Tuesday 9th March - could be a big day

[Xanthangum]

1. Helen Staniland and Glinner giving evidence to the Commons

1. Fair Play For Women VS UK Statistics Authority at Royal Courts of Justice at 10am

1. The Court of Appeal and Harry/ We Are Fair Cop - The Court of Appeal will examine the validity of the College of Police Hate Crimes Guidance

I wanted to start a thread where any major decisions or outcomes and links to anyone live tweeting or online footage. See you back here tomorrow!

Going to ask the obvious here...

If Census is meant to be 25th March or nearest possible date to that, what stops the Judge deciding:

1. To ask ONS to take down survey until decision made
2. To declare all responses filed so far invalid - and ensure via wide publicity in press that these people refill in the Census once live again
3. To put back up once decision made - say a few days before 25th March and allow those who aren't around to fill in within the following weeks....or longer if needed (but I imagine that is a tiny handful - in hospital, etc)

Link to Fair Cop's twitter about the case, including a link to the first judgment here (because I needed a reminder of the detail!): twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1369191039806836736

I suppose more pertinently for transactivists, most of whom care not a fig for women’s services, when the 2021 census shows that there are only 5000 trans people in the UK, how do you think funding gender identity clinics will go? There aren’t any trans people, census says so. No clinics required.

Frustratingly daft.

Judgment at 2pm. Shit. Is it too early for a bracing gin?

Judge "I'm having difficulty understanding"

that's 'cos it's all bobbins!

Go, on who else sniggered when they read that comment from the Judge

I also snorted tea down my nose when the learned judge expressed "surprise" . . .

Sophocles no clinics, no research, no specific healthcare services, no community support, no refuges. No representation, no special treatment. No need for millions spent for just 0.008% of the population.

There was a lot of surprise in the Keira Bell case over the lack of follow up etc. The judges also seemed surprised at the MOJ’s lack of stats. I am seeing a theme here.

@Melroses

You have to question someone's basic intelligence if they think sex is a difficult 'concept' to define.

I'm still struggling to get my head around this, the magnitude.

So the sex question has lost its integrity, which has the same knock-on effect to the sexual orientation question, and the gender identity question isn't worth the paper it's written on, as those who apparently have one, are saying they won't be filling it out.

So that's three protected characteristics which are not being catered for accurately in the national census.

And if stonewall are behind it, then it's all because of an organisation purporting to support them!

I really hope that the judge gets to drill down into why there was a change of heart, and where it came from.

And who it benefits? Because it's certainly not trans people.

@Xanthangum thank you!

And the thing is, even if the ONs lose the damage will be done. The census has lost credibility and Im not sure if it can get it back. Perhaps in years to come this census will just need to be written off?

Of course, if FairPlay for Women don't get the guidance pulled, never again do we need to listen to a single argument about how many trans people there are in such and such a situation.

Because no-one knows and guess what, no one wanted to know.

They are shooting themselves in the foot. They're already crowing about how they've answered "female" on the sex question and "there's nothing anyone can do about it".

As someone who is trans, we are in desperate need of trans-specific services - just as women are in need of women-only services. It's wholly defeating the object of the exercise. I've already completed mine with my correct biological sex and corresponding gender identity.

Utterly sick of all the "warm fuzzy gender feelz" brigade constantly undermining the need for accurate data provision for services for both women and transsexuals. Sadly, based on what's going on in social media, FPFW's much needed win is not going to change anything practically. People are going to lie, and bar cross referencing birth certificates and each individual submission, the data is going to be skewed

@Gardenbird48 - I suspect that the ones who are crowing about "how they've answered "female" on the sex question and "there's nothing anyone can do about it". are not genuinely dysphoric TWs. They are men who play at being women, don't have surgery, don't take hormones, and can go back to being blokes for any medical services they may require.

This won't hurt them in the slightest. It will hurt the people who really, really can't cope with their birth sex, and who have been to hell and back to medically transition, and who as a result, will be at risk of an unknown number of health problems 10, 20, 30 years down the line. It means that there is no way of following the progress of any health difficulties - frequency or severity.

And there will be no provision (or very little) for them. And no way of getting accurate data so that future trans individuals can give informed consent to any gender-altering medical treatment they may want.

I can't believe that anyone who is prepared to take such body-affecting hormones and have such radical surgery, would have such a cavalier attitude to long-term health.

in the

I suspect that the ones who are crowing about "how they've answered "female" on the sex question and "there's nothing anyone can do about it".

I've seen at least one example of a mother saying it about their child (apparently children don't get the gender identity question). So this child will (presumably) have been entered as their birth sex ten years ago, and now as the opposite sex, and who knows what in town years time. I pity future family historians!

Delurking to say I'm watching with interest. Also enjoying the translations of Judge-ese.

@SchadenfreudePersonified and so we come back to the fact that the "trans lobby" is not for transsexual people but a men's rights group. The trans people who the rights and protections are there to cover are being done as much of a disservice as women, and the majority in here and in other GC circles have said so for a long time.

Yes we are fighting for women's rights and spaces, but that goes hand in glove, in these instances, with supporting spaces and rights for trans people whose desire to be the opposite sex is serious and lifelong.

@teawamutu

What's the judicial translation of 'this doesn't really help anyone'?

Translation - "Do I look as though I've just drifted up the river in a shuggy boat?"

I have a TON of stuff to do and instead am sitting in the garden.

Indeed the 1911 census is interesting. The government was concerned about the fertility rate so required all married women to specify how many children had been born to the marriage. This included saying how many children were still alive and how many had died.

The 1911 census was the first one which was filled in by the householders themselves.

One of my ancestors appears to have misunderstood the guidance WRT the question about children who have died and listed all their children, including those who had died, which were then crossed out.

Valuable information for a family historian, and perhaps an indication that what one person deems clear and accurate guidance may not seem that way to someone else.

I pity future family historians!

Me too!

I’m coming to the conclusion that if FPFW said the sky was blue, then certain people would be compelled on principle to argue it was green, just because ew, bigot!

You see it on here, transallies getting all tied up in knots explaining why things that actually look to be harmful to trans people (untested paediatric transition, compulsory pronouns, bad data, encouraging suicidality) are really actually good and necessary.

I can’t get my head round it (well, I can but it’s straying into unacceptable wrongthink, and will get me banned).

@Datun

I'm still struggling to get my head around this, the magnitude.

So the sex question has lost its integrity, which has the same knock-on effect to the sexual orientation question, and the gender identity question isn't worth the paper it's written on, as those who apparently have one, are saying they won't be filling it out.

So that's three protected characteristics which are not being catered for accurately in the national census.

And if stonewall are behind it, then it's all because of an organisation purporting to support them!

I really hope that the judge gets to drill down into why there was a change of heart, and where it came from.

And who it benefits? Because it's certainly not trans people.

It's gender reassignment that's the protected characteristic, not gender identity - otherwise we could all claim to be Cassgender (the feeling of gender is unimportant to you) which, might solve a lot of problems

None of this practically benefits trans people in planning for their needs and all the other stuff the data is used for. All it does is validate - which is absolutely no use when it comes to assigning pots of cash to infrastructure.

Right, that's my lunch over, time for #SuperTuesday to resume over in the Court of Appeal while keeping an eye on how the judge's bafflement gets translated into his decision for this case.