I'm not sorry I left the UCU

[DisappearingGirl]

Their statement yesterday:
https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/12871/University-and-College-Union-statement-on-Equality-Act-review-and-EHRC-advice

And on Twitter ...
https://twitter.com/ucu/status/1646471534519762944

Here's the statement:

University and College Union statement on Equality Act review and EHRC advice
13 April 2023

The University and College Union (UCU) has raised serious concerns about government plans to review the Equality Act and the advice given by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

In a statement UCU said:

"The Government's plan to review the Equality Act 2010, with a mind to change existing provisions in relation to sex and gender, is an attack on the limited rights and protections to which trans people are currently entitled.

Changing the understanding of 'sex' to refer solely to 'biological sex' would effectively eradicate the ability of trans people to gain full legal recognition for their gender identity. This flies in the face of established UCU policy in favour of self-identification, and would enable acts of discrimination against trans and non-binary people to go unchallenged.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is there to protect and uphold the rights of all groups who face discrimination. This must include trans and non-binary people, but at the moment the EHRC is failing in this part of its remit. It's advice to the government on this issue has highlighted a number of ways in which trans people would be excluded as a result of the changes being considered.

Time and again, the Tory Government has shown itself to be against trans and non-binary inclusion - from blocking the path of Gender Recognition Act (GRA) reform in Scotland to their manufactured culture war against the trans community, one the of the UK's smallest and most vulnerable groups.
No legislation is perfect, but seeking to change an established law in a way that would actively remove rights from a marginalised group is deeply troubling. UCU is clear that the existing legal protections for trans people within the Equality Act 2010 must be retained and the government's attempts to sow further division must be resisted.

We are also clear that our own union is an inclusive one which recognises that trans men are men, trans women are women and non-binary people's identities are valid. We are committed to inclusive spaces and practices and will continue to fight for the rights of our trans and non-binary members (for more information see our trans and non-binary inclusion statement)."

***

(P.S. I would recommend not opening the "inclusion statement". It is the biggest pile of nonsensical waffle since Judith Butler's last Guardian article)

Well they won't be above the law if their staff raise discrimination claims in line with the amended EA ie on sex not gender.

Or if they required to report on sex pay gaps not gender ones

Let's see how vocal they are then

The Trade Unions are a disgrace these days. My father was a Labour member and full-time civil service trade union official. He has been dead less than a decade but he would not believe what misogynistic organisations Trade Unions have turned into.

The Government's plan to review the Equality Act 2010, with a mind to change existing provisions in relation to sex and gender, is an attack on the limited rights and protections to which trans people are currently entitled.
What is limited? All the signs at demos saying 'Trans rights now' never specify what rights they want or don't have, and theis statement doesn't even hint at what limits are in place...

But why do they believe this garbage? Surely it is their members' subscriptions which are funding the Trade Unions and they in turn they are funding (making political donations) the Labour Party.

UCU is now not going to work for women who are material women the old type, if they have a case based on sex-discrimination? But will work for those in the 0.4% or less who are in the gender identity secular religion?

Interesting. It's pretty much like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which refuses to take cases for what they call 'cis' women. One of the founders was a quite important material feminist and would certainly do a few spins in her grave if that was a thing.

The Equality Act only needs to be rewritten because Stonewall and Keir Starmer et al have taken its original intent out of context and deliberately misquoted it.
When it was passed, no one doubted that there were only 2 sexes and most people thought sex and gender were interchangeable words. Maybe Labour had a cunning plan at the time to obfuscate but who would have thought that organisations would have had their funding tied to including men in women only spaces in the name of trans inclusion.

The Equality Act only needs to be rewritten because Stonewall and Keir Starmer et al have taken its original intent out of context and deliberately misquoted it.

Exactly! It's really disingenuous to suggest the government are suddenly "changing the understanding of 'sex' to refer solely to 'biological sex'". It always meant biological sex FFS! There was no other meaning until people started obfuscating common words!

an attack on the limited rights and protections to which trans people are currently entitled

What rights and protections are limited??? Seems that TW have a lot more rights than actual women do 🙄🙄🙄 What a load of bollicksy waffle.

Yes. This.

What was the alternative union again? I know some in academics corner mentioned one a while ago?

As others have said the whole situation is created by false information being spread by Stonewall etc., ie that sex and gender are the same, so that you gullible people probably do think that rights are being taken away, because they are so full of themselves they cant accept they were taken in and lied to.

And the worse part is the institutions that have colluded in this deception.

An illlustration of their sense of being better informed and more important is the statement flies in the face of established UCU policy as thought they have more status in terms of the law than the law itself and the Government.

And of course illustrates once again that one of the reasons the trans narrative ever got and still has such traction is the total lack of any thought that women also have rights.

If it wasn't so serious you would want to laugh. That a whole generation has grown up thinking their own very narrow (ie they haven't been alive that long) view of the world is THE view of the world. I sometimes want to be able to say to them, if you have younger siblings or cousins who are wrapped up in a child's view of the world, do you go of course what I think and know is immaterial, because that is what they are saying. Forget you 10, 20, 30 years and more experience of the world, we know better than you, and you must live your life by our belief set.

UCU has become a parody of what a union should be. Perhaps the biologist union members weren't available when the recent statement was being drawn up. Anyway, the UCU statement has reminded me to do a little bit of digging on Jo Phoenix's allotment.

IwantToRetire I know, that annoyed me too! So pompous. "This flies in the face of another ridiculous thing we said earlier"