What do you think should happen to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA)?

[TERFisTHEnewTREND]

Personally, I can't believe this act was ever passed! I know 2004 was a different time, but still!

I believe that the only way of moving past the gender madness in law is to revoke the GRA. "Gender" is about as useful as someone's favorite type of music, so it has no place on a legal document.

As for what should happen to those who already have a GRA... well, I think some of them are owed an apology by those who told them that this piece of paper would change their sex (which it doesn't).

What do others think?

See my above post.

Changing the definition of sex to biological sex is in discussion atm by gov led by Kemi Badenoch

That could resolve some of the issues

I think it will be other issues that strain the ECHR more, and other countries are starting to recognise that. Both voters and politicians. Barnier recently talked about overreach and change

It’s not set in stone

Well that's why my preferred approach is to maintain the right for someone to change their legal "gender", but scrap the concept of there being such a thing as a "legal sex" which differs from biological sex, and essentially make the whole thing meaningless.

Yes dear, you can be legally recognised as twizzlegender. We don't mind as long as you do it quietly and remember to use single sex facilities in accordance with your biological sex, just like everyone else does.

Of course people can advocate to leave the ECHR. That is the only realistic way the UK can lawfully repeal the GRA.

I’d have a modicum of respect for those honest enough to admit they want to withdraw from the ECHR to repeal the GRA. Not much respect but at least they would be more honest than those pretending that the issue can be just wished away.

Of course those people should also then be honest enough to admit that they also think the Good Friday Agreement should be ripped up to facilitate the withdrawal from the ECHR.

Its odd how a grown mans right for a female gender identy is set in stone, but the legalisation around school girls having separate toilet and washing facilities to boys isnt.

The government risk fines/arrest/dirty looks (im not sure what) by not humouring adult men, but no consequences for the removal of girl only spaces.

As I said above, the easiest solution is not to repeal the GRA, but to de-fang it completely.

Let people have a silly piece of paper if they wish, as long as that silly piece of paper has no actual consequences.

I don’t think it can be wished away, and I don’t really think gender will lead on this

But I do think EU countries will mount pressure on politicians to exit or change the ECHR and as a system, it’s going to change anyway

I don’t mind using domestic change to the EqA to see if we can increase safeguarding for dc and sex based rights for women as a step. I would very much like to see that happen asap

And then reassess if more should be done

You can have whatever opinion you like on the courts jurisprudence. But the legal fact remains.

Those saying the GRA should be honest enough to explain what precisely they think should happen out of:

-wait for ECHR jurisprudence to change but keep the GRA until then; or
-withdraw from the ECHR to repeal the GRA.

Telling me all the reasons you disagree with the Court is irrelevant - people can disagree with court decisions all the time. What matters is what they want to do in response.

That would also be contrary to the ECHR.

What matters is the outcome - and the required outcome is that there is a process whereby people can be regarded in law as being of the sex that corresponds with their gender identity.

Given how fiercely and thoroughly the political battle over the GeRBill was fought the first time round (and the ECHR requirement that drove the eventual creation of the Gender Recognition Act that arose from it) it would be an enormously difficult task to repeal it. That's quite aside from the stark renunciation of prior commitment to upholding human rights on the international stage that doing so would communicate.

The GRA exists and it isn't going anywhere. It is, however, the contentious product of a heavy compromise during an era where same-sex marriage was still illegal, and the eventual form it took reflects the miserable political climate of the time where demanding a portion of the population be rendered infertile in order to qualify for a baseline of respect seemed like a reasonable stance worthy of consideration in parliament.

It is in desperate need of an update. It was already in desperate need of an update when the government was dragged, kicking and screaming, into implementing something in the first place in 2004.

This government already ran a consultation a few years ago, ignored the results because they didn't like them and decided they were going to do nothing. Since then, the person whose mandate at the time of this profound failure was to improve conditions for women and minorities has become prime minister, failed so spectacularly that she only lasted a couple of months in office, and is now busying herself trying to dismantle the Equality Act instead.

The Gender Recognition Act is not going to be repealed, thankfully. It does need to be updated. Perhaps Labour are up to the task?

But not have access to single sex spaces based on biological sex?

OK well at least that is a clear position - no GRA repeal for now at least.

Though still unclear how you would propose to repeal it in the future in the event that changing the Equality Act didn’t go far enough for your purposes.

Sex and gender are not the same. That's like saying "needs to be regarded in law as having the apple that corresponds to their orange".

Def repeal. Its purpose is meant to be for post op surgery so you live as the sex you changed to and can't be challenged. That was yhe purpose and not to agree same sex marriage.

It's a homophobic anti woman law that has no place in a society that believes gender is personality and is not homophobic.

Abput the rapist thing, that was raised and dismissed at the time by saying it would be so rare amd poor rapist. In 2003. Its all there in hansard forget sunlight the legislators knew the whole time the issues.

If the echr says men have to have the legal right to become.e wo.em we should leave that too. Women don't have hr anymore? Single sex toilets are protected by the echr BTW not only male fantasists!

Take that up with the judges of the European Court of Human Rights.

But unless or until they change the case law (not going to happen - the jurisprudence has been developed over decades and has gone in only one direction; or unless the UK leaves the ECHR (a possibility certainly but people should be honest if that is their proposed approach), then repealing the GRA is not a possibility.

Unless as I said above it were replaced with something with roughly equivalent or stronger provisions.

Which case established a Convention right to single sex toilets?

Not really

I said I didn’t think gender would lead but the ECHR will be strained and member countries may well agree to change it or exit

Which means I can see a time in the U.K. where politicians use this to respond to demands to repeal the GRA via exiting / or change

I think we’re heading for upheaval with post war systems and gender may piggyback on that if enough voters demand it

OK @PlanetJanette.

If I had unlimited time and money, this is what I would do.

I would have two groups bring legal action against the UK government, claiming that the current system is in breach of their rights under the ECHR and the Equality Act.

One group would be women from religious minorities, who argue that allowing members of the opposite sex into women's single sex spaces is a breach of their right to practise their religion peacefully and constitutes indirect discrimination against them because it has the effect of forcing them to self exclude from public places.

The other group would be non binary people, who argue that they have the human right to recognition of their gender identity, and that the fact that there are no toilets, other single gender spaces or sporting categories for non binary people is a breach of those rights.

Just as those were working their way through the court system we would introduce two more. One group of female survivors of male sexual violence who would argue that being forced to share single sex spaces with the bepenised sex amounts to degrading and inhumane treatment and is therefore a breach of their rights under the ECHR. And another group of catgender people, seeking the same provisions as the non binary people.

You just keep overwhelming the system until the inevitable outcome is the following:

• single sex spaces are guaranteed in accordance with the Equality Act
• service providers are required to provide single sex spaces and services but may also provide unisex/non binary/catgender spaces and services should they wish to do so
• the GRA has no effect other than allowing people to be legally recognised as whatever "gender" - NOT SEX - they like
• ID documents end up having a compulsory biological sex marker and an optional gender identity marker
• "TERFs" troll the new system by getting gender recognition certificates which legally recognise them as icecreamgender, jedigender or donthaveapenisgender, which are of course every bit as valid as "non binary"

Any flack from the "international human rights community" is met with a, "Yes, we know, but the thing is, and I know this is a bit awkward, but people who aren't trans also have human rights too, and this is the only way we can see of balancing everyone's rights."

No, we don't have to.

Women do not have to be legal experts in order to stand up for our rights or point out the harms caused to us by a bad law. It's enough for us to do this and expect those who are in power to come up with a solution which protects women's human rights without breaking other important stuff.

If we can't have women's human rights AND the Good Friday Agreement then that is a problem for the experts to solve and it's disgraceful blackmail to suggest that it's women's job to square that circle before our own rights can be restored.

You could just scroll past the posts you find irrelevant.

So firstly, that strategy even if successful would not mean that the GRA could be repealed or hollowed out. The established right is to change sex markers for all official purposes. Creating some additional gender category separate to sex would not be compatible.

Your broader strategy of trying to force the Court to establish a right to single sex facilities doesn’t really address the issue, since no one claims the Government can’t tighten up the equality act. They can already do that. Of course if you wanted to use your vast hypothetical time and wealth trying to compel them to do so you’d be free to do so.

But even if successful (and I’m not aware of any jurisprudence that suggests you would be) it wouldn’t change the position that the GRA could not be repealed.

That tells us what you think will happen, not what you want to happen.

Changing sex markers for all purposes infringes the rights of other groups.

This has never been addressed.

When men say they have a human right to become legally considered women, what they are actually saying is that they think they have a human right to use actual women without their consent and force them to participate in a lie, regardless of what impact it has on them.

This is not reasonable, it has never been reasonable, and it needs to be challenged.

That said, if the government used its powers to tighten up the Equality Act by, for example, clarifying that sex means biological sex, mandating the provision of single sex spaces and services, and making it a criminal offence to use single sex spaces for members of the opposite biological sex, what functional purpose would a gender recognition certificate actually serve?

In any discussion about public policy it is utterly meaningless to demand a particular action and not deal with the very real practical and legal problems it creates.

This post is reminiscent of the worst of Brexit thinking in the 2018-2022 period. This demand that you get what you want but with no answer as to how it can be delivered.

Simple fact is that you can have GRA repeal or you can have continued application of the ECHR and Good Friday Agreement - you cannot have both. Demanding that others figure out how you can have both doesn’t change legal facts.

As more men are emboldened to identify as women and go into womens spaces and opportunities, the government will have to do more to to stop it.

Its not going to end, because the reason why women need single sex spaces and opportunities isn't disappearing and men who want access to those spaces and opportunities arent going away.

So the government will have to state that the GRA and the EqA and human rights laws are fantastic, at the same time as having to amend the laws because men are abusing them.

Politicians know this, but they are waiting for public outcry at safeguarding fails before they do anything about it. All the time increasingly promoting the idea that men can identify as women.