EA petition EHRC are in favour of reviewing the definition of sex

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Sex Matters update

The petition worked. The full letter from the EHRC is worth reading.

But in any case, it should be BIOLOGICAL gender/sex that matters!

There is no such thing as biological gender.

There is no such thing as biological gender.

Well that depends on what we define 'gender' to mean. As I said in most other languages the word gender defines maleness or femaleness.

Sex is intercourse

You can repeat idiotic comments as much as you like but it doesn't make them true.

sex is male/female

"intercourse" is "sexual intercourse" ie communication between the sexes, a euphemism for mating/copulation

I Wonder why parents talk about 'gender' reveals rather than 'sex' reveals?

Baroness Faulkner (EHRC) wrote a short piece in The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kishwer-falkner-a-biological-definition-of-sex-is-needed-qrt7vdzw2 about the muddled state of the current legislative landscape, that the EHRC feels would be beneficially clarified by introducing a biological definition of sex, but then she included a paragraph in the piece which confuses me (I’m bolding the text that confuses me most):

'We know some trans people are worried that a biological definition of sex would undermine their rights. It is essential to understand that this change would not affect trans people who do not have GRCs. Nor would it remove the vital protection from discrimination and harassment because of gender reassignment that is guaranteed to trans people by the Act, which we will always act to defend and uphold.

Currently, according to the census, about 0.5 per cent of the adult population - 262,000 people — identify as trans, but only about 7,000 of them hold a GRC. A biological definition of sex would be a potential diminution of GRC holder rights only in exceptional circumstances.'

I don’t know what Faulkner is saying here:

• is she saying people without GRCs don't have opposite sex rights anyway so they lose nothing by a changed definition of sex to biological?
• when she mentions 'exceptional circumstances' - are hospital wards, prisons, refuges, toilets, changing rooms considered to be covered by these exceptional circumstances and will be single-sex with a clarified definition in the legislation or are they somehow still open to GRC holders?

I’d be grateful if someone could have a go at clearing up my (or her) confusion, please. 🙏

She added there was a 'current lack of a definition' over the term 'sex' in the Equality Act, which means the EHRC has 'taken the position that a trans woman with a GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate), for example, is in principle entitled to access women’s spaces such as a hospital ward, a woman’s changing room, and so on'.

Baroness Falkner acknowledged 'this is contested', writing: 'Some people think this cannot be the meaning of "woman" in the Equality Act. Having considered this in detail, we agree.

and

The EHRC said there was also a clear need to evolve the language used in the 2010 act, which “refers to trans people as ‘transsexuals’, and uses the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ at times interchangeably, with the requirement on employers to report ‘gender pay gaps’ in fact a duty to report on pay differences according to the protected characteristic of sex”.

The EHRC are saying that the sex should be updated so that there is an explicit legal definition of sex along the lines of biological sex and that the language in the act is problematic precisely because of this bullshit of conflating the word gender with sex.

The recommendation seems to suggest that there should be precisely that sex and gender are treated as entirely separate things and that gender identity will have protections in certain situations but sex will have its own protections clearly laid out to prevent the use of 'Stonewall Law' to railroad women and organisations into a marginalised position. Basically, the position would mean that the sex based provisions ALREADY written into the Equality Act would be firmed up. It would mean that places would have to provide nuanced positions and demostrate EVERYONE was being safeguarded AND treated fairly. It seems to suggest that the loophole that allows GRC holders to access single sex provisions for their gender rather than biological sex, would no longer be there in these explicit situations (eg prisons, domestic violence shelters, hospitals - and this would apply to employees as well as vulnerable women.)

It will be interesting to see where this goes, but it suggests that the direction of travel would NOT be to change either the EA or the GRA in essence but to explicitly spell out the law as it stands so it can't be highjacked or misinterpreted.

RedToothBrush · Today 16:07
It will be interesting to see where this goes, but it suggests that the direction of travel would NOT be to change either the EA or the GRA in essence but to explicitly spell out the law as it stands so it can't be highjacked or misinterpreted.

That is what I had thought the original intention was.

But not everyone interpreted that loophole as a loophole. I take it Lady Haldane didn’t. Someone posted the Hansard transcript of the GRA HoL debate the other day and some of those speaking definitely would have wanted transwomen in female only wards. Warnings about sports were ignored too.

The outrage of outrages is that the people who made that dreadful act also created the exception that a lord’s eldest daughter can’t change sex and inherit an estate; but in practice it would be fine for a man to ‘change’ sex then go on a women’s ward and rape someone and have the police be told no man had been on the ward (because of Annexe B rules).

Sorry, that was not clear. These are the loopholes mentioned by RedToothBrush

It seems to suggest that the loophole that allows GRC holders to access single sex provisions for their gender rather than biological sex, would no longer be there in these explicit situations (eg prisons, domestic violence shelters, hospitals - and this would apply to employees as well as vulnerable women.)

I have not seen which MP said it was ok for single sex wards to be populated by penis havers, was this Lammy by any chance?

https://medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

It was Andrew Lansley that signed off the single sex/gender mash up.

When I first became a teacher and taught sex education, the resources I used had ‘gender:’ on a question form. I altered it to be ‘sex:’. I thought being biologically correct was better and pleased with the change.

On getting the anonymous question forms back, some pupils had written yes or no instead of female or male.
A lesson for me! I don’t know which way the pupils meant it (probably a mixture of both and as jokes) but shows how having too many meanings for the word mean that gender is still used for sex.

I crossed out ‘gender’ and wrote ‘sex’ on a medical form the other day. But this had male and female boxes which at least was clearer!

I think some of the confusion was clear in a HoL debate on single sex provisions. There was an amendment by BNOW or Lord Blencathra saying effectively no male inmates in women’s prisons. Lord Pannick (a very experienced lawyer) spoke against citing the idea of a TW who had had SRS many years before etc etc. LB pointed out that no male in the female estate at the time had had SRS. I think a lot of MPs have the idea that most or all TW have had SRS and that informs their debating position. As it has become increasingly clear that the vast majority are intact males the argument is beginning to shift.

https://twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1052297882303311872
When the "Abolishing Mixed Sex Wards" Policy was introduced in 2010 by the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, it was heralded with:
"It should be more than an expectation, it should be a requirement that patients who are admitted should be admitted to single-sex accommodation”
....

I Wonder why parents talk about 'gender' reveals rather than 'sex' reveals?

The same impulse that made Victorians put frills on piano legs.

🤣

I have not seen which MP said it was ok for single sex wards to be populated by penis havers, was this Lammy by any chance?
No one in that HoL said that specifically, but there people there wanting transsexuals to be treated in every way as the sex they said they were, refusing to think through the consequences, and ignoring others giving prescient warnings.

😂😂

Redtoothbrush I’m just guessing.. but is Falkner really saying that the GRA holders technically have not had rights under EqA to do loads of the things that Stonelaw has said they were entitled to. Therefore, legally normalising the exemptions, rather than as now requiring each service provider to do a case by case assessment and a justification is not going to change much in practice?
If so she’s legally technically correct there, but its a bit disingenuous to say that it’s not going to make much difference to GRA holders or men who don’t hold a GRC if that’s what she means.

I mean we wouldn’t be signing petitions to get the EqA clarified in the first place, if in practice there wasn’t effective self ID in the UK via GRA…. Which EqA has failed to protect women’s single sex spaces, sports, healthcare, prisons, education and opportunities from. Self ID arises as an extension of the thinking that supports the GRA as a way to change legal sex. As we all know in practice, you can never ask to see a GRC or be told it exists etc etc under the GRA. Any man in the ladies lavatories might have one… better not challenge him in case he brings a lawsuit. etc

Honestly I’m glad that you posted that quote because I am not going to hope for too much now. Without the GRA being touched as part of this, genuine question, what’s the real difference for women going to be, in practice?

I just think there’s a lot more hard questions that need to be asked about how how it will possibly work as a genuine reform to reform the EqA if we set out at the start of the review that we cannot possibly reform the GRA at the same time.

This was the excellent Twitter thread about the HoL discussing the dreadful worst act ever GRA in 2004

https://twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1049289194370002945

Look at what Baroness Caithain tried to say at the time yet we nevertheless had to have Maya Forstater’s court case all these years later.

Let’s stick with the word sex which means the category of reproductive capability of humans. And most living things that require some kind of sexual reproduction to continue to exist.

It is the fact that ‘gender’ was used initially that lowered the awareness of these changes being made in the first place.

That is chilling scrolling

It is the fact that ‘gender’ was used initially that lowered the awareness of these changes being made in the first place.

Why has the English language changed how gender is used?

In German the word 'Geschlecht' (gender) continues to be used to define whether someone or something is male or female.

It's because German is a gendered language while English is ungendered except where gender is inherited from sex or the noun is a big boys' toy.