Petition to repeal the Gender Recognition Act

[CraggyIslandTouristBoard]

Not sure if this has been posted already but please consider signing:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/705403

“We believe that the GRA 2004 was created on a basis of fore-grounding the personal autonomy, personal development and security of a very small minority of UK citizens. In so doing, we think it had the effect of diminishing and displacing the Human Rights, safety, autonomy and dignity of over 50% of the UK population - namely women. We therefore think that it needs now to be repealed”

Maybe they'll assign gender by AI.

"Modernising" will be removing GD as a requirement and whatever nightmares lie in operation as a result of digital ID.

They have said several times they will modernise while keeping the requirement for a clinical diagnosis.
Not that a diagnosis is difficult to get, but let's be fair to the government.

I think repealing the GRA is a non-starter as it would be seen as political suicide.

I think what they should do is amend it to keep sex and gender separate. So it's acknowledging your preferred gender, for those that feel they need this. But not changing your legal sex [this isn't my original idea, I've pinched it from others on here!]

Will have to see what the Supreme Court have to say about the GRA vs Equality Act in the upcoming What is a Woman decision ...

The keep sex and gender separate they would need to define gender and define it in a non-circulatory way (gender = gender) and start recording sex and gender separately PLUS start using words for gender that are not stolen from sex - so feminine and masculine. Keep male/female/girl/boy/men/women and pronouns as referring to sex.

I think this current government are far too emotionally attached to the GRA to contemplate repealing it. But whereas before I believed the idea was pretty pointless, I now think that the more they're pushed into making vacuous, contradictory soundbites like this, the better.

I do believe one day it will have to be repealed. It's just a mad piece of legislation that creates more harms than benefits.

A diagnosis has really already been removed by stealth. And digital ID will cement it:

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/government-removes-safeguards-from-digital-identity-bill/

“Government plans to rely on citizens and business to use “common sense”
In the debate last week, DSIT Minister Chris Bryant rejected the arguments for ensuring that data about sex is accurate, saying:
“I simply do not buy this argument that we need to make this provision in relation to all digital verification services.”

…But in a letter to Dr Caroline Johnson MPhe said:
“Digital verification services can be used to prove sex or gender, in the same way that individuals can already prove their sex using their passport, for example.”

Johnson had to put the record straight about this in a point of order in the House of Commons. We know that “passport sex” is not reliable or accurate. HMPO even explicitly allows men who identify as “crossdressers” to have “female” passports”

I don't think the GRA is well written, and I very much resent the idea that the government thinks I have a gender. I would very much like the government to explain what they mean by this.

However, if the GRA is repealed we just have case law and no exceptions. That doesn't sound better.

I have signed the petition but I am not hopeful that it will get the numbers required for any meaningful discussion. I also agree with @Floisme the current government are too entrenched in its support for this legislation.

Case law is based on law though, and if the law allowing people to force others to pretend they have changed sex is repealed then cases that follow from that no longer stand.

I agree, but I also think each time this is raised it makes it a bit more likely to happen in future.

Before the GRA the assumption was that there was a point where a man could change sex. See Croft v. Royal Mail

https://a-question-of-consent.net/2020/08/16/croft-v-royal-mail-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

Croft lost his case because it was judged that he hadn't yet reached the point of transition (he was pre-operative), not because it was held that no man could change sex.

The GRA defines the point of transition as acquisition of a GRC, but then clearly states that this only applies in some circumstances.

Repeal of the GRA risks removing exceptions that allow single sex services without preventing men from being legally recognised as women.

Except there is now a ruling from the Inner House of the Court of Session that a man without a GRC is a man regardless of ‘transition’.

That's a self-ID issue - bad in itself, but it doesn't contradict what the govt says about retaining the requirement of a clinical diagnosis of gd for the acquisition of a GRC.

Do they though? Male people can be excluded on the grounds of GR or Sex, whether or not they have a GRC. I'm not sure I follow you.

Yes - he is in the same position as Croft.

The problem is that you lose the GRC, but revert to the pre-GRA position that its up the courts to decide when transition occurs. It's not the GRA that creates the legal concept that somebody can change sex.

Repealing the GRA is not enough and could make the situation worse. There needs to be clear legislation on sex.

Those exclusions are all in the GRA.

No, they're in the Equality Act. Are we talking at cross purposes, perhaps? I meant the female single sex exceptions in the EA2010 which make discrimination lawful on the grounds of Sex and/or GR.

If a judge decided it was possible to change age and a grown man had to be treated as if he were a child, including joining in sleeping arrangements with scouts, everyone would think theyd lost their mind.

But somehow when a judge decides that a man can change sex, everyone nods along and regig laws to compensate for this new fact.

We would not revert to the pre-GRA decision as we now have the Equality Act and it has been determined that sex in the Equality Act without a GRC means sex.

That is because a GRC now determines the point when it is recognised that somebody has legally transitioned.

However, getting rid of GRCs does not remove the concept that somebody can transition, because that predates the GRA and comes from case law.

The implication of Croft v. Royal Mail was that with enough surgery, Croft should have had the right to use the women's toilets. The GRA specified that surgery was irrelevant, and that a GRC could be ignored in some circumstances.

Get rid of the GRA and you could just be left with post operative men being allowed to use all women's services.

The GRA didn't appear out of nowhere. It made a botched job of trying to clear up some messy and nonsensical case law, but get rid of the GRA and the mess remains.

Sorry, Merrymouse, but that is not correct. If the GRA was repealed and all current GRCs cancelled (very unlikely and arguably very unfair) it would simply mean the abolition of the category of legally female and biologically male. It would make no difference to the PC of GR (for which having a GRC is not necessary) nor to access to the women's spaces/services which fall under the EA exceptions. Any male can be excluded from those spaces/services on the grounds of being male.

Forgot to add:

Not only would the removal of legal recognition of "gender change" not give access to women's spaces to any transitioning male, the whole question of whether males with GRCs can be counted as women in women's associations or on gender-balanced boards just goes away completely.

The law would still be governed by the decision in Goodwin v United Kingdom, and per Croft it would be up to the courts to decide whether Dr Upton could use the women's toilets, the implication being that this right could be acquired through surgery, but who knows if that would now be required?

You would still have a category of men who are treated as women by default, the service provider having the choice to include or exclude.

Repealing the GRA does not rewind the law to a time before all the judgements that led to it were made.