimate the power of the civil service . There are some very very powerful men in there with strong allegiances to Stonewall, GIRES etc. Some of them are very senior, wielding a lot of power - including with ministers. They are the ones that draft the letters, select attendees for meetings, decide which groups are consulted with etc. It's the old boys network / gravy train writ large - and that ensures that women will never be consulted / involved in any of this. Of course, their behaviour is in breach of all the Nolan principles, especially integrity:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life/the-7-principles-of-public-life--2

'That's a rather careful statement. How very un-Boris Johnson-like.'

That’s because Johnson won’t have said those words. Someone else would have written it.'

That's the point - when has he ever stuck to script on anything else?

Bercow has some shady dealings in the past re self ID and I always wondered what his influence was at the time.

Re the Tories. I just hope Andrew Gilligan has influence, aling with Rachel Johnson!

But yeh, in terms of the power behind the throne, I think the civil servants are driving this.

I no longer trust any of them, which is why, regrettably I'm fairly sure I'm spoiling my paper unless I wake up and somebody calls bullshit on self ID.

I wonder, would a well written FOI request to the Cabinet Office yield anything about the fate of the consultation responses? Someone somewhere must have discussed it.

Someone's already made that request. It was refused because the information is 'intended for publication' at an unknown date in the future. We just have to wait.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/gender_recognition_act_consultat

I don't trust the Tories one little bit and absolutely think a core of the party would have a particular on angle trans rights eg sympathy for the poor cross dressing white men who were tormented at boarding school, mixed with 'let the mentally ill people do what they want so long as it doesn't cost us any money', whilst veering between not giving a shit about women and wanting to punish us for being terrible mean bad mummies who weaponise sex against the poor men and brought this on ourselves.

For me in addition to the above, voting for them with their cruel attitude to disabled people, PIP, ESA etc would be unthinkable.

That said I am finding it hard to vote Labour for many reasons but also because I would be incandescent if they win and then claim that they have a mandate to destroy women's rights because it was in the published manifesto. That would be the only thing that would move me to vote Conservative.

The Lib Dems are plain dangerous in so many respects, as are the Greens.

This is truly dystopian

Would a new government be under any obligation at all to publish it I wonder?

I do take the point that Stonewall et al had organised a lot of support and that it won't have been overwhelmingly against self ID. Maybe I am being a bit tin foil hatted about it.

*What is your own personal gay anthem?

‘I’m Coming Out’, by Diana Ross.*

Sure, Boris!

Do I remember Michael Gove's wife (Sarah Vine?) writing a very pissed-off article about mixed sex changing rooms/toilets in schools? I bet he's had his ear bent a few times

In 2003, 289 voting labour MPs voted FOR the GRA. None voted no.

The conservatives? Well most of them didn't bother turning up to vote. Compared to 289 labour MPs, only 58 Tories were invested enough in the issue to turn up and vote at all. One must assume the ones that bothered had a compelling reason or interest in the subject.

Majority of conservatives voted AGAINST passing the GRA. (38)
20 Tory rebels voted aye though.
14 of the 20 rebels were front benchers.
Want to know who the Tory rebels were who went against party majority and voted FOR the GRA?

Here:
John Bercow
Tim Boswell
Peter Bottomley
Angela Browning
Kenneth Clarke
David Curry
Michael Fabricant
Charles Hendry
Douglas Hogg
Boris Johnson
Robert Key
Eleanor Laing
Andrew Lansley
David Maclean
Malcolm Moss
Richard Ottaway
Mr Richard Page
Mr Jonathan Sayeed
Anthony Steen
Andrew Tyrie
Andrew Murrison

Johnson has gone against majority opinion of his party on this subject before. Whatever his motivations, be they personal profit or personal conviction, this is his history on the subject.

*2004

Ah, just noticed the thread about Sarah Vine's latest article! Good for her.

@BovaryX

“ I would prefer Larry the Downing Street cat in Number 10 on Friday than any of the muppets running.”

Judging by his Tweets, I wouldn’t

Interesting. BoJo has (occasionally) libertarian tendencies - sin taxes etc. Trying to look at it in a favourable light, it could have been an expression of ‘wear what you want, call yourself Susan if you want, it’s not the business of the state to stop you’ and a reaction against his party’s social conservatism.

The actual law we got and the subsequent move towards self-ID is anything but libertarian, so maybe it’s something else. BoJo has not exactly been a champion of the marginalised so it’s hard to picture it on those grounds either.

His instinct would be to be perfectly happy with GRA reform

Lang, I also think he’s an opportunist, so he’s likely to blow in the direction of the prevailing wind. Given the organizational zeal and fanatical determination of this lobby and given that most people are completely unaware of its existence? It means the shoutiest voices will be unopposed....