Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told

[Igneococcus]

Sorry can't do sharetoken on this device, I'll do one later if nobody else posts one.
Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told (thetimes.co.uk)

What an utter mess this all is.

"Prentis said that a blanket ban would be unlawful because the Equalities Act states that gender reassignment is a “protected characteristic”, regardless of age. She gave the same advice when ministers asked whether there could be a ban on social transitioning for primary school children."

Yes, but my point was that if the teachers are told not to change pronouns for children, then they won't be colluding in this with the children, and children who don't want to use those pronouns won't be punished for recognising reality - they will have the option of saying they don't believe in gender.

What groups of children do and say amongst themselves doesn't matter, as long as there is no bullying or other inappropriate behaviour.

(I'm not sure if you were just agreeing with me, as you seem to be saying the same as me.)

The EA also applies to schools and children. The protected characteristic of sex, for example, is as important in schools as it is in the workplace.

In their efforts not to break the law around the PC of gender reassignment in the EA, they're breaking the law around the PC of sex in the EA.

Apparently women and girls don't matter. Only males with a gender identity are important.

Don't think this is quite right though?

For example, you have a protected right to believe that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to get married, or that gay marriages aren't really marriages. But if you loudly insisted on telling your gay married colleagues that they weren't really married or were living in sin, HR could probably legitimately discipline you for harassment or bullying.

The right not to be discriminated for having a belief, is not the same as an absolute right to express that belief in the workplace.

Repealing the GRA would require us to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Is that really your position?

My priority is women and girls and always will be.

That is not up for negotiation

Question back to you. Males use violence against women who speak up - is condoning that really your position

If not how will you resolve the clash of rights?

Would it? Do you have any evidence to back this up?

No, of course that's not my position. But I haven't said anything to suggest that I do support violence against women.

On the other hand, you have said you want to repeal the GRA. The Government could only do that from outside the ECHR. Which would mean that the UK would join Belarus and, I think, Russia now, as the only European countries outside the ECHR.

Gillian Keegan has made a statement which indicates she is finally taking this seriously:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2023-07-20/hcws983

“In the meantime, schools and colleges should proceed with extreme caution. They should always involve parents in decisions relating to their child, and should not agree to any changes that they are not absolutely confident are in the best interests of that child and their peers. They should prioritise safeguarding by meeting their existing legal duties to protect single sex spaces and maintain safety and fairness in single sex sport.”

So you think that someone can't be discriminated against for believing in gender or not believing in gender, but they don't have the absolute right to express that belief in the workplace?

Is that true? Do people not have the right to say that they believe or don't believe in gender? What is wrong is compelling others to participate in your belief. So people shouldn't be compelled to use wrong-sex pronouns for example if they don't believe in gender.

There's lots of jurisprudence from the European Court of Human Rights - the seminal case was actually a case in 2002 that was taken against the UK. That established that some means of legally changing gender must be made available.

The case law has evolved since then, including to find that rules that require, for example, sterilisation before gender recognition are contrary to the ECHR.

https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/fs_gender_identity_eng

Case law is detailed at the link above. The GRA is already pretty much at the limited of what is required by the ECHR (indeed, I think the jurisprudence might evolve in the future to find that requirements for a medical diagnosis also breach ECHR rights, but the court hasn't reached that point yet).

Actually you are the one not quoting very well.

This was my post

It does seem the GRA unleashed all this

If you want to quote a post that states repeal you’ll need to scroll again and find someone else.

On the ECHR if we diverge to the extent women and girls are deprioritised then I think we should question that. If that means they reassess then good. If not I’ll consider what stance I’d take.

The European Convention on Human Rights applies to the 46 member states of the Council of Europe. According to this report from the ECHR last year, only 38 of them had a legal or administrative procedure for legal gender recognition, so this is not a requirement to be a member.

https://coe.int/en/web/sogi/-/new-report-on-legal-gender-recognition-in-europe

Well yes, none of us have an absolute right to express our beliefs in the workplace.

That's just a statement of the law as it stands.

Have a think about the logical implications if the right to express beliefs in the workplace was absolute.

There is a practical difference between not taking active steps to comply with an international obligation, and taking active steps to contravene an international obligation.

Ministers and Civil Servants are prevented from doing anything that breaks the law. Including international law.

Repealing (or weakening significantly) the GRA would break international law. The only way it would not break international law is if the UK were to leave the ECHR - so until that happens, UK ministers and civil servants would not be able to progress the legislation to do so (at least not within the terms of the Ministerial and Civil Service Codes).

Sorry if I got your view wrong. You were responding to a poster who was talking about scrapping the GRA and you didn't correct them, so assumed that was your view.

If you don't want to scrap the GRA, fine. There's no particular ECHR issue at play.

But if you did want to, or wanted to weaken it to the point that it was no longer consistent with the ECHR, then that couldn't be done while we remain in the ECHR.

The GRA was a solution to the breaches of rights found in Goodwin. Legal recognition as the opposite sex is not a right in itself.

We now have equal marriage, equal pension age and the GDPR which robustly protects everyone's private data. The GRA is obsolete. It's no longer necessary in order to protect the rights that were found to be breached in Goodwin.

The Goodwin case in 2002 did not establish that some means of legally changing gender must be made available. The requirement was that the male applicant should be allowed to marry their male partner.

A law allowing same sex marriage would have complied with this requirement. We now have this, so the GRA is redundant for this purpose.

There was also an issue around the different pension age for men and women, but this now the same for both sexes in the UK, so not relevant.

In my previous link you'll see that some countries which have legal gender recognition still require sterilisation. They are still in the CoE.

I haven’t posted repeal the GRA but others have.

Although I do think we have an issue around divergence. As international law takes one path and we may want to prioritise women and girls and sex based rights, yes we have a fracturing of approaches

I can’t willing subscribe to gender ideology even if every nation signs up to it. I find it so damaging for women.

I get it’s problematic and difficult but I’d want conversations around what happens next due to the divergence rather than not have any divergence at all.

We could be one of the few countries that retains sex based rights. I don’t look to say NZ or Canada and think that is a good outcome for women and girls.

Repealing (or weakening significantly) the GRA would break international law.

Can you post a link to this legislation?

But Goodwin wasn’t decided on those specific issues. The Court has consistently refused to find a right for gay couples to marry, so it would be pretty odd for them to find a right to gender recognition to facilitate two people of the same biological sex marrying.

And the principles in Goodwin have been reaffirmed in many much more recent cases. The right to legal gender change is still very much part of the extant ECHR jurisprudence (in fact it has broadened in the last 20 years).

International law isn’t set out in legislation. It is set out, in this case, in the ECHR and its case law which I linked to upthread.

So the UK could repeal the GRA, then someone could take this to the ECHR as a breach of their human rights? Is that how it works? (IANAL, obviously.)

Theoretically Parliament could.

The Government could not however. That means civil servants can’t draft the legislation or do any of the usual processes to secure its passage. Doing so would be contrary to international law and so prohibited by the Ministerial and Civil Service codes.

The applicant claimed a breach of Article 12 (the right to marry).

From the judgment:
95. The applicant complained that although she currently enjoyed a full physical relationship with a man, she and her partner could not marry because the law treated her as a man.

The UK government could have complied with article 12 by legalising same sex marriage.

Full judgment here if you've got some time to spare.
https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-60596%22]}