Woman or Man as Protected Title?

[KnottyAuty]

I’m not suggesting this is actually enacted legally but reading the thread about the Facebook group made me think about Protected Titles. And a different way of discussing transgender-identification …

In the UK, it’s a criminal offence to claim to be a Medical Doctor or Surgeon, an Osteopath, an Architect or a Solicitor/Barrister/Advocate. Nurse will shortly be added to this list. Anyone can claim to be an Engineer but not a Chartered Engineer.

Entry to these protected professions is by meeting various criteria including approved qualifications and training.

It’s not possible to simply “identify” as a member of one of these groups, or feel that you’re a member of the wrong professional body. Although plenty people do try this and are sanctioned when caught doing it!

(Which is why employers, services and associations will eventually have to return to respecting facts about sex and single sex exemptions).

Anyway, I’ve never seen anyone try to draw the comparison between protected titles and sex - but it seems pretty obvious to me. And I was thinking it might be another way of discussing the legal aspects of trans issues, to sidestep the “be kind” approach.

I would hope that rational people would see that “be kind” shouldn’t influence other legal groups so why should it influence sex categories? But then rationality doesn’t often seem to feature in these discussions so maybe this unlikely to cut through as a debating point…

Thoughts please?!

Those of us with a Protected Title are also subject to regulation by our professional body e.g. GMC, SRA etc.

Well yes! Complying with professional standards might prove challenging if the same concept applied to sex. Interesting that sex has been so obviously defined for hundreds of years but that it’s now subject to these legal incursions - whereas the less well defined “professions” need much more red tape to hold the boundaries

I see where you're going, Knotty - a reasonable and sensible suggestion. But we all know where reason and good sense get you in the world of genderwoo😠

sad times 🤣

I don't understand how you foresee the operation of this to be, would people have to meet various criteria or approved qualifications and training as you've written above? What would the criteria be? Would it differ from our sex? I see you've already replied to the comment about complying with professional standards, saying it might prove challenging but what would these professional standards be, if you are suggesting them? Could you be thrown out if you're not upholding them??

I was drawing an analogy rather than a direct comparison or suggestion this might be applicable to sex. And how odd it is that we protect professional titles in law quite robustly while society has allowed incursions into definitions of sex - seemingly quite willingly.

My point is that people can readily grasp the problems of someone “identifying” as a medical doctor - presumably because it has a more obvious and direct implication for them? The Be Kind approach related to sex muddled this idea - live and let live etc doesn’t impact “me”… except it does impact on women as a group.

The aim of posting was to investigate one possible angle when/if discussing the problems of self ID with someone who doesn’t understand the problem… your response does make me think this angle might be a bit too conceptual

I think it’s got common sense validity.
There’s nothing you could do to get yourself chucked out of your protected title of the biological sex that you are born with because everyone is already one or the other sex.

It’s not about behaviour, appearance or physical capability. It’s about biological reality.
it would stop people claiming to have changed sex.
Meaning that people of the same sex can then get on in peace with whatever it is that they want to be doing together without the opposite sex being there.

This is really what the Equality Act should be doing in practice in combination with other legislation.

If a male walks into a women's toilet he should be done for sexual harassment unless he has a very compelling reason (basically the safety of someone else or he maintains the facility) No ifs. No buts. Likewise for females who do this for mens.

The problem is too many organisations are behaving like wet blankets and are too weak to say this to their staff and clients.

It's about time they did.

It would resolve matters quicker than most realise.

Not sure how helpful or practical this would be. What would help most is if organisations returned to asking for someone's sex rather than their gender identity.

If someone lies about their sex, then the consequence will vary depending on the context. If, say, it is to gain access to a category or facility to which they are not entitled, then the terms and conditions of that category/facility should make it possible for them to be excluded. If it is done to falsify official records (eg GMC registration, employment records), then the recording entity's terms and conditions should enable them to nullify or amend the record.

In rare cases, for example if the person lies in order to commit offences (such as voyeurism, etc) the police already have legal grounds to investigate their activity.

Then there are a whole host of situations in which lying about sex shouldn't have any consequence at all other than the social ramifications. For example when joining a mixed-sex book group that doesn't have any legitimate interest in knowing what your sex is.

But, just as an aside, if sex did become a protected title, it would be fun to speculate which organisations should be our regulatory bodies. Perhaps Mumsnet for women.

I see. I was thinking that what you were saying was basically scrapping the GRCs as they're the only thing really (although you could argue changing your sex marker on a driving licence or passport) that would allow entry into the category that you are not.

Just riffing because I am
not a lawyer but it seems to have reach further than the Equality Act. This isn’t the same kind of protected title as a
professional title which you receive through study and qualifications though. No need for taxpayers’ money, a regulatory body or inspectors or any kind of code of practice or professional exams to adhere to.

What it has in common with other kinds of protected titles is that it does legally recognise that there could be harms to other people if you are insisting that you are someone you aren’t which means that you insist others must act according to your claim.

So it would provide a legal consequence such that biological sex can’t be ignored, in the contexts that the law has specified that it matters. It would also replace and stop the GRA which is anachronistic and sexist and doesn’t work within modern standards of consent.

The people who already hold GRCs should be able to keep them. With the legal option to reverse it (which they don’t currently have without saying they applied in bad faith, which is just insulting when they’ve been offered a legal remedy based on what was at the time an accepted ideology).

So then no more GRCs would be issued. A protected title around biological sex would force future lawmakers to be really explicit before they reintroduced anything similar to a GRC that they think it doesn’t matter about women’s rights, or about rights around same sex attraction, or single sex needs in jobs, education or healthcare, facilities, opportunities, sport etc. so it could have a protective function.

Cross post EyesOpening I read it that way too re GRA.