Women wear trousers
Tory MP Caroline Nokes just wants to make the Gender Recognition Act kinder.
In order for an individual to have their acquired gender recognised, a person has to prove to a panel of strangers that they will never meet – the gender recognition panel – that they are either feminine or masculine. It has caused a great deal of concern in the transgender community that the panel, in effect, sits in judgment upon them and their transition. Who is anyone to decide whether someone is feminine or masculine enough?
Well, since you ask, why should whether someone is “feminine” or “masculine” be a matter for government at all? Why should it be officially “recognised”? Why should it even be mentioned?
It’s as if there were government panels to rule on how charismatic or repellent people are, and how extroverted or introverted they are, and how cheery or gloomy they are, and so on ad infinitum. Variations in personality should not be a government issue.
The problem of course is that the GRA isn’t about just “feminine” and “masculine” because it’s also about women and men. The process doesn’t just stamp men “feminine,” it stamps them women. That’s the issue. I think Nokes probably knows that perfectly well, but she’s hiding it.
Gender identity is no longer as rigid as it once was, thank goodness. Women wear trousers. Some of us choose to eschew makeup altogether, others only on some days. Hair can be long, or short, or shaved off. But there is no way of knowing whether the panel is making judgments based on outdated stereotypes because it is devoid of transparency.
Notice what she doesn’t say. Women wear trousers, yes, but do men wear skirts? The rules for women have loosened up in some ways (and tightened in others – like the law against having pubic hair) but the rules for men haven’t. Women get to step up to clothes coded for men but men don’t get to step down to clothes coded for women…unless they claim to be women, which seems a tad drastic.
We spent months speaking to trans rights and women’s rights groups and sought to strike a path that safeguarded the rights of both. They are not zero sum – both can be supported.
No they can’t. They are zero sum in some instances – because of the way men who identify as women push them. Putting men in charge of rape crisis services? Including men on shortlists for women’s prizes? Calling men who rape women “she” in the newspapers and in court?
All I have ever sought is to make the GRA kinder, quicker and much more understanding of the needs of transgender people and the concerns of women’s rights groups.
And yet what she writes in this very piece shows that she puts the concerns of women’s rights group last by a long distance.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the woke would start to push something like that. Give idiotic bullshit tests to four-year-olds to test whether they’re extroverted or introverted, and then have that registered with the government.
Do they? I’m not British, but this sounds bogus to me. I thought they just needed to present documents, not sashay up and down or sit with their knees out taking up too much space.
In order for an individual to have their acquired gender recognized, I think they need to do the rational and scientific work of persuading people who aren’t emotionally manipulated and eager to be kind.
Well, I know nothing about the process, but Nokes indeed writes “a panel of strangers that they will never meet”, so that definitely sounds more like presenting documents than putting on a show.
I’m not very familiar with British law on the subject, but the requirement for documentation that you have been living as the gender you prefer to be legally recognized as is to demonstrate your commitment to making a lasting change. This seems reasonable to me, rather than making it a matter just saying your are and being done with it.
But what about the gender-fluid, who don’t remain in one gender for a whole week, let alone a whole year!!!!
I’ve got a suggestion. Have them present a sample of their DNA, and a drawing of the reproductive organs they were born with. The committee could make an objective finding on that, and be done with it. Then we would know who are men and who are women without any subjective unmeasurable quantity like “living as” a gender. What the hell does that mean, anyway? Do they just need to say they are women for five years, while keeping all their male appearance intact and thereby still getting male privilege from strangers? Or do they have to put on a dress, make up, and high heels and sent a picture with head appropriately tilted? But not a stereotype, oh, no, just a spectrum!
People who are born women do not have to “prove” they are women. There is a reason for that. Because they are women and we can all tell the difference (most of the time).
GW, I think if you get gender fluids on the application, they automatically accept it.
Just scrap the GRA completely and start from scratch. Scratch being a woman is an adult human female and if you are not female, you don’t go into women’s spaces.
Soutwest88, what a novel, innovative idea! What will you think of next?
Nope, this is absolutely not true.
It sounds like a parody, really, doesn’t it. “Prove to us that you’re feminine.” Man does Monty Pythonesque drag routine. Bam! “You’re a woman.”
Yes!