How would I prove I'm a woman?

[OliverKitten]

Posting in here because I think you lot seem to know quite a bit about the rules around all this stuff, hope that's ok!

Say there was a counselling group near me for natal women only, and they had decided it was proportionate under the EA to exclude men identifying as women because of the content. But say I am a very masculine looking woman (and yes I know it's almost always easy to tell what sex people are, but there are a very very small percentage of people with whom it's trickier) and the organisers challenge me. What document can I easily get to prove my sex? Not passport, driving licence, as they can be changed with a GRC I think? I think also that there is nothing on my birth certificate which distinguishes me from someone who is a man who has had his birth certificate changed to say he is a woman.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/registration/gender-recognition says that the Scottish gov maintains a confidential record of who had a previous birth cert registered with a different sex, but this is not available to the public so I couldn't use this.

Is it possible for me to prove my sex under the current system in Scotland (short of medical exam)? Or is it completely impossible now?

Apart from the above type of scenario, which is hypothetical, I can't think of why I would ever need to prove my sex in a real life situation, but somehow I feel like I should be able to, if I wanted to!

TRA have gaslit everyone into believing "you can never tell" and that masculine lesbians are constantly getting chucked out of female loos.

It's bullshit.

Take this one, for example.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2022/10/31/cis-woman-harassed-transphobe-female-toilet-short-hair/

Do they think we were born yesterday?

I will add this woman being mistaken for a man to the list of "things that have never happened".

And yes I know it's a video. A video of trans activists play acting.

@MargotBamborough

I'm not talking about going to your GP though the usual booking an appointment, I'm talking about an on call GP for this very purpose. Even normal GP surgeries have on call doctors for emergencies. The police also have on call doctors available. These are for emergency purposes where immediate care is necessary.
Hypothetically let's say a woman has been domestically abused or raped. First contact will be with the police. The police already call an emergency on call doctor and specialist officers to deal with this sort of crime. The doctor is called in and a few things happen. Medical aid is given by the doctor to the woman. The doctor will assess and record any injuries that the woman has suffered. I'm assuming if the woman has been raped that as part of the medical examination they may even take semen samples as traumatic as that probably is. The medical care and examination as well as providing care to the woman also provides fresh and very strong evidence to the police for prosecution of the perpetrator.
All of this up to now happens already as is. At this point, the doctor could ask the woman if she wants shelter at a women's refuge, I believe this too already happens. Beira's place could be on that list of refuges, with the understanding they only accept females.
The doctor has already examined the woman. The doctor knows what sex they are. It's happening inside a police station. Any TRA who starts threatening the doctor is doing so inside a police station. I don't see them getting very far with this.

I've never felt the need for constrictive underwear, makeup or a hairdresser to prove my womanhood; but it doesn't bother me that other women do and so many men count on it.

I have met several women appear quite masculine at first meeting, but 5 minutes in its pretty obvious that they are female. The way they walk is a big give away plus the lack of Adams apple, difference in jawline, etc etc

Arabella was the implication that the gynaecologist couldn’t tell they were a man - or was just admiring their neo vagina?!

Whichever, 😱

It's obvious, just look at Dylan Mulvaney. You are a woman if you have no hips, no breasts, wear pink and lots of bows in your hair, flap your hands around and giggle annoyingly.

How tall are you and what's your hip/waist ratio?

Things like hand and foot size are also almost always a giveaway.

🤣🤣🤣

I've never given birth so have no scar.

Does this make me a man?

I think the fact that we are all generally tolerant, polite and respectful towards men dressed as women convinces them they are actually 'passing' as women and that we don't know.

We do; we're just being kind. And then we suffer the consequences.

a serious point so forgive the slightly frivolous answer - show them your hpv scar.

Obviously not. You will have other ways to prove it, but childbirth is one, blatant proof

I would show them my payslip and ask them to compare it to a male bodied person doing the same job. good one @Itcouldhappenabishop!

How about if the birth certificate database (there must be one) is changed to hold both sex and gender, with gender initially set to be the same as sex (I know we don't believe in gender, but stick with me...). Gender could be changed using a GRA, sex never changes.

Birth certificates can be issued in different 'flavours' - ie including either sex or gender or both (clearly saying which it is of course). People can request whichever flavour they want when they get a new copy of their birth certificate.

People wanting to be supportive can choose to use the 'gender-only' flavour, and probably this becomes the norm. But in order to access single-sex services you need one which includes sex - which is easily available by just requesting that 'flavour'. And anyone who really needs the information (like prison services, and arguably gps, and for recording sex-disagreggated stats) can also see that information - but it isn't available to the general public. (personally I think that 'outing' trans people shouldn't be considered a problem these days, but that secrecy is still possible with this system)

The neat thing about this solution is that from an IT point of view you don't actually need to change everything as a big-bang. You start holding the extra data - but anything which depends on only having one sex/gender value can keep working using gender - since this matches current legal practice with the GRA. And you can decide on a case-by-case basis where you want to use sex instead and switch over when you're ready. And in fact, once everything has been looked at carefully and changed to sex where appropriate, then self-id is actually much less of a problem to implement - because you're holding both, and already using sex rather than gender where it matters.

I think self-id of gender does actually become possible, providing the immutability of sex is maintained - and there's a careful analysis of which should be considered in each situation.

There's actually a very serious point to be made here, which is that if you are a woman of childbearing age who believes she has been discriminated against professionally due to her sex, and you want to make an equal pay claim but the person you wish to compare yourself to benefited from 30 years of male privilege before transitioning and getting a gender recognition certificate, you cannot demonstrate that there is someone of the opposite sex getting paid more than you for doing the same job.

That's why the Equality Act really needs clarifying to ensure that sex means biological sex and not legal sex.

Can you name a situation in which gender is relevant?

My mum was born a woman and gave birth to three children. Challenged in the ladies on more than one occasion. I wish I could track down those women who abused her.

For trans people primarily.

But what about those of us who haven't had Caesareans?

100%.

I mean a situation affecting society in general.

Is there any situation where society differentiates between men and women, where the relevant distinction is gender rather than sex?

Can you tell us more?