Telegraph - Keir Starmer: Pro-trans laws are needed across UK

[ResisterRex]

At first glance, just (just!!) a rehash of his video from last year. Which said what it said. But there's this:

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/12/23/keir-starmer-pro-trans-laws-needed-across-uk/

"Asked by The Telegraph about the leader’s comments to Pink News, Labour confirmed that he stood by plans to reform the GRA.

A party spokesman said: “All political parties agree that the process needs modernising. A future Labour government will consult on what that looks like, while upholding the Equality Act and maintaining single-sex spaces.
“Labour has a strong and proud record of standing up for women’s rights. Our commitment to them is unrelenting.”
Trans rights have become a key electoral battleground in the USS_ and are expected to be similarly important in the UK at the next general election."

Do all political parties agree the GRA needs updating? The Tories just made it easier to get a GRC, and they've not said they plan to do more.

Once again the "maintaining single sex spaces" rhetoric. But next to the Haldane judgement? Come on.

Ah, so the bill in Scotland means that it is not as simple as saying I am a woman.
In the rest of the UK can one just announce it and it be so?

Ah, so the difference is if the new bill came into force in Scotland it would take 3 months and some other hoops whereas in the rest of the UK one can just announce it, and then one is a women. Thank you for the clarification. Could one the next day announce one is a man again and it be so?

They commonly find each other, often from prison. They exchange ideas and other stuff.

Alexa - define a bad faith argument.

The vast majority of men respect single-sex spaces and wouldn't dream of entering women's (unless they were needed in an emergency of course)*. It's ingrained. After the SNP's horrifying Bill, the vast majority of men still won't go in women's spaces. So there's an easy filter already - we know any man who tries to come in is dodgy. We can raise the alarm. But now the SNP have given them explicit permission to enter women's single-sex spaces and there's nothing Scottish women can do about it. They're served up on a plate to offenders.

*vaguely irrelevant story - my mum watches the Pioneer Woman and I was round at her house while an episode was on where they'd refurbished a building for a new restaurant and shop. The Pioneer Woman wanted to show her husband how nice the (unused and empty) women's toilets looked before opening to the public so they walked towards them. As he got to the door he just swerved and started walking back the other way - it seemed instinctive, you could see his body took him away from somewhere it felt he shouldn't be before his brain caught up and it was interesting to see that realisation of trespassing slowly cross his face. Anyway, they must have tried again and the next bit showed him hovering awkwardly in the doorway looking around with a queasy expression. It is ingrained.

Really irrelevant bit now - what on earth is jgw1 on about with this totally false post? 'Why so many of you are fans of and trust a government that partied the night before Prince Philips funeral, is beyond me' - the government didn't party, the MPs weren't doing the conga were they? Some Downing Street civil servants apparently got together which is a totally different thing. That's without unpacking the bizarre 'fan' allegation. It tells me a lot.

I'm amazed at how many TRAs seem to think that there is some sort of 'process' involved in self ID, when the whole point of self ID is that therei is no process and any man can become legally female by self-declaration alone.

Indeed - it's reassuring Alltheprettyseahorses to remember that decent men respect women's boundaries and are equally determined that girls should receive the same safety.
I'm not sure whether Madam Bunbury ever commented on the attitudes of decent men but this thread does remind me of some of her musings - and the first couple of posts from the OP on the link below always resonate with me:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3691023-Bunburys-guide-to-community-disruptors-part-4

Indeed Crone that’s the entire fucking point!!

@jgw1 You seem incredibly invested in men being allowed access into women's changing rooms, hospital wards, refuges and prisons. Why is that?

jgw1's grasp of how male violence restricts all women's lives appears so feeble that, if this were the 70s, I can imagine them reassuring us we had more chance of being struck by lightening than of being the Yorkshire Ripper's next victim so chill out.

jgw1 has also been on this board long enough to know full well that many (not all) of us are/were lifelong Labour / left of centre voters, party members and that indeed some are still hanging on in there. You'd expect someone really concerned for the Labour Party to engage with that fact occasionally, argue for sure but also listen, ask questions, make suggestions urge us to stay and fight. And even the rookiest Labour canvassers surely know that the one thing you don't do is sneer. At least that's what they were told in my time.

Alternatively, if jgw1 believes our votes are insignificant and not worth worrying about then why waste so much time here?

Anyway this post is far too long and life is short. I mainly wanted to make a suggestion: these days, if jgw1 tags me, I normally give a single, courtesy reply and make it clear there's no more. You may get one or two jeery-sneery responses but, if you don't bite back, they give up and move on.

Just a thought, unless you're finding the debate stimulating in which case crack on.

My apologies jgw1, you tagged me several pages ago. This is your single, courtesy reply. Enjoy the rest of the holiday.

I think I see where your confusion is coming from. I'll try and spell it out more clearly for you and anyone else who's confused about the current laws (as well as the new Scottish one).

Self ID can refer to informal self ID or legal self ID. We use the same words (self ID) for both, which is probably why you're so confused about the two meanings.

First, informal self ID. This is what I was referring to in my earlier post about your partner announcing his intention to transition over breakfast. This announcement would give him the protected characteristic of gender reassignment under the EA2010. It would not, however, mean that he was legally a woman. Legally he would still be a man/male. This is why people who have informally self-ID'd as the opposite sex but don't have a GRC can be excluded from spaces and services for the opposite sex more easily than those with a GRC. Their legal sex is the one they were born with, but they have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, so cannot be treated less favourably than other people of their sex (other men if they were born male). It doesn't mean they have to be treated as women.

Legal self ID is what the Scottish government has just voted for. If your partner lives in Scotland (or if he just moves there temporarily for the purpose of obtaining a GRC), then following his announcement over breakfast, he could change his title on his utility bills from Mr to Ms, then 3 months later he could make a statutory declaration and pay £5. At that point he will legally be a woman (in Scotland). He doesn't need to live differently in any way. Living as a woman is simply having a female title on documents like bills and bank statements. There are no designated male or female names in the UK, so there's no need to change names. There are no laws about male and female clothing, so no need to dress differently. I assume if your title is something like Dr or Rev you don't need to make any changes at all. Just announce your intention and 3 months later it's done.

HTH. If you're still confused I'm happy to explain further.

Flo…perhaps jgw believes women should not have the vote. An ideal outcome for ..(pronouns unknown) would be for women to abstain or spoil their ballots.

Are there stats about how many men are predatory? Are there stats for how many of them will self id?

Last I looked (some time ago to be fair) there were circa 14000 men in prison for rape and sexual assault, yet the reported* rapes still come out at circa 50,000 per year. So despite there being a lot of men in prison unable to rape/assault there appears to be quite a lot still not in prison.

*if we take the estimated number of rapes rather than reported then there are so many more men who really do belong in prison. I vaguely remember 1 in 6 rapes or sexual assault goes unreported. So theres either a few hundred men going around the country raping, or theres far more. I'm going with far more because when I've been raped it's been a different man each time (sarcasm)
If maybe 10 percent (my own personal low estimate) bother to self id that's a whole lot of men now allowed in our spaces. I would think there would be not one single previously female toilet free from men at any given moment.

I honestly don't know why people are kidding themselves that this is somehow going to be some massive vote loser for Labour.

Pollsters are always doing "most important issues" surveys and this never comes anywhere near the top - even if it makes it to the list at all.

Right now Labour is considering making a big offer on cheap childcare - you think loads of women are going to look at that and think "oh yeah but Labour want to give out a few more GRC certificates, can't have that". It's not going to happen.

twitter.com/danbloom1/status/1607270234762657792

One of the most encouraging trends I've picked up on Twitter over the past year is what you might call "Centrist types" getting a bit more GC - these people are not at all in favour of what's happening in Scotland, for instance. BUT they're also repelled by things like hashtag "TW are ConM*n". What do you think will happen when the Tories start trying to make political gains out of the issue and it starts being heavily associated with Toryism? We risk losing them to the other side.

Short answer is no, there aren't really stats, because this is a very big and vague question.

When I've tried to look into this, at a VERY rough guess, around 1 in 20 males are likely to be predatory/abusive/have a paraphilia.

I honestly don't know why people are kidding themselves that this is somehow going to be some massive vote loser for Labour.

I agree with you that it's not a vote loser. But nor do I think is it a potential vote winner - that ship has sailed. So what interests me is why Starmer is trying to avoid talking about it and what he thinks he has to lose.

I honestly don't know why people are kidding themselves that this is somehow going to be some massive vote loser for Labour.

It's not a vote loser at the moment. But it could be in future. It depends largely on how clever the Tories are at making it an issue. Just about everything this government has done, or is doing, is shambolic, and people are fed up with the endless strikes, the failing NHS, the cost of living crisis and the inability to tackle the small boats problem, even though they claim it as a priority.

As the Tories have been in power 12 years, all these things are either their fault or, if not their fault, things they have failed to tackle adequately. So the best chance they have of keeping Labour out is to point to a policy that makes Labour look absolutely insane. Fortunately for them, Labour have adopted just such a policy. All the Tories need to do now is to hire a clever strategist and PR team who can exploit it. Very interesting to see if they manage it.

It's not a problem for Labour to counter the messaging though is it?

"Why are the Tories banging on about a few trans people when our standard of living is falling by the day?"

Why are the SNP banging on about a few trans people and passing badly thought out and unpopular laws when our standard of living is falling by the day? Labour could be asking this question in Scotland, but instead they're supporting the SNP.

As far as I can tell the Tories are saying nothing. Labour seem to want to follow the SNP down a totally insane route.

We dont worry about trans women, we worry about women (the cunty type)

I do wish posters would get that correct

Could you provide a link to where the Prime Minister expressed an opinion on the matter - perhaps in an interview he has done recently. (Oh look Rishi is too scared of appearing on radio and TV to do interviews).

@BedTaker I would be grateful if you could quote where I said that please.

Here's Rishi, scared to express an opinion on the matter:

twitter.com/skynews/status/1606238784894418945?s=46&t=ZDWopN_N5G57mwNF4oVwfg

It's very hard for them because Labour are in a complete mess over it. If you want to see how frightened Labour are of their own policy, just watch this clip of Keir Starmer fumbling over the question of whether only women can have a cervix:

What is it that you think Labour are frightened of RoyalCorgi? The electorate? Their own party members? Or someone / something else? I'm interested because, if I remember correctly, you've hung on in there with the left?