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

@ScrollingLeaves this bit got me

It is also important to note that the Bill was backed by every established women’s organisation in Scotland, including Women’s Aid, Amnesty International, Engender and Rape Crisis Scotland. The vast majority of women MSPs voted in favour of the Bill. The majority of Scotland’s women MSPs, feminist advocates and policy experts are satisfied that the provisions in the Bill do not have negative impacts on women and girls in Scotland.

no mention that the organisations that backed it receive funding from the Scottish government! And that the MSPs were whipped to vote!

Let’s start with where we are. The UK has fallen off track as an international leader on LGBTQ+ rights. Just 8 years ago we had the best LGBTQ+ rights in Europe, in 2023 we stand in 17th place. We have fallen back by staying still, as other countries have progressed and modernised their legislation, particularly on trans and intersex people’s rights.

Stonewall is confused. The U.K. is not falling behind. In this the U.K. is becoming a world leader in trying to protect women and children while also respecting and caring for transpeople.

Loving Kemi's cold contempt for Labour's, um, policy here.

They know they have to do it in stages because it fucked up so badly in Scotland. Women are losing their rights incrementally, small step by small step. This has always been the plan and we are mugs if we go along with it.

This is a good point. Look at the KPSS description of the years it took for the behind the scenes campaigners to slowly and stealthily get more and more men into female prisons.

Removal of the spousal exit clause.

So what Labour is truly committed to is making sure that women do as they are dot dot dot told by men.

I see no need for all the belly-aching about screenshotting and posting Tweets as images

As said earlier, which others have understood, it is discriminatory method of posting information because it can lead to excluding people with visual impairments, eg those who use a talkign browse, or for those who need to enlarge text.

None of this can be done if the text is captured as a graphic.

If you weren't aware of this, which many aren't, surely the more rational response would be to say thanks for letting me know that, I wil bear it mind in future.

It is not different than if you are speaking in public and think you will look into getting someone who can sign or have an over hear projector of what is being said.

Baffled as to why anyone would want to say what is personally convenient is more important than attempting some sort of inclusivity!

Thanks for the unwanted teaching moment.

I am glad Labour is finally engaging with this issue and though it really isn’t hitting the mark on first attempt, it’s opening the door, finally, to a long overdue conversation that Labour (and every major political party) needs to have with voters in a healthy democracy.

Rankings and measurements are a political technique, and those who have read their Foucault will know what I mean.

ILGA is just another lobbying organisation, focused on pushing for what they see as the rights of those they represent. They are pro self-ID and women and children are not their priority.

Perhaps worth mentioning here that ILGA lost its consultative status with the UN in the 1990s over links to pro-pedophilia groups and was refused several times before being able to regain it in the 2000s. Consultative status is of course very important for their lobbying and their credibility, and highlighted on their website: https://ilga.org/united-nations

One of the reasons for a lack of single-sex services is probably the difficulty in enforcing them, and neither Labour nor the Conservatives are proposing measures to help this situation.

Since any male can obtain standard identity documents containing the falsehood that he is a female without requiring a GRC, how does an organisation exclude him if he insists on being included? A letter from a doctor is required but considering there are TRA and other sympathetic doctors who will happily provide documents for a fee, this doesn’t seem a difficult barrier. I also think many GPs will, in the current climate, go along with a patient’s request unless they have serious reservations about that particular case.

So how can a single-sex service be gate-kept? You can’t ask to see a GRC and any identity document must be requested from all clients across the board. I genuinely don’t know how easy it is for most people to produce their birth certificate if asked. Would that change in an emergency situation, such as a woman fleeing an abusive situation at night with children?

I effectively don’t have a birth certificate as it was in my father’s care and he doesn’t know where it is anymore. I was born in a country with poor record-keeping so I’m not sure whether it is possible to obtain a replacement. Until I investigate that I have no birth certificate.

Requesting birth certificates from all patients/clients seems the only way to keep a service single sex but it seems overkill for many services. But rights, once acquired, are difficult to remove, so I don’t realistically see any government stopping this situation where males can apply for passports and driving licences showing their sex as female.

It’s also why I am extremely wary of any measure to make it easier to obtain a GRC. I think we could be stuck with a lot of negative unintended consequences further down the line. One negative consequence I can already see is that sexual and violent offences committed by ‘females’ would start increasing rapidly and that would be used as ‘evidence’ to further resist our demands for single-sex spaces. If the gap between male and female offending narrows due to the inclusion of males in the female figures, that takes away one argument for single-sex spaces.

I did read it but it’s been a while. I agree on rankings etc it’s one of the most effective ways to control outcomes

Every business now talks about inclusivity, what does that mean for women? And single sex spaces

But also countries. Do you move up the chart if you shut down women speaking and use politics, media and violence to prioritise men - see NZ

Those rankings make us less able to change things

On a separate note the Dr signing off on supposedly changing sex rather than the panel or self ID what is that like?

Do you just book a GP, what do they ask? How do they determine the outcome

Apart from men feeling a slight discomfort I can’t see it limiting ability to just change legal sex.

Which women’s spaces are accessible after that?

Labour shadow equality minister didn’t speak this morning but they need to stump up with the detail

The mess is becoming more and more troubling. I haven't RTFT but ideas like 'case by case' 'making things easier' are all ways of making it impossible for women to push back in any meaningful way. Does Labour's, lets try and appease both sides mean that women will constantly be in the law courts, trying to establish boundaries. The muddled thinking means not just one case but then having to appeal, like now but much worse. I keep thinking the war is, in small steps, being won, but given KS's love of the mess, the GRA is a gift to him.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/25/labour-gender-recognition-anneliese-dodds

Surprisingly measured article for the guardian.

This.

I honestly don’t understand how single-sex spaces can be practically applied. We already have a situation where TRAs are openly using toilets and changing rooms. They say they’ve been doing this for years. They are breaking no law. There is no practical way to prevent them. Even if they clarified that sex in the EA means birth registered sex this is unlikely to make a difference. All other single sex services/ sports etc rely on the service provider making use of the exceptions in the EA (which they are often reluctant to do). It also relies on service providers having accurate information about a person’s sex and if that person is prepared to lie and has been allowed to change all their identity documents this becomes an issue. Therefore any change to the GRA that makes it easier for men to change their BC to say they are women is bad for women.

Labour must (by now) fully comprehend these difficulties. So unless they specifically address HOW they intend to support (and they should actively support them) the SSEs then these statements are pointless.

It also makes even more routine, than it currently is, for male criminals to be referred to as 'women' and for sex based statistics to become meaningless and useless.

There now must be a concerted effort to highlight the many abuses and failures of Self Id in the countries in which it has passed. The line that there are " no issues" is simply not true - and the public needs to be made aware of the many examples where there very much are issues.

The number of male sex offenders in women's jails in the U.S, and the controversy of males in women's sports there; the case of the Canadian beauticians being taken to court for refusing to wax male genitalia; the way in which actual femicide is no longer recorded in Argentina if the murderer of a woman identifies as a woman....and so on.

People need tio be aware that Isla Bryson was not an isolated case.....that just a couple of weeks later another man ( in the borders) posing as a woman kidnapped and raped an 11 year old girl; the numerous cases of Trans identified men in court on charges related to sexual abuse and child pornography ( all whilst being referred to as 'a woman').

Andrew Miller/Amy George pled guilty to sexual assault, not rape. Clearly still very traumatic for his victim.

Serious question - what is the point of a GRC anyway if no one can ever ask to see it and just have to take someone's word that they hold one?

Case by case all sounds lovely.

But the reality is that everything for women has been intentionally made a hostile target by a political lobby with no conscience, no interest in or care for women, with their only focus being capture, control and compliance to the interests of men.

Those services have been searched for, harassed, threatened with legal action, innundated with emails and phone calls (I'm remembering the refuge where the lobby and its flying monkeys intentionally bombarded with calls with the plan of making the staff's life a living hell, and ensuring that they could not help their clients - you know, women at risk of their lives in extreme distress - because they ought to be dropping everything and saluting the new boss.) Smeared all over social media, lied to about how the law worked and what would happen to them for non compliance.

Small groups such as lesbian groups, women's support groups for health conditions only affecting females, small rape survivor support groups, have had to disband and go underground to escape these men determined to force these women to operate under their control. And it has been that hostile . Many women's groups initially trusted and did their best to treat these men as women, and discovered that the men were not interested in joining, but in using. The group became untenable for the women, but that did not matter because the men only wanted the group and the women for their own need-meeting, they had no fucks to give about their impact or how mere women were affected.

The local authorities and charities increased the pressure by intentionally controlling funding, so that unless a service complied, obeyed and shouted that they Loved Big Brother, they lost funding and contracts and went out of business.

This has been a fucking war.

The politician in the tweet above nailed it. This is ALL ABOUT forcing women to do the bidding of autogynephilic men. And it is abhorrent. As abhorrent as destroying women's groups and services because those women wanted to help women and not focus solely on being compliant props in male identity needs.

There is no good will anywhere in this movement towards women. No tolerance. No mutual care. No interest at all. Just rage and punishment and derogation and sneering. And yet women are still being reproachfully scolded to say please sir, may I have another.

Fuck that. Any woman without a major problem with that is in dire need of doing the Freedom Programme, and any man without a major problem with that IS the fucking problem.

I agree that the whole issue has become messy which is why I feel there needs to be very hard line imposed - I feel that the way this ideology has crept into the public domain and become accepted has manipulated the public and caught many unaware. My view is clear - male and female are not the same, no movement between the two, no crossover.

Annelise Dodds tried to circumvent any critique or analysis of her own cynical f proposal by suggesting there would be "bad faith" arguments aagiants it. Anyone with a critique or who points out the flaws will be a " bad faith" actor.

This Self Id fudge is meant to represent a good faith move by Labour - and the hope is that an uneducated, blissfully unaware public will buy that.

If they make it easier to get a grc, still medicalised but just one Doctor, blokes will just shop around for a twaw Doctor. I can think of a few. Their names will be passed around on SM. And, as pp have asked, what is the point of a grc anyway? We've essentially got self id anyway.

TRAs have been railroading organisations and political parties using 2 key mechanisms - 'no debate' and 'trans women are women'. This is what allowed them to get as far as they have with establishing 'norms'. The ones pulling the strings knew that this strategy might not last, and knew that 'removing rights' was an important back up.

Labour have conceded that there is a debate (there are competing rights) and they are using the term 'biological women'. Some TRAs are spitting feathers and churning out arguments that have now been lost.

The fight is now about what to about competing rights, and the brighter TRAs will focus on this. They will highlight that their rights are being eroded (eg for 10 years they have done x and now it's being proposed that they can't). Whilst arguments can be made that this shouldn't have happened, the issue is that it has and therefore a precedent can be set.

I think the GC argument will carry more weight when focussed on what females need and should have a right to. I think focussing on the ins and outs of the trans side of things is a waste of time and can be used to diminish the GC position (eg we are impacting on trans people). This is a negative/problematic by product of single sex spaces, but isn't the concern of females.

There are plenty of people willing and able to fight for trans people to have fulfilling lives. I'm genuinely happy for them to work on this. In the meantime, now there is debate and a recognition that sex and gender are different, my focus is on ensuring there are safe and dignified spaces for women and girls based on sex segregation.

I think it not just about male to female but also young girls who are being impacted female to male - this is equally important. The manipulation of the public in the guise of "be who you want to be" is appalling and this is why I feel there needs to be a hard line taken.

Regarding the spousal veto.....Discussion of this needs to be ramped up so that the public are fully aware of the nature of AGP, and of the stories of the increasing number of women and families being held hostage by their obsessive and narcissicstic husbands.