GRA Reform, Legal Self Declaration, has no effect on access to spaces

[ool0n]

I'm wondering given the recent convincing defeat of gender critical ideology in the high court vs EHRC - if the Mumsnet gender critical people finally accept the fact that having a GRC has no effect on access to spaces?

People on the other side of the debate like myself have been explaining to GC people on Twitter for years that having a GRC has no effect on access to spaces so their objection to GRA reform is/was unfounded. I/we based this on -

1. English government legal analysis that stated having a GRC has no effect on access to spaces
2. Scottish government legal analysis ... ditto ...
3. The EA 2010 and GA 2004 text
4. The practical impossibility that a BC (Not an ID document) could be of any use in deciding access

now we have

1. Gender critical crowdfunded challenge to EHRC guidance that says having a GRC has no effect on access to spaces. Comprehensively lost, not even passed the very low bar to even be considered for a Judicial Review.

Given this is the case will gender critical people be reevaluating their assertion "Self ID", as in GRA Reform, must be opposed as it effects access to spaces? Trans people have always been able to "Self ID", in the colloquial sense, into men's and women's spaces. So making it easier for trans people to change their birth certificates only helps them, has no effect on GC feminists, and/or cisgender women and spaces.

(I also wonder if there'll be any introspection as to why an obviously incorrect interpretation of the law was able to become so prevalent in gender critical circles. Maybe listen to groups outside of GC circles a bit more?)

@EndoplasmicReticulum

I think this is my favourite so far:

"Meanwhile you're claiming that, what, there's something so intrinsically sexed about people that no amount of physical change will erase it."

I think I am happy to claim that one, yes. It is not possible to change sex.

(awaits clownfish).

It's like they are finally getting it, but also not getting it, all at the same time.

That just proves how much you don't understand spoon

As I said in an earlier post go read up on primary and secondary sex characteristics.

You may also want to check the difference between physical and physiological.

All that can be changed by surgery is soft tissue and bony protuberances. You cannot change whole joints - and no, a hip replacement isn't the same thing as the pelvic girdle.

Trust me, you have misunderstood, a lack of knowledge on this.

@smellycats

You really do seem to think that trans = men just saying they're women and walking into toilets.

You're wrong. I don't think that. And that's the kind of comment that seems to deliberately ignore the thorny issue. And that's what I find distressing.

But you seem to me to be ignoring the issue of 'sex predators': how prevalent they are, and how often women get hurt, and how little is done to make the world a safer space for women.

Not all sex predators are men, but by far the vast majority look like men and ARE men.

It's crap for men who don't hurt women. But my husband, for example, doesn't object to being excluded from female spaces even though he would be totally harmless in that space, because he understands the necessity for women.

It's also crap for transgender people who identify as woman but want to retain all the trappings of being male. But unlike my husband, many of these people (not all) DO object to being excluded despite it having the potential to increase risk to women.

And women learn through their lived experience that male people who violate their boundaries and don't accept "no" are doing it because they enjoy feeling powerful that way. They enjoy frightening women.

Because you’re showing exactly none of it here.

So you can say all that stuff, but it doesn’t translate at all, I’m afraid.

Everyone treats their friends nicely, and mostly they are polite to their acquaintances. That’s not remarkable, or even praiseworthy at all. The real challenge is: how do you treat people that you don’t approve of? That aren’t your social circle?

How do you respond to a traumatised woman explaining her difficulties?

You tell her you have it as bad, or worse.

That’s what I made the comment. I’m going on what I see here, as we all are.

Thank you @Fernlake @R0wantrees and @persistentwoman, will have a look and read now, much appreciated.

And women learn through their lived experience that male people who violate their boundaries and don't accept "no" are doing it because they enjoy feeling powerful that way. They enjoy frightening women.

The irony of all this is I didn't ever have an issue with transgender women using women's toilets etc etc. And I have noticed transgender women in women's toilets and haven't ever been concerned.

But the argument that a fully physically intact man, with a beard etc, is actually a woman and has the right to be in women's spaces, has had an impact on my own understanding of what transgender is.

And where I previously did not think "transgender" represented a threat to women's safety, I now, unfortunately, do. A lot of this perception derives from the way the identity politics totally excludes the reality that women are not safe, and makes zero attempt to find a way forward that has woman's safety at its core.

I feel this shift in me is not only damaging to me, but also to transgender women who were previously peacefully living their lives.

It just comes across as a childish while. But whyyyyyy.

Because fantasies aren't real, that's why.

I don't think many transwomen hear us say that... though we do often.

We are having our minds, and politeness levels, changed by all of this and, as I said upthread, ALL transwomen are being negatively impacted by this.

So what's the real point of this?

@CuriousaboutSamphire

I don't think many transwomen hear us say that... though we do often.

We are having our minds, and politeness levels, changed by all of this and, as I said upthread, ALL transwomen are being negatively impacted by this.

So what's the real point of this?

That's the question that scares me.

Oh, OK!

Like none of us call our transwoman friends and family 'she', treat them as though they are female whilst still recognizing that they are biologically male!!!

Pshaw!

Are you HONESTLY suggesting that is it truly possible for a human being to change their sex?
Sex IS immutable. Sex is binary.
I know this is going to prompt the 'but what about DSDS!!' argument, but even then, karotyping has shown that people born with DSDs are either make or female in the vast vast majority of cases. (Ultimately the intersex community have repeatedly been asked not to be drawn into this argument and they represent less than 0.018% of the population. I state it only because it is often used as some kind of argument that sex is on a spectrum, when it is absolutely not).
Sex is binary because there is either the ABILITY to produce large gametes (eggs) or small gametes (sperm). NO-ONE has EVER produced something else entirely and nobody has ever produced both or changed spontaneously from one to the other (as you seem to have suggested upthread).
The failure to produce these (infertility or menopause etc) does not change the sex of the organism which is coded into EVERY cell of the body until the day you die.
Women are not men who have not had a puberty! If a boy never has a male puberty it doesn't make him a female.
Honestly, these kind of arguments and biology denying just makes people look unhinged.
Most if not all women want safe spaces for trans people, but don't try to rewrite the science books. Changing sex is and will always be impossible, no matter how much you may wish it were otherwise. And modifying your body does not change your external sex BTW, a MTF still does not have a 'vagina', and a FTM does not have a 'penis'. They have a surgical approximation / reconfigured genitalia to resemble their chosen sex.
Changing sex is a biological fiction.

[quote spoonrider]**@smellycats* "But the argument that a fully physically intact man, with a beard etc, is actually a woman and has the right to be in women's spaces, has had an impact on my own understanding of what transgender is."*

If you think that this is what people are arguing then you need to pull your head out of wherever it is. Because this is just wrong.[/quote]
Or ... you haven't fully grasped the full implications of what some are arguing.

There are quite a lot of transgender people who HAVE grasped that, and their concern about the implications is a source of hope that maybe others will too.

But women's safety has to be front and centre of the debate.

[quote spoonrider]@Sophoclesthefox
*"How do you respond to a traumatised woman explaining her difficulties?

You tell her you have it as bad, or worse."*

What? Wow, that's low.

okay, definitely time to pack up and move on from here. I'll be back with my female life, with my female friends, helping them with their problems that females have, having them help me with female problems, all of us bound together supporting each other.

I'll leave you to be here doing... something.[/quote]
After smellycats posted a long and heartfelt post about her fears and concerns, You said: @smellycats "But if a person who looks like a man walks into a women's toilet, I would leave fast."

You don't think I wouldn't run either?

You really do seem to think that trans = men just saying they're women and walking into toilets

This what I was referring to.

I have no idea why you think that’s a low blow?

It’s not what I would call empathising, as you didn’t acknowledge her experience at all before bringing it back to yourself, because it would be awful for you.

I don’t know what you thought I meant, but that is what I actually meant.

😁

Am I supposed to be too polite to reply?

Don't kid yourself. Your female friends only need their eyes and ears.

Why do most transpeople go to voice coaches, walking coaches and social behaviourists as they go through their transition?

Or is that just those 'old timers' again?

If you think that this is what people are arguing then you need to pull your head out of wherever it is. Because this is just wrong.

Deliberate gaslighting or just plain ignorance of what's been going on?

For the benefit of anyone reading who thinks that no one is claiming intact bearded men are women, "Alex Drummond" is a useful name to Google. Stonewall supports Drummond's claim to be lesbian. Drummond even gives talks to schools under the Stonewall banner about their lesbianism.

If you think sex is a simple monolith then you are using simplistic thinking worthy of a sixth-former.

Do have a look at the signatories of Project Nettie's statement

projectnettie.wordpress.com/

And Gregor Murray.

For the benefit of anyone reading who thinks that no one is claiming intact bearded men are women, "Alex Drummond" is a useful name to Google. Stonewall supports Drummond's claim to be lesbian. Drummond even gives talks to schools under the Stonewall banner about their lesbianism.

Magdalen Berns on Alex Drummond and Stonewall:

I always wonder if people like this believe in the ridiculously simplistic sixth-form style alive/dead binary and which category they think Bernie in Weekend at Bernie's fell into.