Politics Live 10 Jan - Scottish Gender Reform Bill - will it be blocked by Westminster?

[MoirasSaggyBundles]

They will be discussing this on today's programme. Panellists include Sonia Sodha.

why is it always red heads?

You can blame Fausto-Sterling for that:

mrkhvoice.com/index.php/2019/05/12/statistics-and-semantics-is-intersex-as-common-as-red-heads/

Clip from the BBC of Sonia and RMW:

twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1612806209953992711?s=46&t=LzayusOKTQ_hSZ1Y1R5qUw

I'm curious about Zoe Strimpel. She does A Point of View on Radio 4 and I was reasonably sure she was giving off #bekind vibes while seeming to have firmer boundaries on other issues:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00168s3

It's nice for the surprise to be a good one for once.

ResisterRex · Today 15:33
Clip from the BBC of Sonia and RMW:

twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1612806209953992711?s=46&t=LzayusOKTQ_hSZ1Y1R5qUw

Thank you for that.

I don’t think Scotland examined the evidence regarding how self-ID might possibly result in greater harm to women through allowing greater access to women’s spaces, as they simply had that UN ‘get out’ statement saying ‘There is no evidence’. It was only true there was no evidence because they never collated it.

RMW also did not take into account the point SG made that there is evidence to show that a GRC changes the threshold at which someone is legally allowed to be discriminated against on grounds of sex, so making it easier to make access to women’s spaces easier in the first place.

I do hope the people watching will have known which of the two people speaking to take seriously.

But equally, as you point out, the falsified sex on the death certificate could be distressing for a trans widow or the trans person's children.

Or the birth mother! Imagine giving birth to a boy and having it recorded that you gave birth to a girl. A birth is a shared experience, you cannot falsify another person's history like that, surely?

Think this has been touched on, but just to make it crystal clear….

“Anecdotal evidence is worthless” when it involves women’s and girls’ lived experiences, even including rape.

Meanwhile there is zero academic evidence that either medical transition or social affirmation provides the best treatment for gender dysphoria. Lots of people are diagnosed, transition then either detransition or recognise it as a mistake but decide to make the best of it anyway. That’s against a backdrop where ANY lack of complete conviction is heavily punished by their community. Yet the idea that anecdotal evidence about feelz must lead to the right to transition is taken as a given?

Go figure

Thank you OP and PP’s for the reports 🍫

having a changed birth certificate is important to trans people

Why though? It's their sex that is recorded on their birth certificate, not their 'gender'

No one's birth certificate should ever be allowed to be changed.

I just can’t understand how it was agreed that a person could get their birth certificate changed.

What’s the point of a birth certificate if the information it contains can be changed aka falsified at a later date?

Whatsnewpussyhat · Today 16:38

having a changed birth certificate is important to trans people

Why though? It's their sex that is recorded on their birth certificate, not their 'gender'

No one's birth certificate should ever be allowed to be changed

Not only can it be changed - the new certificate actually says “sex” too.

Thanks for reporting on this…looks as though twitter feedback to the programme is not on the lawyers side. It really is extraordinary that only last year we were being told that it is not a political issue, that people don’t think it is an issue etc, and here we are, seeing it being discussed at all levels, even on the BBC. Well done to all of us, but of course we are still not listened to by some of these men.

I think the lawyer is using tired old tropes and they are really getting tireder by the moment.

'Single case' and 'anecdotes' my arse. What a hypocrite!

Reem Alsalem's points were:

1. there is evidence in the form of anecdoate, it just hasn't been collated and analysed
2. nobody has sought evidence and
3. in many countries, if someone does commit a crime but id as women, it will only be recorded as a woman committing a crime. So there is no way to show that this was actually a transwoman.

Yes, trans people's 'lived experience' also apparently counts as evidence whereas women's 'anecdote' doesn't.

We know that women's groups met with the Govt and provided evidence, if nothing else, of self exclusion from services. This apparently doesn't matter, though - transwomen must be provided for and if that means that women lose out - tough.

I completely agree I mean... what is trans? I don't understand the blanket assumption of benevolence and marginalisation of trans people. I have never accepted this narrative as fact. What other mental health condition is given these massive exceptions in society, including the ability to falsify a birth certificate? I don't see that the health implications of significant operations and lifelong drug therapy are justified for the majority of those with gender dysphoria. Just as I do not think cosmetic surgery is an appropriate treatment for body dysmorphia. I can have sympathy for people with body dysmorphia who have lots of cosmetic surgery because I believe they are experiencing mental distress, but I don't have to agree that they are processing the distress in the best way by having surgery and I don't have to accept and revere them as a marginalised group. Just as with those trans people who are gender dysphoric.

Hang on, so the line of argument is…

gay males - ie males who are attracted to and sexually aroused by other males - can access spaces where there are males in a state of undress without having to go in front of a panel and therefore it’s unfair that heterosexual males - ie males who are attracted to / sexually aroused by females bodies - have to go in front of a panel in order to gain an entitlement to enter spaces where there are females in a state of undress?

So in other words, same-sex oriented males’ automatic access to single-sex male facilities amounts to gay privilege over opposite-sex oriented males?

It certainly takes some chutzpah to deploy that argument.

What other mental health condition is given these massive exceptions in society, including the ability to falsify a birth certificate?

Precisely. Not just that, but there is no other MH condition whereby everyone else has to bend reality in order to fit the reality of the person with the MH condition.

People with physical disabilities are nowhere near accommodated like this.

And women's "lived experience" counts for fuck all.

No wonder people have had enough of it.

Waves to Robin who is watching this thread and tweeting about it.

RMW spoke for approximately 6 minutes in a 21.5 minute segment...

RMW being somewhat disingenuous in referencing the GRR committee claim that “no concrete evidence of harm” was produced during the first evidence sessions.

As I remember, the feminist groups had to almost literally push their way into the evidence sessions - shaming the committee into extending an invitation at the last minute.

The committee themselves made it clear how hostile their views to the feminists were (with honourable exceptions) and any info presented, even personal testimony, was dismissed as anecdote by the committee. The committee knows that no actual data is being gathered by the authorities in the countries with self id.

The committee later refused to meet a group of rape victims who wanted to discuss their need for single sex spaces while allowing some self id advocates a second meeting.

RMW and the committee would do well to remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially if certain bad actors are going to huge lengths to avoid gathering said evidence.

Sonia and Zoe were super.

LGB Alliance have just published a letter outlining how they tried to raise concerns about this Bill and didn't get replies. This is a complaint to the President of the UN Human Rights Council about the Independent Expert:

lgballiance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Formal-complaint-about-Victor-Madrigal-Borloz-Independent-Expert-on-Sexual-Orientation-and-Gender-Identity-10th-January-2023.pdf

There is no evidence of a trans person being murdered in the UK for many years.

But we are constantly told that being Trans is the most dangerous demographic.

We are told that Unisex facilities or gendered facilities do not increase safety risks for females yet we are constantly told that it's too dangerous for TW to use male facilities.

Can't see how it's different?

Glinner and Jack helpfully reminding of a few background details

WiSpa mentioned on the BBC - yes!

Sonia Sodha is incredibly calm and articulate.

The red head analogy is a load of bollocks - we don't segregate anything by hair colour. We do segregate by sex. Transwomen are of the male sex. A self identifying transwoman is literally no different from any other man.

It's always a bit baffling that the legal pov is sought from the usual suspect who hasn't a scooby what they are talking about instead of getting legal background/summary/explanation from reputable experts, such as Murray Blackburn MacKenzie.

A rundown of Section 35 of the Scotland Act is given here which gives a concise (and sane) explanation as to why requests for section 35 to be invoked are being made to Alister Jack -

murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2023/01/09/gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill-use-of-scotland-act-powers/

If there is no evidence according to some, then why the hell was the amendment to the Scottish bill that would have allowed for research and evidence to be gathered, voted down?
I agree that trans is such an ill defined concept or feeling in someone’s head, there is no reason to put women and girls in danger, or change laws, or allow lies on birth certificates.