As Tabbycar said:
I think it’s really important to send thanks to the EHRC, Johnson, Truss etc., for their measured, fair comments/guidance, and to copy in your MP
Agreed yes. I’m a Labour voter and agree it is important to encourage this speaking up after we’ve been ignored or actively silenced on this issue for years.
This is a politically significant moment and for now it looks like the prevailing political wind is in our favour. Thank goodness. But these supportive words from the PM haven’t changed anything legally.
In a polite, respectful encouraging way I would suggest thanking MPs, ministers and EHRC while NOT giving any impression that ‘the job here is done’ to Ministers or MPs.
With greatest respect Tabby I’d have held on to my appointment with my MP and said that given the prevailing sentiments expressed by Johnson and Javid this week, by Maya’s Respect my Sex Daily Mail front cover last week, now is the time for the Government to consider repealing GRA so that everyone relies equally on the Equality Act. We need an MP to bring that idea forward.
The government has only kicked GRA reform further down the road. Any future policians could have the opposite feelings and reopen it to extend the GRA to self ID. Future politicians with a less big majority will feel unwilling to touch this issue at all, because TRAs will continue to make toxic.
The GRA needs to be repealed. There’s lots of threads on here about why- but the ubiquitous misinformation around its implementation means that it amounts to self ID and that’s enough of a problem to need to repeal it.
One woman or girl in a hospital ward, prison cell, or public toilets raped or sexually abused, by a man who was justified to be in there because he identified himself as female. should have been enough to create action. It wasn’t though.
Threads like This Never Happens document all of that on here. Repeatedly women and girls have been avoidably hurt and traumatised. It’s because politics of any stripe doesn’t really care about women, the support humans. So we have to speak up.
In the UK, this is a local election period for many of us. Voting is in early May. I will write thank you emails but I will also write Respect My X letters and also ask for GRA repeal.
This is very important to do now because it seems vanishingly unlikely that the Tories are going to be retaining their 80 seat majority in Parliament at the next General Election. So we need actual action from them, and very quickly. Not just sensible words that gender critical women can agree with on here while we have put party politics aside to concentrate on this one issue.
I know I sound like a broken record but this is a campaign. We have a mountain to climb. One Daily Mail cover, one favourable prime ministerial answer, all these are brilliant milestones to energise us, but women can only relax properly once GRA is repealed.
The Tories haven’t done anything to help before and the Conservatives have been in government for the last 12 years. So we need to convince MPs of the urgency of this while we can.