No Evidence to suggest abuse of self ID

[Signalbox]

This is an interesting thread on Twitter by journalist Róisín Michael on Twitter.

How can governments and organisations continue to get away with saying "there is no evidence" that allowing males to self ID into women's spaces will result in increased predatory behaviour within those spaces when the data is not even being collected.

We already know this happens in the UK in relation to Males in the female prison estate and convictions of male sex offenders being recorded as being carried out by women.

I hadn't quite realised the extent of the problem though and how deep this actually goes. It's horrifying...

@ RóisínMichaux

Belgium has had self ID for almost 5 years. Not a single report of a trans woman crime? Not a single one. No stories of men attacking women in prisons? Not one.

I asked the police why. “We don’t communicate that”.

I asked the press ombudsman: “Why is there not one single report about any crime sexual or otherwise in the Belgian press of either of the country’s languages involving a trans woman since January 2018.”

He said he doesn’t know

I contact lots of journalist. No réponse. I follow up. No answer. Is there a rule, spoken or otherwise? Silence. Try to yourself: search the archives of Belgian papers in Dutch or French for the term “transwoman”

It’s all trans sob stories about living their truth.

Weird no? So I try to find out if sex crimes committed by women have gone up. But the stats are hard to parse, especially when COVID arrives. The police record everything about a crimes except sex. I ask the police repeatedly: when did you stop recording sex and why? Silence

Are there trans women in prison? We don’t record that, fellow Belgian terfs were told. But I got to know some researchers who told me yea, plenty of men in with the women. In fact, there will be more of that soon

The council of Europe apparently has decided that to separate women and men is not a familiar enough environment for reinsertion in the real world (i haven’t confirmed this). So eventually all prisons should be as mixed as possible

So Belgium being the progressive little stalwart it is has gone ahead and carried out 3 separate mixed prison experiments (ongoing, results out 2023). My main takeaway (though I’m a terf so I’m biased):

The top-tier alpha men get women, and pair off. The men who don’t pair off? They get upset and angry and tense. And the prison guards have to deal with the fallout. Prison incels. They are creating prison incels.

The people carrying out this research are young queer theory idealists. One of the prison projects roughly translates as de-gendering prisons (in French). I asked one of them: aren’t the women afraid? She said they would never let anything happen to each other.

One researcher told me that there was a case of a trans “woman” that she was aware of who had a psychotic break and attacked a female prisoner. “But that person was mentally unwell” she told me. Oh ok then!

I contacted social workers from inside prisons “I have a lot to say about that but I can’t” was one response. “I’m burnt out, I need a break” was another. I even contacted journalists who made names for themselves uncovering stories that powerful people wanted hidden. Nope.

So is the fact that there have been no stories (as far as I can tell - and I have searched on and off for months) about transwomen committing sexual crimes evidence that transwomen are not doing so? There is no reason to think this is true.

More likely: as many have pointed out, small chill countries (more dependent on institutions like the EU) like Malta, Ireland and Belgium are the laboratories where this bullshit was tested out on an unsuspecting populace.

The most shameful of all, I believe, Is an organisation I thought would be the last place we could put some hope:

@ investigate_eu : how did this all happen so fast? Where is the pressure coming from? Why the silence?

Investigate Europe didn’t even answer my email.

What a time to be alive: massive changes being stealthily made by shady American donors to our very understanding of reality itself. The investigators? The truth-seekers? Absent. Afraid. Cowed.

But then you look at their donor list: it’s the same people who fund @ ILGAEurope and @ TGEUorg and the lobbies that push this sexist regressive men’s rights movement on us.

We’re all alone. It’s up to us. Start searching, asking questions. They have fucking abandoned us.

20 Gender-specific offences
(1)Where (apart from this subsection) a relevant gender-specific offence could be committed or attempted only if the gender of a person to whom a full gender recognition certificate has been issued were not the acquired gender, the fact that the person’s gender has become the acquired gender does not prevent the offence being committed or attempted.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/20

Whether you self-ID or have a GRC makes no difference to the EA2010 exemption for single sex spaces. - it literally says so in that paragraph. So, not single extra person will get access to single sex spaces as a result of making a GRC easier to get. It benefits transgender people and makes no difference to gender critical people.

Its critical but makes no difference, you say?

Sweet heart, you don’t seem to understand what female means, and you are assuming transmen aren’t welcome - do you have proof of that claim?
Theres no such thing as legally female, nature doesn’t bend to man made documents.
I wonder if you find it tricky to work out who the females are when you’re cruising pornhub?

No, I didn't say that. It's vitally imporant to transgender people, but has no effect on the status quo for gender critical people.

Please don't project your porn habits onto me.

I have not said that I thought trans men aren't welcome - I said quite the opposite. Under the EA2010 exemption, they would be.

Legally female for the purposes of a GRC and being registered female at birth are clearly two difference things. How can you possibly be confused btythis?

Read it again:
This means that a trans woman who does not hold a Gender Recognition Certificate is legally male and is treated as a man for the purposes of the sex discrimination provisions, and a trans woman with a Gender Recognition Certificate is treated as a woman.

How can you say it makes no difference?

Without a GRC, a male person who identifies as a transwoman is treated as a man.

With a GRC, a male person who identifies as a transwoman is treated as a woman.

@DadJoke: Whether you self-ID or have a GRC makes no difference to the EA2010 exemption for single sex spaces. - it literally says so in that paragraph.

The paragraph literally says it does make a difference:
The sex discrimination exceptions in the Equality Act therefore apply differently to trans people with and without Gender Recognition Certificates.

Why is it vitally important to transgender people if it makes no difference to them?

Or does it make a difference to them? If so, what difference (apart from the EA stuff I just posted)? And how can you be sure this has no effect on anyone else?

Interesting how Joke regularly rocks up to lecture women on the ills of being "trans exclusionary" by not wanting to undress, share showers, talk about rape etc in front of random born males. Arguing for the breaching of women and girl's boundaries and our right to consent.
Never a good look.

No Mrs Overton.

However they are at least predictable.

For various legal purposes, none of which are related to single sex spaces under the EA2010, from which trans women can be excluded if it's legitimate and proprtionate. It's quite complicated, but entirely comprehensible.

It does make a difference to them, but it doesn't impact on access to single sex spaces. They are legally women or men and want to be recorded as such in marriage and death. They want their driving licenses, for example, to reflect their legal sex. It's not important to you, but it is to them.

First of all, sex on driving licences can be changed without a GRC. Surely you know that? One of the Man Friday women did that a few years ago (and then changed it back), just to show how easy it was. You just have to fill in a form. Passports can also be changed without a GRC.

How is someone recorded as a man or a woman 'in marriage'? If they've changed their name by deed poll this will go on the marriage certificate. It doesn't state anywhere on the marriage certificate the sex of the person (this is in England and Wales, it may be different in Scotland and NI). And (in case you missed it), since 2014 two people of the same sex can marry in the UK. I'm surprised you didn't know that either.

So that leaves the death certificate. How can anyone be that distressed about what might be recorded on their death certificate, which they will (obviously) never see? At their funeral there is nothing to stop their loved ones talking about them as their preferred gender. So a law is being made whose sole purpose is so that someone can have the wrong sex recorded on their death certificate. This is insane.

You're right about the driving license. If you want to know from a transgender point of view why trasngender people want GRCs, then you can read it from their perspective. The most important thing is that it's irrelevant to access to single-sex spaces.

www.transactual.org.uk/the-gender-recognition-act

I don't see why driving licences should be changed anyway. You can't change sex. And the distinction between sex and gender should be kept clear.

Anything that causes crimes committed by male-bodied persons as if they were committed by female-bodied person skews statistics in a damaging way.

Damn the lack of an edit button! I meant "crimes committed by male-bodied persons to be recorded as if they were committed by female-bodied persons"

The most important thing is that it's irrelevant to access to single-sex spaces.

Not true. This is from the MoJ policy for transgender prisoners.

all individuals who are transgender must be initially allocated to part of the
estate which matches their legally recognised gender

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/863610/transgender-pf.pdf

Dadjoke, stop being so disingenuous. You say:

It does make a difference to them, but it doesn't impact on access to single sex spaces. They are legally women or men and want to be recorded as such in marriage and death. They want their driving licenses, for example, to reflect their legal sex. It's not important to you, but it is to them.

It is important to us as it puts them into our group and pushes us out. It is used as a wedge to make all female single sex spaces, facilities etc mixed sex. It not just 'a piece of paper', when that piece of paper is used to claim they are women too. See the recent judgment with regard to representation on boards.
See the discussion in the Scottish government where the right of a rapist to change his legal gender is worth more than the right of women not to share spaces with them.

No Dadjoke, the word is still no. One way or the other we will exclude them when our rights matter.

Sorry to derail, but all the uses of "driving license(s)" is hitting a raw nerve - it is "driving licence(s)" in British English (as per OldCrone's* *original mention). Apologies in advance for the pedantry!

It's not important to you, but it is to them.

What a bizarre thing to say.

Every thread needs a touch of pedantry.

It ends up being pointless for ID documents to record people's sex if we are all able to change them on a whim. Why bother at all. But that's what the trans activists want really isn't it?