Badenoch backs medical supervision over transgender self-identification

[IwantToRetire]

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for a “clear, medically supervised process” for transitioning, rather than people self-identifying as transgender.

“I’ve always seen the danger in self-identification, partly because I’ve had my own run-ins with predatory men. The idea that anyone could just self-identify – that didn’t sit right with me.

“There has to be a clear, medically supervised process. Doctors involved, verifying real gender dysphoria. That’s what it’s always been about.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/badenoch-backs-medical-supervision-over-transgender-self-identification/ar-AA1DGKHI

(I cant find the article in the Mail that this is based on. Might be in part of headlined about another issue.)

As far as I can see, the push is for the process to be rolled back to how it operated for decades under the DSMwhatsit - ie years of therapy, several years living as the opposite sex before you can even get a referral for surgery, and transexual status being granted post operatively… ie, how things worked before the GRA and WPATH managed to influence the compilers of the DSM to rewrite the sections on dysphoria etc.

It really does beg the question of why they don’t simply repeal the GRA now. It is less and less relevant with each judgement.

I've started to think of a GRC as akin to a participation trophy. You lost but take this piece of paper to show you tried.

I think the problem lies with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment where it includes anyone who is proposing to undergo GR. That's completely untestable and means GR includes anyone from the full-Hayton to a random pervert, a chancer who wants attention or a Teflon coating.

I think GR should be a protected characteristic but it needs better gatekeeping.

Agree @IcakethereforeIam the test for ‘planning to undergo GR’ ought really be that they are on the waiting list for surgery and nothing else as you can at least evidence that with a letter from the NHS.

Appreciate that seems invasive but, frankly, I have to share reports for each of my children/teens re their ASD/ADHD (and my DD’s contains very personal issues) just to get extra time in exams, or an ensuite room at uni, or other pretty basic accommodations and they have to suck it up, so I’m kind of meh about that indignity.

I believe the process for applying for any sort of disability benefit is also very intrusive even though disability is also a PC. I don't believe you can be covered by that characteristic just by thinking about it.

“It really does beg the question of why they don’t simply repeal the GRA now. It is less and less relevant with each judgement.”

Completely agree. But those with sway aren’t calling for it. People like Alessandra and KPSS for example, don’t have the profile (and KPSS confirmed they aren’t coming back). AA has quite a bit on her Substack:

https://alessandraasteriti.substack.com/

I think the GRA / GRC is not only redundant, but has no claim to be a protected characteristic.

There are all sorts of laws that reflect a change in people's lives, but they dont then become a protected characteristic.

I mainly posted the link because I think KB is saying what on a common sense level is correct.

But unfortunately given how politics and social contagion works, is that now that she has said this, it will become a taboo issue because of course it will just be said to be a right wing reactionary idea.

Unless I'm misremembering the 'planning to undergo' is on the EA. The ability to falsify your sex on your birth certificate is part of the GRA. That, imo, is stupid and wrong, that should go.

That's why gender recognition shouldn't be a protected characteristic.

After all growing old isn't something you chose it happens.

I think the problem lies with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment where it includes anyone who is proposing to undergo GR. That's completely untestable and means GR includes anyone from the full-Hayton to a random pervert, a chancer who wants attention or a Teflon coating

Corporate needs you to find the differences, etc.

What a good point and I agree.

It does seem odd that a choice of clothing, whether or not to wear make up, hair length, cosmetic surgery or just thinking about changing any of that is put on the same level as disability discrimination, sex discrimination, etc.

Well lets face it. Labour are lying through their teeth.

In one of the many articles about the Court ruling civil servants who helped with drafting the law said it was clear that was that was what was intended.

And that's why the whatsapp group had a total meltdown.

They knew that was the intention, and it was to be the stepping stone to self identification.

They must be hopping mad. Thinking they had come up with the clever wording and the oh so kind consideration of the SSE.

If they hadn't intended that for "all purposes" a man with a GRC was a woman, they wouldn't have written the SSE.

Not only have they been found out, but found to have behaved in a discriminatory was towards the protected characteristic sex.

As I have always said (smug) it was intentional social engineering. And Kemi Badenoch agrees with me!!!

From the point of view of protecting young people in particular, then I think medical transition should involve those suggested years of therapy. However I wouldn't want to end up back in a situation where thanks to all that medical gatekeeping some subset of men are deemed after all to have transitioned 'properly' enough to be given access to all women's spaces. I think it needs to be clear that medical gatekeeping is mainly designed to protect transitioners from bad health-related decisions, not to create a class of men who are officially sanctioned as pseudo-female enough to go wherever they like. Some spaces still need to be single-sex regardless of how rigorous someone's transition process has been (also because otherwise that could lead people to undergo unnecessary surgery just to get access to those spaces).

Given the enormous significance of clarifying the meaning of the equality act, do we want to raise the possibility of changing it? I am concerned that if people go after any of the protected characteristics then sex will become fair game too and we could end up losing the victory we have won. Imagine if gender reassignment was replaced by gender identity? It would roll back everything we have achieved. I think tightening up the meaning of gender reassignment is what is needed at this point.

Absolutely - I’m very much with those questioning whether transition should be a protected characteristic at all. After all, mental illness or having a long term illness isn’t protected, is it? They are, however, recognised culturally such that empathy and support is given where they impair, for eg, the ability to work. There is scope to claim PIP etc… but having schizophrenia, leukaemia, depression, rheumatoid arthritis are not given protected status. They are merely recognised as conditions that impair people’s lives and if you were to mock, harass or fail to provide reasonable accommodations in the work place you would be condemned. The same should apply to the class of ‘transitioners’ diagnosed with gender dysphoria as defined in the DSM originally.

if the ‘special’ status conferred by the GRA was removed it might also mean that all allure of claiming a trans identity would be gone and maybe the AGP creeps and the blue haired brigade would move on to some other cause… and maybe those with GD would actually get the help they need.

This seemed like a confusing contribution from KB. I'd like to see her actual statement that the news report was based on, because perhaps it was clearer. To be fair, KB has thought about these issues more carefully than the average politician. But from the reporting, one could interpret her proposal as meaning almost anything - just retaining the existing safeguards regarding who can get a GRC; strengthening the medical safeguard in the GRC process; or restricting who is allowed the protected characteristic of 'gender reassignment' under the EQ.

“Some spaces still need to be single-sex regardless of how rigorous someone's transition process has been (also because otherwise that could lead people to undergo unnecessary surgery just to get access to those spaces).”

I disagree with the latter part of this argument: it’s a transactivist argument (yes, I know some human rights groups also make it)
and designed to ensure men who have no intention to transition must always be allowed access to women’s things.

If you look at the Olympics, much was always made of the fact that “trans people” had been allowed to compete in the opposite sex class since 2005, and nobody had taken them up on it and men weren’t dominating women’s sports. That was entirely because, between 2005 and 2015, men had to have undergone surgery to enter (avoiding the correct term for testicular removal as it has led to deletions before).

As soon as all that was required was some hormonal changes, men began to invade, albeit still at low numbers, but that likely would have changed in time.

Women’s need for single sex spaces should be the only consideration here. It might be that we eventually end up with a fudge: that some designated spaces (toilets being the most obvious) are opened up to men who’ve undergone surgery) but the number of those is always going to be so limited that the argument that the impact on women is minimal would genuinely apply.

But for now, though I’m glad to hear Badenoch has raised it, I still think, judging by my LinkedIn feed, that we are still, despite the Supreme Court ruling, a very long way from getting even our most needed women’s spaces back and a million miles away from being able to discuss safely, whether there are a few male medical patients who might eventually be admitted to a limited number of women’s facilities.

I would love to be able to feel women’s rights are sufficiently secure that we could start to talk openly about genuine patients needs, or whether those can, or should, ever be met, in any way other than alternative spaces, but we are nowhere near it.

Saying that surgery shouldn't get someone a more official trans status is not saying "surgery shouldn't be required for you to come in to this space" to someone (as with your example of more male athletes coming in when the rules were relaxed). It can also mean "it doesn't matter how much surgery you have, you will never be able to come in to this space". You can come at it from both sides, so it's not always a TRA argument.

The weaker the gatekeeping for 'trans' status (in particular, having no requirement for surgery), the clearer it is to the public that it's ludicrous for that status to give someone access to single-sex spaces, services, or sports. I think women should be very wary of implying that surgery would change that access. The fact that that this situation also protects young people in particular from bad health decisions made in pursuit of a more official status is a bonus.

What I was arguing against was specifically this:

“that could lead people to undergo unnecessary surgery just to get access to those spaces)”

This argument is transactivist in its framing. I wasn’t arguing that surgery should change access, though I do think it may come up.

From what ive managed to piece together, the PC of GR is needed to allow people to take time of work for treatment, change their title, maybe name, and be recognised as trans for LGBT groups and initiatives. Also, as mentioned in the ruling, protecting women who have made themselves look like men from indirect descrimination. Most other issues could probably be covered under the PC of sex.

I dont think GR means 'getting a GRC eventually', so doesnt necessarily involve any healthcare. But those who do, need to be able to change their name and title and have their GRC kept private.

And thats the problem, PC of GR is a very big umbrella - basically anyone who wants to change their name, to people wanting a diagnosis, a GRC or needing time off work for surgery.

She also wants to remove Maternity Allowance (which she has received herself in the past). Is that a vote winner too? Which one will have the biggest direct impact on women?

They did frame it like that, but really saying it's good to avoid unnecessary (for health) surgery done for non-medical reasons should be seen as fairly neutral in itself.

What was wrong with how TRAs used it was the (then) assumption they used it with, that it was fine for some men to be in women's spaces, so all they needed to do was decide amongst themselves which ones. What a surprise, they chose all of them - partly by using that "people shouldn't have unnecessary surgery" argument.

You can use the same argument with a different default assumption - the situation we've got now since the ruling that no men are allowed in women's spaces at all - and then that argument about there being value in avoiding unnecessary surgery supports the opposite view: that even surgery shouldn't give a man access.

This is one of those interactions between the GRA and the EA that hasn't been resolved, and I wish it would be.

The EA wording is not that unambiguous:

A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

That implies surgery, except the sneaky little "other attributes" leaves a back door which might arguably be used by any AGP who proposes to wear fishnets to work. There's a clear intention that the person should doing something other than just putting a label on themselves, and it's consistent with expecting there to be gatekeeping. It's also consistent with provisions in the EA providing for time off work for the purpose of gender reassignment.

The problem comes with the muddy wording of the GRA, which by the transitive factor of Stonewall law has led many people to believe that you can legally become the opposite sex the same way you become a Muslim - if you say it and believe it then it's true. The SC has disposed of that, but there's still a question mark over what the PC of GR is and how you acquire it.

If KB is saying, let's go back to the status quo ante of small numbers and medical gatekeeping, and stop paying attention to extremist activists, and stop enabling dodgy men trying it on, I think lots of normies will support that. The trouble is, our tolerance has been stretched beyond breaking point over the past 15 years and many of us won't be satisfied with a return to the circa 2010 position.

I can imagine accepting that some spaces, such as some toilets, might not be able to be single sex, to accommodate (2010 style) a small number of trans people who have transitioned in a medically supervised way, provided we never lose the principle that (a) 'single sex' still means biological only and (b) single-sex spaces are still allowed as well as those mixed-sex spaces.

If it's thought there's a need for trans-friendly spaces that legally exclude men and transmen (or women and transwomen) - specifically legally, not just by request - then let people campaign for the law be extended one day to do that - just so long as it's not done in a way that simultaneously replaces and outlaws actual single-sex spaces, as we've had in the last few years.

re. comment up thread about the EA, Suella Braverman has written an article saying it should be got rid of! https://www.suellabraverman.co.uk/news/we-must-abolish-equality-act

And agree that Badenoch isn't always right, but her comments about being much stricter about what qualifies someone to say they are trans (assuming there still are to be GRCs) is about highlighting how the trans activists have managed to make what is a badly worded protected characteristic, drills down to the problem

Whether subsconsciously or not, how the EA was drafted, by Labour but voted through by the House of Commons, is now so obviously flawed, unless the intention always was to eventually end up with self identity.

Worth remembering that when MfW KB did start the process of challenging organisations to find out if the understood the SSE, etc.., and as a result of the response received led to the EHRC writing to the Government to say it is impossible (prior to court ruling) to write clear guidelines about single sex provision, and the best step forward was to disapply the GRA. Which is more radical than the court ruling.

So I think she has thought about it all in more depth than many other politicians. And I dont think she is shy of saying she does view it from the perspective of sex as a protected characteristic.