Kemi Badenoch: Diversity obsession has led to Kafkaesque madness (KB for PM?)

[IwantToRetire]

Another really straightforwarded down to earth practical commentary of where chasing the rainbow has led us. And ideas on how Government cant, without being dictatorial help solve the mess.

The root of the problem is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Equality Act 2010, often exploited by those with a separate agenda. The Equality Act is a shield, not a sword. It is about preventing discrimination, not social engineering. There are no protected groups in the act, only protected characteristics. A white man is just as protected on the characteristics of race and sex as a black woman, yet many believe the act is there just to protect minorities, when in reality it protects us all.

Many companies’ diversity and inclusion activities are falling foul of the law; for example by confusing legal positive action and positive discrimination, which is illegal — except when selecting political candidates (a handy get-out-clause Labour devised to use all-women shortlists). Encouraging people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply for a job or go for a promotion is positive action, and legal. Restricting applications for a position to a certain group is positive discrimination and most certainly isn’t. This has led to increasing calls for the Equality Act to be scrapped. The act is 13 years old and could be improved but the issue is not the law. It’s bad actors misrepresenting it to suit their agenda.

Many of these laws were written at a time when institutions knew how to self-regulate. Someone proposing a terrible idea would be checked by colleagues in the organisation. Today, those colleagues are scared of being called bigots for disagreeing, so they say nothing. What the Farage and Sawers cases have done is show that this problem is getting worse. Long-held tenets of liberal democracy — freedom of association, freedom of conscience, the presumption of innocence — are being tossed aside in favour of dubious inclusion strategies that themselves fall foul of the law. In some cases they’re cancelling people before any wrongdoing occurs, leaving them with no way to prove their innocence.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kemi-badenoch-banking-scandal-natwest-niigel-farage-wdp3mmq0w
Also available via archive.ph

I'm not a politician

So your claims have no basis. Otherwise you’d explain rather than do a cop out answer.

That doesn’t surprise me.

As for disappointment what Labour are proposing is it will be easier with £5 access to GP led GRC, nothing else is changing.

Anyone who, like you, who has swallowed the waffle will be surprised when we get more Isla Brysons in female spaces not fewer.

Hang on didn’t Starmer say something about adult females 😫

Too late. You don’t need to be a politician but a least scrutinise what you are voting for.

For our dds too, as they will lose out even more thanks to uncritical voters.

Eh?
It's not a cop out to point out the law.

Isla Bryson didn't have a GRC

The proposal has been mooted but is not yet law

I'm very baffled by your point. I'm actually not responding to you again as it appears to be variations on a theme of "you are lefty therefore wrong" which is hardly a debate

Ha I knew you’d bail after that post as you can see you have no place to go

You also said you ‘weren’t interested in continuing’ way back in the thread. Yet here you are.

Posters are pointing out the flaws in your arguments. You’re failing to rebut because your arguments are weak 🤷‍♂️

But yes ‘don’t respond’, fine by me, you’re hardly taking anything in anyway.

The last line - you’re being mean as I’m a lefty sign off at the end made me laugh. What a way to get the hump.

Surely the whole crux of the matter is the meaning of single sex spaces. Currently it is legal under the Equality Act to exclude all men from women's spaces, even if they have a GRC, in some circumstances. Beira's Place take this stance and I'm sure they will have taken legal advice.

If this wasn't the case then single sex spaces could not exist. It seems to me that@AdamRyan is saying that transwomen with a GRC are equivalent to biological women for the purpose of single sex spaces. The quote from Stella Creasey suggests she thinks the same. If this is Labour's official position, which I fear it is, they should make this plain. Not to do so is an outrageous deceit.

If a GRC was to over ride biological sex for safeguarding purposes ( Labour's SAFE spaces?) then we really would have a hierarchy of rights. With women right at the bottom of the pile!

Yes @Cycleorrun It’s a shame Dodds didn’t turn up and Starmer hasn’t clarified things at all

As usual it’s just more sorting through the tangled language trying to find the actual implications for women.

You have definitely misunderstood my position and possible Stella Creaseys too.

I believe a GRC means a transgender person is legally recognised as the opposite gender, so recorded in official documentation as their acquired gender etc.

The EA makes provision for single sex spaces, which is biological. So someone can be legally "a woman" but biologically male so excluded from single sex provision.

Places haven't been applying the EA strongly and also de facto allowing self id. E.g. prisons. But that's been policy, not law and has happened on the Conservatives watch.

Anyway, personally I'd like to see this clarified in the EA because it's confusing. Badenochs position doesn't seem to be that at all

My concern with self ID was always that any old sex offender/voyeur/pervert could turn up in womens spaces and say they were a woman, and there would be no challenge.

Any old sex offender/voyeur/pervert can get a GRC now. There can be no challenge, no-one is allowed to know or ask about the super secret GRC so anyone can say they have one, or have you sent to hell for asking whether they do.

As soon as there is need for a GRC and a process to get that, women can challenge these men. So that removes a big reservation I personally had with self-ID

How? How can any woman challenge these men? You are not allowed to ask if they have a GRC, we have de facto self-id at the moment.

An admission that sex and gender are different and women need sex based provision removes my other huge objection, which is that I find it offensive to insist TWAW when females suffer so many negative consequences from biology. It also means prisons/sports/rape shelters etc can legally exclude males which is non negotiable for me.

They can now. However, to ensure that spaces and services do the EqA needs to be clarified that sex means biological sex and spaces and services set up for a particular biological sex are for that sex only. I would personally go a lot further.

So yeah, the £5 GRC is not ideal but it's far better than self ID and allays most of my concerns. I think its a potential compromise - other people may feel differently.

How is it better? How does it allay your concerns? All Labour are doing is making it easier for more people to obtain one by removing the requirement for two doctors/a panel to agree that the person has dysphoria.

It's not yet policy or in law, but as long as self ID has been abandoned I feel much happier.

It hasn't been abandoned it has just been hidden behind smoke and mirrors.

Where is the list from Labour on where exactly will exclude legally female males with a GRC?

Anyone know?

If they are legally female how can they be excluded?

The WM debate was all about making EA definition biological sex, the majority of Labour MPs said no to this

They’ve also talked about staunchly defending the EA ie NOT change to biological sex

So where does the idea come from that a legal female who is male will be assessed by biological sex under Labour?

The WM debate was all about making EA definition biological sex, the majority of Labour MPs said no to this

They’ve also talked about staunchly defending the EA ie NOT change to biological sex.

People need to be reminded of this again and again.

Assuming the idea that males with a GRC can access female spaces under the EA, What are the conservatives proposing to do about that?

I believe a GRC means a transgender person is legally recognised as the opposite gender, so recorded in official documentation as their acquired gender etc.

This is a major problem with the GRC/GRA - it is supposed to be a recognition of a change of gender not sex and yet it changes the sex marker on a Birth Certificate ffs, (and all other relevant documentation) therefore for all intents and purposes that person is the opposite sex not gender.

The whole thing needs ripping up.

We’re in a very dangerous position, some think Starmer has resolved the issue and are swayed by the adult female line

We get £5 GRC by GP and no change to EA and it’s wolves into the chicken coop

Much more than we currently have. Because it’s designed to be easier and they will have a legally female certificate

Sorry but this comes up on any number of threads, and yes I do think both labour and TRAs (and some funders) want to blur the lines.

You can find this on the explantions by Parliament but put simply

Single Sex exemptions are an acknowledgement that in certain instances, such as rape crisis support, women only means only biological females.

But unfortunately because of how the EA is written (by a Labour Government) "for all other purposes" those with a GRC (NOT through self id) are "legally female".

That is why women are only allowed "exemptions". ie the law gives a priority to a tiny minority at the expense of a majority. What sort of convoluted thinking went into doing this, when logically it should have been that for all purposes women are biological females, but in a few instances there would be exemptions for the minority with GRCs to say they were the opposite sex eg for the purpose of marriage.

So at best we can hope for the EA to be ammended, or better still the GRA revoked!

@AdamRyan If you agree that single sex spaces should exclude even Transwomen with a GRC, what did you mean by
"You are also doomed to disappointment because the law is always a compromise." ?
I'm genuinely confused.

I mean the poster asking all the "gotcha" questions as if I'm a TRA will be disappointed because I don't believe there is any appetite for a situation where its impossible to recognise transition as any reference to woman in any context can only mean female.

I think the consensus is most people recognise trans women to mean males who have transitioned, most people are happy to treat trans people as their acquired gender in most situations. Arguing a trans person can never be treated as their acquired gender would also mean a radical overhaul of current laws

Strengthen the EqA to make it clear that sex in it means biological sex not sex granted by a GRC.

What everyone forgets - TRAs, businesses, public institutions et al - is that the EqA does allow males with GRCs to be excluded but they have been told by Stonewall that it doesn't and that anyone GRC holder or not can access spaces and services of the opposite sex under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, it doesn't as Kemi Badenoch pointed out but because people are so brainwashed it requires further clarity.

Labour oppose this, unsurprisingly.

Arguing a trans person can never be treated as their acquired gender would also mean a radical overhaul of current laws

What do you mean by this? How exactly do see treating a trans person as their acquired gender?

I wondered this, too.

Labour do not oppose this. That was the whole point of last weeks announcement.

Let's not forget the Conservatives been in power for the last 13 years and could have strengthened the EA at any time. They chose not to.

Oh ffs
I go through this all the time.

Legally, you use their new name and pronouns. You allow them to change birth certificate. You aren't able to deny them opportunities at work or to participate in society based on the fact they are trans.

It's not rocket science.

I think its a bunch of stereotypes but if that's important to people, up to them.

In the same way I respect people's religious preferences and their protection in law even though I think God is a fairy story.

It's entirely possible to support trans people AND single sex spaces. Many trans people are in this posituon themselves.

Labour do notoppose this. That was the whole point of last weeks announcement.

Yes they do, they have clearly stated they will oppose any changes to the EqA that the Conservatives put forward and they have no intention of altering it in any way if they get into power before any changes are made.

Essentially we stay as we are with an easier access route for a GRC.

You said this:
What everyone forgets - TRAs, businesses, public institutions et al - is that the EqA does allow males with GRCs to be excluded

So whats the problem with Labour's proposal? They keep the EA provision, make it easier to get a GRC, which isn't relevant to the EA provision and means not much as said upthread.

What are you opposing about this?

Amd what is the difference with the Conservative EA policy? They are also not proposing any changes

It sounds like you are just opposed to making the GRC process cheaper/quicker. At the moment it's barely rigorous anyway so hardly matters if it's 1 dr and a fiver or 2 Dr's and 6 months "living as the opposite sex"

Legally, you use their new name and pronouns. You allow them to change birth certificate. You aren't able to deny them opportunities at work or to participate in society based on the fact they are trans.

Yes to the name, no to the pronouns. Why do they need to change their Birth Certificate? It records sex not gender. Yes to not denying opportunities at work or participating in society, although you will be told they cannot participate in society unless they are given access to the spaces and services for the sex they wish to be because to disallow that is not to validate them.

It's entirely possible to support trans people AND single sex spaces. Many trans people are in this posituon themselves.

Is it? They change a Birth Certificate to record an entirely different sex to the one they are?