Nadia Whittome calls for a change to the Equality Act...

[iwishitwouldstartraining]

But can anyone work out what she actually wants?

https://archive.ph/MxOPp#selection-4201.0-4201.14

Can you imagine the premise.

we want men to be able to access all female spaces. No safeguarding, no gate keeping, no exceptions. There’s no real reason for it, it’s just what these men want and if we don’t give it to them, they’ll be sad.
I’d love to see and coherent arguments as to why giving up women’s sex based rights and removing the right to claim sex discrimination is a good thing .

Of course, the obvious first step, if you want to change the EA 2010, is to define your terms in such a way that they can be written into an amended, or new, law.

At the risk of sending out the Bat Signal to "Our Usual Friends " let's see how long Nadia and her cronies take to just agree on terminology! We don't even have TRAs or trans-identified people on FWR who agree on their terminology.
......
"OMG... not THIS again, how do we DEFINE it, blah blah blah..." incoming (just thought I'd get ahead of the curve, save them a bit of time, poor souls.

Just take a look at all the professional educated women standing by Roxy Tickle, metaphorically proudly holding his dick while he destroys womens rights.

So many educated powerful women are complicit in pushing the TRA agenda & seeking to destroy the rights of women & girls.

From the TUC thread, I think it bears repeating here, especially with regard to that pesky definition of terms (because if you can't agree on a legal definition of gender, you can't even protect it and you also end up with everyone disagreeing and a free-for-all, which renders the law unworkable):

Thanks to @GreyskySexRealistsky for the X link:
from Trevor Phillips' X post below:

https://x.com/TrevorPTweets/status/2057780825148490016

Second, at the heart of the campaign to undermine the Equality Act is an idea that we specifically rejected in 2010, so called self-identification. That is to say, that it should be up to the individual to decide whether they have what’s called a protected characteristic - are you male or female, are you black or white. The problem is that self-ID would destroy the operation of any law against discrimination.

They assume no one would do anything actually bad just because women are no longer protected. They assume we'd all act as if the same sex-based rights were there only we'd wrap TW in somehow.

The utter imbecilic logic of thinking you would still be able to stand up and complain when women get treated as if they have a certain type of mind if we had a law that in allowing for TW to be treated as women literally bakes in the idea that women have a certain type of mind astounds me.

They remind me of the Brexiteers who thought business and imports would all just carry on the same as "normal" even though the rules and agreements that protected "normal" had gone. As if the laws don't actually have anything to do with what happens in real life.

They remind me of polite racists. All "oh, you know, wink wink". They know they can't actually say what they think living as/being "a woman" means when it comes to a male person without sounding incredibly sexist so they just hope to handwave past it assuming everyone else is sexist underneath as well.

They remind me of the Brexiteers who thought business and imports would all just carry on the same as "normal" even though the rules and agreements that protected "normal" had gone. As if the laws don't actually have anything to do with what happens in real life.

Very like that - an assumption that regulations that make no sense can survive because it would be unsporting to do anything different.

Imagine trying to argue for women's rights in this wibbly wobbly world where nobody can explain what that means and there are plenty of politicians ready to scrap all human rights legislation.

Exactly. And they never do define it. Ever. So how can it, whatever it is, be written into a law such that others can recognize it and such that it can be protected?

They want confusion and fluidity written into law. Which is impossible.

(1)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.

The part in bold is self ID. Proposing to undergo a process just means the person is thinking about doing it. No changes or even medical consultations need to have taken place.

They want confusion and fluidity written into law. Which is impossible.

But it does achieve one outcome. It destroys safeguarding.

Considering it was noticed at the Women and Equalities (dries tears of laughter) meeting by the EHRC that many of the activist MPs did not actually understand their own jobs or how laws worked, I don't think it's dawned on her.

Even if the government did revrse and remove all women's legal protections AND gay protections in law - you can't remove sex based rights without fucking over both groups - to privilege men with gender identities....

It's not just that one law.

I think this has been discussed before - how many laws and how much would have to be gone through to actually successfully destroy women's legal protections and equalities in law.

If of course you had a party utterly batshit enough to think male supremacism and homophobia is the right side of history. (At this point, yeah, I'd put the popcorn on.)

I assume there'll be plenty of activists who don't have the destruction of safeguarding in mind. Their goal is that they, or trans people, become free to do whatever they want. That imposing limits on their behaviour is horrible bigotry. But if you do this then others will see a sweet shop with all of the security removed.

Yes.

Exhibit A - chaos gremlins. No answer, no vision, just me break it.

Exhibit B - yes, safeguarding successfully fucked too.

Why? So cross dressing men can use non consenting women's bodies with the women having no right to escape.

Seriously? I know this is the age of Trump, but even so....

World domination? Someone to pat her on the head and say "good girl!" ? Ice cream?

...who wants ice cream? 🖐

Ed. Missing word

And the loudest, sharpest elbowed, least moralled, least inhibited and least able to notice or care about anyone else? Get what they want as they trample everyone else underfoot.

At this point I'm over the whole 'but there's lots of quiet nice ones who don't want to destroy women/gay/children's rights' - anyone not speaking out is supporting it. And frankly it's clear from the lack of such speaking out or alternative representation that 'trans' really does mean, explicitly, 'I have no shits to give about anyone else's rights or equality, welcome to the world of me'.

Um I think you will find that they have to be on a waitlist. Self ID is when you can just ID with no hormones are surgery planned ever.

You have no concerns about how the law as written is saying they are transsexuals and are reassigning from one sex to the other? None?

So that presumably, a man can then claim to have reassigned his sex to woman?

I think this should be rewritten to show that you can’t reassign sex, no such thing as transsexual and it is all identity.

Um I think you will find that they have to be on a waitlist.

Can you point to legislation or policy that specifies this?

Thanks for quoting the Act, that is helpful. My understanding is that your interpretation is what it was intended to do: "protects people while they are undergoing gender reassignment via hormones or surgery".

However-

As you can see from a careful read of the excerpt you posted, there is no requirement actually specified in the Act for either hormones or surgery.

To have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, the person has to be: proposing/undergoing/have already undergone

A process ('helpfully' not defined, so this could be anything)

By changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

Other could mean clothing. Or anything. Its not defined.

This together has the de facto result of anyone who is even thinking about transistioning has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Its a terrible definition, but it does effectively allow for gender to be a PC. It would be almost impossible to come up for a legal argument as to why someone who believes they have the PC of gender reassignment, does not in fact have it. And its only relevant where someone is being illegally discriminated against - if you could prove illegal discrimination, you could probably also prove you have the PC of gender reassignment.

But the key part that the TRAs seem to miss is just because someone has the PC of gender reassignment, that doesn't allow them to claim to be the opposite sex.

Keeping TW out of women's single sex changing rooms does not equal illegal discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment. Because their sex is male.

Re changing sex - strictly speaking the Act says gender reassignment is "for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex" - not 'changing' it. 'Reassigning' suggests relabelling or recategorising. Its what 'gender affirming' surgery used to be called.

Part of the problem with all these definitions is that they have changed over time and the wording of the Act itself is now 16 years old and showing its age - which is why there are all the references to 'transsexuals' - a term which has since fallen out of favour.

IANAL though!

Also, the EHRC has found more than once that a country cannot mandate a process that would impede fertility.

https://www.matrixlaw.co.uk/news/gender-recognition-certificate-granted-to-a-trans-man-trying-to-become-pregnant/

I think this greatly limits the extent to which you can define either 'trans' or 'transition'.

Pleased to see my Labour MP stand up and say she will fight to protect women's rights

Tracy Gilbert MP on X: "Women’s rights as set out in the Equality Act were hard fought for over decades. If amending the Equality Act means reducing those hard won rights, I will oppose them. (2/2)" / X

I'm still arguing with mine about the EHRC guidance - ominously he says the Equality Act may need to be amended but doesn't specify why or to what end. He then admits he doesn't understand it 🤦‍♂️

Lib Dem, natch.

I think it’s helpful to note that it’s the characteristic that’s protected and not the person.

It’s unlawful to discriminate against someone because you think that they might be thinking of or have a process to reassign etc.

it’s irrelevant as to whether they actually have or not.

So it’s not correct to say someone “gains” protection by doing or thinking something something. They, and we, are always protected, if the person doing the discrimination has it in their head to discriminate because they think someone is undergoing or proposing to undergo a process.

That is, what counts is the reason for the discrimination, not the reality of the person being discriminated against.

Thank you, well clarified 👏

Its bloody complicated isn't it?

The likes of NW can call as much as they like, no recent PM has shown any appetite for making changes to legislation relating to the ‘sex and gender’ divide.

If they were serious, they would be working hard to identify and communicate the laws that enable discrimination, provide case studies evidencing the detriment. They would then propose feasible amendments, and demonstrate how impact assessments will show no or minimal detriment to others with protected characteristics.

Until they do this, few will see their behaviour as anything close to serious or meaningful. They need to stop offering rhetorical tropes and start providing substantive, evidence based arguments and respond to the actual counter arguments put forward - rather than just bang on about ‘most vulnerable’ and ‘bigots.

@MyAmpleSheep

So it’s not correct to say someone “gains” protection by doing or thinking something something. They, and we, are always protected, if the person doing the discrimination has it in their head to discriminate because they think someone is undergoing or proposing to undergo a process.

Ok, that's interesting. So, would that cover "gender non-conforming" as a poster on another thread suggested as a protected characteristic? So, if someone discriminates against you because they see you as "gender non-conforming" and reads that in his/her head as undergoing or proposing to undergo a process, would that be covered under the EA?

Because this poster has proposed replacing "gender reassigned" with "gender non-conforming" (I think)