Petition to repeal the Gender Recognition Act

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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 We therefore think that it needs now to be repealed”

Repealing the GRA would equally not repeal other legislation like the EA2010 or the Workplace Health and Safety regulations 1992, etc, which govern when the sexes can or must be segregated in the provision of services or at work.

The employment appeals tribunal does not write the law. The law, subsequent to Croft is the EA and a higher court than Croft has determined that a man without a GRC is a man regardless of surgery or stage of transition. It doesn’t matter what the judge in Croft thought, both law and case law have overwritten his ruling. Getting rid of the GRA means no man could have a GRC so they would all be men regardless of how they identify or what cosmetic surgery they have had - as per FWSvScotGov.

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

That's irrelevant. Repealing the GRA doesn't rewind the law to a time before the EA2010.

The problem at the moment with keeping men out of women's spaces is that the sex category of women in the EA2010 currently includes some men who are legally women because they have a GRC. If no men can be legally women, then everyone's sex is always the sex at birth.

The problem at the moment with keeping men out of women's spaces is that the sex category of women in the EA2010 currently includes some men who are legally women because they have a GRC.

This is the argument of ScotGov, we await the judgement of the SC. And even if the SC agree, including male people with GRCs in the category of female would not override the single sex exceptions in the EA2010.

The problem at the moment is TA-led misrepresentation of the EA2010 and de facto self-ID.

I believe Merrymouse's view is that there have been international judgements that the UK has to have a proper mechanism to formally recognise a "sex change". And that the GRC provides that mechanism.

Then in the absence of that, we would be back to the ad hoc situation that was ruled against.

I believe where we differ is that I think the Goodwin court's issue was that we didn't have a proper mechanism. There was an ad hoc mess. The judgment's basis, as I understand it, was that people could be left in a sort of weird limbo, half recognised as having changing sex, but not acquiring the full rights of that sex. They wanted the fuzzy legal status formalised.

Many seem to interpret the judgment as meaning that we had to handle "sex changes". But I don't think that's the case.

I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I believe that the issue can equally be resolved by being clear that there is no mechanism to have a "sex change" recognised by the government. Removing the mess that Goodwin was complaining about.

That could have been done at the time, but clearly there was no political will to do that - people had not yet fully comprehended what a mess the partial recognition was doing, let alone what a mess the full mechanism would cause.

We've now had subsequent UK judgments that legally without a GRC you haven't changed sex, so it seems the ad hoc mess has been cleaned up. We now only have that one mechanism, and it can be revoked.

Merrymouse has raised a really good point. I'd be interested to see Michael Foran's view of this - in his sex and gender paper from a year or two ago he summarises the messy pre-Goodwin case law but of course doesn't discuss what would happen if we still have Goodwin but no GRA.

Yes, but the concept of meeting the requirements to be treated as a woman don't go away with the GRA. You just exchange one set of criteria for another, The judgements in Goodwin and Croft still exist.

I think these judgements are sexist rubbish that value a man's feelings over a woman's rights, but that doesn't lessen their relevance to the law.

I think I tend to be quite reductionist, and if there does end up being any international treaty or body telling a country that they have to legislate that men can be women, then that treaty or membership has to be abandoned, as it's clearly totally irrational.

Yes, but the concept of meeting the requirements to be treated as a woman don't go away with the GRA. You just exchange one set of criteria for another

Sure, but the criteria is now the rational one - "being female". Why should the criteria have to be attainable for everyone?

"I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I believe that the issue can equally be resolved by being clear that there is no mechanism to have a "sex change" recognised by the government."

I agree with this, and that is what I would do to make things clear - but the Goodwin case was that the right to privacy* had been breached because e.g. sex was revealed to employers by NI number. (or that might have been a similar case at the same time)

I think tough, the right to privacy is not absolute and if sex is relevant it's relevant, but it wasn't up to me to decide, and I don't see how that judgement can be ignored.

*there was also some other stuff about right to marriage which is no longer relevant.

Similarly with Croft - my view is 'oh dear, you can't change sex, never mind', but I wasn't the judge who said "a permanent refusal of choice to someone presenting to the world as a woman could be an act of discrimination even if the person had not undergone the final surgical intervention "

"Sure, but the criteria is now the rational one - "being female". Why should the criteria have to be attainable for everyone?"

Because the reality is that

"if there does end up being any international treaty or body telling a country that they have to legislate that men can be women, then that treaty or membership has to be abandoned, as it's clearly totally irrational."

won't happen.

Editing to add: Or rather, the most effective way to make the first paragraph happen is not going to be simply reapealing the GRA.

Editing to also add: But campaigning to repeal the GRA has at least forced the issue to be discussed.

But Croft was before the EA2010. The protected characteristic of sex didn't exist in the law as it does now.

The correct comparator for a man who wants to be a woman is men who don't have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. If he is not being discriminated against compared to other men there's no discrimination.

Incidentally...

Sex already existed as a protected characteristic from the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

Also - as I understand it, the Goodwin judgement turned on privacy. Christine Goodwin had had full GRS and the argument was that without the ability to "correct" official documents like a drivers licence or passport, Goodwin had to "out" Goodwin's self as male whenever ID documents had to be produced. This was held to violate Goodwin's rights to privacy. And since CG could not marry a man as a woman, violated CG's right to a private life. (No equal marriage, so could not marry a man as a man.) So a duty for the state to provide some form of legal recognition of gender change for a tiny minority (hollow laugh) was seen as the remedy.

But it would be interesting to hear intact males with beards argue that their privacy was violated by being outed as male.

Sex already existed as a protected characteristic from the passing of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

So the judge in Croft, in saying "a permanent refusal of choice to someone presenting to the world as a woman could be an act of discrimination even if the person had not undergone the final surgical intervention" was suggesting that in some cases it could be legitimate to ignore the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act?

The definition of woman was different. Under the SDA1975, meaning of Woman "included" a human female, but was not confined to human female as in the EA2010.

Full disclosure, I haven't really been following your argument, but the remark about sex caught my eye as I scrolled down to Add Post in connection with other posters' Goodwin remarks.

I don’t think Goodwin did create a duty to do anything. There was compensation to
be paid but no need to do more

https://x.com/alessandraaster/status/1865663134088007998?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ

Bad choice of words.
I didn't mean it was the legal remedy ordered by the court. What I meant was that the creation of a legal mechanism to recognise gender change was seen as the remedy to a problem - a way to bring clarity, codify the case law and bring certainty to this area of law. And bring UK law into line with other countries'.