It's brilliant. Its looking at what Gires said in their response to the consultation and how the Law Commission have addressed this.
It such a welcome breath of fresh air of clear thinking! Here's a bit:
GIRES said:
“We disagree with the suggestion that trans rights are up for debate, or that people who express insulting or hateful views about trans people should be protected from prosecution under hate crime legislation under sections 29J and 29JA.“
In particular GIRES said it disagreed with Professor Kathleen Stock’s view as given in the Harry Miller case. Mr Justice Julian Knowles had referenced Kathleen Stock in concluding:
“Some involved in the debate are readily willing to label those with different viewpoints as ‘transphobic’ or as displaying ‘hatred’ when they are not. It is clear that there are those on one side of the debate who simply will not tolerate different views, even when they are expressed by legitimate scholars whose views are not grounded in hatred, bigotry, prejudice or hostility, but are based on legitimately different value judgments, reasoning and analysis, and form part of mainstream academic research.”
GIRES told the Law Commission:
“Many of the views she describes are not based on any legitimate empirical research and can only be based on a fear or ignorance about trans people. In other words, we hold that ‘different value judgements’ here amounts to a disdain for the personhood and personal freedom of trans and gender diverse people. We think it would be irresponsible to afford legal protections to people disseminating such views, whatever qualifications they may hold… We think it would be harmful to afford legal protection to people who engage in…‘the discussion or criticism of gender reassignment; treatment for gender dysphoria; provision of and access to single-sex facilities and activities’ because this criticism effectively vilifies and dehumanises transgender people and encourages the public to do the same.”
The Law Commission specifically disagreed:
“We do not agree with GIRES that such discussion necessarily amounts to ‘vilification’ or ‘dehumanises’ trans people, still less that it encourages others to do so. Indeed, we think that characterising it as GIRES does demonstrates the risk that without explicit protection, such discourse – which has been recognised as protected speech – risks being perceived, reported, and potentially investigated as hate speech.”
Sex Matters conclude:
The Law Commission highlighted that the rulings in Miller and Forstater have now made it clear that the expression of “gender critical” views is protected under human rights laws. The issue, therefore, is not whether such expression should be protected, it is whether the stirring-up offences would require a provision to make clear it is protected.”
It concluded that it would.