Annaliese Dodds: "sex and gender are different"

[CheshireSplat]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/24/labour-vows-to-modernise-simplify-and-reform-gender-recognition-act

This is a significant issue. Where usually you pay privately for an "assessment" for various conditions, with gender stuff you really do pay for a "diagnosis".
I don't know how it is remotely ethical.

This!
MALES who identify as trans should be safe in male spaces. The claims for transfer to women's prisons, use of single sex changing rooms often hangs on the fear factor/risk to the "trans" male. It's toxic masculinity that needs adressed. These males are a subset of men and male spaces should accommodate ALL males safely. Women and girls aren't safety blankets. Under the equality act single sex spaces and gender REASSIGNMENT are protected but not gender self ID. This needs to be enforced.

Labour simply cannot be trusted on this issue. Like Iain Anderson, in his disastrous interview with Beth Rigby, they are trying to shift the tone of the 'conversation' but they have not, in essence, changed their stance at all.

We are not stupid.

Parliamentary politics is about winning. The Conservative party would be nuts not to harness the support they could potentially have on several issues. If they declare some serious intention of reforming the GRA and dealing with the situation in schools, I would certainly vote for them - for the first time in my life.

My view is quite clear on this - I take the view that there are only male and female sex/genders. There is no difference between the term gender and sex and no-one can change between the two. There are very few people who are born who are categories as intersex and they I believe are a unique case.

I don't know whether my view is now in the minority - I suspect not, in fact I suspect the majority hold this view but have been silenced.

^^ this exactly

“Changing gender is not a decision anyone makes lightly,” wrote Dodds.

How quaint. She's a long way behind the times.

It’s when lines like these are used you know it’s all
the same stuff

I think Annalisse Dodds is at best naive - as a life long labour supporter the Labour Party stance makes me question my vote and I fear that I will vote Tory or not vote at all which I don't feel comfortable about. I

The Tories would be wise to let this torment Labour over the summer, before they come out with a sensible and clear position in September AKA party conference season.

Quite why Labour has done this now, is beyond me

WPUK seem pleased with it

https://twitter.com/womansplaceeuk/status/1683444186182295554?s=46&t=WHoOZ3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Labour Women's Declaration seem to be appeased by "if" this means they support free speech

https://twitter.com/labwomendec/status/1683423565184368641?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Quite frankly, at this stage, I don't believe a single, solitary, terfy word that leaves their mealy mouths!
They are not to be trusted! It's as simple as that.
You don't go for breakfast with stonewall one week, then try to pander to the terfs the next and think you haven't been seen. It doesn't work like that.

My impression, based on that article, was that Dodds is genuinely and sensibly committed to a set of reforms that will protect women's interests. Wherther it will pan out that way in practice I don't know, but I found the article exteremely encouraging. Particularly since it seemed to cover both bases - making 'gender reassignment' a more streamlined process for those that need it whilst retaining the necessity of a medical diagnosis and the recognition of a difference between altered 'gender' and persistent sex.

No reform will succed unless it can cover both those bases and I feel hopeful that a lot of thought may now be put into how to do that honestly.

But do they mean biological single sex exemptions - shame one has to ask but one does. will a GRc still be sercret document? and will people with a GRc be allowed in the single sex spaces of their new idenity?

Dodds says on the GRC:

"A diagnosis provided by one doctor, with a registrar instead of a panel, should be enough."

There are quite a few Trans radical activist doctors who we know will be so keen on this as a political act that the system could become little more than self-id under another name in a matter of months.

Dodds also says:

"we are proud of the Equality Act and will oppose any Conservative attempt to undermine it."

Which sounds to me like they will undermine any attempt to make the concept of 'sex' or 'women' clear - unsurprising as Starmer thinks some women can have penises.

I think there is a lot of tub thumping here about supporting everyone and being more marvellous than the tories but this is the political equivalent of saying both sides are OTT, or both sidse are aggressive/abusive or both sides just need me-the-marvellous to sit down with them bang their heads together and come up wiht this brilliant middle way.

Some news for Labour - this is a binary choice and you either back women's rights and the safety of women and children clearly and unamiguously, or you don't.

Labour, very clearly, still don't. They're still gaslighting us.

My concern there is that WPUK, for one, are always going to give Labour the benefit of the doubt as far as they can. I’m not at all sure how high their bar is.

Pissed off , though, that Dodds was happy to equate 'psychiatric condition' with 'stigmatising condition'.
Anyone who thinks that it is 'stigmatising' to view dysphoria as a psychiatric condition is more or less announcing that they view people with mental disorders as distasteful in some way.

My persepctive is that they are determined to pass Gender Self Id, and will do and say whatever they think it takes to get people on side.

This move is purely in. response to the announcemnt that the Conservatives intend to make 'trans' an issue.

They will suggest that transwomen have always used women's facilities and that reform of the GRA would not make any diiference to this - so stop worrying your daft little heads. Stonewall is still calling the shots.

The GRA needs to repealed in its current form and re -written to ensure the primacy of biological sex, and there needs to be a commitment to third 'gender neutral' facilities.

There are unfortunately women so desperate to be able to vote Labour that they'll trust and accept crumbs at this point.

I won't. I would love to be able to vote Labour, but it's going to take actions, not words, some apology for having been a really lousy opposition while the government in charge were on duty and this was all happening to women and children with very obvious major problems, and a lot of very clear evidence in words and manifestos that women and children's needs and issues are not only fully heard and understood and given equal credence to the TQ+ lobby's views and wishes, but that all actions taken will have to work equally for everyone. Which will involve men not getting their own way in everything, encountering boundaries and discovering that screaming and threatening and hitting everyone is not going to get their own way.

On the same page about WPUK, frood and empress

Agree with the appeasment comment. I think there is a lot of wishful thinking going on here - understandable if the party is ahuge part of your life/family/social circle (must be heartbreaking actaully) but where is the backing of Rosie Duffield, the apologies to women pushed out local party groups, the meetings planned with women's groups like Sex Matters or Fair Play for Women or Keep Prisons Single sex or the LBGA? Where is the commitment to clear and proper data recording for crimes, health research, the census, etc.etc.? Where is the abcking for women and men who wish to do academic research on any aspect women, sex or gender, or detranisitioning, or health out comes ofr transitioners? where is the backing for free speech with her party never mind in the whole country. Where is the recognition that being gender cirtical is a repsectable position to hold?

Na, I don't beleive this for a second. It is nothing more than realising that they have to make a few noises in the right direction, there is nothing tangible here. It is just flaky with no substance at all. On the plus side even this weak statement will irrate the TRAs for the teeny tiny implicit admission that there might just occasionally be a clash of rights.

Dodds also says: "we are proud of the Equality Act and will oppose any Conservative attempt to undermine it." Which sounds to me like they will undermine any attempt to make the concept of 'sex' or 'women' clear.

I'm not sure that Dodds' words do have that implication, since she also says “We need to recognise that sex and gender are different – as the Equality Act does."

In other words, she is backing the idea that existing law distinguishes between gender and sex, contra those who say that trans-identified men with a grc currently have the right to be regarded as actually having the sex 'female'

The Labour party were declaring WPUK a hate group not too long ago.

I mean, the literal definition, as used by Stonewall, of 'transgender' necessitates sex and gender being different, so it's hardly a surprise discovery, is it?!

This gets ignored when convenient, so maybe actually putting it into practice might be a good next step?!

Her main concern seems to be the the Conservatives may push for a re-writing of the existing act. That is Stonewall's worst nightmare - so now they have to do and say whatever they can to ensure the imagined status quo is preserved. And that status quo is imagined to already permit MTF to use women's toilets.

There’s a fairly hefty contradiction in this article. On the one hand the Tories are accused of “stoking a culture war” when they take a position on trans issues.

But then we have Dodds apparently in total agreement with the Tories when accusing the SNP of having a

“cavalier approach” to reforming gender recognition laws, following the Scottish government’s drive to support a system of self-identification that was endorsed by Holyrood but blocked by the UK government.”

Also

“The move “seemed to be more about picking a fight with Westminster than bringing about meaningful change”, claimed Dodds, adding: “The safeguards that were proposed to protect women and girls from predators who might abuse the system were simply not up to scratch.”

The Equality Act is not working for women, Dodds.

It's not working for disabled women
homosexual women
women of different faiths and cultures
women with diversity of belief

We have women excluded from public facilities due to these characteristics, homosexual women being pariahed for not doing men on command based on what the man tells her is currently going on between his ears, girls being required to undress in front of boys if the boy wants it, girls being taught that their consent, privacy and dignity for safeguarding must be predicated on whether or not she has the consent of all boys to say no/won't make them sad, we've got women being arrested for stating reality and being beaten up in public places for resisting being mugged of their property and rights.

Wtaf are you 'proud of' at this point? It's delusional.