Seeking straightforward answers to GRRBill question

[morningtoncrescent62]

I'll put my hands up at the outset to not being the most articulate person. I think I understand something, but when I'm asked, especially by someone who's hostile or borderline hostile, I tie myself up in knots.

Can anyone help me out with a clear, memorable answer to the question, "But what difference does it (the Scottish self-ID process) make to women's single-sex spaces, as you don't need a birth certificate to enter them"?

I've read a lot about this, and particularly the MurrayBlackburnMackenzie blogs which explain it all in detail. But in conversation, when I get asked that question, I struggle to marshall my thoughts and explain it clearly. To be fair, I've heard people being interviewed on the same question on TV in the last few days who've also struggled, or not answered it at all. Any ideas?

Turn the question around:

Why would any male person want to use spaces meant for the female sex?

morningtoncrescent62, is your question about what will be the material impact of having the Scottish GRCs compared to the regime of only having UK GRCs?

This article from Sonia I thought laid it out well to help clarity of thought www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/21/stoking-a-culture-war-no-nicola-sturgeon-this-is-about-balancing-conflicting-rights

Why is there an act that changes sex on people's birth certificates? If gender identity and sex are not the same thing then they're not the same thing.
It's not even inclusive, what about non-binary identities? It should have nothing to do with sex.

My question to people asking would be -

There are currently no single sex rape crisis groups in the Lothians. The one which is currently being set up (Beira's Place) has faced abuse and threats of challenges to them providing a single sex service, as they are entitled to do using the single sex exemptions in the EQA 2010. Given the confusion caused by the recent Haldane judgement, funding from the Scottish Government being contingent on organisations being 'inclusive' and the deliberate misadvising of organisations by political lobbying groups in order to obscure the legally allowed single sex exemptions, how likely do you think it is that single sex spaces and services will continue, despite the EQA2010 allowing for such services for the safety, dignity and wellbeing of women?

Can anyone help me out with a clear, memorable answer to the question, "But what difference does it (the Scottish self-ID process) make to women's single-sex spaces, as you don't need a birth certificate to enter them"?

What about the spaces you DO need a birth cert for? Prisons, sports, scholarships..

Until now, a man in a woman’s space could be challenged. This legislation blurs the boundary of what male bodied people can legitimately do in the eyes of the law/society. It makes it more difficult to challenge someone. Do your questioners think any man should be in a teenage girl’s showers/sports team/changing rooms/all girl’s school? If not there is a line to be drawn? Where and what is acceptable? This blurs the boundaries and makes it more difficult for women to object to invasion of their spaces/privacy/bodies.

In this discussion, Sonia Sodha the journalist explained that she had seen expert legal opinion that getting a GRC changes the threshold for discriminating against someone on the basis of sex. That means it is less likely that you can say no to putting a transwoman with a GRC into a women’s prison.twitter.com/bbcpolitics/status/1612806209953992711/mediaviewer

I have not paraphrased that well but you could copy what she said exactly from the video.

^Sonia Sodha Guardian Nov 2022
Sturgeon’s plans to reform gender law could leave Tories as the champions of women’s rights^

A small number of trans people in the UK – around 5,000 – have extra rights because they have applied for a gender recognition certificate (GRC) to change their sex for many legal purposes. Lawyers disagree on exactly what this means; the law is unclear. But many think that a GRC changes the threshold at which it is lawful to exclude someone male who identifies as a woman from female-only spaces, such as prisons, hospital wards, refuges and changing rooms. And most agree that increasing the number of males with GRCs would fundamentally shift how other Equality Act provisions to protect women, such as on equal pay, work.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/27/nicola-sturgeon-will-endanger-women-if-she-opens-single-sex-spaces-almost-everone

This is a very important petition to update the Equalities Act to make clear that the characteristic “sex” is biological sex, not sex as created by a GRC.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243

"But what difference does it (the Scottish self-ID process) make to women's single-sex spaces, as you don't need a birth certificate to enter them"?

Prisons are a very clear example.

If a male has a GRC, that means an initial placement in a female prison, before a risk assessment has taken place.

'A male who identifies as ‘transgender’ but who does not have a GRC is initially allocated to a men’s prison.'
'A male who has a GRC stating that he is legally a woman is initially placed in a women’s prison'

kpssinfo.org/are-male-prisoners-really-in-womens-prisons/

I know there have been a number of articles about this, the issue isn't whether you self identify or how any one got a GRC.

Scotland like the rest of the UK is covered by the Equality Act. The Equality Act specifically says that even those with a GRC saying they are legally a female can be denied access to women's single sex services.

The problem is Scotland has been, eg Edinburgh RCC, that they have disregarded the single sex service exemptions.

But yes, for women providing the services, they could have problems if someone insisted they were female and then fell back of the line that their protected characteristic of gender reassignment meant that you could not query their "dead" name.

And I am saying this about the exemptions still applying because both Nicola Sturgeion and Shona Robinson have been using this as a way of saying the UK Government is over reacting as their new GRR bill only change the age at which someone in Scotland can get a GRC and that it can be based on self identity.

Which of course shows what complete hypocrites they are, because if they are so outspoken now about Scotland adhering to the EA SSE why didn't they and other authorities challenge Edinburgh RCC when they illegally advertised a vacancy as being under the EA SSE and then appointed a man.

So on one level it doesn't change anything because Scotland is intent on make the practice of SSE void.

They should be called out on this.

Actually, in Scotland, it's correct that a GRC has no effect on prison allocation; it's solely on self ID.

'No distinction is made between male prisoners with a GRC and those without'

Thanks for this, but I am curious - does the Scottish Government/Parliament also support the logical corollary? Can anyone who self-ID's as a man, or as something other than a woman, be automatically accommodated on request in "the male estate" in Scottish prisons? This thread seems to suggest that Scotland, like the UK, previously did not allow self-ID in mens' prisons. Has this changed? Does the new Scottish GRAA explicitly or effectively allow any woman who requests it residence in a mens' prison in Scotland? Thanks.

As far as I recall there is one female IDing as male in the male prison estate in Scotland, I'm struggling to recall where I read that info, though ...

It's in the SPS Quarterly Public Information Page. PDF so I can't link.

You’d have to be either naive to the point you’d never left your house or stupid to the point of developmental delay to, as a transman, think that the male estate’s the right option.

Leaving aside the clear physical danger you’d be putting yourself in unnecessarily, you’d also be subjecting yourself to much worse conditions (way more overcrowding, less time out of your cell, wider drug use, fewer educational opportunities etc etc).

The rhetoric coming out now is that the gender recognition certificate is a tiny, almost meaningless, trivial piece of admin that doesn't really mean anything. All it does, we are told, is change birth certificates (which are only really useful for marriage purposes, which is otiose given gay marriage is now a thing) and death certificates.

You don't need a GRC to use the women's toilets and female only spaces, so what's the big fuss?

Well, firstly it means that the legal defintion of woman has been vastly expanded. It no longer covers biological females and a tiny subset of men with the medical condition of gender dysphoria (around 5000 of them, according to 2013 estimates.) The legal definition of woman now includes females and any male who makes a statutory declaration that he will live his life forever as a woman (and that in itself has no defintion, so essentially its any bloke who says he is a woman.)

The very definiton of 'trans' has been changed from a medical condition, requring certification from a doctor, to simply a free for all. There is no other protected class where you can just self identify as a member of that oppressed protected class. You cannot self identify as black, promising to live as a black person forevever. You cannot self identify as disabled. You cannot self identify as a child or an elderly person. The category of 'woman' becomes meaningless. It doesn't track reality anymore.

But secondly, this story we are all hearing about the GRC being this meaningless piece of paper is very new. For years Stonewall et.al have been really pushing for this legal change. Why? Because Stonewall have also for years been chipping away at the single sex exemptions in the equality act. They explicilty want to get rid of the exemptions. In any case, the equality act makes it clear that a male with a GRC is regarded as legally female and will be treated as a woman in most cases except where a service provider decides to invoke an exemption, and this very rarely happens.

So in practice, males with GRCS are automatically considered female in most circumstances and are allowed in womens only spaces. In this past this was ok because the number of males with a GRC was tiny, and the men had to have genuine gender dysphoria, undergo surgeries etc. But now any old bloke can apply for a GRC and has a right to be regarded as legally female.

My response was to the OP which said women's single sex spaces which I took to mean those protected under the EA.

The change in access (if that is that right word) to prisons etc., happened long before the GRR Bill.

Thanks to the huge influence of Stonewall, Mermaids, etc. and the complete willingness of the media to promote their minority cause, women had already lost the right to assume that what were social norms (ie acknowledging the reality of biological sex) of respecting women only toilets, girl guides being for girls, and so on has already been lost.

Why for instance aren't women's prisons operated under the EA SSE? Because most people dont think or care about women.

How do we stop so many people not being bothered to respect women's right to safe spaces, is one that many campaigns are trying to undo. But to reverse the advances that queer politics have made in all levels of society since the 1980s are going to go on being an uphill struggle.

All we have is a few right wing newspapers and a few MPs who, almost too late, are starting to query what is going on.

The problem with the GRR Bill is that it is a wilful encouragement to get young people to make life changing decisions, that legally in later life then cant reverse without being prosecuted.

The problem with the GRR Bill is that it is a wilful encouragement to get young people to make life changing decisions, that legally in later life then cant reverse without being prosecuted.

Prosecuted? Are you serious?

You don't show a certificate to enter a women's loo - no. But most women would not raise an eyebrow at other users unless they are men, in which case, some ballsy broads may call them out on it. I would for sure.

In the scenario where any bloke can apply to say he is a women, regardless of any other criteria than his say so, said bloke can just go into the ladies willy nilly. When called out, all he needs to say, is I am a woman.

ArabellaScott · Today 16:37
"But what difference does it (the Scottish self-ID process) make to women's single-sex spaces, as you don't need a birth certificate to enter them"?

Prisons are a very clear example.

If a male has a GRC, that means an initial placement in a female prison, before a risk assessment has taken place.

'A male who identifies as ‘transgender’ but who does not have a GRC is initially allocated to a men’s prison.'
'A male who has a GRC stating that he is legally a woman is initially placed in a women’s prison'

kpssinfo.org/are-male-prisoners-really-in-womens-prisons/

And isn’t it also the case that the ensuing risk assessment for a transwoman with a GRC will be made using the assessment system for women prisoners, which are totally inadequate for assessing natal males of any identify?

This came up on a thread yesterday.

I believe so. Although I did just read this ...

twitter.com/calliemac88/status/1617217869766344706?s=46&t=wVd1VJuSZDqqlmLUYF_xIg

'John Moir, Advocate, drops a truth bomb that’s beyond ludicrous.
The risk assessments undertaken by prisons assessing whether a TIM should be housed in the female estate is based on the risk to the TIM not the vulnerable women in prison'

Rhona Hotchkiss, ex governor, clarified:

'They do look at both, but yes, they will consider any risk to the TIM & they certainly don’t consider any risk to the MH or wellbeing of women. Oh - and - the Scottish Trans Alliance is consulted as part of the assessment process'

Thanks, Waitwhat.

www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Publications.aspx

Quite possibly. It hasn’t been made clear, but the GRR includes penalties for anyone who makes a “false” claim to be transgender.

it hasn’t been made clear what a “false claim” would be, or how you’d tell, but one of the concerns is that people who desist or detransition - given there’s effectively no criteria for getting a GRC in the first place - would be easy targets for prosecution.