ECHR as the next battleground for the rights of women and children

[Ingenieur]

I have started this thread to avoid derailing a previous one.

Original thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4852476-tougher-transgender-guidance-for-schools-is-unlawful-sunak-told?page=1

It was suggested there that the ECHR would be an impediment to rescinding or fundamentally changing the GRA or the gender reassignment parts of the Equality Act. This is on the basis that membership of the European Convention on Human Rights would not permit the unwinding of existing rights, even if it does not force member nations to comply.

I know most of us do not practise law, and even fewer are international or constitutional lawyers, but I'd like to understand more of the nuance surrounding this aspect of our fight.

As a starter for 10, is this even true? Is leaving the ECHR the only solition to unwinding these laws?

Also, looking at the ECHR summary of the Goodwin case, it states the following:

Since there [we]re no significant factors of public interest to weigh against the interest of this individual applicant in obtaining legal recognition of her gender re-assignment, the Court reache[d] the conclusion that the notion of fair balance inherent in the Convention now tilt[ed] decisively in favour of the applicant.

It is astonishing that a case which overturned a number of previous ECHR Article 8 and Article 12 cases was judged on the basis of public interest, and that no public interest was noted.

Seems like a bit of a mess.

So if you could have a society where people know you can’t change sex, no forcing of pronouns, no indoctrination of dc whatsoever, women get their own spaces, sports etc

People can present as they wish outside that - is that agreeable?

Nail on the head. Just got to sort out how to achieve it.

It’s a hard one but with all the legal wrangling on this thread I think it’s madness to allow legal constraints to lead

Society should determine the legal framework not the other way around

We shouldn’t get stuck with a situation where the law diverges from the wishes of the majority

You've got a nerve. Your tone throughout is patronising and sneering. Sigh! Does that come with a head tilt?

I don't mind @LowKeyLockee 's contributions. I've learned a lot from this thread. We disagree about a lot of the fundamentals but it's good to have someone to actually point out where the challenges will be.

I could have done without the 15 repetitive pages about Northern Ireland though

As I mentioned (what feels like several small lifetimes ago), I'm ND. My 'tone' as you call it is easily misinterpreted by NT people who actually here me talk. It's impossible to truly pick up my tone through written words. If you're thinking what I'm writing is 'patronising and sneering' I fear to tell you it isn't. It is merely factual from my POV. My tone for sneering and patronising is very different. There's no room for interpretation in it (to get past the communication barricade between ND and NT people) and tends to involve epithets of both the creative and colourful variety. When I talk about myself I talk only about my own experiences and where I'm coming from. It is my experience that NT people project on to that, but as it lies beyond my ability to stop that from happening there's little more I can do

But anyway, this is hardly the topic of the thread

NI is an important consideration though because it explains something about UK governments since 2019. We've had in place exactly the kinds of Tory government (if one counts the less-than-stellar reign of Liz Truss' truncated time in office) who would take us out of the Convention in a heartbeat. Which leads to the interesting question, why haven't they?

They talk about it a lot, but when Ministers are at the Despatch Box they're very clear that withdrawing from the Convention isn't a question on the table. Understanding why that is, is important in considering how to approach things

We likely haven’t reached tipping point yet in terms of votes but we’ll see a fair amount of change over the next decade.

Politicians like votes, if it gets louder

That is a lot of homework. It may take some time.

I don't know exactly why your posts have been deleted on this thread (I think a few of them have gone). You can ask MNHQ if you want to know which guidelines you broke. You won't have been deleted for apologising though, if it was a genuine apology. What did you feel you needed to apologise to me for?

I absolutely agree and I'm trying to explore a way forward. God, I do wish that I was a world leading authority on international human rights law!

Yes, 'it's the law' is rarely a good argument in itself. Antisemitic laws discriminating against, segregating and dehumanizing Jews were enacted by Nazi Germany.

Laws can be morally wrong and cause harm. Many laws are patriarchal e.g the GRA and primogeniture

And of course lots of laws are routinely ignored.

Everyone seems to fall over themselves not to breach the equality act whilst merrily breaking safeguarding laws and the law for single sex toilets in schools all over the place.

Rape is technically illegal in the UK but this law is rarely enforced. This goes double for flashing.

@JanesLittleGirl
Lookee suggested that if sex ceased to be captured on a birth certificate then the GRA could be repealed without breaching the ECHR. This was rejected because 'sex matters' and a couple of attempts to revive it were similarly rebuffed. I would like to have another go at the idea and see if it could be made to work.

Changing the way we register sex, or removing the registration of sex altogether is, like the GRA, altering the way society operates in quite a fundamental way, because a tiny minority have said they don't like it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, at the time the GRA was passed, psychiatrists and psychologists felt that forcing the whole of society to go along with their patients' fantasies was not in the best interests of their patients. And of course it is not in the best interests of the rest of us to have to go along with this lie. So why do it? Who benefits?

I think we should start from the point that for the vast majority of people, recording sex as we do now is not a problem. It is just a factual piece of information which sometimes other people need to know.

There is a tiny minority who for a variety of reasons (mental health issues, paraphilias or something else) are unhappy with the sex they are and wish they were the opposite sex. Why should we disrupt society for these people (when even the doctors treating them say his is the wrong thing to do)? Surely a better solution is to find a way for these people to be reconciled with their bodies and accept reality without disrupting the whole of society.

And pretending that sex doesn't exist, when it is such a fundamental part of life, is a massive disruption.

But if sex no longer exists, then nor can trans people. If we're all the same, what are they transitioning to or from?

I know sex exists. You know sex exists. Everybody knows sex exists except for the judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights. I am trying to find a way to escape their unreality. I'm stupid that way.

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2023/01/22/are-trans-rights-human-rights-robert-wintemute-on-the-trans-rights-debate-and-how-we-got-here/

Someone useful to you perhaps?

Robert talking about it again.

https://lgballiance.org.uk/people/

Robert is an LGB Alliance trustee.

Agree as well. But honestly, I take comfort in being able to read all of these judgments directly including the dissents. Even just the last few days I've learnt a lot about the case law and history of this and the constraints we are under. Just as a layperson.

The judges sitting in the European Court of Human Rights know sex exists. But they seem to have been hoodwinked by the myth of the 'true transsexual' who has sacrificed so much to live in their chosen 'gender'. By using the word 'chosen' they also imply that changing gender is a choice, not an inherent part of their being, which makes the ruling even more ludicrous. If it's just a choice, why are the rest of us bring forced to sacrifice so much?

Just quoting this bit again because it does sum up so we'll what was going on in this judgment.

No concrete or substantial hardship or detriment to the public interest has indeed been demonstrated as likely to flow from any change to the status of transsexuals and, as regards other possible consequences, the Court considers that society may reasonably be expected to tolerate a certain inconvenience to enable individuals to live in dignity and worth in accordance with the sexual identity chosen by them at great personal cost.

Of course this just means that the court didn't believe at that time that any detriment had been demonstrated. If we can prove that there is a detriment, particularly to women and children, but also to anyone who is forced to lie, then surely this can be overturned.

The GRA has directly or indirectly led to breaches of Article 3 (in the case of women in prison) and Article 9, which concerns religion and belief. I think Maya's case is important here.

So much of the incremental "woman" change cited in the cases has fallen away with equal pension and equal marriage rights. The right to found a family.

Privacy is the pivotal issue.

It seems farcical that such a visible action as reassignment is presented as a privacy issue.

We have eyes. One look at the public footprint of the people demanding privacy from us and you see what a lie that is.

And women's privacy belongs to the men demanding their own inviolable privacy.

Using privacy/private life as a way of sneaking in judicial activism really annoys me.

There are some issues that affect all of society and hiding under privacy is just a way of avoiding discussing the socially-contentious issue, particularly where there are competing rights involved. That is - this isn't something that only affects your personal private life, when you start asking the state to reissue all your documentation and let you into spaces to which you didn't previously have access.

You stepped out of your private world when you asked for those things. You can't have it both ways. You can't hide behind that shield anymore.

Politicians may like votes, but almost all of them understand ending a peace treaty that has stopped so-called paramilitary action in the UK; and specifically on the mainland; and a return to those bombings, isn't a winning move. They also understand that going back to the old position where both political parties in the US support the republican movement on the island of Ireland and there were (and still are) politicians in both parties not shy about fund-raising "for the cause"....... Yeah

In truth the only realistic way the Good Friday Agreement ends is with unification. Will that ever happen? Who knows

Because I keep making assumptions? It's a bad habit of mine and from my perspective appeared to be causing you distress. But much as a NT person can't pick up my 'tone' from the written word, my ability to pick up 'tone' from the written word of another is as much guesswork as anything else so it's possible I wasn't causing you distress. But given those two possibilities, better to apologise when not needed than not apologise at all