Has Liz Truss said she won't make an announcement on GRA until September?

[happydappy2]

Twitter seems to think so-is it true?

stumbledin why do you think Penis News are more in touch with the Govt than any of us? My gay friends think they're a bunch of
Clowns and are embarrassed by them. If they're in touch with Truss et al I'm fairly sure it's a one way diatribe

I think Boris will move when it is clear that such a move will have popular support. And this happens by women, and others, speaking out.

Agreed, I think getting the message out is helping JKR did a great job. Cummings knows many red wall voters do not support the kingdom of woke

I am concerned that we don't make enough noise to be counted though. I signed the Baronesses petition and shared it on Facebook, but it still has less than 7,000 signatures. Am I missing something?

@rusty100

don't forget about the silent majority - lots of women in that group and those who forget it exists are usually dumbfounded when it speaks (usually by votes). Noise and numbers aren't the only thing that counts.

Numbers are quite depressing though

One of the reasons I'm panicking a bit.
Sue Pascoe is Acting Area Chairman of the Conservative Women’s Organisation in North and East Yorkshire.
www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/07/crispin-blunt-and-sue-pascoe-its-time-to-correct-the-stoking-of-alarm-and-spreading-of-misinformation-about-trans-people.html
We really need to keep up the pressure.

're The memorandum of understanding Keira Bell has a crowdfunder to challenge in the courts.

@Imnobody4

One of the reasons I'm panicking a bit. Sue Pascoe is Acting Area Chairman of the Conservative Women’s Organisation in North and East Yorkshire. www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/07/crispin-blunt-and-sue-pascoe-its-time-to-correct-the-stoking-of-alarm-and-spreading-of-misinformation-about-trans-people.html We really need to keep up the pressure.

're The memorandum of understanding Keira Bell has a crowdfunder to challenge in the courts.

I agree with everything Crispin Blunt says. However, he is talking about the 5000 people who have had gender reassignment surgery. I think we are talking about the ones who haven't and who don't intend to and who want our spaces not third spaces. I might be wrong but that's my opinion.

This is Sue Pascoe in case anyone isn't familiar
www.advocate.com/world/2019/5/09/conservative-uk-trans-candidate-running-seat-eu-parliament

At the end of the article linked by Imnobody4 is a link to an article to Lynn Truss which shows the pressure is still being kept up re safe spaces etc

By Radical

That Blunt/Pascoe article is very odd.

Quite a lot of 'don't worry dear' the numbers are small. (And a real wtf about only a small number of children aged under 16 likely to need medical treatment.)

I wonder if people like Pascoe are starting to realise that trans lobby groups are doing them no favours. Yet are not brave enough to set out a distinct position of their own.

The comments section below the article has the full range from "couldn't care less" to "most oppressed ever" to "why are we dismantling protections for women and girls and medicalising children". The ratio seems to be on the side of biology realists and, interestingly, that three-letter abbreviation so heavily monitored on here has passed by without a murmur.

What would be interesting would be the results of one of ConHome's snap surveys if it cared to do one: this is limited to a nationwide panel of verified Conservative politicians, activists and party members.

Baroness - you are under estimating the power of male networks. The ones that get set up at school and university and so on.

It is these private networks that control a lot of what happens. How do you think the outliers on the very fringe of queer politics ever got their foot in the door of being able to get the GRA in 2004.

Add into that the network in gay clubs etc..

You dont honestly think that decisions taken are all above board and through democratic motions.

Even women in workplaces know that one of the reasons they dont have power in the work place is that they dont have time to go to the pub / club after work.

Of course they know more.

Women are always on the fringes.

It is private networks and "trusted" side kicks, think Cummings, who decide what will or wont happen.

Why do you think Pink News and Stonewall have been as influential as they are? Not because of competence but whose back they can scratch.

Surely you aren't that niave as to not be aware of this.

Puzzled why my message was deleted, except that it was a generalisation: it's a fine line to tread, and has left me a little wobbly but this whole situation has, crikey it's a tough time (for all)

Thanks for your patronising post stumbledin

Liz Truss has made no further comment since writing this letter.

stumbledin TBF I haven’t been out to a gay club in a few years but lobbying anyone on legal issues came a very long way down the list

Stonewall’s influence isn’t just about ‘male networks’ though, it’s about the fact they are a household name massive megacharity and yet have covertly abandoned the pivotal concept of same-sex rights in exchange for a nebulous gender identity umbrella. (It’s rubbish for keeping the rain off!)

That change is actively now working against same-sex people’s rights to assemble together, speak freely, have adult relationships with whoever they like, and so on - particularly for lesbians.

And yet to most people in politics or the general public who are not following all this, good old Stonewall are still good old Stonewall and everyone respects their role in upholding gay rights over the last 30 years+ and sees them as the go-to charity for Voice of the Gay and Lesbian Community because of that earned goodwill.

(It’s arguable whether Stonewall has ever centred lesbians’ interests equally to gay men but again, that’s not something that a lot of people without a connection to these issues might be aware of..)

The statistics quoted in the Blunt/Pascoe article are misleading. The figure of less than 0.03% of under 18s being referred to gender identity services omits to say that this is the percentage each year. The true figure is around 0.5% of under 18s being referred.

I'm pinning my hopes on this for some enlightenment, which is scheduled in the HoC for tomorrow, after which Parliament goes into recess.

11.30 am*
Oral questions
Women and Equalities (including Topical Questions)

Nadia Whittome has a question diaried in about trans rights (but she centres trans people, not women and girls who want their rights to safe spaces preserved).

rusty I am GC and haven’t signed the petition. I want petitions to seek an actual tangible goal that only a petition could achieve because I feel like otherwise it’s just encouraging slacktivism. There isn’t much Liz Truss can do with that petition, other than just say, OK noted. I want more than that. I get it that it is a coalition backed petition but if the coalition can’t agree on basic political aims then I’m not sure that it’s a coalition that worth making. I know I sound harsh and I appreciate it’s women working out of goodwill in their own time to make this coalition happen so I feel mean saying that.

It’s interesting that the petition hasn’t gained a great deal of signatures. I posted about it on another thread, that I’m not sure about the aims on the petition.

They aren’t legally specific enough for what I would like to see, eg for changes to the GRA (amendment is needed on specific issues and then ideally repeal although we’d need to think about where that would leave existing GRC holders and I don’t know that policy-makers are thinking in depth about that) and I would support petitions with specific asks that would protect kids who are being offered physical transition at GIDs. Like greater CAMHS provision for all kids, but specific regulation over GIDS with doctors under specific licence.

There’s no ask in that petition for a select committee or public inquiry or any other kind of objective independent investigation into where we are with these issues at the moment, which would be an important starting point to get people on board.

Asks that are very non-specific in petitions are too easy to dodge; like demanding that: ‘data used to inform government policy is correctly recorded‘.
Do they mean data recorded by the government, or other data? Government policy is rightly informed by all sorts of data, coming from many sources. Government don’t have powers over how other orgs collect their data.

the petition asks that government should ‘Publish guidance explaining and enforcing the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010’ That bit is already the job of the EHRC. Truss can just point to the fact it’s been done.
‘Ensure all new laws, amendments, and policies are assessed for their impact on 51% of the population, women and girls’.
We already have Equality Impact Assessments, is this different?

I really welcome the spirit of this petition of upholding sex-based rights, but I’m not sure that the petition is going to be able to achieve more concrete outcomes aside from signalling some selected elements of GC political feeling to Liz Truss. I think if it has an awareness-raising aim, it needed a broader set of resources behind it to introduce the issues and some figures to attach to it, and a petition isn’t necessarily the right vehicle for that. Sorry to be a downer about this.

the petition asks that government should Publish guidance explaining and enforcing the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010’ That bit is already the job of the EHRC. Truss can just point to the fact it’s been done.

Sorry, I made an error there. ^ I don’t think EHRC have any enforcement powers in relation to EQA - I think EHRC only exist to produce guidance.

highame the figure of 5000 refers to 5000 GRCs which have been issued-that doesn't mean that 5000 people have had surgery....85-90% of trans women retain their male sex organs. So we currently have a lot of male bodied people with the legal status as Female.

Chatty the petition was published months ago as a rallying cry rather than as an attempt to change the law. It was designed to raise awareness more than anything and women from SIX political parties agreed on the wording! Can you imagine the toing and froing that took?
Each political pledge group has been working within their own parties on much more specific policy changes.

WU had every version of their Parliamentary petition refused by the Parliamentary team who make such decisions.

Much as I am a fan of the Baroness, the petition is not her work and nor has she claimed it to be so I'm not sure why people think it is. She just supports the general aims of women in those political groups.

The EHRC certainly Do have enforcement powers.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-powers/inquiries-investigations-and-wider-powers

SnippyPants I can well imagine the to-ing and fro-ing. That’s why I said I felt mean picking fault about it. And gaining cross-party agreement on anything in this space is a massive achievement. The principles behind the petition are excellent. Anyway, I’ve already said my bit about the use of petitions.

I really appreciate the hours of individual hard work behind it, that there are women in six parties talking about these issues together is a very powerful step forward for women. I’m grateful to everyone making that happen.

Thanks for the correction on the EHRC enforcement role. I did look up enforcement at EHRC a while ago, because I couldn’t understand why in this area, so much seems to be reliant on being settled via tribunals, case law and JR when we have EHRC as a regulator for the EQA. I thought EHRC can’t be unaware but just seemed to be very relaxed about how women and children are being treated.

Obviously I got the wrong end of the stick because my impression was/is that EHRC didn’t really seem to enforce around GC issues where women and children are being disadvantaged, and in my memory that became ‘no powers’ but EHRC do have powers to enforce around EQA, as you rightly say. Hopefully with a new Chair they may get on the case(s) for the benefit of women and children.

Some interesting late additions to the question call list for tomorrow’s Women and Equalities session.
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5801/cmagenda/calllist200722v01.html

I think the Tory MPs generally have woken up to the fact they were taken for a rid with the trans rights agends (thanks in no small part to all you wonderful women) and left to their own devises would give this whole thing the boot, transing kids and all/
I also dont think they are espicially afraid of stonewall et al.

I am very worried though about powerfull international players, whoever the f**k they are (no one seems to know )
The fact this agenda has taken off in every country around the world (even in the most unlikely ones, catholic south america to name but one, somewhere women are sent to jail for having a miscarriage are going down the self id route ffs) makes me think there are some VERY powerful players in this and I really dont see our gov standing up to international pressure right now when we are so vulnerable.