Where does the "right" to privacy about trans status come from?

[MyAmpleSheep]

As almost everyone has worked out by now, the right to provide and receive single sex services encoded in the EA 2010 and the workplace regulations is diametrically at odds with the perceived right to hide one's sex as a matter of 'privacy'. In the long term one or the other of these rights will have to be removed by changes in legislation.

In legislative terms where does the right not to have to reveal one's trans status (or equivalently, to hide one's biological sex) come from? Is it based in Article 8 of the ECHR, or somewhere else?

You're correct. It's derived from Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). And indeed it is a qualified right of both trans and non-trans people to not disclose their sex.

But, that right can be constrained for the following reasons:

• national security
• public safety or the economic well-being of the country
• prevention of disorder or crime
• the protection of health or morals
• the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

With respect to the SC ruling, the right to not disclose your sex is voluntarily relinquished when you access single sex services or spaces.

SexMatters has an excellent overview.

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/toilets-and-human-rights/

The original case in the European Court of Human Rights of Goodwin v. United Kingdom significantly impacted the privacy aspects of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 by establishing that the UK's failure to legally recognize a trans person's acquired gender violated their right to privacy under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This ruling led to the creation of the GRA, which provides a legal framework for trans individuals to obtain legal recognition of their gender and ensures certain privacy protections regarding disclosure of their previous gender.

The linked article gives more background

womansplaceuk.org/2018/10/12/gra-and-equality-act/

I’ve been watching the 2nd Sex Matters video which gives quite a lot of information on how various decisions have been made in relation to various cases over the past few decades.

From around 17 minutes it discusses the Goodwin case.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwin_v_United_Kingdom
This is the Goodwin judgement that led to the GRA.

Goodwin's sex was revealed by the tax information that had to be submitted to the employer, and it was judged that this was a breach of Article 8.

The fact that Goodwin had fathered four children might also have been indicative of sex, but I suppose they thought it wasn't necessary to discuss them at work.

It’s important to keep in mind in this that any requirement to ‘prove’ biological should be applied to all wishing to access formally designated single sex spaces.

The fact that Goodwin had fathered four children might also have been indicative of sex, but I suppose they thought it wasn't necessary to discuss them at work.

Or indeed just the fact he is obviously male to look at.

But as the case wandered up through the various courts, it seems he didn't actually have to appear in front of the judges, who - much like the Supreme Court recently - were dealing with principles of law.

They basically worked forwards from the idea of "what if there was a woman who used to be a man, and wanted to keep that secret". It's a concoction for a fictional scenario - I can imagine many of the judges were picturing a woman, or at least someone indistinguishable from a woman.

That would have been a lot harder with Goodwin actually in front of them.

From the video, there was also discussion of the fact that Goodwin had been given surgery on the NHS, and that the state must now follow through by enabling him to hide his sex.

There seems to have been a lot of emphasis on surgery in 90's/2000's case law and an apparent underlying belief that medical advances would make it possible to change sex (without really questioning what that meant). I suspect also a belief that whatever would drive a man to castration was so awful that it must be remedied.

However, the EHRC has since confirmed that a GRC can't be contingent on treatment that would cause sterilisation, and the concept of 'gender identity' has replaced the concept of transsexualism, and a gender identity does not have to be either male or female or stable.

That seems to be the hinge on which this all turns, doesn't it?

Either: it's unlawful to compel someone to reveal their birth sex - which makes single sex associations and services unlawful

Or: The legal right to single sex services and associations makes it lawful to compel someone to reveal their birth sex.

Boil away all the froth, and you're left with a straight choice of one or the other.

In her answers to the WEC in Parliament this week, Baroness Falkner was taking the second approach (as you might expect, and as we might hope.)

I understand the desire for privacy from an individual perspective but I find it hard to reconcile with the "not recognizing our existence" and "literal genocide" memes. On the one hand someone's trans status must never be revealed yet on the other hand the existence of trans people must be acknowledged. It's kind of like fog, isn't it? Everywhere except at the spot where you stand. Trans people exist everywhere except when a trans person is right in front of you, you mustn't recognize them.

The legal right to single sex services and associations makes it lawful to compel someone to reveal their birth sex.

Not just the right to single sex services - it's also essential to discrimination law.

It's interesting that some of the things mentioned in the Goodwin case have become irrelevant because we now have same sex marriage, and pension rights have been equalised - either sex is relevant to a situation and it should be taken into account, or if it isn't, so why is anyone being forced to reveal their sex?

In the video, MF makes the point that the government could have made it possible to provide ID that doesn't disclose sex, where sex is not relevant.

The NHS should never ever have given anyone surgery, therapy yes, and if that didn’t work then it should have been a case of pay privately for surgery or live within the confines of reality and if that makes you sad or depressed well, that’s a shame isn’t it 🤷‍♀️.

And the same applies to any other physical treatments for anything else that causes anxiety or depression?

So we can ditch anti depressants. And plastic surgery.

There'll be genital inspections and then you'll be sorry?

Completely depends on levels of evidence.

We change treatments when it becomes evident that they are not helpful or the risks outweigh the benefits.

I would be interested to read the academic papers (from reputable journals please), which prove that changing physical appearance through surgery, with the aim of appearing to be of the opposite sex, leads to medium- to long-term alleviation of medically confirmed gender dysphoria.

Have you got pointers to those please?

Nope. It’s not an area or research I’m familiar with.

But the the poster who suggested ruling it out didnt do so on any research backed basis.

I think this is a really interesting response. I'd like to continue the thought.

Should we offer (especially in a public health service so on tax payers money), treatments, incl surgical interventions, without scientific basis? Or should that be absolutely required before being provided?

It’s a built in requirement in the NHS, because public money is being spent,

Just listened to Michael Foran on this and it’s packed full of info. Worth a listen

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/knowing-ius-podcast/id1754957520?i=1000670154256

interesting examples about what might reasonably be private and what’s not.

Reference to the PP above about public money. I’m sorry I don’t have the case law references but the NHS was taken to court years ago about trans surgery. They lost the case and were told that if gender dysphoria (or probably more likely the old diagnosis of transsexualism) is a mental disorder (DSM/ICD etc) then the NHS have to pay for the treatments. If it ever comes out of the diagnostic manuals I suppose it would revert to a form of extreme cosmetic surgery and no longer be an obligation on the public purse…

I remember reading on the Press for Change website about they were pleased about the NHS case result (1990s?) but then almost on the next line saying they planned to de-medicalise the process. I couldn’t get my head around it

I understood that Cass said there was no credible evidence that pharmacological or surgical interventions helped young people with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria? Obviously there is no decent data for adults because it hasn’t been collected. Therefore surely the treatments remain unproven?

I don’t think people get free plastic surgery for body dysmorphic disorder, it’s similar in a lot of ways to gender dysphoria. Its a depressive illness that limits people’s ability to function in the world, it has a high suicide rate etc etc.
I don’t know why they are treated differently as far as the NHS goes. I absolutely support the right of people to get whatever plastic surgery they like in their own time and with their own money. I don’t think the public should be paying to surgically disrupt a functioning organ system. But there might be scenarios where it makes sense, I can’t think of them right now.

"I remember reading on the Press for Change website about they were pleased about the NHS case result (1990s?) but then almost on the next line saying they planned to de-medicalise the process. I couldn’t get my head around it"

There are two contradictory "demedicalisation" narratives in transactivism.

One contingent's "demedicalisation" means "remove medical gatekeeping by psychiatrists and give us the surgeries and drugs we want on demand".

This seems to be the more common meaning and it underpins the World Health Organisation reclassification of "gender dysphoria" from a psychiatric diagnosis to a sexual health diagnosis, although the official line is that it was "to reduce stigma".

The other contingent's "demedicalisation" means "trans is a natural human variation of gender identity, which has nothing to do with sex so we should not have to do anything to alter our physical appearance (or name or behaviour) in order to conform to sex-stereotypes. Therefore, "gender dysphoria" is not a medical condition, it is a psychological reaction to oppressive, patriarchal societal pressure to conform to sex stereotypes consistent with gender identity.".

I have come across this argument in academic papers but what it means in practice is:

• bog-standard blokes with male names claiming to be lesbians and infesting lesbian dating apps.

• bog-standard women harassing gay men for sex and calling them "weak f@ggots" when they are not interested in dating them as "gay men".

• evidence that at least one branch of transgender ideology relates to feminist theories about "gender" (rather than gender identity) being a social construct, based on culturally-determined sex stereotypes that are deployed by the patriarchy to control and oppress everyone, ie. by subjugating women to norms of femininity and men to masculinity. In this version, "man" and "woman" are biologically determined "gender identities" and sex is a "social construct".

The "privacy" issue is linked to the first "demedicalisation" narrative, which is based on the assumption that, with requisite surgical and chemical intervention, anyone who wished to could "go stealth" and successfully masquerade as the opposite sex. Or, as it is framed in the Gender Recognition Act 2004, "live in the acquired gender".