Women & Equalities Committee 2.30pm Today, 9th June, Mary-Ann Stephenson Chair at EHRC giving oral evidence

[TheNoWord]

Work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) 20026-27 - Oral evidence, Mary-Ann Stephenson, Chair at Equality and Human Rights Commission and John Kirkpatrick, Chief Executive Officer at Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Considering the absolute balloons on this committee, it will be well worth a watch. Only Rosie Duffield and Rebecca Paul have any sense.

You can watch live on Parliament TV from 2.30pm

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/27280/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

The law remains the law until parliament decides it's not law and rewrites the law.

They can only kill off guidance to the law. If the guidance is accurate, all they do is help to expose companies, charities and public services to liability at significant cost.

Which obviously really helps everyone.

Fuckwits

I've had a week in real life of realising the general level and ability of people you would assume to be competent and capable is well below what you'd expect and then having to clear up various messes along these lines. Being able to blow hot air doesnt change legal liabilities. Indeed in the last 30 mins I've had a conversation with someone working in law about the dangers of using AI to use/understand the law and how it gets your arse sued.

When are parliament going to decide these are criminals and even terrorists? Or is that the plan, to enable them?

What we are seeing is MPs working to undermine the existing law and enabling and encouraging breaking the law even though the majority of the public is clearly not in their camp and of their mindset. Keeping in mind this also undermines numerous other safeguarding related laws which have very clear public consent.

What impact will it have on ECHR commission, it's suppose to be independent of parliament, so this rejection of their guidance by parliament must call into question their independence.
If everyone on the committee stands by the guidance that's been rejected will they all have to be replaced by W&EC until this so called independent commission get it 'right'. 🤬

Just watching Rosie Duffield. Does she have a gold Dinosaur trinket on her necklace?

😍

The longer they can kick the can down the road, the more they can make the law unworkable.

They want to create a self-fulfillong prophecy - actively prevent it from working then point to that as proof it's unworkable. Classic office politics move.

And sex based rights and protections will always be "complicated and unworkable" because

the only outcome they will accept is one that forces society to pretend some male people are really woman.

There must surely be some parliamentary procedure to bring recalcitrant time wasters, abusers of process, and obstructionists into line?

Yes, they are abusing process and need to be disciplined.

I feel ashamed to live in a country where our democratically elected representatives are so dim it's a miracle they are able to get out of bed in the morning.

What is wrong with them? How did we get into this situation? The phrase "thick as mince" does a disservice to mince.

Not got time to RTFT, just dropping this excellent summary here

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2064415765986427208.html

Because like many others, I just don't think I could stand to watch the bloody meeting.

They won't be.

Ironically these are the same dimwits who will scream and scream about Trump/Johnson/insert someone from right wing politics doing the same and how undemocratic it is.

That's what really boils my piss.

It is never ok to do this.

I don't think this grandstanding is for the people of this country, they're more interested in impressing the International Global Left, especially in Europe.

They may have been elected by us but we're just a stepping stone for them to get into the international club of dimwits, this is all so they can get into the cool kids club.

Sarah Owen and Nadia Whittome are like petulant children. Sarah Owen's 'resting expression' resembles Verucca Salt being forced to suck on a lemon.

ALTHOUGH, having watched this clip, I'm very impressed by MAS.

https://x.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/2064677763177476175

patiently explaining to Nadia Whittome that it's not about how well anyone is performing masculinity or femininity, it's about what sex they are.

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/17691/html/

'What is required here is to take a common-sense approach. What the law requires and what our code says is not that people should be judged on how well they perform masculinity or femininity. The actual requirement is whether somebody is male or female. When rules are set, we expect that people will follow those rules, in most instances'

Thank you!!!

Whittome was exceptionally fucking rude and hostile, though!

As was the fuckwit Jardine.

'Christine Jardine: ...This common-sense approach and how, or on what grounds, does someone look like a man or a woman, and when do you interject? Once you have said, ”My common sense tells me that this person is not a biological woman,” how do they prove it? How do they then say, “Yes, I am a biological woman and I can use that facility,” if, as you say, there is no certificate or paperwork that they can produce? Surely the whole point of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and gender recognition certificates was so that we had a way of saying that this person is entitled to use that facility. How do we do it now?
Dr Stephenson: One of the things that the Supreme Court pointed out was that making access to a service dependent on whether you had a certificate, which was confidential, was not a satisfactory way of resolving things. We have an issue that we do not have any documentation that reliably proves sex.
Christine Jardine: If you do not mind me saying, try and stick to the point.'

She was answering your exact question, you fuckwit!

Damn it, I was all set to avoid this because I knew it would make me cross.

Off to make a cup of tea and kick something.

I'm catching up with the meeting now but my main takeaway from watching the first 30 minutes is that there is a powerful nasty energy from some of these MPs. I'm not getting a sense that they want to genuinely discuss issues, they very much come across as wanting to attack the law and the EHRC reps. There's no sense that they want to discuss reasonable accommodations for a wide range of characteristics. And they don't seem to care much about Women's rights and ability to use services.

She really was. At one point, MAS was trying to correct something that Nadia Whittome said, and NW cut her off in an unbelievably rude tone, saying "can you let me finish?".

It's just so unnecessary and unprofessional. MAS, like Baroness Falkner before her, is just doing her job (correctly).

This. 100%. Nadia Whittome and her fellow TRAs had a script and a predetermined conclusion (that the code is flawed and should be rejected). MAS was clear that the law relates to sex (and everyone knows what sex they are), not stereotypes or how someone performs said stereotypes of masculinity or feminity. She couldn't have been more explicit about this. NW concludes that the code is unworkable because it relies on stereotypes 🙄

Nothing MAS could have said would have persuaded them otherwise. These MPs are an utter embarrassment.

I'm furious that Nadia Whittome is my MP, parachuted in by Central Office over the heads of the local party about three minutes before the constituency meeting to elect the candidate (which I was at) was due to start. On the plus side, it made it ever so easy for me to finally overcome my lingering tribal loyalty and cancel the standing order for my Labour Party membership. Unfortunately her constituency office now occupies the shop which once housed the best family run hardware shop in Nottingham, right next door to my local pub, so I'm forcibly reminded of the fuckwit every time I go to the boozer. Complete derail of the thread, I know, I just can't let pass a chance to scream about the unfairness of life - that hardware shop was so useful..

Transcript now available (in case you could not believe what you were hearing, it’s all here in black and white…)

https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/17691/pdf/

How is she viewed locally? Does she do much for the constituency or is being a full time TRA too time consuming? In wondering what the chances are of her being voted out at the next election 🤣

She is a conscientious local MP. As for how she's viewed, I think that very much depends on who you ask. Nottingham's pretty big on gender issues, what with the local gender treatment hub being situated here (think Brighton lite, only much more conservative haircuts), so she's fine for the kids. Most people my age, when she comes up in conversation, tend to give her the extreme eyeroll, but as Nottingham East is an extremely safe Labour seat (insofar as that's a given these days) I'm afraid we're probably stuck with her for the foreseeable, sorry!

Thanks. I wonder if the Greens might be a threat in that seat? Although it's saying something thinking a Green MP might be less bonkers 😄