Reform to the Gender Recognition Act - meeting 24th June 8pm

[Spero]

I'm hosting a meeting via Zoom on 24th June between 8-9pm for anyone who wants to discuss reform/repeal to the GRA.

I think it would be great to have something positive to offer, maybe even a suggested draft of what new law could look like.

If you want a link to the Zoom meeting, please message me here or DM me on Twitter @SVPhillimore

I have set out some brief background as to how we ended up with the GRA and an agenda here

medium.com/@SVPhillimore/first-meeting-of-the-gender-recognition-act-reform-group-a417a0de8bda

I have tried to find a list of guidelines that would indicate how this article was in violation of **, but there doesn't seem to be such a list.

Most of what they have listed is legal conditions.

Is it worth emailing them as interested readers who want to support the concept of Medium what condition has been violated, because it is had to support a platfomr that appears to carry out unjustified censorship. [email protected]

policy.medium.com/medium-terms-of-service-9db0094a1e0f

A very interesting report. Thank you. I, too, did not know about the Hansards.

I have read so many GC articles on Medium that I thought at first that it was a GC site! (But then I looked further and found plenty of articles supporting other views.) Disgraceful that Medium has attempted to silence you.

Might I suggest that transwoman always be written as one word? TRAs insist on the separation of 'trans' and 'woman' in order to legitimise their claim to be as much another type of woman as black women or disabled women. Similarly for transmen.

Oh no Spero I am so sorry, I phrased that poorly as I was so pissed off with seeing that your meeting report had been taken down. I meant it was anodyne as in absolutely inoffensive, unobjectionable, and was just reporting part of routine political organising. I didn’t mean that the write up or meeting content was bland or dull! I was very pleased that you wrote it up for people who couldn’t join and I was really interested to read it.

I'm in total shock about the silencing that is going on. I feel like I've just had my blinkers taken off. What an earth is going on when we can't even have a civilised debate? I would love to see the minutes if there's anyway of getting hold of them. Spero - any chance of emailing them to me? I emailed you from my aol account after attending the meeting.

If you scroll down crushed silk I posted the archive link.

@ChattyLion

Oh no Spero I am so sorry, I phrased that poorly as I was so pissed off with seeing that your meeting report had been taken down. I meant it was anodyne as in absolutely inoffensive, unobjectionable, and was just reporting part of routine political organising. I didn’t mean that the write up or meeting content was bland or dull! I was very pleased that you wrote it up for people who couldn’t join and I was really interested to read it.

Ha ha only joking! I did try to make it as bland as possible so it wouldn't be removed, but clearly nothing works.

Just to let you know - you will find all future summaries and discussions on the Gender Critical website so many thanks to them!

twitter.com/svphillimore/status/1277270045635289094?s=21

Just going through the skill sets emails I have been sent - we have a wide range of impressive skills to harness, I think we can do this.

As soon as Gov announcement is out and we have had a chance to digest it, lets meet again.

All info will go up on gcritical.org

If I am booted from Twitter, I will also be on Spinster.

Spero while people are thinking about their skills: the EHRC are looking for good people :

Chair job spec
publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/chair-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

4 Commissioners with skills in Audit and Risk, Business / Commercial, Change Management, Communication / Media / Marketing, IT / Digital, Legal / Judicial, Major Projects, Regulation, Transformation.
Job spec here: publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/non-executive-commissioner-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

And one commissioner post in Wales
publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/wales-commissioner-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

With working links

Chair
publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/chair-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

4 Commissioners: publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/non-executive-commissioner-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

one commissioner post in Wales
publicappointments.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/appointment/wales-commissioner-equality-and-human-rights-commission/

now that really would be a great way of effecting change!

Interestingly the College of Policing are also looking for a new Chair and apparently operational police experience is NOT required...

Second meeting of GRARG!

Gender Recognition Act Reform Group - 15th July 2020 8pm

Link in this post

gcritical.org/2020/07/07/the-next-meeting-of-the-gender-recognition-act-reform-group-grarg/

Thank you Spero

Thank you Spero

Thank you Spero. I'll try to make it.

summary of 2nd meeting of GRARG (Gender Recognition Act Reform/Repeal Group) on 15th July 2020 here - policy and strategy discussions.

Next meeting 22nd July IF there is a Government announcement - if not, September 2nd 2020.

Zoom link in post.

gcritical.org/2020/07/18/2nd-meeting-of-grarg/

Hi Spero thanks for the updated notes. My view is that the law needs to reflect reality. People should not be given legal status as a sex that they are not. Society should accept gender non confirming people whilst still acknowledging their sex. I would wish to scrap GRCs altogether. (Now same sex marriage is legal what justification is there?) However that might not be possible immediately. The simplest tweak might be to issue GRCs as trans woman or trans man. Rather that the blatant lie that is currently happening. Absolutely agree all gender identity teaching needs to be taken out of school immediately & under 25s protected from this harmful ideology. I wish Lizz would make her announcement very soon as this is all so time consuming!

Pretty much agree. I think Maya's suggestion for short form birth certificates is the key - so you can prove your identity without having to show your sex or whatever. Agree that same sex marriage seems to have done away with most of the problems the GRA was trying to address.

@Spero I couldn't agree more with your "note on ‘belief’", at the end — the 'beliefs' of the trans lobby should not be treated with the same weight as hard scientific fact, and we should resist any attempt to weaken our position by reducing these facts to 'belief'.

Hi spero somehow I missed this before - is it possible to join the next meeting?

Also - I wonder if we don’t need to be pushing for really concrete definitions of sex and gender to separate them? Part of the problem is people not wanting to use the word sex (because they think it’s dirty/funny because it means intercourse) so they use gender to be more polite? Talking to friends in other countries they do have very separate words that then get used to ask the question intended (ie are you man/woman either or no other option vs masculine/feminine/whatever)...

Thank you Spero

"One key focus/purpose of this group is to have discussions as openly and publicly as possible; to reclaim discussion of this area of law as a natural and necessary part of a mature secular democracy."

Yes! This is so important.

"We should argue that it is necessary to turn around the current EQA position, ie reverse the default position. Now it is unlawful to discriminate on grounds of sex except in certain limited circumstances, and the onus is on service providers to prove that they need to provide single-sex services. Instead, the starting position in law should be that service providers must provide single-sex services for women and girls for x, y, z cases. Possibly there could be some limited exceptions allowing service providers to not be single-sex, but the onus would be on the providers to prove why they should not be single-sex, rather than the other way around, and to provide serious safeguards. So overall, single-sex would be the norm and the right of women and girls for single-sex provision would not be qualified."

Yes, it would make perfect sense to have single-sex as the norm in services that are intended as such. It can't be an ongoing negotiation that requires constant vigilance and guessing, like it is atm with council policies etc.

"We can consider whether we could improve the lives of people who don’t conform to sex-role stereotypes by strengthening sex discrimination legislation or guidance. Eg, protecting both women’s and men’s right to wear what they want in the workplace. We think there are real possibilities for taking a feminist approach by protecting women’s and men’s rights to free expression in their appearance or behaviour, without any reference to whether it is necessary to identify as the opposite sex in order to behave in atypical ways."

And yes to this as well. The protected characteristic of 'gender reassignment' is limiting and regressive. It creates an absurd situation where people can/must invoke association with 'trans' in order to express themselves freely. It's anachronistic.

Despite no announcement from the Gov about GRA reform, I am going to hold the Zoom link open on 22nd July 8pm if anyone wants to join me in drafting our letter to MPs.

twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/1285492228354441216?s=20

@stumbledin

I think the roadblock is the Medium Rules from Nov 2019 see link - policy.medium.com/medium-rules-30e5502c4eb4

'Hate speech
We do not allow content that promotes violence or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sexual orientation, gender, or gender identity.

We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.'

Ie. They don't recognise sex, you can't exclude self-ID because Trans isn't a medical condition and you can't exclude/segregate transpeople as 'sex' isn't one of their protected characteristics :/

I'm glad you've been able to move onto gcritical. I don't think Medium's going to be a GC friendly space much longer.

Ha! Medium emailed me a rosette for getting 50 fans on my Action Aid post on my new account. So I think they are a little confused about their moderation policies... or more likely wait for a particular complaint.