Keir Starmer confirms Labour will push ahead with self ID (7th Feb 2023)

[Thelnebriati]

Despite everything that has happened over the past few days;

Ben Bradshaw
''A warm welcome for @ Keir_Starmer as he recommits to reforming the UK’s out of date gender recognition process at tonight’s @ LGBTLabour @ LGBTHM
reception in Parliament''

twitter.com/BenPBradshaw/status/1623032232284721189

@SinnerBoy

The GRA has already written a lie into law. Self ID just exacerbates the harms being done by that law. The GRA is confusing and conflates sex and gender. Over the last few years it has caused confusion and numerous court cases because nobody seems to have a clue what the law means. An example is the recent statement from UKA who said they want to exclude men from the female categories but they are worried that they will get sued and so may not want to take the risk. Men in the female category harms women. The money and time women have spent over the last few years attempting to clarify the law harms women. Self ID normalises the idea that men can be women. It gives men the green light to colonise women's spaces / sports and services. It allows already entitled men to further push women's boundaries.

I don't want the lie that you can change sex further rooting itself into society. That lie has done enough damage already, and I don't think it does trans-identifying people themselves any good. I would revoke the GRA altogether if it were up to me.

You might say 'gender', but TRAs have now conflated sex and gender to such an extent that your continual mention of gender rather than sex doesn't mean much. Birth certificates record sex, so if only gender has changed there's no need to alter a birth certificate. The word 'woman' records sex, age and species (female, adult human) so if only gender has changed, there is no need to refer to a transwoman as a woman.

I'm also fairly sure that, if the GRA is reformed, there'll be a push from TRAs for anyone with a GRA to be sent to the prison of their 'gender' (sic). So they'll be arguing for that trans rapist to be put in with the actual women "because cis women rape too". Forget the tiny number of female sexual abusers or the fact that under UK law, rape can only be perpetrated by someone with a penis. There are already loads of posts in the trans subreddits which state how unfair it is that this rapist isn't in the female estate "because cis women rape too".
Institutions, as you've already pointed out, have been very quick to not bother to use the single sex exemptions, so I don't trust them not to cave into this kind of pressure. I think hanging onto the truth at this point is very important.

As for 'predatory men will attack women anyway, they don't need to pretend to be trans' - I honestly don't care whether they are pretending to be trans or genuinely are trans. They retain the criminal offending rates of other men regardless (in fact there's evidence that they commit sexual crimes at a rate significantly more than men who don't claim to be trans) and I don't want them in spaces that are sex-segregated.

Cantthinkofabetternameforhere · Today 16:17

None of these people have a GRC! if men want to abuse women, they won't need a GRC to do it.

Nobody is disputing that, but if TIM are allowed access all areas and women are not allowed to challenge that, it's a huge problem. If you read these threads, you'll see that it's an affront to the dignity of women and girls to undress in front of a male, for a variety of reasons.

Are you unable to see that? The women who now self exclude from swimming pools, avoid public toilets, don't go to rape and domestic violence shelters - all of those are because males, GRC or no, are now allowed into them.

Trans people can change their gender in passport, drivers licence, NHS gender markers, almost all documentation for daily life without a GRC. They can just make the changes.

Most of this is allowed with the assumption that the person is going through transition. A doctor needs to confirm this to get a passport? Without the concept of a GRA and sex = opposite sex with gender dysphoria, this wouldnt happen.

Without the GRA, would it be so easy for a man to get female id?

You talk about men in women's changing rooms but you don't have to show your birth certificate to go into a changing room so whether there's selfID or not, anyone can walk in anywhere. Having a GRC doesn't really make a difference.

This is why the secrecy of the GRA is of no use to TRA as a group. If no one knows about the GRA, a man with a female birth certificate will look like a man with someone else's birth certificate.

Similarly, if no one knows that trans is a thing the man in the changing room looks like a man in the changing room regardless of his gender identity. Women will tell him to leave.

With a huge media campaign, we are now told that some men have a GRC, and some men do have the PC of GR. And it maybe legal for them to be there? So the women telling the man to get out might be telling the GRC or PC of GR person to get out. The women might be breaking the law. So, in reality, what is allowing any man to walk into womens spaces is not birth certificates, its trans people normalising the idea that some males have a right to be in some female spaces.

But you know this.

Labour are wedded to self-ID, there is no point pretending or wishing they're not:

"Following an agreement with their nationalist opponents in Plaid Cymru – a party that exists in order to destroy the fabric of the country they aspire to govern – Welsh Labour have proposed initiating discussionss_ with the UK government to persuade it to devolve the powers necessary to emulate Scotland. Presumably they are aware that similar reform of the Gender Recognition Act in Wales would have the same impact on UK equality legislation that the UK government believes the Scottish Bill would have had, and so a similar veto would be wielded against the Senedd. So why bother asking for the powers in the first place? The answer is pretty obvious: virtue signalling. Welsh AMs know they would be unlikely to be able to change anything, but hey, let’s make a stand anyway, yeah?

There are two dangers for Labour here. The first is that Welsh Labour, like its Scottish counterpart, is no different culturally and politically from the UK party. If self-ID for trans people is now the central guiding principle of the party in its northern and western territories, it is guaranteed to be so in London too. Keir Starmer has done a passable job of not saying very much on the issue, bravely failing to defend his female MPs when they are abused and threatened for defending women’s sex-based rights and safety. But voters are entitled to draw their own conclusions if both Welsh and Scottish Labour are singing from the same Stonewall hymn sheet.
The second danger is one specific to Welsh Labour. In Scotland, even though Scottish Labour MPs voted en masse – whipped, no less – for the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, it managed to avoid much of the public opprobrium that resulted. But Scottish Labour isn’t in government, so it is SNP ministers who have, rightly, taken the blamee_ for this farrago. This is far from the case in Wales where Labour has held onto power since the very beginning of devolution in 1999."

Ends: "Women are watching. They know the answer to the question. And Labour, across the whole of Britain, had better know the answer before the election arrives."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/09/labour-copying-sturgeons-trans-madness/

Labour are wedded to self-ID, there is no point pretending or wishing they're not

I agree.

Starmer has committed to modernising the GRA. Realistically, that means reducing the time, removing the diagnosis or reducing the age to children. He's already stated hes against that. So its the diagnosis process he's interested in - the need for GD or the time to reflect.

So, if a diagnosis is still needed, could a man walk into a clinic male, and come out female? Or not have to have 'come out' to work, family and friends as part of the process. Therefore we suddenly have to accept a previous male colleague as legally female.

He might go full on and remove the need for a diagnosis at all. Therefore no one or no organisation will have the responsibility of gatekeeping at all.

@Cantthinkofabetternameforhere

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread?page=30&reply=123109522

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?page=23&reply=101057943

If you are really interested which press x to doubt, but newbies and random wanderers eh. here is some reading for you.

No one is arguing that on an individual level, possessing a GRC will make it easier for that individual to enter single sex spaces. We aren't checking ID.

It is a societal step change towards the loss of legally protected single sex spaces we are pushing back against.

The "men will do it anyway" argument is illogical.

Predators don't want to get caught. They seek out ways they can do what they want without getting caught. The power of the police and a culture of misogyny makes that easier, so it attracts predators.

The social barriers to men entering female spaces makes it more likely a predator can target women and get away with it. If it's voyeuristic just being there is the point.

By your rationale, the law doesn't prevent predators either. Which is true to an extent but still a bs argument. There is nothing stopping a rapist raping in broad daylight in front of people but they will only get to do it once.

Predators enjoy it. They want to do it easily, continue to do it and do it without getting caught, preferably where the prey can't reasonably object to their presence.

Safeguarding 101

Predators don't want to get caught. They seek out ways they can do what they want without getting caught. The power of the police and a culture of misogyny makes that easier, so it attracts predators.

And yes, this. I'm sure David Carrick was attracted to the police force because it allowed him to cow his female partners even more and helped make him invulnerable to prosecution or even investigation. The priests in the church who abused children were offered protection because of their position.

When the Wi Spa sex offender flashed women and children, "progressives" like Owen Jones rushed to accuse those women of lying about it. They called it a hoax. It wasn't, of course. The guy had previous, but claiming transgender status meant he had a herd of people rushing to defend him and accuse his victims of lying.

There have always been positions that predatory males have tried to occupy because it helps them to offend. I'm sure there always will be. Doesn't mean we have to throw our hands in the air and give up though. We need safeguarding to prevent these crimes happening and, where it does happen, there needs to be honest investigation.

I will vote Tory because of this and I never have done before

@Cantthinkofabetternameforhere
The thread below explains what a significant difference the Haldane judgment makes and sets out the additional rights conferred by GRCs.
Michael Foran gave evidence to the Women and Equalities committee recently.

twitter.com/michaelpforan/status/1623734664308445186

I really don’t think Labour understand how much of an issue this is for so many of us. Maybe they just don’t care.

Starmer doesn’t care - likely high on polling results, and also afraid of his party who believe 100%

Bad combination if anyone used to like Labour but cares re this issue

Once you have declared your support for an ideology it is hard to back out without great personal cost. If Starmer rejects the idea that people should be able to choose their legally recorded sex the TRAs will go crazy and tell him he's wicked, bigoted, a nazi etc and that he's killing trans people. He would have to admit that Labour have been bullying Rosie Duffield, he'd have to face the reality that he's looked stupid when he couldn't answer questions about what a woman is, that he has supported Mps who scream 'transphobia' at the words 'protecting women and girls ' and support child rapists being in women's prisons.

Have you ever heard of frauds where someone lends £10 to a man they spoke to on a dating app and 3 months later they've sent him £200000 of their life savings because they believe he's being held hostage by the criminal underworld who are threatening to kill him? People get sucked in and once they have doubts they double down, desperate to believe because they don't want to admit how easily they were taken in by nonsense.

I'm afraid this will destroy Starmer just as it is currently destroying Sturgeon.

Baaaaaa

I think you've misunderstood me entirely!

I'm 100% against transw in women's spaces.

Article on Labour and the position they took in Scotland:

www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5377924/anas-sarwar-political-shield-snp-euan-mccolm-opinion/

Euan McColm: Scottish Labour leader is reduced to a political shield for the SNP

"Notable for his silence on this issue is Labour’s Anas Sarwar who, it seems, would very much like not to discuss his support for reform of the Gender Recognition Act (GRA). Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us. After all, Sarwar has made a catastrophic political mistake.
...

When Sarwar should have been challenging the Scottish Government over reforms which were legally unworkable, he meekly fell into line.
...

Anas Sarwar is nothing more than a political shield for SNP MSPs who, when challenged on their support for the broken bill, routinely reply that, well, Labour backed it, too.""

Excellent post!

I agree, it’s a bit like Brexit, it can be hard for people to admit to a u-turn if they really got on board with something publicly and it then turns out to have been a terrible idea sold to them by con artists. But equally, I think a critical mass of people will slowly form who are going to say publicly that it’s OK to change your mind if the evidence shows you were wrong. Or if the evidence has always showed the same thing, they might feel able to say publicly that the benefits of it were massively oversold and the inevitable drawbacks or risks of it were carefully omitted for someone else’s gain.

I’d be more than happy for Labour to have a new reality-based, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic party leader. Ideally female. But I think that Labour could win the next election with Starmer in charge, so there will be continued division on this issue unfortunately. So there needs to be as much information sharing as possible from the gender critical side because looking objectively at reality will always shows the need for more reality-based policies.

I think that as time goes on, public opinion across all age groups will begin to become a bit more critical of the demands placed on others by gender identity politics. And of today’s young people as a generation, inevitably more young women (and some men) will start to object to the sexism and risk and harm that they have experienced directly because of this politics.

I think the damage done to some transitioned people will become clearer, partly as more detransitioned people will go public (and I fully appreciate that some of them may then re-adopt a trans identity as well and may remake that choice in either direction, repeatedly, all fine), and multiple scandals emerge about the practice of childhood transition.

But also, and crucially for party politics, the party pollsters will realise that young people don’t all think as one hive mind on this issue. Which I do suspect they’ve been confidently told up until now by lobby groups. I don’t think Stonewall and Mermaids will have the same power in future as they did. They’ve tainted their own brands.

Labour should have a good look at the poll being discussed here, and ask themselves if their views are skewed by certain (university) towns...they won't. But they should:

A new poll on attitudes to transgenderism in the UK
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4739466-a-new-poll-on-attitudes-to-transgenderism-in-the-uk

Good post but I don’t know if it will to Starmer, I’m sure he’s hoping that he can be vague enough not to get attention on this.

It probably won’t work, but the lead is pretty high. If Nicola Sturgeon is damaged by it, good, I’m a bit over people saying no one cares - when it turns out they do.

I agree with a lot of those predictions Slothtoes - provided there is no gender self ID legislation. If there is then I think all bets are off.

Way to go Keir - how to alienate 50% of the voters. If this happens I’ll be volunteering to help with the Conservative campaign and going door to door to make sure every woman knows what a Labour government will mean for women. I will post it on every social media outlet again and again.

so we now have it confirmed (we knew already) Keir Starmer is a woman hater who wants to silence women and leave them in even more vulnerable positions than they already are,

Starmer will be happy with the latest byelection result - but the turnout was very poor, even for a byelection. I wonder how many women stayed away.

Funny how someone tries to persuade us that politicians lying and gaslighting women doesnt matter and how we really ought to be happy to let any man into places traditionally kept safe for women..