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?

It has been challenged in more than twenty cases involving a number of countries defending not having a system of gender recognition on precisely the basis you set out (plus other grounds).

The Court has considered those arguments and rejected them.

You can disagree with the Court but if you want legal change you need to deal with the legal reality. And the legal reality is that GRA cannot be repealed while the UK is within the ECHR.

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.

Many of us here participated in that consultation. It's true that numerically there were more (mostly template) responses in favour of self-ID, but it wasn't a referendum, it was a call for evidence. The results weren't ignored, the government simply heeded the evidence they were given about the problems self-ID would cause.

Sorry, but when women assert their right to have words for themselves and single sex facilities which are not inclusive of male people, why is it our job to deal with "the very real practical and legal problems it creates"?

It is for the legislators who caused the problem in the first place by giving men the right to be women without considering the impact on women to clean up their own mess.

In any case, the only problem it will actually create is that some men won't be happy. Is that really such a big deal?

What I want to happen is women to regain single sex spaces by biological sex and children’s safeguarding to ensure no TRA indoctrination continues

I would like the legal falsity that humans can change sex to be replaced with each sex class including all presentation

So instead of the bad laws we’ve had since the GRA which disadvantage women and children we strive to expand what male is and female but keep sex boundaries clear.

Well then the court is signing its own death warrant, isn't it?

Enough people think we should withdraw from the ECHR already. Is it really wise to give them a very good reason to want that?

any replacement would need to provide very similar or stronger rights for trans people.

But the ECtHR is clear that the Convention confers a right to have legal recognition of acquired gender.

How do you provide legal recognition of something that cannot be defined?

Trans identified people have the same rights as everybody else to express themselves in the way that is compatible with their sense of self. Dress how they wish, change their name to whatever they wish.

They have the same rights to legally recognised marriage or civil partnership.

They have the same rights in law as every other person.

As with all rights that individuals have, they are absolute insofar as they do not impinge upon other people's rights.

So they want a government-issued document that states that they believe that they are Whatevergender. So let them have it. But why should that document give them any extra rights?

Can you imagine anybody demanding that the government issue them with a document affirming their Jewish belief? Can you imagine them then going to the local synagogue and demanding that the Rabbi embrace them into the community while they eat their pork sandwich? After all, that document legally recognises their acquired belief.

One of the last election's main Brexit talking points was that leaving the EU would pave the way for unshackling ourselves from European human rights legislation. Questions were asked back then about who stood to gain from doing so and who would likely lose out. The quiet part has been getting louder ever since.

I don't think many people on any position within the political spectrum have been under the illusion that this was a move that was going to benefit minorities protected by said legislation.

I'm with @PlanetJanette on this one - honesty over wanting to leave the EHRC in order to repeal the GRA would at least be a concrete platform worthy of consideration even if it is understandably deeply unpopular.

I find it so interesting that the GRC seems to be of very little interest to most trans people, with something under 10% of them actually having one. I would not be surprised to find that the really problematic ones tend to be in the group that just doesn't bother, and the ones that do have it tend to be those just quietly suffering with severe gender dysphoria and trying to make the best of their lives without bothering anyone.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could continue to benefit from an international framework which protects our right to life and our right to freedom from torture and our right to a free trial without forcing women to accept men in their single sex spaces?

I've never been in favour of leaving the ECHR but if it is being misused in this way then maybe it's no longer fit for purpose.

This is why we can't have nice things.

I am extremely sure it was article 13 of the Japanese constitution as I have already told you. You can easily look up the Supreme Court ruling translated into English.

And no, the Japanese government cannot change the Japanese constitution - there is no practical method of amending it. This was deliberate when it was written my MacArthur’s lawyers at the end of the war.

If you cannot change your constitution you cannot properly be called a democracy.

I watched the entire equalities committee meeting with the Labour party woman spat. More than once BTW

From what Badenoch said, there were strong hints that the law is being reviewed, to see how they can firm up the protected characteristics, without falling foul of the ECHR. She said they would have delivered by now if the T was taken out of LGB, it would be more straightforward (i think referring to the banning of conversion therapy)

She also stated more than once that the current law is being exploited by more predatory males than there is actual transgender people.

It seems to me that behind the scenes the civil service lawyers are working on how to address the issues for women in Sport, sue spaces etc.

I doubt it will completely satisfy us here but i am hopeful

I don’t think the Americans who wrote it really cared. The German constitution is very similar for the same reasons.

But still not saying how you want to achieve that.

You want the GRA potentially repealed if equality act amendment doesn’t go far enough for you. But how? Withdrawal from the ECHR?

Take that up with the European Court of Human Rights. But the fact remains if you want to repeal the GRA the UK has to leave the ECHR, and therefore scrap the Good Friday Agreement, to do so.

That is simple legal fact.

Why the reticence to be honest if that is what you want?

The Japanese constitution can be changed. Article 96 of said constitution:

"Article 96. Amendments to this Constitution shall be initiated by the Diet, through a concurring vote of two-thirds or more of all the members of each House and shall thereupon be submitted to the people for ratification, which shall require the affirmative vote of a majority of all votes cast thereon, at a special referendum or at such election as the Diet shall specify.
Amendments when so ratified shall immediately be promulgated by the Emperor in the name of the people, as an integral part of this Constitution."

If you want to leave the ECHR to scrap the GRA then you should be up front and say so.

And stand over the consequences of doing withdrawal.

Yes but as I said this is more likely due to migration pressures across the EU. You may have noticed political shifts already?

I understand it will be a messy time due to competing narratives but I am also used to a decent system outside the ECHR, greater control and happy citizens generally.

Having lived in a non-ECHR country it’s not something which upset me then, nor others

Why do you keep asking the same question over and over again when people have already answered it?

@JanesLittleGirl I said there is no practical way of changing it. This is why it has never been amended since it was written. The conditions for amendment are so onerous that it’s virtually impossible to do so. This was deliberate.

You’re back to what you think will happen rather than what you want to happen. It’s a fairly straightforward question.

If the Equality Act is amended but that amendment doesn’t achieve what you like and you want the GRA repealed, what do you think should happen?

Leave the GRA intact and remain within the ECHR; or leave the ECHR to repeal the GRA?

If the ECHR is no longer fit for purpose then it should be binned and replaced with something that IS fit for purpose.

If it prioritises men's identities over women's actual human rights then it is not fit for purpose, is it?

The whole point of human rights is that everyone has them. Not just men with gender identities.

Why are you presenting this false binary?

You don't have to repeal the GRA to strip it of its power.

Indeed.

It can’t possibly the case that telling lies about your biological sex and having those lies written into official documentation is a human right.

It can’t possibly be the case that demanding that all single sex spaces become mixed sex spaces because you want access to opposite sex spaces is a human right.

Being a person who believes themselves to be ”living as” a member of the opposite sex doesn’t make that person an actual member of the opposite sex.

And it can’t possibly be the case that there’s a human right to “be deemed by society to be a member of the opposite sex because you regard yourself as living as a member of the opposite sex”.

Why would such a right only extend to living as a member of the opposite sex? Why wouldn’t it extend to living as an over 70 year old or living as an under 12 yo? Or living as a disabled person?

I thought the Goodwin case related to the right to a family life and right to a private life. Nothing about right to access opposite sex spaces.

The right to a private life is not absolute. There’s no human right to conceal your past record of offending - whether that’s murder, physical assault, sexual assault, fraud - particularly in circumstances where safeguarding is relevant.

Here’s what David Lammy said in Parliament in 2003.

“The European Court of Human Rights interpreted the convention, which is now a part of UK law, in the case of Goodwin v. UK, and its judgment stated that a system for recognising transsexual people in their acquired gender must exist and that transsexual people must be granted their rights under article 8, the right to respect for private life, and article 12, the right to marry.”

Because they haven’t answered it.

If there’s going to be a discussion on repealing the GRA then I don’t think it’s too much for those who advocate that outcome to be honest that that would require withdrawal from the ECHR and abandoning the Good Friday Agreement.

You can’t have a policy discussion while refusing to be upfront about the policy implications of what you’re proposing.