Sex Matters - Respond now to the consultation on digital ID - 5th May deadline

[KnottyAuty]

https://sex-matters.org/take-action/respond-to-the-consultation-on-digital-id/

Make sure the government gets sex right on digital ID – respond before Tuesday 5th May.

Yes, I think I agree with most of this.

Yes, digital id should be optional.
Yes, if you opt to have your sex on your optional digital id, it must be your actual, birth sex.
Yes, if digital id becomes required to prove that you are eligible for that particular single-sex service, anyone who chooses not to add their actual, birth sex should not therefore complain when they can't access that service.

However, given that it is likely to be difficult for some women to prove their actual, birth sex (see my long rambling previous posts):

No, digital id should not be required for female human beings to access female single-sex services. No woman should be forced to forgo access to female services (healthcare, rape crisis, intimate care ) because of national or international bureaucracies.

No, I do not believe that the default should be women having to prove they are women. We are in this mess because of a lot of (being polite) grabby men. Let them prove they are women, using their original birth records.

I think we are discussing at cross purposes here.

If you can't get a reliable birth record , you can't put a reliable, accurate sex marker on a digital id anyway.

If you can get a reliable birth record, certificate, then why wouldn't you just use that?

Hi - just catching up on posts so apologies if this gets answered later in the thread….

Sex Matters did an excellent podcast last week. Makes it easier to understand. Each element of ID can be “switched on or off” (my phrase) depending on what is needed. For example proving ID for a bank account needn’t check sex but joining the girl guides as a leader would. So not all the categories are “pinged” each check. They explain it much better here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sex-matters-podcast/id1818806402?i=1000763438679

Exactly!
I think Digital ID is coming (im not keen) and it must include sex even though the government are trying to avoid it. We must fill in the consultation to request sex is accurately included!!

Thanks, Knotty, for the podcast link. I'll have a listen, but I think we'll have to agree to disagree on the sex marker on the digital id thing! I worry that some women will fall through the cracks if they can't, for sone reason, get an accurate birth record to prove their sex for the digital id.

Yes, I hear what PPs are saying and agree with a lot of it, but I am thinking of this as future-proofing. Digital ID may become a big thing in the future and we need to be having a say in shaping that future now. The option of including your sex should be there and it should be biological sex as recorded in UK birth registry. Foreign-born people, if all else fails, could arrange with a GP to certify their sex.

If sex is not included, then I am very wary of gender being added at some point instead. Let's get sex in there now, from the start, and properly defined.

On the subject of elderly women, it is a nightmare when someone gets to the stage of having no current passport or driving licence or Blue Badge etc. Even producing recent bills with your address on is a problem if you are in care. I would hope that arranging for timely digitial ID might make life easier for the very elderly and their families.

I'm sorry, but as a non-UK citizen, I find this chilling:

The option of including your sex should be there and it should be biological sex as recorded in UK birth registry. Foreign-born people, if all else fails, could arrange with a GP to certify their sex.

This last part in (my) bold is exactly why we shouldn't have digital id required to access female services.

Tell me, and thousands like me, that we are "other" and "people who don't really matter" without actually using the words!

Nevermind all the immigrants, the refugees who have no records. They can just have a doctor confirm their sex!

Does this not sound a little bit familiar?
I can't believe I am having to say this.

Same here! So my daughters as British born abroad must strip naked and spread their legs to prove to a GP they are female? Let’s not forget they are talking about issuing these to 13yr olds. Why not certify virginity while they’re at it?!

@BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth @SpiritAdder

If digital ID becomes compulsory in the dystopian future we seem to be heading for, then it will be better for women as a sex-class if that class has already been recognised officially and not replaced by gender.
If you prefer not to have sex included, and I understand your reasoning, then we run the risk of gender being included instead and then we can kiss goodbye to women as a sex-class.

Listen to the podcast because your children’s birth certificates work and other things. But if we start saying that we won’t include a sex marker then we will be back to square one - men in women’s spaces by gender self ID

I return to my original (I think) point:

We as female human beings should not have to be required to prove we are female in order to access female single-sex services and spaces.

We know we are female and so does everyone else. We have spent years on this forum saying to anyone who will listen that everyone knows who the women are! And so they do. As do we. And we don't need doctors to confirm this.

I do not want sex recorded on any digital id, voluntarily or not, if it cannot be accurately verified. For some actual women, it will be impossible to produce paperwork.

If I complete the consultation, I shall be stating exactly that.

If we are worried about men, however they identify, accessing female spaces, the only sane thing to do is require the men to prove their birth sex.

Helen Joyce is Irish… please do listen to the podcast before we go down the genitals check route… at worst we are talking cheek swab surely

Bollocks, if sex is not included then there is no effing reason for gender to be included. If sex is included, I would bet that gender will get shoehorned in.

It’s a bit like saying if we don’t demand ethnicity be included, then we run the risk of religion being included.

So they’d have to have their DNA registered? Like common criminals?

Knotty, it's still insulting (the possible routes, not you!)

Everyone knows who the women are.

Now, we're supposed to have to prove it, in order to complete our second-class status to men?
No. Just no.

I can see the argument for and against including a sex marker, but I come down on the side of including it.
I see the future as a very dark place for women. I think we are winning the battle but in danger of losing the war. I don't think we should underestimate the power and determination of the forces behind this movement. This isn't just a few men with a fetish.

Being Irish and living in the UK, is quite different to being a female Somali refugee with uncertain status, both socially and legally. If she is in need of female domestic abuse services and has six children, I don't think she should be required to prove she is female to access those services.

The Irish have an irrefutable right to live and work in the UK, and Helen Joyce speaks from a place of privilege.

If, as you put, "the power and determination of the forces behind this movement" is so all-encompassing, what makes you sure that if a sex marker is put on digital ids, it will be accurate, completely 100% verifiable, and immutable for every single digital id? Do you not think that those driving this, if they are so powerful, will find away to make that marker mean whatever they want it to mean? If this is indeed the way we are going, and there's nothing we can do to stop them, then your "accurate sex marker" will mean nothing eventually anyway.

If this is a war, and we are in danger of losing it (I'm not convinced), then the way to win the war is to fight back (as we are doing) and change society back to the way it was when the social contract between people included an absolute certainty about who was a woman and who was a man. It might seem like that was 100 years ago, but it was barely a decade or so ago.

The way to win the war is not to require women to continue to agree to being put into smaller and smaller boxes " for our safety." We should require men to behave like civilized human beings and obey laws that require them to stay out of female single-sex spaces. We have the law, and it will work for us, and we should use it. That is how we will win the war.

@BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth
I just don't believe that is how it is going to pan out. Sorry, there is no more I can add. You have your dream, I have my nightmare

Except these two things are not mutually exclusive. We can have no sex marker (if we cannot be certain it will be accurate) and we don't need to go down the route of self-id, because we have the Equality Act 2010.

We need to use the law, not build more and more "impenetrable" walls around women ( such as female sex marker to access female spaces) just because men won't hear the word "no."

Where does it stop? How far do we fall back to, again and again, just because of men and their unreasonable demands? What happens when men decide that "accurate female sex marker" includes some men?

Where do we fall back to when that happens? (because they will try it)

I'm sorry you feel that it's a nightmare. It's certainly not a dream to me, not sure where you got that from! It's a lot of hard work, and many, many women have put their careers, their friendships, and their safety on the line for a better life than we have now. I believe we will get there, but trying to fence off every last available avenue of approach by men and their activist minions will never work.

They will find a way around the female sex marker if they want to. It might work for some women for a while. It will never work for all women. We have to make the government enforce the law.

You don't need to respond, I just think women reading this thread might want to hear a different point of view. Thanks for contributing.

Before I could respond to this I’d need to understand what the ID is trying to achieve. Initially it was mandatory for RtW, I gather it is now optional and I don’t entirely understand what the purpose is now? Does the purpose require sex to be proven?

@ @BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth

It's a lot of hard work, and many, many women have put their careers, their friendships, and their safety on the line for a better life than we have now.
Yes, I'm one of them.

Thanks for contributing.
Crikey, could you be more patronising?

different point of view certainly but also Youve spent a lot of time giving a lot of reasons why women shouldn’t fill in this form.

The problem against this argument that for those who don’t have a uk birth certificate; weren’t married before 2004 and who haven’t been named as a mother on someone else’s birth certificate, those women cant prove they are women. Ironically some men with GRCs can.

Your argument is that because some women cant meet the burden of proof, that those who already do shouldn’t get digital ID. It’s an odd argument tbh because it doesn’t really matter if the ID is digital or not - some people have reliable ID and some dont. So no one will be worse off than they already are.

But I expect Youll be back shortly with some AI generated response which is designed to benefit men. Thanks for contributing!

this topic is exhausting. We are more than this.