Law Commission consultation on including women in hate crime legislation - but they talk about "gender"

[stumbledin]

They say:

The Law Commission’s proposals to improve hate crime laws include:

• Adding sex or gender to the protected characteristics.

www.lawcom.gov.uk/reforms-to-hate-crime-laws-to-make-them-fairer-and-to-protect-women-for-the-first-time/

So yet again the law is trying to erase the reality of women's sex based oppression by implying it could just be about "gender".

So depressing that those who you would think would know about the importance of words are being this sloppy. Or more likely just not taking women seriously.

Anyhow if anybody can be bothered to reply to the consultation it is in fact open until December.

I am concerned this initiative could wind up with making it illegal to describe male pattern behaviour

If one were doing it to stir up hatred then I think your concerns would be justified.

Maybe this is overdramatic but I just do not trust this timeline, and more to the point I don't trust the Law Society.

No I don't think that's over dramatic. The protected characteristic missing from hate crime legislation is sex, not gender, and nothing that has happened in recent years is cause for complacency.

If its any consolation, I've seen on SM that some TRA's are as concerned about this as feminists. They want to keep sex and gender reassignment separate, otherwise they can't keep distinct data.

If one were doing it to stir up hatred then I think your concerns would be justified.

Oh good, because we can definitely trust the police to be mindreaders, and to know the difference between quoting accurate statistics "to stir up hatred" and quoting accurate statistics to defend safeguarding practices.

If its any consolation, I've seen on SM that some TRA's are as concerned about this as feminists. They want to keep sex and gender reassignment separate, otherwise they can't keep distinct data.

Oh yes, the infamous "transphobic hate crimes" statistics that actually refer to "hate incidents," and include hundreds of different reports about the same Tweets, plus at least one report on a man who didn't want to shag a transwoman.

It's only a slight consolation. There appears to be a very strong top-down push to dismantle safeguarding protections and I don't think it cares much about the nutters on Twitter. But it's still good that TRAs are against conflating sex and gender in this context, perhaps they'll help stop it.

I think quoting accurate statistics would be difficult to label as a crime. I can’t see the CPS wanting to pursue a case on that basis.

Not quite sure what The Law Society has done to upset some of you, but whatever.

Gender is a hate crime - against women!

@Kantastic

If one were doing it to stir up hatred then I think your concerns would be justified.

Oh good, because we can definitely trust the police to be mindreaders, and to know the difference between quoting accurate statistics "to stir up hatred" and quoting accurate statistics to defend safeguarding practices.

Nobody said defending against a hate crime charge was going to be easy. Unless the law has been changed (and I don't think it has), the person that decided that the crime against them was aggravated by hate, was the victim themselves. Everybody then got up to dance to that tune.

the person that decided that the crime against them was aggravated by hate, was the victim themselves.

Quite. Further aggravated by the idea that it had happened if the victim felt it had happened, no evidence further required, plus the idea being created and validated that a feeling of being offended/victimised had become something police worthy with someone to blame. Hence 'hate incident'.

The origin of this was only supposed to be that when a crime had been committed, if the actual, recognised, prosecutable crime was aggravated by prejudice then sentencing would be different.

Excellent example of how bloody awfully made, half baked legislation wanders and ends up mission creeping to somewhere ridiculous. The whole thing needs to go, but unless this is specific to the missing characteristic of 'sex' it's unnecessary anyway.

Nobody said defending against a hate crime charge was going to be easy.

Duh. It's a shambles of a law. But what's the relevance? You said it would be correct to be worried "'if you were doing it to stir up hatred." I pointed out that can't be objectively assessed. You then went off on this spiel which is largely correct but has got sweet fuck all to do with your condition of "if you are doing it to stir up hatred." I guess this is your way of acknowledging your original comment was nonsense? Because it was complete fucking nonsense.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4034028-janice-turner-today-on-making-misogyny-a-hate-crime?pg=1

Just adding this link to tie threads together

Also I have started looking at the consultation paper.. I might give it a few weeks because I really hope a women’s organisation will give some pointers on how to respond- there’s more in there than the sex/gender question and I want to reply in as useful a way as I can.

@ChattyLion you flatter me! There were some excellent discussions around the surrogacy consultation and it all helped to encourage quite a few posters to respond.

Regarding some of the responses in the press, and in particular to the article by Catherine Bennett in the Observer that you linked, the Law Commission had an OASIS strategy document (sorry I can't remember what the acronym stands for and can't find it now) but the document is in this FOI, here:

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/publicconsultationon_proposed?nocache=incoming-1597869#incoming-1597869

and includes a list of 22 articles and news items which is meant to demonstrate their substantial public engagement and information campaign. At the bottom of the list is the Catherine Bennett article. One wonders if they even read it, as it is not a complimentary article enthusing about their proposals. Right up there with first year students padding out their references with anything that included the key word irrespective of the content!

Are they doing better now? I suspect not. I attended a meeting with them in February, before coronavirus struck. A group of men very entrenched in their view that babies must be made available for anyone who wants one, especially other men, and women must be enabled/encouraged/facilitated/gas lit to provide babies to order irrespective of the harms to women (and babies). Subsequent correspondence does not suggest any change in their views, and when they present their bill to parliament (expected early 2022) we must be prepared for a battle.

The same people are involved with this consultation, and again, I expect they have already made their plans, and are not expecting to change, the public side of the consultation is just window dressing really.

But thank you so much OP @stumbledin for raising awareness of this, seeing these discussions really encourages me (and others, I hope) to respond, as well as helping formulate a coherent argument.

I will be referring them to the reference to women, from their surrogacy consultation, which makes clear they do know what a woman is.

Perhaps reference to the judge in the Harry Millar case stating that no one has a right not to be offended? I'll have to dig that quote out unless anyone has the handy reference.

Example only re how the Law Commission envisages use of gender in crimes against women - e.g. I was not of the feminine gender yesterday due to my supposed non-gender conforming attire.

Thank god for that, ThinEnd! Funny how rapists and other predators always seem to know who's female, even when we're clearly displaying masculine gender, ie dressed in trousers and walking boots, no make-up etc.

No flattery at all Fanny!

I have started looking at the consultation paper.. I might give it a few weeks because I really hope a women’s organisation will give some pointers on how to respond- there’s more in there than the sex/gender question and I want to reply in as useful a way as I can.

Good point, ChattyLion. Also, you can give your email address, and start answering the questions, then you can stop at any time and they’ll send you a link to continue later.

I was going to wait for more advice, but in the end I just left some spaces blank — you don’t have to answer all the questions — and submitted my response. I have so many things on the go, I don’t dare rely on my ageing brain remembering I’ve left one uncompleted.

After the recent shitshow at the Royal Society of Biology: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4046407-Royal-Society-of-Biology-biological-sex-is-transphobic

I looked up the Law Commission’s equality and diversity policy. It’s here:

www.lawcom.gov.uk/about/our-policies-and-procedures/

As we know, the Law Commission (England and Wales) is a public body recommending legal changes to government departments, for them to bring to Parliament. Many of these are material to women’s lives. At the moment they are working on surrogacy and on whether biological sex should be added to hate crimes in England and Wales.

The introductory text says:
Equality and diversity statement
This statement sets out the Law Commission’s commitment to equality and diversity and the steps we take to ensure that equality and diversity issues are taken fully into account in our work.

Then if you follow the link, it reads:
‘...we have a responsibility to ensure you receive fair and just treatment in your interactions with us. Our society is made up of people of different ethnicities, cultures, faiths and beliefs, mental and physical abilities, ages, gender identities and sexual orientations.
It is also comprised of people in different family types and of differing social and educational backgrounds and it is these issues which are crucial to our decisions about how we effectively serve an increasingly diverse society as an organisation and as an employer.’

So, you read that right.. the Law Commission in England and Wales have not got SEX in their equality and diversity statement... they have GENDER IDENTITIES.

This statement seems to have been adopted from the Ministry of Justice, which is worrying in itself. Link here:
s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2015/06/Equality_and_diversity_statement.pdf

I have started looking at the consultation paper.. I might give it a few weeks because I really hope a women’s organisation will give some pointers on how to respond- there’s more in there than the sex/gender question and I want to reply in as useful a way as I can.

The consultation closes on Christmas Eve I believe, so quite a bit of time yet.
WeareFairCop are going to be giving advice and I think some other organisations so there will be advice to come. It's important to try to personalise answers a bit though so that they aren't dismissed as a particular organisation trying to game the consultation.

Place marking

Thanks Fanny
That is useful to know that some groups will be looking at it, I will be interested to see what they say and I hope some specifically women’s groups with VAWG expertise will do that and they will explore this important point that some posters have making about risks to women of recognising misandry, if misogyny is recognised.

Though I have to say I feel a bit dispirited about responding on the subject of biological sex to the Law Commission at all, now that I read in black and white, that organisationally the Commission states that it ‘sees’ only ‘gender identity’, a recent political concept that is meaningless to a lot of people and apparently omits to ‘see’ biological sex, the legally protected characteristic that every human being has.

I mean, FWR posters have often been picking up that the Law Commission’s stance in their proposals is ‘off’ from a feminist perspective, as we have been saying on this thread in the instance of their apparently equivalent ‘sex/gender’ suggestion.. so I shouldn’t really be surprised to see their corporate ethos set out like this in a policy document. It actually makes sense of some of their statements.

I think it’s more shock and dismay, that a legal organisation, funded by government and tasked with the job of advising government on legal reform, would use anything but the protected characteristics in the Equality Act to base their own corporate Equality and Diversity position on.

And that the Ministry of Justice seemingly also thinks that being inherently sexist and homophobic, by ignoring biological sex as a factor in discrimination, is fine too.

And, that their statement document is dated 2010. This position goes right back..

@TheFleegleHasLanded

Exactly what they did /are trying to do in Scotland, redefine the word ‘woman’ using a new law. So it begins...

Its just nonestop attacks, and certainly makes more sense of why Stonewall are suddenly pretending to care about misogyny, fr sure. Its depressing as fuck, this whole situation. Why the underhand attempts, constantly, to remove womens rights wholesale. How are those in fucking power not noticing this?!

Also surely gender varience would be covered under 'transgender status' anyway? So why would gender need added again? Sex and egnder are different, even the most stubborn mens/'trans' rights groups (stonewall) agree on this. So, why the need for continual fudging. Sex is a real material thing. Gender is all in ones head, and is already covered anyway for gods sake..

Exactly. They don't need this. Trans and non binary people are already protected against transphobic hate crime, whatever we think about what that means. The one conceivable reason for Stonewall to be involved in this consultation about misogyny is to dismantle the legal definition of woman by the back door.