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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Daughters excluded from peerage due to gender outraged by trans woman standing for Lords seat

82 replies

SerendipityJane · 14/05/2023 10:18

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1657651853725761537

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1657651853725761537

OP posts:
Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 14/05/2023 11:34

KittyAlfred · 14/05/2023 11:29

I don’t understand - I thought women were allowed in the House of Lords?

They are, but they have to be appointed , or enrolled as one of the judiciary or religious peers.

this is about the pathetic hangover of hereditary peers, who are entitled * by sex.

  • entitled in three senses!
Ofcourseshecan · 14/05/2023 11:34

Thanks for this clear explanation of why the lunatic GRA became law. I never heard of it till years later, despite trying to keep up with feminist news (I hadn’t yet discovered Mumsnet).

Did politicians imagine that normal gay people would claim to be the opposite sex in order to marry? Or that the public would be happier with men in women’s changing rooms etc than with gay marriage?

Needmoresleep · 14/05/2023 11:37

Aren’t the Freemasons the same. They accept transwomen but not biological women.

Because, obviously, sex matters.

Mytholmroyd · 14/05/2023 11:39

Gah - this makes me so angry but it is an example where clear male privilege is unrefutable to illustrate the bonkersness that is GI

CurlewKate · 14/05/2023 11:40

Has a trans boy applied to Eton yet?

IDontWantToBeAPie · 14/05/2023 11:44

I think they either need to obey the rules that apply and award Lady Simons peerage to her elder sister as the inheritor now she only has a sister.

Or change the rule and allow women too. One or the other. Can't have neither.

drhf · 14/05/2023 12:00

Quick correction to the history of LG/B and T rights under Labour: Labour did introduce civil partnerships in 2004 (not the Tories). It was marriage they thought was a step too far. The GRA was also 2004.

ResisterRex · 14/05/2023 12:04

I'm always surprised that civil partnerships are looked back on with no negativity. IIRC, Stonewall pushed them a lot, and ignored dissenting LGB views (L in particular) who didn't want them - or marriage.

But even if you did want equality, CPs were not equality. They were like apartheid for homosexuals.

Between the GRA and CPs, it stuns me that these were Labour "party of equality" actions.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2023 12:07

drhf · 14/05/2023 12:00

Quick correction to the history of LG/B and T rights under Labour: Labour did introduce civil partnerships in 2004 (not the Tories). It was marriage they thought was a step too far. The GRA was also 2004.

Thanks, my memory was at fault there. That makes it even odder. The person who went to the ECHR could have had a civil partnership. I know there are differences between CPs and marriage, but to most intents and purposes they're the same in the legal protection and ties they create.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2023 12:11

ResisterRex · 14/05/2023 12:04

I'm always surprised that civil partnerships are looked back on with no negativity. IIRC, Stonewall pushed them a lot, and ignored dissenting LGB views (L in particular) who didn't want them - or marriage.

But even if you did want equality, CPs were not equality. They were like apartheid for homosexuals.

Between the GRA and CPs, it stuns me that these were Labour "party of equality" actions.

Typical political compromise that pleases nobody, I suppose. Then we had the prolonged argument that heterosexual couples should be entitled to get a CP too. I'd rather we had a simple clear system that applies to everybody that stresses that getting married is not primarily about weddings, it's about creating a legal bond between two partners which they have consciously decided to opt into so they are both protected if the relationship breaks down or when one of them dies. It isn't right for everyone, which is why I wouldn't be happy if cohabiting couples were treated as having a common law marriage.

WildishBambino · 14/05/2023 12:17

Two disgraces going on.

Transwoman keeping their title squired as a male.

The seat of Parliament being given guidance to ignore the Equality Act Sex based exceptions

Three disgraces if you count being able to sit in the House of Lords and legislate merely due to your aristocratic birth.

ScrollingLeaves · 14/05/2023 12:38

Three disgraces if you count being able to sit in the House of Lords and legislate merely due to your aristocratic birth

True but manoeuvring pals getting gongs are as bad or worse.

1offnamechange · 14/05/2023 12:46

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 14/05/2023 10:50

Couldn't it force them to accept women too?

Of course not. This isn't the sudden reveal of an accidental consequence - it was specifically written into the GRA legislation that transition in either direction wouldn't affect hereditary male titles. They set things up this way on purpose.

so if an eldest son of a duke decides he is actually a woman, that's fine, he will still inherit over his older sisters? Because for the purposes of the GRA he's legally still a man?
But if one of his older sisters decides she's actually a woman she CAN'T inherit? Because she's legally still a woman?

How does that make any sense, fairness or even fall in line with the TRA mantra that TWAW, TWAM???

I really don't understand why they didn't just change the law to allow first born children regardless of sex to inherit titles at the same time as they changed it for the royal family (just before Prince George was born, I think?).

BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn · 14/05/2023 12:55

so if an eldest son of a duke decides he is actually a woman, that's fine, he will still inherit over his older sisters? Because for the purposes of the GRA he's legally still a man?
But if one of his older sisters decides she's actually a woman she CAN'T inherit? Because she's legally still a woman?

Yes, that's exactly it.

dcbc1234 · 14/05/2023 13:17

'I really don't understand why they didn't just change the law to allow first born children regardless of sex to inherit titles at the same time as they changed it for the royal family (just before Prince George was born, I think?).'

Fancy the Royals leading the way. This is what needs to happen but as with the Royals it will not be retrospective. Seems fairest all round but there is a danger that in making the change some wealthy aristocratic families will seek to ensure a first born male by IVF type means so that would be 'unintended negative consequences' of a change in fairness to both sexes.

PatatiPatatras · 14/05/2023 13:40

Not too scared to sit on the benches with peers. Just too scared to go to the loos with them. Hmm.
Yeah nonsense.

PriOn1 · 14/05/2023 13:44

I’m just pleased to see this has been picked up by the Telegraph. It’s so inherently unfair that it is impossible to deny that unfairness. The more light that is shone on the travesty that is the GRA, the better. I hope more press outlets will jump in as well.

SageHoney · 14/05/2023 13:45

The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 apparently took a long time to plan and implement because of the need for agreement among the other Commonwealth countries which also have the UK Monarch as Head of State, some of which had to pass their own laws to allow/reflect the change. A change of rules for titles of nobility should be a cakewalk in comparison.

And we already know that a penis is NOT required to discharge one's duties in the HoL, as there have been life peers and Scottish hereditary peers who are women. (Although even the hereditary peerages that allow women to inherit still give preference to sons over daughters regardless of birth order.) The poor dear Baron should not have to resort to "boy mode" just to sit in Parliament!! The whole system is archaic, even more than it needs to be.

I always wonder why TRAs aren't vocally opposing this transphobic system, demanding that the special exceptions for hereditary peerages and religious orders be abolished?

Forwarder · 14/05/2023 13:51

Have spotted another privilege: Lady Simon graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, before becoming a lecturer at Manchester University. Now a furniture maker, she describes herself online as a feminist, socialist and LGBT+ advocate.

The ladylord gets to call theirself a feminist too while pushing them's sister out of her inheritance 😂🤣

HollywoodTease · 14/05/2023 13:53

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2023 12:07

Thanks, my memory was at fault there. That makes it even odder. The person who went to the ECHR could have had a civil partnership. I know there are differences between CPs and marriage, but to most intents and purposes they're the same in the legal protection and ties they create.

Wasn't that "person" Stephen Whittle rather than a mtf?

namitynamechange · 14/05/2023 14:18

Forwarder · 14/05/2023 13:51

Have spotted another privilege: Lady Simon graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, before becoming a lecturer at Manchester University. Now a furniture maker, she describes herself online as a feminist, socialist and LGBT+ advocate.

The ladylord gets to call theirself a feminist too while pushing them's sister out of her inheritance 😂🤣

And a socialist!!! 😂

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2023 14:41

HollywoodTease · 14/05/2023 13:53

Wasn't that "person" Stephen Whittle rather than a mtf?

I can't say for sure. I've been confused about this in the past as I read somewhere that the applicant was a transman but someone on this board who seemed very clued up said no, it was a transwoman. I've found this online and that seems to confirm it was a transwoman called Christine Goodwin, although possibly the facts were not quite as I thought, as the judgement seems to be about a theoretical right to marry. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to learn that Whittle had also taken to the courts. https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/fs_gender_identity_eng.pdf

Shelefttheweb · 14/05/2023 14:42

But would his sisters ever be entitled to inherit? Or would it go to a male cousin?

Just came across this: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/women-hereditary-peerages-and-gender-inequality-in-the-line-of-succession/

BonfireLady · 14/05/2023 15:11

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 14/05/2023 10:54

We've said this before, but it bears repetition. Way back in the early 2000s a UK national went all the way through the courts and ended up at the European Court of Human Rights seeking the legal right to marry their partner, and won. The person concerned was male, identified as a woman, and wanted to marry a man. This was impossible at the time because birth certificates were required and same sex marriage was not allowed in law.

One way round this would have been to introduce same-sex marriage, but the Labour government felt the UK public was not ready to accept that. (A mistake, I think. Civil partnerships were very readily accepted a few years later when the Tories introduced them.)

Instead, they drew up the Gender Recognition Act, making it possible for people with a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria to apply to a panel for permission to get a new birth certificate showing the sex they identified with, not their actual biological sex as recorded on their original birth certificate.

Like most British people, I was barely aware this was happening at the time. The House of Commons and the House of Lords had to debate the proposed new law but they weren't given a lot of time to do it, because the government had a big majority at the time and knew they could get this through with minimal opposition. Some MPs and Lords did raise concerns, all recorded in Hansard, but the government's response was (more or less) that this was scaremongering. They were doing this to be kind to a tiny minority of people. Their own experts said there were unlikely to be more than 5000 people in the whole of the UK who would qualify for a gender recognition certificate. They were spot on there, as in nearly 20 years it's been barely more than that issued altogether, I believe.

However, what the government had totally failed to grasp was that activists regarded the GRA as a foot in the door and never intended to stop there, and of course they didn't, as we have seen in the last few years. Self-ID was always the goal, and if you take away the safeguards of panel, psychiatric reports, gender dysphoria diagnosis and so on, and the effect of social media and social contagion, suddenly there are hundreds of thousands of people who don't identify as their birth sex.

Anyway, going back to the debates - having waved aside all concerns about single-sex services and spaces, women's sport, integrity of birth records etc etc - Parliament did make at least one amendment to the GRA before it passed into law. Getting a GRC would have no effect whatsoever on the individual's right to inherit a peerage.

Suppose Lord Marmaduke Bloggs has three children: daughter Araminta, son Josiah, son Ebenezer, born in that order. Josiah is the one in line to inherit the title, as the elder son. If Josiah predeceased Marmaduke, Ebenezer would inherit. Araminta has no chance, because she is a girl. Ludicrous system all round, but that's what we have.

Now suppose in adult life Josiah identifies as trans and takes the name Josie Bloggs. Josie gets a GRC and has a new birth certificate showing that Josie Bloggs is female. Marmaduke dies. It might have been expected that the title would now pass to Ebenezer. Josiah is legally female for all purposes now, after all - but no! Legally female for all purposes, except inheritance of a title! So the title that couldn't pass to Araminta still goes to Josie.

And naturally enough, if Araminta also got a GRC and became Aramis Bloggs, certified male - yes, you've guessed it. Still not entitled to inherit a title, in spite of being legally male and older than Josie.

What a farce.

A helpful summary.

And a helpful illustration about what happens when people don't recognise that a threshold has been crossed. Whether they are asleep at the wheel or don't have the inclination to think more deeply i.e. they haven't thought through all in impacts of a decision or have waved away any attempts to to that.

Thankfully, there is much more awareness now of how to spot these threshold breaches, and plenty of examples of the impact of it being done: Isla Bryson being a great one with lots of public attention. Awareness of children's safety and fairness and safety in sports is also on the rise significantly.

The Equality Act debate in parliament on 12th June promises to be a good one I think. Unlike the previous apathy you've described that allowed the "scope creep".

As for the peerage exemption, farcical indeed. Hopefully someone in the press will hold it up as such. Just like Nicola Sturgeon had to concede that Isla Bryson could be a woman in some ways but not in others, against her own standards of womanhood, during that fantastically cringy interview. I can't remember who did the interview (a journalist on Channel 4) but I'm sure he could go in with the same killer question style regarding the peerage exemption.

Trans women and trans men deserve to live free of discrimination and hate, from anyone who doesn't have a belief in gender identity and anyone who does. But that shouldn't have any bearing on sex-based laws. Hopefully the debate on the 12th will conclude as such and then we can all move on towards something much more positive all round e.g. third spaces.