Party like it’s 2004 - impossible

[Holeinamole]

I’m deeply worried about the likely outcome of this election when reading threads like this: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5107886-melanie-field-the-former-egrc-expert-behind-labours-womens-rights-policy?page=1

But more philosophically, the TRA seem to actually want to turn back the clock to a time when we had the GRA with all its problems (primogeniture preserved; section 22 - see here: https://thecritic.co.uk/secrets-and-lies/ ) but concerns were only expressed by a small number of people who were easy to ignore, bully or sideline. Examples: transwidows, Julie Bindel

Operation back-to-the-future will however only work if the activist fringe of the TRA can be disciplined, potential bad actors can be expelled (probably why cross dressers have been removed from Stonewall’s definition of trans - makes no sense, as they tend to feel very strongly about their ‘needs’, more strongly perhaps than your ‘non binary-till-graduation’ type) and the reasonable ground can be reclaimed.

The problem is: that ground has been burnt and salted, for me at least. I will never again see, for example, Prof. Stephen Whittle OBE as a reasonable person but rather a symptom of the corruption of our institutions, and a callous extremist.

True, for normies like me the first decade after the GRA in 2004 was passed was uneventful but then we had the ‘Great Awokening’ from ca. 2014 and the mainstreaming of ‘queer’.

So, on the one hand I am happy because you’d have to paint over every rainbow crossing in the world and nuke Reddit/asktransgender to make everyone forget how we got here and that’s impossible.

On the other hand I am sad because powerful people still think that they can close Pandora’s box again and bamboozle us into thinking that this is about protecting the vulnerable. They will bring in de facto self-ID and the onus will be on us to show that it is harmful. Then the question will be how many casualties will be enough, and how we roll this back in the law. We will have a debate on why we need a GRA in the first place. They might bank on ‘queer’ becoming unfashionable in the next decades and for that debate to be limited to a small number of experts, but I don’t think this will be the case.

Does this prediction sound plausible?

I completely agree.

probably why cross dressers have been removed from Stonewall’s definition of trans

They just want to get rid of the concept of "cross dresser" like they did "transvestite". All those men have been rebranded as "trans women" now.

We have to dedicate time to repealing the GRA. Not now, but for the next election.

Sex Matters and co - while having done lots of useful things - have called this wrong. And they need to critically examine their position IMO.

There are no solutions, digital or otherwise. You can't change sex and you shouldn't be legally permitted to lie about your sex.

That is the project for the next five years - getting other parties on board with Repeal, and making it an offence to conceal your sex.

I'm pretty sure the coming years will sadly provide some shocking examples of total failures of safeguarding. It'll take a child or vulnerable coming to harm in an egregious way that captures the public's attention, for people in power to act.

I agree. The GRA is a disgrace, and an affront to democracy.

No law should order people to pretend they believe a lie. Official records and documents, eg birth certificates and passports, should never be falsified. (Bad enough when this is done illegally, but making it legal undermines the law.)

It'll take a child or vulnerable coming to harm in an egregious way that captures the public's attention, for people in power to act.

Glinner says he's many times been at the, "Surely this will wake people up" point and it's never happened. Children and other vulnerable people have been harmed and I'm sure each of them consider it to have been egregious. It's been met with indifference or the demand for "n+ undefined N".

Thanks for the replies. Sadly, I agree with StickItInTheFamilyAlbum, children have already been harmed (remember the case of the ‘trans butcher’ in Scotland who abducted and sexually assaulted a child who trusted him as he presented as a woman?). I do not know what it will take.

Indeed, repealing the GRA has to become thinkable. There are powerful obstacles, though, not least the European Court of Human Rights which was in part responsible for the GRA 2004, if I recall correctly. (Goodwin judgment?) That’s why, politically, I think the Right will be more useful to those of us favouring repeal than the Left who have more respect for supranational institutions, no matter how undemocratic they are.

I don’t blame sex realists who have shied away from advocating for repeal. The ground has shifted very fast, and repeal was not a ‘respectable’ opinion only a few years ago.

(probably why cross dressers have been removed from Stonewall’s definition of trans - makes no sense, as they tend to feel very strongly about their ‘needs’, more strongly perhaps than your ‘non binary-till-graduation’ type)

I must have missed this - can you fill me in a bit?

Saw it on this thread, just happened a few days ago, and Sex Matters have commented on it.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5107886-melanie-field-the-former-egrc-expert-behind-labours-womens-rights-policy?page=1