Surprising proposed changes to gender identification legislation

SueDonim Which country was that in? It's unusual for men who identify as women to be so stereotypically masculine!

Yes, I thought so too FarNorth. Helen described her youth and the pressures they felt very movingly, I really felt for them.

Oh Primrose that's what I used to think too! But Danielle Muscato (Canada) and Alex Drummond (Wales) have shown us the error of our ways!

Alex - [[http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/i-want-widen-bandwidth-gender-9686747[[

Danielle - well, easier just to attach an image.

Try that again www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/i-want-widen-bandwidth-gender-9686747

Primrose, it was in London, within the past year.

I'm watching a video of Danielle putting it all into context. I'd feel safe sharing a changing room etc with her

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUY5CV9jjM

Alex Drummond is legally a woman under current legislation. No surgery, no hormones, full beard. He's a counsellor - how would you feel if you asked for a woman and got him? And that's with the supposedly onerous system that's much too difficult and humiliating

I'd care more about how good a photographer or counsellor she was than how much facial hair she has.

I'm rather concerned about the 'hairy deep voiced nurse' working in London though. Something doesn't sit right with me about the story. I cannot imagine a GP surgery where this nurse would be considered appropriate to perform a smear test on a sexual abuse victim who has asked for a female nurse. The GP would be aware of the history of their patient.

It's absolutely 100% true, I promise you. The surgery had had misgivings about this nurse and were actually glad that my friend made an official complaint because they had had their hands tied until.

It wasn't all to do with the person's look, their manner and actions also figured plus their refusal to take no for an answer.

One of my children is a trainee doctor and one of the things drummed into them is that patients have the absolute right to refuse treatment from anyone and they do not have to provide a reason.

This is more fundamental than that. Sex, you know, biological reality, is real. There are male and female humans with distinct physical, hormonal and genetic characteristics. 'Gender' is a variable, wholly socially constructed set of visual and behavioural expectations designed to ensure social compliance, producing toxic stereotypes.

The self-identifying trans-activist brigade do not recognise biological reality and prefer to demand that the only real women are men who act out the stereotypes of femininity. I get paid less than male colleagues because i am a biological female not because I feel feminine and wear pink. I am labelled with perjorative terms and threatened with violence for saying that women are adult human females and that a penis is a male organ. I am called 'cis-scum' and 'TERF bitch' because I tell the truth.

Changing the law so a man, any man, can say 'I am female' and to criminalise those who point out the biological reality and say 'no you are not' is my idea of a dystopian future arriving with a bang.

I do not want to see vulnerable women put at risk as the result of the deeply ingrained misogyny of the trans-activists who scream for self-identification. If this becomes law, women will lose an awful lot, if not all, of their protected spaces and legal protections, and our daughters and their daughters will be the worse off for it.

And I have yet to hear a firm definition of 'woman' from any trans-activist - so when the law is drafted, are they going to say 'woman' means whatever any trans person says it is whenever they say it?

SueDonim If it is 100% true then the GP surgery is at fault, not the person undergoing gender reassignment.

The surgery did not have to use this nurse for a smear. They chose to employ the nurse. They chose to use her to perform a smear on a victim of sexual abuse. The complaint would be towards the GP practice, not the nurse! If she was then fired because of the complaint of your friend, she was unfairly dismissed. I mean, what was her complaint? The nurse looked like a man? Come on.

GrumpyOldBat I think you've made some interesting arguments. Although I can't see the dystopian future painted by some of the posts on this thread, I do think you have a point about some trans activists.

For those of us in the UK are you also aware that the notorious murderer Ian Huntley, imprisoned for killing two young girls and with a long history of sexual assaults against girls and women, now says he 'identifies' as a woman and wishes to be known as Lianne.
Presumably with the longer term aim of being transferred to a women's prison. In what universe is this ever acceptable?

I don't live in England so I'm not au fait with GP surgery set-ups, Primrose. It may have been a clinic affiliated to the GP surgery or however it works in London. I know it's a busy area with many people people on the books so the abuse aspect may have slipped through the net or someone was off sick, who knows?

The nurse was absolutely a person who looked 100% a man but said they were a woman. The complaint was that the nurse would not initially back off when the friend said she had requested a female nurse and informed friend that they were indeed a female nurse. Patients are entitled to refuse treatment from anyone but this person would not at first accept that. It was very intimidating for my friend and caused her to have serious flashbacks of her previous traumas.

There's still so much wrong with your story. Victims of sexual assault were very unlikely to have a smear test, so much has improved to make it less stressful for them. They are encouraged to have another person with them, they are booked with double appointments, so there's no hurry. Some are even able to perform the smear themselves and are guided through the process by a doctor/nurse. There is no way 'someone off sick' would have created the story you posted. No way.
I haven't even started on your description of the complaints process, and I'm not going to bother.
Anyone in the UK who has used the NHS will find your story implausible. It has more in common with a Monty Python sketch, except they're funny.

The smear test was a routine one, the assault had happened previously, when she was younger, but she still suffers the effects to this day, sadly,

I have 100% belief in my friend. I'm obviously not going to put any more detail here, I've probably said too much anyway, so it's entirely your decision what you believe, or otherwise.