There are fewer than 10,000 people in the UK with a Gender Recognition Certificate. The Supreme Court ruling has not nullified GRCs. Self identification is not a protected characteristic and its NON legal status has not changed.

[IwantToRetire]

• 8,464 GRCs have been issued since 2005.
• Figures are for up to March 2024
• 10,000 is to allow for those that have been issued in 2024/25.

On one level if the situation had just been about 10,000 people, the impact on women’s sex based rights might not have been so overwhelming for women. Whether it would have been possible to have a real life system that accommodated this tiny number of people and allowed women to continue to be accepted as they always were, and are now again, a sex class category I don’t know.

But, as has been said on many threads here on FWR, it is the false information and “advice” on self id that has caused the real problem. Not just by those who gave the advice but by the institutions that have put in place policies that have nothing to do with the protected characteristic of Gender Re-assignment, but are far more to do with life style choices – or political campaign.

This has also lead to the over the top headlines that the Supreme Court ruling is an attack on trans rights. And tear jerking stories about trans people fearing for their lives, etc., etc..

There is nothing in the Supreme Court ruling that says people cant self identity.

Because self identifying has never been, and so far not been made into a legal status, let alone a protected characteristic.

Yet schools and other institutions have created “safe spaces” and “guidance” to accommodate those who claim an identity, far more in some cases than they do for those with a religious belief –which is a protected characteristic.

And this false narrative has given space to, and in fact encouraged, outright statements and actions of hatred of women.

So apart from still finding it hard to accept that this Alice in Wonderland situation has been so successful in yet again telling women they aren’t worthy of respect, I am now wondering if there might be unexpected consequences from the Court ruling.

Some people with GRCs are already saying what is the point of having one. They don’t give us any real benefit (advantage).

While on the other hand, with the full on commentary of the harm being done to the far larger self identifying group, it is likely they will end up with more and more concessions being made to them irrespective of self identity having no legal status

In other words we will get self id by the back door because these last two points could combine to make it happen. Why bother with the hassle of getting a GRC when the public, businesses, the arts, Government, etc. are all making self id de facto the law by custom and practice.

And if not in this Parliament then the next, self id will become a law replacing the GRA.

Is it too late to shut the stable door.

Or stop the tsunami of misinformation drowning out women’s voices once again.

''There is nothing in the Supreme Court ruling that says people cant self identity.''
There's nothing in the Gender Recognition Act about penalties for making false claims, and that might be something we can petition to fix.
How much support would there be for a dotgov petition;
''Make it an offence to claim or cause someone to believe you have a GRC.''

I'm not clear about what you are driving at, but...

Neither self-ID nor having a GRC are PCs - GR is the PC. You can self-ID as having a tg identity and this attracts protection from discrimination on the grounds of GR. You cannot self-ID as legally female and even if you claim you are, for the purposes of the EA2010, it would make no difference.

People who claim a tg identity (of which the EA only recognises male and female), with or without a GRC, share the PC of GR - having a GRC doesn't get you extra privileges.

The SC didn't say that GRCs were pointless, they said that they might matter in other areas of law and they did matter for the specific legal purposes in the GRA. What they have done is curb the scope so that, s9(1) notwithstanding, the GRA doesn't necessarily and automatically apply to any legislation, and is disapplied if it would make the legislation incoherent.

Anyone who self IDs as "trans" (or has a GRC) already has the protection of the PC of GR and the PC of Sex. The SC has clarified that their sex remains the same. They can't be granted rights of entry into opposite sex spaces because that would be unlawful and the provider would be without a defence if sued for discrimination or some other harm which resulted.

I'm sure they'll try it on, but the law is clear and the law is against them.

I did not know until today that you could change sex markers on passports, driver’s licences and health records etc just with a doctor’s letter saying you’re trans. That’s basically self-id isn’t it? You just need a GRC to change birth certificates.

The SC didn't say that GRCs were pointless,

Sorry if I didn't make it clear, but i stated people who have gone done the route fo getting a GRC are saying to them it is now pointless.

Whilst at the say time irrespective of what the law says in practice many institutions and promoting self id as though it were.

So at some point in the very near future, people who might have thought I will try and get a GRC wont bother, and it wont matter because in practice so many organisations are instituting self id practices in their work place.

And all of this has happened, not because less than 10,000 obtained GRC (a tiny, tiny % of the population) but because both the law, politicians and others have allowed the practice of self id to become a fact.

The Court may have said that for the purposed of the EA sex means biology, but none of that will stop what is happening in real life.

The Court win may turn out to be a hollow victory, even if there are more women only toilets, etc., if overall as a country it becomes established that you can self id out of your sex.

“the law, politicians and others have allowed the practice of self id to become a fact”, this is true, but the SC and the EHRC have very plainly stated that such practices are illegal, and so it very much will have to stop. Some groups might need more reminding of that than others though.

While on the other hand, with the full on commentary of the harm being done to the far larger self identifying group, it is likely they will end up with more and more concessions being made to them irrespective of self identity having no legal status

What concessions though?

Do you mean because venues will just make toilets mixed sex? Surely this would still be indirectly discriminatory for women in many circumstances?

Everybody seems to be missing the point that we have just lived through a decade or more of people publicly breaking the law, and nobody doing anything about it. And politicians just side stepping.

Why? Mainly because in terms of public perception fostered by the media and posturing celebrities, they assume they are on the right side of history.

Does anyone really think that now all those captured by Stonewall, or the man weeping down the phone today today about the horrible women who had shattered his "son's" future by telling "him" "he" reallly isn't a boy.

So not just people in positions of power and influence, but families.

Are they going to tell their child/ren sorry little ones, I got it wrong.

You haven't changed sex, you are now (again) the sex you were born.

In relation to no-one doing anything during the decade of people breaking the law, those who defend this use this point to suggest the law is unnecessary as no harm was done. The ‘huns and bricks’ are swamping the media proclaiming how they’ve been using women’s provision for years and no one has objected (they draw this conclusion based on women not confronting a hefty bloke in a dress in an enclosed and isolated space). This is paired with vilifying any people who do object.

What we need is a decade of the SC ruling being implemented after which we can publish declarations that the ruling has been in place for a year and no harm has been done.

Media attention is already waining. Over time, the new ruling to bed in and solutions will be found for those with trans identities. TRAs will likely make legal challenges and lobby for a change in the law. I don’t think there will be an appetite for any party in government to get involved in new legislation in the coming years. I think the narrative about it being such a tiny minority will work against them. I think the ‘get out of jail’ for the government will be that ‘the law is clear, the guidance is clear, the guidance states that trans people must have provision that affords them dignity and privacy’ and then push the focus back to employers and providers to sort it out.

One issue with schools is that previous KCSiE stated that ‘lgbt children’ weren’t in themselves a safeguarding issue but were more vulnerable to bullying and so needed trusted / safe adults.

that was pounced on by stonewall et al

theyre still doing it despite it being LGB in the paragraph now. and t is now gender questioning but not linked to that sentence.

from what I can gather schools and their lawyers had assumed that Labour would reverse that. (I’d love to know if they still think this!)

A further issue for me is that the blow back of this ruling is saying that third spaces must be offered. Which obviously is important. At the same time in some areas it’s further pushing a narrative of special treatment, a special caste. Eg hospital wards - Wes has said they should have private wards.

speaking with hospital workers in the past; these things are not available.

given the amount of trans fawning in the nhs I’m sure they’ll make sure. But my elderly mother didn’t have a bed available when she fell and had concussion recently. Consultant wanted to admit her. She had to have 24 hr monitoring at home.

I predict that when beds are limited they’ll have to go on male wards and there will be court cases against at the nhs

(Mind you that won’t ingratiate them much)

GRCs aren't pointless. They are what they are - a formal recognition that someone has acquired a new gender.

The SC ruling has confirmed what everyone always knew - sex and gender are two different things.

For the purposes of equality and discrimination legislation the indisputable fact that sex and gender are different phenomena are vital. For the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment we already effectively have "Self ID" because anyone at any point on a process, which can include a permanent state of "considering whether obtaining a GRC would be appropriate", or indeed anyone who might be perceived as gender nonconforming, has an absolute right to protection from discrimination. This is a good thing. Having a GRC isn't a requirement for this protection which is why it's reasonable for it to be inappropriate to ask to see someone's GRC - the very possibility that someone might ask to see it is sufficient for there to be grounds for the person being protected under the characteristic of gender reassignment, so production of the certificate does not convey any additional rights.

The SC ruling, the EHRC and the Equality Act are all very clear that none of that changes the fact of someone being male or female. Self ID, like a GRC, only affects gender, not sex. If a context requires knowing someone's gender then self-ID is fine. If something is for a specific single sex then gender is irrelevant and actual sex is the determining factor.

What needs clarifying properly is which contexts require actual single-sex options. Also, passports, driving licence and nhs records need to show sex and gender as two different data points rather than conflating them, and the practice of issuing falsified fictional birth certificates needs to cease. Making it clear that people have an absolute right to any gender identity they wish and can use the honorific title and forenames of their choice, with very tough penalties for any discrimination or victimisation on the basis of someone's gender ID. Respectful recognition of the fact of someone's sex, independent of their gender, should never have been considered discriminatory. It has become so because we have culturally been so bad at being nondiscriminatory when people are gender nonconforming. That does need fixing.