J K Rowling has nailed it - re Starmer and the trans issue

I think the lesbian thing is part of the whole sexism put forward by this ideology. Women with short hair look like women with short hair, they aren't men and whilst occasionally they are challenged ( I spent my entire twenties and thirties in pubs with butch lesbians) as soon as they speak/interact people tend to be very embarrassed at their mistake. This was a common refrain from men who identify as women, the abuse lesbians received about their looks from trans activists was horrific. They have conned people in to thinking we can't identify what sex people are. We can. Make up, swishy hair, etc don't hide the fact that they are men, and in the same way short hair etc doesn't hide someone's female sex.

You have a point Doodledog as referring to it being sorted out "ish"

The Supreme Court ruling has lad down the key principle, but there is a lot of confusion (and perhaps always has been) but it's far from "Settled" in some respects:

Specifically, what rights the GRA confers upon issue of a GRA certificate, will this have to be examined and possibly changed.

"While the GRA allows for changing the recorded sex to female or male, it doesn't explicitly mention pronouns or how someone chooses to be addressed. The act focuses on legal recognition and the right to live in one's acquired gender, not on dictating how individuals should be addressed".

So being able be addressed as "she" for example remained ambiguous as did, after you'd changed your name to "Anna".

For many, it was taken to mean you could be described as a woman when the GRA said "the right to live in one's acquired gender" and if not that, to be addressed as "she"

As for loos in cafes, many small businesses just have the one, available to all and also adapted for the disabled. Cubicles with their own washbasins are ideal but probably too expensive. And why are so many changing rooms communal anyway?

Galaxy

What? Do you think he actually believes privately that men can be women. That doesn't reassure me.

No, I dare say he was just desperate to be seen jumping on to the trans bandwagon.

Its where either you have to change for work outfits or gyms and swimming pools where there is a lot of socialising in the changing rooms.
A new build gym/swim pool where my family live has unisex facilities with lots of cubicles and separate lockers.

Oreo

I thought he has always been cowardly on this issue.Others may say he was wise to keep in with the trans activists for their votes🤬
Looking back it was a sort of collective madness that gave support to these angry, entitled misogynists that call themselves activists and I am so glad they have now been put back in their box.

I think Stonewall were doing the training & saying how you should conduct yourself to be fair to the trans community, & being aware was a "good" thing (Awareness training is good, right?) & there was an emperor's new clothes moment when JKR (& others) suddenly heard about it & realised that to be "fair" to trans people along the lines that Stonewall was advocating, you had to seriously breach some hardwon legal rights that women, lesbian or straight, needed.
Then it all kicked off & Starmer's instinct was to be progressive not reactionary, & try to be supportive of the LGBT community.Maybe he was badly briefed.He seems happy enough with the Court's ruling.

J K was not only vocal on this subject, she also put her money where her mouth is by supporting financially women’s refuges. My real beef is with those men at the top of their sports and some women who did not come out in support of women’s sports for biological women only, the exception being Sharron Davies who has been very vocal. The trans lobby showed us exactly who they are with their tantrums in London last weekend.

Fuck off. I’m a trans woman and it’s disgusting. My daughter loved Harry Potter. We’ve been to Universal Studios 5 times. It’s ironic she’s become the Voldemort in my story. Well done playing the villain who attacks those who are vulnerable, special, and yes…women !

Stonewall are on their uppers valdavi, running out of money, losing half their staff because the BBC, the Cabinet Office and Royal College of Psychiatrists have also pulled out of its workplace. They're unravelling fast and, despite threatening to take the new ruling to ECHR, they simply don't have the money to fund it.

So articulate KellsBells 🖐

Looking back on the history we find many changed minds. Teresa May in 2017 advocated very strongly for self ID at a time when it looked like the GRA would allow people to have certain guidelines and it might "work". Now Badenoch is taking a completely opposing position.

How could T May have predicted any more than anyone in the Labour Party what extremes would come about?

I genuinely think that Starmer from when he took over the leadership had hoped interests could be balanced until it became overwhelmingly obvious it wasn't going to work after all the confusions and horrible hostilities and extremes and thats why he welcomes the act - but with an awareness just how complicated things will be interns of guidance and implementation.

From what I’ve gathered previously, Stonewall was in need of a fresh source of income, since their former raison d’etre, supporting gay people, was no longer nearly so badly needed.

So charging all sort of businesses/organisations (inc. the big banks, NHS etc.) for Stonewall’s training, in how to approach the trans issue - pronouns and erasing obviously female words such as ‘mother’ (call ‘them’ a birthing person instead), not to mention ‘woman’ itself, unless preceded by trans or ‘cis’ - seemed like an excellent and lucrative idea. .

Exactly Witzend they started off as a great support and resource for LGB but just seemed to lose sight of their original purpose and became a huge bullying machine that issued more and more extreme dictats. I'm wondering if Mermaids will be next.

While the GRA allows for changing the recorded sex to female or male, it doesn't explicitly mention pronouns or how someone chooses to be addressed. The act focuses on legal recognition and the right to live in one's acquired gender, not on dictating how individuals should be addressed

The Equality Act 2010 does not compel individuals to use someone's preferred pronouns, but it does prohibit discrimination based on gender reassignment. Employers can encourage the use of preferred pronouns but cannot mandate it, and staff are not legally obligated to disclose their pronouns.
From the Equality Act 2010 site, FAQ
No need for additional guidance; it is stated quite clearly in the Act, just been ignored for the past 15 years.

I am si disappointed by this thread and some of the hatred and vitriol being displayed. As mum to a trans woman who is now sitting at home distressed beyond measure because she feels unable to go out and socialise with her friends as she’s no longer allowed to go to the ladies, she must go to the gents and risk being abused or worse. This is not a victory for women’s rights, what about the many many women who may look less than feminine, they are also now going to be challenged when simply wanting to go for a wee. One of the anti trans activists Nicola Murray has been found guilty of the worst type of child abuse, and my daughter is crying at home because people like Nicola Murray are accusing her of wanting to abuse women in toilets, you should all be ashamed of yourselves. Do you really think she would have chosen to be transgender, of course not, I sincerely hope none of your families end up feeling body/gender dysmorphia, heaven help them if they do, it took enormous courage for her to come out as transgender and now she feels as though her life is worthless, well done, I hope you re proud. Yes I m angry, there have been transgender women around for years using women’s toilets with no problems, thus has been a recently manufactured issue, probably to cover up something else and had set back women’s rights enormously, not to mention the fact that there may now be transgender men wanting to use the ladies as they were born female or even men pretending they are transgender in order to access ladies toilets, it’s been nothing short of cruel to a vulnerable minority group in the UK shame on you all

Well no thankfully so far we have avoided compelled speech.

I think it needs addressing simply because of the confusions and hostilities around it for individuals and organisations. In theory it's there in writing, yes, but the different interpretations exist in practice.

Never mind KS, listened to John Swinney today failing to answers questions on what defines a woman as a woman. Just appears to fail to acknowledge what the Supreme Court ruling means.

I'm genuinely sorry that your daughter is so upset Shirls5200 but feel that your anger should be directed at the men who have abused transgender women by insisting that obvious males infiltrated women's spaces. Public toilets are only one small part of the problem that women have faced; rape crisis centres, prison cells, women's safe houses, changing rooms and women's sports. It's true, and acknowledged, that people like your daughter just want to live their chosen life in peace and quiet, causing problems for no one. Regrettably, a huge number of men abused the privileges that people like your daughter, and all natal women, no longer feel safe using. It's not us you should be angry with.

I was sure, as I have a trans friend, Shirls5200 that many would and will feel as your daughter does and it does concern me greatly.

I have tried to over these threads ask "what about" 'quiet wanting to live your life". I hope that the guidance coming will help your daughter although tbh I dont know how it will be done. Facilities that don't force that choice, perhaps, above all.

I sincerely hope that Mermaids will remain a supportive organisation for families and young people.

I must admit I'd never heard of Nicola Murray and what she did.

eazybee

^While the GRA allows for changing the recorded sex to female or male, it doesn't explicitly mention pronouns or how someone chooses to be addressed. The act focuses on legal recognition and the right to live in one's acquired gender, not on dictating how individuals should be addressed^

The Equality Act 2010 does not compel individuals to use someone's preferred pronouns, but it does prohibit discrimination based on gender reassignment. Employers can encourage the use of preferred pronouns but cannot mandate it, and staff are not legally obligated to disclose their pronouns.
From the Equality Act 2010 site, FAQ
No need for additional guidance; it is stated quite clearly in the Act, just been ignored for the past 15 years.

According to dd, who has friends in senior positions in e.g. the big banks, it is pretty much compulsory to state your pronouns at the end of every communication, internal or external.
From what I hear, HR depts. are keen on jumping on those who don’t/won’t conform.
Maybe that will change now.

Damned if he said anything and damned that he sat on the fence.

Loads of people have now said what they thought but didn't feel they could say it before.

Seriously this is tired....

Loads of people have now said what they thought but didn't feel they could say it before.

Now here's a thought: maybe loads of people stayed schtum because they knew that they'd lose their careers, their jobs, their business contracts if they didn't comply. See the post above at 15.26 as to why that might be. Theatres were threatened with TRA demonstrations to close venues down if they dared to host someone who had been cancelled. The past 10 - 15 years have been akin to America's McCarthyism years for women. You're right: we're tired.

I wonder how many of the people commenting on this thread actually know anyone who is trans? I happen to know several trans and non-binary people, to varying degrees and via different routes. NONE of them are trans women. Historically, trans women outnumbered trans men, but in younger generations the opposite is true. And yet trans men hardly seem to be mentioned in discussions about trans issues.
The supreme court ruling about biological sex applies equally to men and women. This means that trans women are excluded from women-only spaces, but trans men are not. Do women want trans men in our women-only spaces? How do we know whether they are really trans men, and not biological men? I say this, not to discriminate against trans men, but to show how daft the current debate is. I haven’t noticed much outrage about trans men using men-only spaces, or competing in men’s sports, yet presumably they will no longer be allowed to do so.

Do we really need so many separately-gendered facilities? Other countries manage without. For example, in Copenhagen the public loos (with cubicles) are communal, and larger ones include urinals round a corner. Isn’t this a more sensible use of space? When there are options for privacy, what’s the problem?

Humans want to put things in boxes, when in reality people are not that simple. There is enormous variation, with a wide spectrum across each of multitudinous attributes, including height, colour, introversion/extroversion, intelligence, word/number skills, as well as sex and gender. Please can we just treat people as people, with the dignity and respect they deserve, instead of singling out minority groups as useful targets for dog-whistle politics.
Incidentally, I am a woman, by both biological sex and gender, and more “Mary Beard” type than “Katie Perry” type. Is that another box?

Re Starmer, I think he's probably a decent man, but he's also a lawyer and has to accept the law. Note, however, that the Supreme Court's comments that it was the intention of the Equality Act that "women" ment "biological women" has been contradicted by the civil servant responsible for putting the act through - she says the intention was to include trans women with a gender recognition certificate.

But it won't last because the 'law' will change again, as it did for gay people when they decided that being gay is lawful.

You haven't read the ruling have you Jane.