Should the GRA be repealed ...

[NotAssigned]

... and if so how would that be achieved?

Yes! The GRA should be repealed.

Having asked the law commission the question of how one would actually start the process of repealing a law-this is the response.

There’s no absolute answer to this; it depends very much on what the law is!

If it’s related to an existing law reform project it would be best to get in touch with the project team. If it’s a candidate for statute law repeal because it’s something that is no longer of practical utility I’m probably the best person to contact (but at the moment I can’t hold out any hope of rapid progress, I’m afraid, because as I mentioned earlier statute law repeal work is paused at the moment). And if it’s not in either of those categories your best bet is probably either to contact the government department responsible for the law, or to wait until the Law Commission next launches a consultation on a programme of law reform and take part in our consultation on what should be included in it (this page may give you an idea of how contact us then. For details about our programmes of law reform see: www.lawcom.gov.uk/our-work/programmes-of-law-reform/ .

A law or social science department at a university will have to apply for a research grant to examine the area with the appropriate impact case study.

In daily life many trans men want to be recognised as men. Many trans women want to be recognised as women.

Unless you intend to remove everyone's sense of sight, hearing, smell, and possibly touch as a last resort too, people are always going to recognize others as the sex they actually are no matter how many laws are passed forbidding them from doing so. This is the fundamental problem that genderists absolutely refuse to come to terms with.

Yes it should. Other posters have explained eloquently how women's rights and their safety and dignity have been undermined by this ridiculous male centred legislation, but that aside the reason for this law no longer exists as same-sex marriage is now legally possible.

Yes. See Gibbons' post about TW fighter Fallon Fox boasting on Twitter about breaking a female opponent's skull and enjoying it. Not just beating up women legally, not just enjoying it, but boasting about this on a public platform in full confidence of getting away with it.

We could help to achieve it by refusing to vote for anyone, ever, who has not promised to repeal laws harming women, starting with the GRA. If women withdrew their (often unpaid) work from any organisation supporting male supremacism, the whole structure might crumble.

Ralph Lucas is a Conservative back bencher in The House of Lords.
May 5th 2020 he published clarification he had received from the government of the definition used for man and woman. This is based in Equality Act 2010
twitter.com/LordLucasCD/status/1257642470692868097

Lord Lucas wrote,

"Definitions. The government has helpfully pointed out the definitions that they use

"Man": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A male of any age'

"Woman": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A female of any age'"

As "Man": from the Equality Act 2010: 'A male of any age'" therefore surely a male of any age may thus, and should for clarity particularly where neccessary for Safeguarding, be described as a man?

I agree 100%. Yet here we are on a parenting forum discussing safeguarding children & we must tie ourselves in knots for fear of breaking the rules & heaven forbid, correctly sexing people.

They're not 'living quiet lives as women'. They're living as men, because they're men, upholding whatever stereotypes of women they hold dear, but doing so with the protection of the law, safe in the knowledge that women can be sacked for referencing their true sex, prevented from accessing their own female spaces because such men have already claimed their 'right' to them...

This, 100%. This is exactly it. I'm glad if 'quiet' TWs aren't getting us fired and threatening our lives. But they are still disrupting my life and undermining my human rights.

This is what i think might work:

The govt needs to stay within the European Court of Human Rights ruling (Goodwin v UK [2002]). which found was a breach of a post-operative transsexual’s Article 8 rights (concerning privacy) to have to show a birth certificate revealing information about sex when applying for insurance, mortgages and pensions and thus facing potentially intrusive questions.

This problem can be solved simply by allowing anyone to obtain a short form copy of their birth certificate, for a minimal fee, with the sex field removed or left blank.

Sex would remain recorded at birth and kept in the register and individuals could also have a long-form or short-form birth certificate showing their sex.

This would meet the demands for a low cost, accessible and demedicalised process which advocates of ‘self ID’ have called for. It would also accommodate people who identify as non-binary. This would make the issuing of GRCs redundant and so this system should be ended.

This approach of allowing “prefer not to say” on documents and records should be considered for all official purposes. Anybody may call themselves Ms, Mr or Mx, wear what they like, change their name and adopt masculine or feminine styles and this can be reflected on ID, which may not need to carry their sex at all. However shared single sex services would remain reserved for those who are willing to accurately declare their sex and share with others of the same sex (with unisex provision wherever possible for those for whom sex based rules are problematic).

People should be free to express their gender identity any way they chose. But the government should not be in the business of assessing the authenticity of anyone’s self defined feeling of gender identity.

hiyamaya.net/2020/06/20/not-self-id-but-removing-red-tape-for-gender-recognition-what-are-could-that-mean/

Some forms of identification should be possible to not include sex (where irrelevent) however others, such as a passport issued by government should include accurate sex and DOB.

I think all official documents should contain accurate information.

But i think it may also be reasonable to allow people to have copies of official documents which don't contain that information at all.

They wouldn't then be able to use that ID to validate that bit of information when needed (like if you have a student ID card which doesn't have your age on it it is no use for proving your age).

With digital IDs a lot of information can be held securely and only released when it is needed.

Then orgs need to be clearer about which situations sex matters, and which are mixed sex, and how to reasonably accommodate people who don't want to declare their sex publicly, without making others deny reality.

Yes

I know this isn't a popular view these days but everything about this process was rushed, poorly thought out and presents huge ramifications for real women and society at large.

I vehemently disagree with the changing of historical documents and the potential brought by this and feel strongly that essentially reversing biology is just totally wrong.

My concerns as to the mental health of people entering this process is also deepened upon reading just how easy this appears to be.

The insanity of children being encouraged to do this and pumped full of dangerous medication makes me very uneasy too.

Just let people be who they were born as- if they're uncomfortable there ought to be therapy to ascertain quite why - not the costly option of changing their whole being at a whim .....

I think all official documents should contain accurate information.

But i think it may also be reasonable to allow people to have copies of official documents which don't contain that information at all.

There should be some form of official identification available which does not include sex and so can be used in circumstances when sex is irrelevent however I don't understand the rationale for providing documents which may be used where sex is relevent, for example Safeguarding purposes.

Should the NHS be able to know the sex of its HCPs who may be required to carry out intimate examinations?
Should airport border officials know the sex of people entering/leaving who may require body searches?
Should prison authorities know the sex of people convicted prior to allocating to the male or female prison estate?
Should DBS certificates indicate accurately the sex of a person who will be working with children or Vulnerable Adults?

apologies my comment above should read,
I don't understand the rationale for providing duplicate versions of documents with sex redacted which may be used where sex is relevent, for example Safeguarding purposes.

If sex is relevant then need to show a piece of ID that shows it where it isn't you don't

For example if someone uses their passport to provide proof of age at the supermarket, they don't necessarily need people to see what their sex is.

If you are filling in forms for safeguarding you should need to give a form of ID which shows your sex.

Any official documents which shows sex should show it accurately.

Then organisations decide where they need to know, make clear why they need to know and what they are going to do with the information

@Michelleoftheresistance

What is the realistic difference now for someone who holds a GRC and someone who doesn't? What does it do beyond formally, legally recognise the transition?

Setting aside the burning need to protect female interests and female spaces from being the baby hurled out with the bathwater, not having a GRC currently doesn't prevent someone male from being able to request a transfer out of a male prison, to request different placement of hospital ward, to have all the needed rights for employment to present and have the name and recognition of transition, protection from harassment on basis of gender identity, to request a women's refuge placement - no one is even allowed to ask if the person holds a certificate, this is considered inappropriate and invasive.

Honestly, what is the difference? If it is just legal recognition then only 5000 people have applied for one, but many many more have changed their driving licences, bill names and all the rest of it. The GRC can't be that crucial? Certainly no one seems in the TWAW argument to be saying 'but only the ones with GRCs'.

Why can't there be another formal, legal means of registering a transition, identity and status as a TM, or TW, or NB? Which is not a legal fiction, and which doesn't in any way impinge on anyone else's reality or class or identity?

This

Oh just got to the bottom, @MForstater what a great idea.

The laws need to work for everyone & giving males legal recognition as females is clearly problematic. This problem isn’t going away, the sooner government sort it out in a logical, safe way, the better.

I think you might be on to something there Maya.

Simple, clear, practical & inclusive.

But isn’t gender identity just personality? Wear what you like, have hair whatever length you like, wear make up if you like....but males cannot become women. We know that, they know that. Respect is a 2 way street and men who for whatever reason ‘identify as a woman’ must respect womens rights to single sex spaces-too many currently are not, with no consequences.

If sex is relevant then need to show a piece of ID that shows it where it isn't you don't

For example if someone uses their passport to provide proof of age at the supermarket, they don't necessarily need people to see what their sex is.

Yes I understand this.
The point of disagreement (I think) is that I woud argue there should be a form of official id which does not indicate sex and which is available for everyone eg driving licence rather than some people having duplicate versions of official id (such as passport) with sex redacted for those who chose.

R0 - I don't think that would meet the ECHR ruling which was specifically on birth certs.

(Also not everyone has a driving license )

People have duplicate IDs and passports for different reasons.

I think the thing is to be as easy and liberal as possible in allowing people not to declare their sex where it doesn't matter, and as clear and straightforward as possible that when they do it should be a accurate.

For example if someone uses their passport to provide proof of age at the supermarket, they don't necessarily need people to see what their sex is.

And if they’re walking through an airport and need to get searched by a particular sex in front of a queue of people?

Or a nurse on a ward?

Also wouldn’t transsexuals be the only people with this short form document? It may as well say Certificate of Transness.

Actually not nurse as there are the existing exemptions anyway so already covered.