There have been lots of threads recently about Labour's position on gender and their role in the GRA. A poster on another thread made a slightly off topic point that I thought deserved a thread of its own. Please scroll on past or hide this thread if you aren't interested in discussing further!
Thanks to @bigcoatlady....
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 only allows people to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate if they have two written reports by medical professionals confirming that they have lived in their affirmed gender for two years as well as evidence of any medical treatment they have undergone. There is no requirement for a GRC to be issued that the applicant has undergone surgery, the reason for this is the original bill introduced by Labour restricted GRCs only to those who had received surgery and this was removed in the Lords by Tory peers uncomfortable with the requirement that 'men' undergo surgical removal of the penis.
That much is ancient history. Less than 5000 people in the UK have a GRC.
In 2015 the Home Office launched a proposal to remove the costly and time-consuming medical assessment of applications for gender recognition in favour of self-ID. This was a Tory proposal from a Tory government. They have since reversed their position on it but it was never a Labour proposal.
The Equality Act 2010 has always made it possible to exclude trans women from women only competitive sports (s.195), women only services (sch 3), all women shortlists(s104(7)), communal accommodation (sch23), women only associations (sch16) and job requirements (sch 9).
As a result employers who want to recruit a woman but not a transwoman to a role such as 'rape crisis counsellor' have always been able to do so. If a rape crisis service wanted to offer rape crisis group therapy ONLY to women and not trans women they are entirely permitted to do so. If a domestic violence refuge (and I have chaired the board of trustees of a housing charity which offers refuge services for many years) wants to only accommodate women and not trans women it can do so.
Services such as Survivors Network are choosing to include transwomen in their service for whatever reasons but there is no legal obligation on them to do this.
Even had the Tory proposals to permit self-ID gone ahead it was never proposed that the law be changed further to reduce the protection for women only spaces in the Equality Act.
You can call that a gender ideology scandal if you like but its pretty tame.
There is another scandal. During those fifteen years, those of us who have been scrabbling to fund frontline services have been hard hit by austerity. In the city my charity operates in the women-led charities which delivered refuge services went to the wall in the first round of austerity. By 2015 we had no DV refuges at all. Our Rape Crisis nearly went bust and is currently closed to new referrals. We are not a women only provider but we started to offer specialist accommodation for women at risk of homelessness 8 yrs ago because of the massive demand. Women leaving violent partners were becoming street homeless and ending up in hostels surrounded by aggressive mean with drug issues due to the shortage of safe accommodation.
Two years ago the govt did create a statutory duty on councils to urgently accommodate households leaving DV BUT by then it was too bloody late, the good charities had already sold up their properties and moved on. The sector has been ripped apart by the last fifteen years
This is a bigger scandal than the GRA.