The GRA and Freedom of Speech - excellent article by Legal Feminst

[ArabellaScott]

www.scottishlegal.com/articles/naomi-cunningham-the-chilling-effect-of-scotlands-proposed-gender-recognition-regime

'how could there ever be a pressing social need to keep secret something that is obvious to everyone?

....

Special criminal penalties for acknowledging a person’s sex if they have a GRC risks creating a totalitarian regime of censorship and fear in workplaces and institutions.'

Brief article that goes right to the quick of the issue, I think. One of the elements of the GRA that is most damaging to society, trust and freedom of speech is the criminalisation of people saying out loud what is very obviously true.

Reading it I kept hearing echoes of :'The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command'

That's an interesting read thanks for posting it @ArabellaScott

Thanks for link.

Just wondering if this effect is even more extensive than Cunningham suggests. If a male has a mtf GRC, then you must treat and refer to them as you would a woman. However, I believe it is illegal to ask if someone has a GRC, or perhaps illegal to ask to see it (obv IANAL!), so that basically means any male who claims to be a woman (or vice versa) has to be treated as such, even if they have no GRC. Realise that’s now a low bar in Scotland anyway, but not actually even any need for the tiresome admin

I believe it is illegal to ask if someone has a GRC, or perhaps illegal to ask to see it

Also not a lawyer, but my understanding is that in some circumstances it is legal to ask for ID (a birth certificate, which if someone has a GRC will show the chosen 'gender' rather than sex at birth). In practice, I imagine many or most providers would be enormously cautious about doing so.

That’s a really good article, thanks for sharing Arabella.

It touches on one of the fundamental issues of the GRA which is that it was intended to only cater for a tiny number of people so the real issues it caused to women were more easily waved away as ‘very unlikely’ as GRC holders would be so rare and overall have less of a measurable impact on the rest of us.

In my mind, that is not a good basis for making law as a) even if the numbers were statistically small, it was still impacting some women and they matter too, and b) the law assumed a finite number who would choose to apply for a GRC.

This assumption was clearly wrong especially as they are now removing barriers and broadening the concept of trans.

That article explains well why we have the GRA in the first place, and why it should be repealed.
The right to privacy of a tiny number of passing transsexuals does not counterbalance the harm done to women of changing the legal definition of sex.
I would also argue that the existence of the GRA also harms people with gender dysphoria, as it encourages them in their delusion that they can become the opposite sex.
Doctors, teachers, the NHS, the legal system, and all arms of the state should be unequivocal that sex change is impossible.

''it is illegal to ask if someone has a GRC...so that basically means any male who claims to be a woman (or vice versa) has to be treated as such, even if they have no GRC.''

It also makes it extremely difficult for a service provider or front facing staff to challenge a fraudulent application or one that breaches safeguarding rules; and that makes it a bad law.