Westminster Hall debate on 'gc' beliefs and the EA

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/c78a22b7-7a58-4a85-bc9e-bfb8b6b88622

'Westminster Hall debate: Gender critical beliefs and the Equality Act 2010'

On the surface wrong sex pronouns - to use or not to use - looks like a clash of rights but I would argue that it isn't.

For one thing, the pronouner wants other people to do something which violates their principles, compels expression of belief in a quasi religious ideology. Even minimised it still means using language in a different way especially for that person, because they want you to. How can this be a right?

Sex realist just wants to talk normally. No offence intended by using language correctly. Freedom of belief and expression.
No demands are made of the pronouner who can continue to believe whatever they want.

I think the fair approach at work is to allow people to put pronouns in signature/bio but no steer from management and no obligation for colleagues to comply, even in emails which mention pronouner, or explain.
It's not a battle of competing rights, IMO, it's rights Vs wants.

At some point you just have to say no. Just because something matters to an individual it doesn't make it important or something that society should accommodate.
Just because somebody is offended or angry or upset with you it doesn't necessarily mean you have done anything wrong.

The more I think about preferred pronouns, the more I'm forced to conlide they're inapproriate in work emails (or meeting introductions, or anywhere) - even on a voluntary basis. It's not professional to mangle the language that way, any more than it would be to write your emails in pig Latin. You don't choose the pronouns that apply to.you, any more than you choose your adjectives or verbs. That's not how grammar works.

Important.

NO TAs turned up to argue their position in this debate. In the previous Westminster Hall debate on this topic they did.

None of the Liberal, SNP, Green, Labour, Tory MPs etc who argued in some weird way that biology is not a thing before were there. I think the TAs in Parliament are losing ground and more so they know the public disagree. Inside Labour the radical TAs are being sidelined. If they don't want this to happen they need to fight back, but it seems they won't. Moderates meanwhile are reverse ferreting at huge speed.

So we are not out of the woods yet but progress is being made.

The verdict in Supreme Court will be a turning point whatever happens. If women lose the pressure on Labour to put legislation in place to define biology will be high for electoral reasons. The want to use this topic to attack the SNP in 2025.

I don’t really hold much confidence in any of these reports statistics.

I wrote in twice regarding the Document T toilet consultation. I know at least one charity did too. I explained facts with evidence on the risks for 3 protected characteristics: disabled people, females, and age. I discussed how one commissioned report had not followed its remote leading to the wrong conclusions. In the government’s analysis documents, there was no mention of my concerns or that anyone had raised similar. I followed this up and was told ‘a lot had been left out’.

People manipulate the data. You would never know any concerns had been raised. There was a campaign by Stonewall to get people to write in about toilets right at the beginning of the process (all searchable, fair enough, that’s their cause) but the statistics were then hugely skewed. The Government then employed people to look at design for other groups (disabled and long term health conditions) and the report ignored most of those conditions, focusing on trans gender issues instead. Because of this, a design element then recommended is a major safety fault to the group it was supposed to be looking at. But the company commissioned to do this report got a Stonewall Gold Award that year. These are facts. I wasn’t going looking for them. I was following up why my evidence and views were deemed irrelevant.

I was told by the EHRC to come back with an incident sheet when something had directly happened to me personally that was provable it was directly to do with a change in government toilet design on a protected characteristic. I confirmed that to fill in the sheets I would have to prove the toilet I used, previously had a different design, and that the design had been changed because of the recommendations in Document T (2024), and that I had been discriminated against because that change led to my harm (!)
He had been listening and engaging until I mentioned the inconvenient truthful fact that a report focused on a different characteristic rather than its remit so this design element was overlooked. Then he could wait to get me off the phone and directed me to an incident sheet.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, having watched Yes Minister and In the Thick of it.
The difference is, because what’s in the public domain is easier to click on now. So when you are scrutinising about one lifesaving design element, it becomes easy to locate the source. It still jars because of the reality - that the most vulnerable people are more at risk.

That is interesting, @fromorbit. They were very vocal in the last one.

@Keeptoiletssafe I'd like to thank you for everything you do. You are so clear in your explanations and examples of where enclosed-room toilets are dangerous, and why toilets block are designed the way they are.

Thank you!

My heart is with you but pronouns in email/pronoun badges/pronoun earrings could be seen as on a par with religious symbols, which are generally allowed at work as long as they are discreet and don't get in the way of doing your job properly. Obviously there are times when even discreet symbols would impair your ability to work or reduce clients'/customers confidence or trust in you.
The crucial thing is not to give "pronouning" any special status - it's just a belief or a preference.

I don't know anyone who believes this either. But I know a lot of people who think TWAW and therefore aren't men and are allowed in women's spaces. <sigh>

Little crosses as earings at work are one thing; adding 'Christ is risen' to your email signature is another - and I've never seen people do that. My last workplace certainly wouldn't have allowed it. And neither of those actions come with an expectation that other people will do anything with the information so it's not quite the same. Pronoun earrings at work might cause an internal eye roll but I'd not object; but like religious declarations they're not an approriate part of an email signature, which is a corporate identity rather than a personal one.

Fair enough re the email signature - it isn't personal to the employee.

This 10% of documents, virtually ever time I've looked at a document they fail to be specific about single sex spaces. I'd like to see this list of documents and the documents themselves.

“I'd like to see this list of documents and the documents themselves.”

Ten per cent of 400 documents is 40 documents.

If the UK Government has already forwarded those 40 documents to EHRC for consideration, there’d be no reason for the UK Government to refuse a Freedom of Information request for copies of the documents to be disclosed.

I'd have thought SEEN would have forwarded all the policies with wrong guidance, of which there are LOADS

The problem lies not in misinforming organisations that employers are under a legal obligation to allow TP into SSS (hence the 10%), it’s organisations like Stonewall saying things like proportional justification is too difficult to do. Their advice maybe within the law but it comes with an inference that employers may face issues if they try to implement them.

Little crosses as earings at work are one thing; adding 'Christ is risen' to your email signature is another - and I've never seen people do that

@NoBinturongsHereMate I have seen that (or very similar sentiments), but only once from UK based colleagues and that was such a long time ago - when moving from Lotus Notes to Outlook was a big deal. I have seen it more frequently/recently from US based colleagues. However only one I know of was spoken to about bringing faith into work, and that was because they also mixed it up with a political statement so managed to offend 90% of the office. Insisting on starting office pot luck lunches with a prayer - totally fine, apparently.

No I want to see the 90%. I think we should have the right to see them all.

As I posted yesterday the Government assertion of only 10% of organisations not understanding the SSE is one that the EHRC has questioned.

But the current Government now has ownership of the responses to the survey set in motion by Kemi Badenoch.

If anyone can be bothered you can go to the EHRC website, find the letter that challenged the Government about this and ask the EHRC if they have heard back.

I dont think there is any way that TRAs have given up.

This would have been part of the Labour lets just go through the motions, but dont in any way let Rosie Duffield think we are worried.

It is part of the snub.

They know they have the ear of Government and see not threat on the horizon.

Which they did when Kemi Badenoch was the lead on following up the debate about ammending the EA to clarify the word sex.

Their lack of engagement shows how complacent they are.

Did anyone bother to look and see how many MPs in total even turned up?

Based on the video there were less than 10 MPs there as a whole, and if seating is an indication, only 1 Labour MP.

Presumably the substitutes, substiture for Minister for Equalities (but not for women)

Ah. But this is just too sensible.

Gosh. To live in a time, in a world, where my current, highest craving is for the sensible...

'Rights vs wants'.
Nail on the head!

Thank you for the clarity of expression.

"wrongly state or suggest that people have a legal right to access single-sex spaces and services according to their self-identified gender"

That makes it clear that DU, to take a random example, would be considered wrong to self-identity into a women's changing room.

@Keeptoiletssafe you're needed. https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5293997-school-toilets-redesign-help-please?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share