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?)

(For anyone who might need this clarifying, it has sometimes been suggested that because DNA evidence of sex does not survive cremation, biological sex must be mutable. This is either:

a) an argument that every distinction of which evidence does not survive similar processes must be mutable, e.g. race, species, plant/animal, animate/inanimate, etc;

OR

b) not a very good argument.)

OP men and women walk differently because females have a wider pelvis and other differences in their bone structures. This is an evoluntionary adaptation to the fact that females carry and birth babies. What's funny about that?

I am appalled, btw, by the way the chinese athletes were treated, if it is as you say. And I see this as caused by the eroding of female protections which people who accept sexist gender ideologies and deny science in saying that people can change sex. Like most females I don't have a gender identify. Like most I am very happy for men to present how they want and to be transwomen. They are not biological women though and protections (such as single sex sports) should not be eroded.

(In brackets, because, really. )

“This is a thread I link a lot on Twitter, butch women are often abused for looking "male", maybe reinforcing that view isn't a good strategy for a movement that purports to want to break down gendered stereotypes?”

twitter.com/kirstylogan/status/1144709581437833217

I’ve said this before but I think it bears repeating.

I could be described as “butch” - I’m tall, I have short hair, I don’t do make up. I’ve been challenged a few times in the ladies and I don’t give a fuck - if someone has felt the need to ask if I’m in the right facilities then I believe there’s a reason she has felt the need to speak up.

I want that woman to feel reassured and it only takes a second as soon as I speak or she gets a proper look at me.

I don’t feel harassed or abused at all. I’m glad that the woman has felt able to ask.

Has anyone shared a photo and video of the Chinese women's relay team who were so cruelly accused of being men?

Photo here
www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3024504/womens-400m-runners-go-viral-chinese-social-media-looking-men
Video here
sports.inquirer.net/363714/runners-in-chinese-womens-team-accused-of-being-men

The TRA argument appears to be "who are you going to believe, the CCP or your own lying eyes?"

I was going to continue believing my own lying eyes (and ears!) because I have heard some rumours the Chinese government isn't 100% trustworthy. But now I hear one of them has posted a photo on social media holding a baby, so obviously that changes everything.

(Really, do click on those links. It's a very useful insight into the calibre of mind we're dealing with here.)

So reasonable sounding.

The core issue is one of consent. Women and girls have not consented.
The early (majority male) sexologists/gender identity doctors who sent/gave permission to their male patients to use female single sex spaces before providing hormones/surgery did not consider women and girls' right to refuse consent.
For consent to be meaningful it must be informed, given freely and specific.

Women & Equalities Committee
Oral evidence: Reform of the Gender Recognition
Act, HC 884
Wednesday 10 February 2021
committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/1693/default/

67 Naomi Cunningham QC : I would just like to finish this thought, if I may. The fact that all those exceptions are founded on biological sex means that although the legal formalities of justifying excluding an individual with a GRC from a women-only service or space may be slightly different, in practice the answer is likely to be the same in almost every situation, because in practice it makes no difference whether someone has a certificate or not. It doesn’t make a difference to whether it impinges on the dignity and privacy of women using that service, or overrides their consent.
For example, if I use a women-only changing room, my consent is to undress in the company of other women, and the reason why parliament has said that I am entitled to have the benefit of those exceptions is to do with biological sex. The fact that somebody has a gender recognition certificate doesn’t actually change that. It doesn’t mean that I feel more comfortable in the presence of somebody, in that particular situation, who I experience as male. A certificate doesn’t make a difference. I think that is quite important to understand, and how commonplace this is and how fundamentally it is based on consent. To override that is seriously concerning."

Well said R0wantrees. There is a lot of obfuscation about this core point.

it's a fact trans men and women have always used the spaces that match their acquired sex

this is not a fact. Back in the early 00's a man at my work began to identify as a woman (after a year or so he desisted, hence my use of male pronouns). He initially used the women's toilets, until he was asked not to as he was making his female colleagues uncomfortable.

women don't like men in the ladies toilets, they never have.

I could be described as “butch” - I’m tall, I have short hair, I don’t do make up. I’ve been challenged a few times in the ladies and I don’t give a fuck - if someone has felt the need to ask if I’m in the right facilities then I believe there’s a reason she has felt the need to speak up.

Same here. Please ask so I can reassure you, never feel you cannot ask. Women don't mind, transwomen apparantly do.

@Tibtom

A woman pregnant with a baby girl will have within her the egg which will become her grandchild

As an aside to the topic, isn’t this wonderful ? I love this connection to my Grandmother, and my daughters’ to my Mother. A chain of women.

Oh! I see. I can't point out that a poster is here to scrape posts to take to Twatter, or to point out that enough is enough.

But a poster, known to be here purely to get comments and a ban - see his Twitter page - is allowed to continue.

Thanks, MN!

some odd decisions being made by MNHQ today. It's the weekend innit?

The weekend is for women to bake cakes. Not to be saying "no" to men on the Internet.

@Itwasjustresting

“This is a thread I link a lot on Twitter, butch women are often abused for looking "male", maybe reinforcing that view isn't a good strategy for a movement that purports to want to break down gendered stereotypes?”

twitter.com/kirstylogan/status/1144709581437833217

I’ve said this before but I think it bears repeating.

I could be described as “butch” - I’m tall, I have short hair, I don’t do make up. I’ve been challenged a few times in the ladies and I don’t give a fuck - if someone has felt the need to ask if I’m in the right facilities then I believe there’s a reason she has felt the need to speak up.

I want that woman to feel reassured and it only takes a second as soon as I speak or she gets a proper look at me.

I don’t feel harassed or abused at all. I’m glad that the woman has felt able to ask.

That absolutely does bear repeating.

I've heard another short-haired woman say the same thing, at first glance some women think she is male, she thought the fact that she has been questioned a few times shows how strongly women feel the need for single-sex spaces. As you say, a few words is all it takes to clarify her sex.

I have never been mistaken for a man in person but I would not be offended at all.

I have been mistaken for a man over email (Mr WollOfBat) and it was just not relevant to the discussion so I ignored it.

It must be sad to be so insecure in yourself that any hint that you are not perceived in the way you want dents your self esteem.

Oh OK, I get this now, OP just does these pretend threads to post screen shots of them on twitter? Gosh, that's sophisticated. Is it like a gang initiation thing? Or like spotty boys running into the girls loo (when they existed) and running out to tell his little friends he'd seen a tampax machine?

Weird

Yes. The tweet about this one starts with the statement that whilst he hasn't been banned here for his previous threads he reckons this one will.

So his intention in posting is clear.

And yet it is the women who are regular users here that get deleted.

I'm still waiting for an explanation from MN. I didn't get a strike message and have no idea what I posted that is against the t+cs!

OP be careful, zipping about between online platforms plays hell with your cognitive function. It's called context shifting I think, you should read Deep Work. Increases anxiety, agitation, reduces your capacity to be present in daily life, minimises your chance of forming meaningful relationships. Think on, lad.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Yes. The tweet about this one starts with the statement that whilst he hasn't been banned here for his previous threads he reckons this one will.

So his intention in posting is clear.

And yet it is the women who are regular users here that get deleted.

I'm still waiting for an explanation from MN. I didn't get a strike message and have no idea what I posted that is against the t+cs!

Does anyone have his address so we can send some jigsaws or something, give him something else to do on rainy days?

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Oh! I see. I can't point out that a poster is here to scrape posts to take to Twatter, or to point out that enough is enough.

But a poster, known to be here purely to get comments and a ban - see his Twitter page - is allowed to continue.

Thanks, MN!

We're not allowed to mention what else this poster does to women on twitter either. Things that could compromise women's privacy and safety. Very odd decisions for a female-centric website. I am not impressed.

OP, I've got a jigsaw of a sweet shop you can have. Oh, and a really difficult one of a world map with zillions of flags. I bet you love flags. I'll send you that one. And a copy of Deep Work, then you'll have some rainy day activities of your own.

@spoonrider

> "Self ID allows any male to access women in all the above circumstances and until trans groups acknowledge that and start working to tackle the issue, women will never stop speaking up - ever."

Self ID does not allow any male to simply access any female space.

If it does then please ask your husband to call himself a woman and to walk into the changing rooms at the local gym. I'll happily buy him some flowers and grapes for when he's lying in bed in the male hospital ward, healing from his beating by women.

I haven’t managed to rtft, so apologies if this has been said, but your quote here strikes me as illustrating part of the nuance that men and transwomen are unlikely to fully understand through their own experience.

The majority of women will not try to give a man a beating. This is too risky. Many women fear men on a most basic level, because men kill, rape and abuse women at horrifically high levels in society, never mind the ‘lower levels’ on the spectrum of sexual assault and oppression. The fact that many men and transwomen do not pose a physical threat in women’s spaces does not really matter, because there are enough men that do, to make us scared. That does not make us evil.

Women using a female signed changing room at the gym have not consented to be naked in a mixed sex space. The need for women's spaces/services to be single sex are about privacy, dignity and consent as well as safety.

a-question-of-consent.net/