Help me respond to my MP

[toots111]

Here’s the response I got from my MP re the GRA. Please help me come up with a thoughtful response!

Thank you for contacting me about reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).

I understand that this topic is very sensitive, which is why I believe it needs to be treated with respect and compassion.

At the debate on the GRA in February, the Equalities Minister confirmed that the Government will not be changing the Equality Act and that it will maintain existing provisions that allow organisations to provide single-sex spaces. The Minister also reconfirmed that the Government is not planning to make fundamental reforms to the GRA.

I have long called for a process of self-identification to ensure that trans people, who face persistent and growing discrimination in society, can live their lives with equality, dignity and respect, and that everyone can do so. For that reason, I support the reform of the GRA. I also believe we must continue to support the implementation of the Equality Act. I am proud of the Equality Act, and I stand by it, including the provisions on the protected characteristics of gender reassignment and sex, and single-sex exemptions.

There is accompanying material to the Equality Act and a code of practice in place by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) about how the single-sex exemptions should work. That was produced with the GRA already in existence, and it is important that we recognise that. However, I am aware that the EHRC has recently announced that it aims to publish guidance on single-sex spaces in due course, in response to longstanding calls from a range of stakeholders and service providers. I will follow developments on this closely.

In my view we must not pit different groups against each other. Solutions will only be found when we work together.

Thank you once again for contacting me and sharing your views. I assure you that I will continue to bear in mind the points you have raised.

Best wishes,

Ellie

Sent on behalf of Ellie Reeves MP
Member of Parliament for Lewisham West and Penge

Well, fair enough if she wants to uphold the exemptions in the equality act that render a GRC pretty much meaningless.

As a Labour MP it's the best response you're going to get.

I'd reply saying if you want to have a self-ID system then the exemptions in the equality act need to be stronger, applied more consistently and acted upon more frequently.

How is it possible to apply the single-sex exemptions if a biologically male person has a birth certificate that says they were born female? How will you prove that the person is male?

There are exemptions in the EA2010 that apply to people with a GRC including prisons and health care.

Oh no! Maybe the prisons and health care exceptions are written into the Gender recognition act! Not the EA2010 sorry.... .....

Working 'together' will involve the TQ+ lobby being able to participate in giving a toss for women and their needs, wishes, feelings and accessibility. If it means 'women need to give male people whatever they want', then there is another long thing coming.

Single sex spaces and male people choosing their preferred space cannot exist at one and the same time.

What does this MP propose to do with the women who are excluded from any space, who are excluded from women's spaces, because 'inclusion' apparently only matters for male people? There are women who cannot use refuges. There's a woman currently fighting for a rape crisis service she can access at all where TW in her area have three different options to take their pick from. There's a MNetter who was homeless for months because she could not go into a mixed sex shelter and was required to 'reframe her trauma' for male people's benefit. (They were required to do absolutely bugger all and had no reciprocal responsibilities of any kind.)

Most decisions and policy meetings have either excluded women as stake holders, or limited their involvement and been actively hostile. Things have been sneaked through behind the back of parliament and elected representatives. (Who seem to have been too dozy to notice and do things like enforce the Nolan Principles.)

This is just plain sexism bordering on male supremacy. It's not on. And now we have women who have been raped through these exceptionally silly policies, in entirely predictable situations that should never have passed through risk assessment, never mind with this 'lets all cross our fingers and think positively, it'll probably never happen' absolute failure of duty of care.

Said MP needs to wake up, pull her finger out and do some facing of difficult realities. The news about this rape is going to change public perception even further as it bloody well should; every MP is responsible for allowing this to happen on their watch and they are going to be facing a lot of very difficult questions about their choices. 'Let's all work together' might have been a possible way forward five years ago. Now it's ridiculously naive.

@RoyalCorgi

How is it possible to apply the single-sex exemptions if a biologically male person has a birth certificate that says they were born female? How will you prove that the person is male?

The answer to both questions is, you can't. Also a birth certificate or GRC are not proof of identity and in fact both have a warning printed on them stating that fact. Also the birth certificate or GRC may not have the current name of the holder due to marriage or other reasons. Only a passport or driving licence is proof of I.D. and sex. Most transitioned people will have these as proof of their "new sex".

So gender policing is really an impossible task.

Not to mention who is going to stand on the door of every single female space and demand to see a birth certificate, and then deal with a large angry male person when they have to say no, very sorry but you can't enter this space.

It's not realistic in any way. There just has to be a blanket rule, as there is with any other situation where you cannot rely on people being willing to respect other people's needs and spaces. If male spaces are not sufficiently inclusive that's a different problem that male people need to address.

Ellie Reeves is my MP as well, and I received the exact same response from her last week. Such a disappointment. I am considering replying to her using some of these responses as well.

I got an almost identical response from my MP. I'm not impressed

I’ve written to my labour mp to say I will not vote for you for the sole reason of labours position that women can have penises

I guess this is the weaselly new Labour Party line. It does not sound like something an individual MP came up with by themselves.

I would write and say that if the GRA is self id, then that effectively dissolves the category of women in law, so in practise how can male-bodied people be excluded from women’s spaces? It is asserting the idea of individual gender identity, and by that means women’s sex-based rights will be lost.

How is this in the interests of trans people either, for it basically allows anyone to occupy their protected status of gender reassignment (including bad actors).

How can women can be expected to trust the EHRC to uphold their single sex spaces, when the EHRC is appointed politically, and can be changed at political whim?

How about individual women who feel uncomfortable in a situation that they expected to be single sex? Can they call this out/object without being labelled transphobic or even being accused of a hate crime? How will EHRC guidance help them?

Also will she be supporting future laws (e.g, proposed new law on misogyny - pushed by Stonewall, the conversion bill etc) using the concept of gender identity or sex, and if the former will that not erode women’s rights?

How will govt data be collected by gender identity or sex, and if the former, how is sex discrimination to be tackled?

Given the twitter comments of Charlotte Nichols, what’s her perspective on women’s sports?

And I would ask if her party has come up with a definition of woman yet.

I emailed my Tory MP a couple of weeks ago. I've not heard back yet. I'll give it another couple of weeks then hand deliver a letter to their office. The seat is marginal to LD, this issue could swing it.

Ask for an appointment and go to see her in person. We started a local group for this very purpose. Then you can go as group representatives, gives you more clout.

If you don't know local vipers, join one of the women's rights organisations to find them. Loads of us out there.

Good luck OP

Use the recent Women's Aid statement, and say you understand she supports these reforms, but you are only concerned with the availability of single sex spaces - where needed - for females as set out in the Equality Act, and unless your MP supports this, you won't be able to vote for them.

Also you can't support GRA reform as long as the intention of the legislators of the EA is distorted to imply it always meant the single-sex exceptions to be inclusive of males. As long as that distortion continues, GRA reform does affect single-sex spaces, in terms of the number of males who will claim they are able to use them as 'females'.