Will Labour introduce Self ID & curb free speech?

[Heylo]

I’ve never voted Tory, but as a lesbian woman who plans to have children (and obviously as a woman!) I am and will be part of the three groups most affected by Gender Ideology; women, lesbian and soon I hope a Mother. I am really worried about what happens when Labour takes power. The Tories have been rubbish no arguments there but at least they are finally moving against the steam rolling of Gender Ideology. I’m thinking Labour are not that fiscally different to the Tories and have said they will not cap bankers bonuses and they don’t intend to increase public spending in a significant way.

Really concerned about more gender identity clinics popping up under Labour and Keir Starmer possibly curbing free speech via so - called hate laws (in the feminist circle i run in we all agree this is a euphemism for silencing women about men in female prisons, rape shelters and other areas where women are vulnerable).

wonder what everyone else thinking?

So do discuss how the concept of the 'legal woman' who is a man who has all the legal rights of being a woman, fits into this?

Because you have said on this thread that you think that the 'legal woman' as created by the GRC is necessary.

The Labour Party thinks so too, and it's so easy to get a GRC. Self declaration does it.

@AdamRyan

And I'm not "hanging women out to dry". That is offensive hyperbole, that you are using to prevent other people engaging logically with what I'm saying.

How so?

You are literally saying that some males pass a (purity) test which means that they get extra rights through the concept of 'legal woman' that you believe in!

That does hang women who can't be around any male (including the ones you deem worthy) out to dry.

I think it's offensive lies which claim that some men can be women. There is no logic in that that would usurp a woman who needs single sex spaces in favour of a man with 'legal woman' status.

OK I guess I misunderstood your post where you claimed I'd rejected your short hand, as the only thing I could see was the watered down phrase, so I assumed you meant that.

I agreed with your whole post until the last para. I'm GC because I don't think gender is real - I think its a belief. I don't know why you think you get to dictate what GC is and who is in and out. But I don't find it helpful.

Again, strawmanning me.
I said the GRC is important. I didn't say I think it should make someone have all the rights of the opposite sex. In fact I said it should be a way of validating a "trans" identity and giving people some of the rights women have (basically pronouns and respect their belief).
Stop putting words in my mouth for me.

There is no such thing as a purity test. You are employing hyperbole, again.

Also, what "extra rights" are you thinking someone with a GRC gets?

Really?

So what is the difference between a 'gender woman' - a man without a GRC and a 'legal woman' a man with a GRC.

And why is it 'important' that some men should be able to gain a GRC? If it doesn't confer privileges at law?

Please explain how, by law in the UK, one can prevent a legal female (a man with a GRC which gives him the legal sex of female) from entering single sex spaces reserved for women?

The Labour party talks about biological women and gender women.

But fail to talk about the 'legal women' who pay a £5 for a dr to say they have 'gender dysphoria' which enables them to falsify the sex data. on their birth certificate.

Good luck with excluding those males from single sex spaces for women. They are protected by law. Which you think is 'important'. You said so upthread!

I don't think you understand the meaning of hyperbole.

Or the concept of 'legal woman' that you are so determined to defend.

Or you don't care about the impact on biological woman.

None of these put you in a good light on a feminist thread.

Adam, where I have said 'important' please substitute 'needed'.

You said that the GRC was 'needed'.

I'll ask again how is it 'needed' if it doesn't confer additional rights to 'self declaration'?

It is needed because it creates another class of male, separate from gender women, who have passed a test (£5 and a self declaration of dysphoria) who cannot be excluded from single sex spaces which have previously been reserved for natal women.

Well put it this way, Adam; do you think the position and status of women in UK society and world-wide has got better, or deteriorated, as a result of the recent rise of the trans movement?

@lifeturnsonadime

It is needed because it creates another class of male, separate from gender women, who have passed a test (£5 and a self declaration of dysphoria) who cannot be excluded from single sex spaces which have previously been reserved for natal women.

It is simply a legal document used for insurance purposes, marriage, and after death - yes? It isn't as if transwomen are marching into ladies' loos with their GRCs clasped to their chests like entry tickets.

how much faith do I have in starmer? Next to none. The comedian Mark Steel said on his triggernometery interview "The thing about starmer is that he says nothing then next week changes his mind". Quite.

I'm GC because I don't think gender is real - I think its a belief. I don't know why you think you get to dictate what GC is and who is in and out. But I don't find it helpful.

Whether it's "real" or "a belief" isn't the point. If you accomodate gender ahead of sex in any practical sense - yes, like allowing men to become legal "women" with a GRC, or supporting appropriated language - it doesn't matter whether you are doing this because you believe it yourself or just want to accomodate the beliefs of others. The outcome is the same - you are accomodating feelings of gender over the facts of sex. This is not gender critical, it is gender accomodating.

What I'm telling you is that the logical endpoints from your statements don't add up to a GC position. You are not "GC lite" where everyone else is "GC Ultra". You are not representing a nuanced middle ground against GC extremists, you are in a different place on a different scale.

But that's ok. You certainly don't have to be gender critical to have issues with trans activism and genderist politics. We aren't in the schoolyard. This isn't about who is "in" or "out" of whose gang. We are adults. We don't need to have the same team T shirt or exactly the same beliefs to find alignment. But we do need to be honest and open minded. Painting other women as extremists because they do not find it acceptable that a male person can be included as "a woman" because of how he thinks/feels about womanhood is not a good way to find allyship.

(basically pronouns and respect their belief)

These aren’t rights they are demands. Nobody has the right to have their belief respected by others. Why would I respect a belief that I perceive as being fundamentally harmful to women? And since when have people had the right to demand what language others use. It’s not a right it’s controlling.

This is the pre-self ID line about what a GRC does, because while the TRA aim is still to make them easier to obtain, it's important to minimise their relevance and impact, "it's just insurance/admin" etc

After self ID laws or GRC process satisfactorily "modernised", I guarantee the party line will switch to "how dare you deny me access, I'm legally female".

Take prisons.

We can ask how many males are in women's prisons, and we will be answered with the number of men who identify as women but have no GRC. Those males who have a GRC will be counted as females and not reported.

It's certainly possible for strongly and consistently held beliefs to be socially and legally significant in liberal democracies. Pacifists were able to exempt themselves from conscription if they could demonstrate that their pacifism was real and abiding.
The trouble for trans is that the exceptions are baked in to the GRA. Where the rubber hits the road, inherited peerages are not lost or gained on the basis of legal sex, only actual sex. When it really counts even the truest of true trans know what actual sex is.
It's like if pacifists had fought long and hard for legislation which allows them to demonstrate the sincerity of their belief while carving out a loophole that allows them to hang onto their investments in the global arms trade if their returns are really good.
Utterly cynical, and hollow from the start.

Take data collection. Crime stats for starters. But also major implications for gender pay gap and health research.
Hospital settings (thinking about that incident where a woman was told she couldn't have been raped because there were no males on the ward - and the wider issue with the number of sexual assaults).
Health Care Providers and consent especially for intimate care and procedures (we've already seen instances where staff feelings and employment responsibilities are regarded as more important than patient welfare)

To name three straight off the top of my head without thinking about this too hard.

Likewise, I'd say making yourself the authority on a political movement, deciding who is in and who is out based on your self appointed definition of the group, then straw manning anyone who is out isn't a way to make allies

It's a real shame this has happened to the GC movement.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights

Universal declaration of human rights:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

Hence why Maya Forstater won her case.

People are as entitled to believe gender is more important than sex and to live in accordance with that, as to believe that sex is more important than gender and live in accordance with that.

Law and society has to accommodate both beliefs, alongside a myriad of other beliefs.

(I'm not a lawyer. This is my interpretation of it)

Also I believe Abrahamic religions to be "fundamentally harmful to women", yet I still have to respect people's rights to practice those religions, preach about them, post letters about them through my door, etc etc.

@AdamRyan you're conflating a right to hold beliefs with a right to ensure other people have respect for them. No one is saying men can't believe they are women. People are saying they don't have to go along with it.

And that going along with it, is accepting laws which are harmful to women. That's the difference and the stumbling block.

We are being told we must be respectful to a religion that doesn't respect and understand the biological issues and threats women face daily and to accept laws that go against the established protections based on these biological issues. It's a sexist and homophobic.

We respect other religions but we don't accept how they harm women as part of our own law. We expect our laws which protect women and homosexuals to be observed and respected.

I disagree. People are saying they want a government who will write into law that people must be treated as their birth sex in all circumstances (e.g. breach their right to a belief), that they won't use pronouns etc.

To me, this is an equivalently strong position to saying "TWAW", just at the other end of the spectrum. Both fundamentally conflict with other people's human rights, as shown in the Forstater case.

I am saying its possible to be both gender critical and act in ways that respect someone's belief that gender is more important than sex.