But also
We just want to square the circle, that’s all.
I want to see it easier and more humane for how trans people can access a gender recognition certificate, but I also want to make sure we’re protecting single sex spaces based on biological sex
Well you CAN’T, because those two items cancel each other. The whole nonsensical idea of a “gender recognition certificate” renders women’s rights an absurdity. If men can get “certificates” that say they are women then women can’t have women-specific rights. You can’t do both.
“There are circumstances where a lawfully-established separate or single-sex service provider can prevent, limit or modify trans people’s access to the service. This is allowed under the Act. However, limiting or modifying access to, or excluding a trans person from, the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful if you cannot show such action is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. This applies whether the person has a Gender Recognition Certificate or not.”
That’s a general lesson that somehow never gets taught. Committing to one thing can and often does preclude other things that you may have wanted. If you really are committed to protecting single-sex spaces (and women’s rights in general), then you forever close off to yourself many other things you may want, such as gender recognition certificates that let men be treated as women. If you eat your cake, then you don’t have it. If you have your cake, you haven’t eaten it. One choice precludes the other.
Isn’t that part of the bargain at the root of civilization? We give up some liberty in order to safeguard other liberty.
Do people not learn this in primary school?
The spineless cowardice of someone living in mortal fear of “offending” anyone. It’s one thing if you’re somebody who hasn’t really thought about the issues very much, who isn’t aware of the implications of trying to have it both ways, but when you’re in politics, and charged with the power to set policy and create law, you shouldn’t be able to plead ignorance and not thinking things through. Your job is to make a goddamn decision. And live with it.
#1:
The legitimate aim is to provide single-sex services. Sex has nothing to do with a person’s gender presentation, so unless you’re the sex that’s permitted entry, you don’t gain entry. It really isn’t difficult.
AoS: That’s the slippery game they play. Recontextualize everything such that the legitimate becomes illegitimate. What everyone until 10 years ago thought was right and proper is flipped in Genderism to be exclusionary and bigoted. It’s one big magic trick to shift the burden of proof.
Nullius, it is very much like a magic trick. Smoke and mirrors, distraction, sleight of hand – or more usually sleight of word – and of course the bait and switch. And in line with the magic theme, as the audience cotton on to how the tricks are performed, the performers have to devise new tricks that are harder to detect.
That said, the line “excluding a trans person from the separate or single-sex service of the gender in which they present might be unlawful” is more like the old card trick of ‘chase the lady’, only instead of manual dexterity to have the mark focus on the wrong card, it’s more a case of framing it so that the switch from sex to gender presentation goes unnoticed because the attention is drawn to ‘excluding a trans person from the separate or single-sex service […] may be unlawful’.