Ministers threaten legal action over Scotland's trans laws

[flyingbuttress43]

Apologies if this is in a thread somewhere but I couldn't see it.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/12/09/ministers-threaten-legal-action-fears-nicola-sturgeons-gender/

UK ministers have threatened to begin legal action over concerns about trans tourism. The Government has urged Nicola Sturgeon to scrap her overhaul of transgender laws allowing people as young as 15 to change their legal gender simply be signing a declaration.

Senior Whitehall figures fear it will put the rest of the UK single sex spaces in jeopardy across the country. Kemi Badenoch has written to Nicola Sturgeon expressing dismay at the legislation and has summoned the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for social justice to a meeting to discuss it.

"I am concerned about the impact of having divergent regimes in different parts of the UK," she said.

The Telegraph also has an editorial "Devolved Genders" backing Badenoch's view. "Unfortunately, the Sturgeon government is taking an increasingly cavalier attitude to such concerns, saying it is a matter for the UK to decide whether to accept the gender certifications issued in Scotland. All of which will merely add significantly to the confusion brought about by Ms Sturgeon's self-centred attitude to a shared social problem."

So "the growing tendency towards authoritarianism" is ... Labour's fault.

That's ridiculous.

Surely the problem is the England can't refuse to acknowledge Scottish GRCs because no one is allowed to ask to see them?

What we'll have is literally any Tom, Dick or Harry with a new BIRTH CERTIFICATE saying that they are female. How can anyone refute that, regardless of the evidence of their own eyes? What an absolute shitshow.

"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

It's a rather extreme position to take isn't it? Yet I was accused if hyperbole 🤔

There was another thread with this article at the end but that doesn't matter.

One thing that struck me - which I will add here - is that in the Scottish consultation said:

"The Committee will not, as part of its scrutiny, address or explore issues which are outwith the scope of the Bill as outlined above. Submissions which contain offensive language, do not comply with GDPR requirements or are not relevant to the Committee’s scrutiny will not be published."

Does anyone remember this? I do because I commented on it specifically. I think it means that they closed their minds and that as no definition of "offensive" was given, that lack of definition PLUS the bizarre insertion of GDPR, might well mean that anyone who tried to give public, documented examples of male prison rapists in female prisons, would've had their answer struck out.

Thus the Scottish government couldn't have considered the impacts in full, when you think of all the things that strange stipulation could apply to.

I'll also say that to my mind, this Bill threatens public safety and minors. If the Scottish government doesn't care then the UK government must. And they must act to protect public safety and to protect children.

That's not what I said.

Fair Play for Women published this twitter thread about GRCs from other countries being recognised here. Apparently, the SNP are using this as leverage as some of the countries have introduced self ID since being added to the list. Originally, they had the same or similar checks as is currently the case in Scotland. Having loosened their checks they should have been removed from the list. However, bureaucratic oversight (I'll charitably assume a cockup and not nefarious) meant this didn't happen. Link to the first tweet:

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1601519438054162432?s=20&t=8IiSMHRDFgg3OPK6-DIFZQ

What? She didn't say that. She said Labour was also authoritarian., And so in terms of the whole system which means the interplay between governing party and the opposition, the LP is not doing the opposition job of trying to mitigate the authoritarian tendencies of the governing party.

Thanks for saying that. I was just pondering how I might have got my point over more clearly but you've managed to interpret it just fine :D

LP is not doing the opposition job of trying to mitigate the authoritarian tendencies of the governing party.

Seriously, what on earth could the Labour Party, or any party, do or say that would stop the right-wing policy decisions of a party motivated by political survival and self-interest, that's also backed by an eighty seat majority and held hostage to a bunch of extreme lunatics in the ERG? The only thing that might stop the Tories is the public at the next general election, and that's terrifying.

The crappy current state of the nation is entirely and exclusively down to the Tory party. And it is unforgivable. I can't stand the way this utter shit-show of a party has its horrendous behaviour minimised. Why when the Tories are in power, and directly responsible for everything, is any mention of any other party even relevant?

I don't know if Labour is authoritarian or not, or if the leadership might be tiptoeing around polarising issues because they're trying to hold the party together to avoid rifts and tensions ahead of the next critical election, and also avoid falling into traps set by the Tories. I don't know, because they're not actually in power, and the gulf between being in power, and trying to get into power, is massive. Remember that dude named Corbyn - the inflexible one that never tried to accommodate different views and cantered gleefully towards every Tory trap. How did that work for Labour?

They could do what they are supposed to as the opposition.

The point being made was that because they themselves are authoritarian, they don't really make much attempt to hold the government to account in the way they are meant to, in the House or in the public discourse.

Covid measures are a good example, they did not do a great job at questioning the scientific basis or the legal basis of restrictions, because they themselves would have gone even further.

The only thing that might stop the Tories is the public at the next general election, and that's terrifying.

Why is the idea of the public voting the Tories out at the next election terrifying? This is how democracy works isn't it? The Tories were only voted into power 3 years ago so it's hardly a dictatorship. What else would you propose people do to "stop the Tories"?

If Labour manage to get their lousy act together and come up with something half worth voting for they should be able to do pretty well at the next election. If they hadn't been so out of touch with the working class people who vote for them they probably would have won the last election. The Tories really couldn't have made it much easier for them to succeed this time.

What terrifies me, is the possibility the public might NOT vote them out, despite their horrendous behaviour and appalling policies. That the Tories might dangle 'illegal immigrants' in front of them, and everything else is forgotten.

Covid measures are a really bad example. A global pandemic, people dying, is akin to a national security situation. The only experts in that situation were the scientists. You’re suggesting that politicians should undermine the scientists at a time when the uncertainty was over whether hundreds of thousands would die globally or millions. And whether health systems might fall over.

But Covid is a good example to illustrate a different thought that keeps popping into my mind wrt the GC crowd. Especially since both issues reference ‘science’.

I feel that my GC views are consistent with my politics on Brexit, Indy-ref, vaccinations and approach to Covid (randomly choosing recent events). It intrigues me to find someone as passionate as I am about GC also being a Brexiteer. This undermines the claim of ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ for me. Because - in my mind - how can someone claim to have their GC views based in logic, if they also voted for Brexit?

It makes me think there are some people who’ve arrived at their GC views via logic and rational thinking (it took me five years of research to eventually overcome my worry that what I believed was transphobic), while others get there instantly just because their heart and their gut says it’s wrong. The second group seem to feed off emotion and anger more than they do measured arguments, but they don the ‘logic argument’ cloak and blend into the first.

But, in my mind, it’s the presence of the ‘emotion-driven’ group among the others that the non-aware public can sense. And this creates doubt, uncertainty and even makes them not bother to try and listen to GC arguments.

Like GC , Covid was massively about science. Logically, reasonably, it was about dealing with escalating deaths against a backdrop of uncertain science. Measures changed from being based on assumptions and predictions derived from previous pandemics and diseases they initially assumed were similar, to being based on evidence as research evolved. There was/is a struggle for scientific knowledge to catch up with the mutating virus. This is massively inconvenient to those who approached the pandemic via heart and gut (and yes, those could find alternative science - in the same way TRAs and anti-vaxxers do), but there was generally a global scientific consensus with nations also responding to local specifics.

So you telling me the science should have been challenged, by non-scientists - politicians - in that context, makes my spider-senses twitch. Knowing this … if I was in my pre-research days on the self-ID issue, I’d possibly be filing away your GC arguments under ‘take with a massive pinch of salt’. This would be consistent with the way I also take TRA arguments with a massive pinch of salt, because they too discount the inconvenient reality of science.

Then again, if it took five years of research to work out that human beings come in two sexes. That sex is immutable and DSDs don't change that fact, there are other conclusions that could be reached.

Sex is a biological reality. No matter what some might like to think it does not change according to individual belief and opinion. Unlike the decision about voting for or against Brexit. Which was all about an individual's perception and beliefs.

Not quite what I said:

"it took me five years of research to eventually overcome my worry that what I believed was transphobic"

You don't think the trans debate is fundamentally about belief and perception for some people?

The facts about the impacts and consequences of Brexit are also fixed and predictable. These don't change according to individual opinion and beliefs.

It makes me think there are some people who’ve arrived at their GC views via logic and rational thinking (it took me five years of research to eventually overcome my worry that what I believed was transphobic), while others get there instantly just because their heart and their gut says it’s wrong. The second group seem to feed off emotion and anger more than they do measured arguments, but they don the ‘logic argument’ cloak and blend into the first.

But, in my mind, it’s the presence of the ‘emotion-driven’ group among the others that the non-aware public can sense. And this creates doubt, uncertainty and even makes them not bother to try and listen to GC arguments.

Why would they listen to TRAs and not GC arguments? If you want an emotion driven group, those who shout TWAW are all about emotion. There is no science or logic to TWAW, so why would anyone listen to those people and dismiss people who say otherwise? This makes no sense to me.

As one of the people who got there instantly, I find your sweeping generalisation that people like me "feed off emotion and anger more than they do measured arguments" quite offensive. Having got there instantly I spent considerable time trying to find out what I was missing and why I seemed to be so out of step with most of the left. Then I found mumsnet.

The reason I got there instantly was because it was obvious that people can't change sex, and the more I saw of the behaviour of various males who identified as transwomen (Caitlyn Jenner and Jane Fae, for example), the more I thought "you are nothing like a woman".

if I was in my pre-research days on the self-ID issue, I’d possibly be filing away your GC arguments under ‘take with a massive pinch of salt’. This would be consistent with the way I also take TRA arguments with a massive pinch of salt, because they too discount the inconvenient reality of science.

If you took both sides with a massive pinch of salt, what would you end up believing? Would you be going down the "don't know" route, or would you just start to think for yourself?

Covid measures are a really bad example. A global pandemic, people dying, is akin to a national security situation. The only experts in that situation were the scientists. You’re suggesting that politicians should undermine the scientists at a time when the uncertainty was over whether hundreds of thousands would die globally or millions. And whether health systems might fall over.

I'd say times of national emergency are great at revealing authoritarian tendencies of governments. Look at Canada with their vaccine mandates and the way they dealt with the trucker convoys. They are a supposedly liberal government. The scientists in a situation like Covid evaluate the science and advise the government but there were plenty of other scientists with different analysis who disagreed with how the pandemic was dealt with. Also scientists don't make policy decisions so there were multiple legitimate ways that the government could have been a good deal less restrictive.

I feel that my GC views are consistent with my politics on Brexit, Indy-ref, vaccinations and approach to Covid (randomly choosing recent events). It intrigues me to find someone as passionate as I am about GC also being a Brexiteer. This undermines the claim of ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ for me. Because - in my mind - how can someone claim to have their GC views based in logic, if they also voted for Brexit?

I don't quite understand how you are linking Brexit and GC views. The logic of being GC is simply understanding that there are 2 sexes and that you can't change sex. Do you honestly think that if someone voted Brexit then their claim to be GC must come from some flawed logic?

But there are women who are ‘nothing like a woman’ too, in the way they behave - they’re closer to the masculine stereotypes. I think they are rare, but they exist. Caitlyn Jenner often behaving like a stereotypical man certainly fits neatly with my view of her/him as male, but only because more men than women in our society behave like that. Her/his actual sex is not really indicated by where she/he is in a gender spectrum, but by biological determinants.

I think we're probably being used internationally as an example of unexpected consequences wrt proportional representation.

Since all but a handful of countries use some form of PR or alternative voting system, this is a bit nonsensical.

The logic of being GC is simply understanding that there are 2 sexes and that you can't change sex.

No it's not.

You can't extrapolate from that that one sex has different rights to another without a more complex understanding of the issue.

If male violence against women didn't exist at all, and there wasn't sex based oppression, would we really need segregated spaces?

There was a time when the simple understanding of only two sexes carried over into the view that men voted and women didn't, and this was just the natural order of things. We challenged that sex-based view of things, and arguably, that's what TRAs are also doing now.

Why would they listen to TRAs and not GC arguments? If you want an emotion driven group, those who shout TWAW are all about emotion. There is no science or logic to TWAW, so why would anyone listen to those people and dismiss people who say otherwise? This makes no sense to me.

Crikey. It makes zero sense to me to NOT listen to and try understand the opposing point of view. You have to evaluate all sides of the debate. You have to peel back the emotion and evaluate the argument.

Honestly, I find this argument so baldly stated quite alarming. Isn't this how we get the type of politics we've got now: "I only listen to those I agree with".

I didn't get there instantly at all. Transwoman have existed forever and I had no issue with them at all. I didn't feel threatened by them, and I didn't worry about them in our spaces. I didn't worry about my children at school etc. All that changed with Queer theory and the political demands that emanated from that, and organisations like Mermaids and Stonewall. It didn't change because I suddenly realised some people were trans and not actual biological women. I knew that; already; that's not the issue.

No. Societal mores based on sexed based stereotypes are opinions, not facts.

Sex is factual. Two types, immutable.

It doesn't matter what anyone believes, what society arranges for each sex. Sex remains binary, immutable.

All you are doing is saying 2 +2= squirrel!

Do you honestly think that if someone voted Brexit then their claim to be GC must come from some flawed logic?

Not necessarily. But if I'm trying to fully understand something, and evaluate a nuanced debate with a million threads, I'm less inclined to trust the judgement of someone who thinks Brexit was going to make the UK an economic powerhouse, than someone who didn't. In the same way, I'm less inclined to trust the judgement of those who thinks the earth is flat, or vaccines contain micro-chips. Etc.

But there are women who are ‘nothing like a woman’ too, in the way they behave - they’re closer to the masculine stereotypes.

That wasn't what I meant. Their behaviour is often like an exaggerated caricature of the way they think a woman would behave. Or they come out with misogynistic comments, seemingly oblivious to their own misogyny.

I was thinking about Caitlyn Jenner saying the hardest thing about being a woman was deciding what to wear. India Willoughby saying that women who don't shave their legs are 'dirty'. Jan Morris referring to Janself as a 'flibbertygibbet'.

Rebecca West's comment about Jan Morris was spot on: "She sounds not like a woman, but like a man's idea of a women, and curiously enough, the idea of a man not nearly so intelligent as James Morris used to be."