Mick Hartley

The debate over Scotland's Gender Recognition Reform Bill [GRR] has brought out the angry men, who can't bear to hear women – like Rosie Duffield or Miriam Cates – voice an opinion out of turn. 

Janice Turner in today's Times – ‘It might never happen, love’ is no basis for law:

The government didn’t trigger section 35 of the Scotland Act because it craved a culture war with the SNP — why risk fuelling calls for independence? — but because equalities legislation is a whole-UK matter (while gender recognition is a devolved issue). Westminster has an obligation to protect all British women.

So what are the GRR’s risks? First, the cohort of males changing legal sex would be infinitely larger. The GRA [2004's Gender Recognition Act] was aimed at what were then termed “transsexuals”, people who had genuinely transitioned, often via surgery. A medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and two years living in the “acquired gender” were legally required to ensure seriousness of intent. Only a tiny group, about 5,000, have been granted this legal fiction that they have actually changed sex.

But with the GRR [the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill], a new birth certificate requires no third-party verification and only unenforceable penalties for acting in bad faith. Since 2004, Stonewall’s definition of “trans” has expanded to include male cross-dressers (who wear women’s clothes for erotic purposes) and Jamie Wallis, “the first trans MP”, who has not altered his body, clothes or even his pronouns. There would be nothing to stop any man — and I mean man, not trans woman — becoming legally female. Nicola Sturgeon said the requirement of “living as a woman” for three months could mean changing your name on your gas bill.

Besides, the Scottish government itself doesn’t see a gender recognition certificate (GRC) as “a bit of admin”. It argued in the Court of Session that a GRC makes a male person female in all circumstances, even the few, vital single-sex exemptions laid out in the Equality Act — and the judge Lady Haldane agreed. In Scotland now, legal sex always trumps biological sex.

The GRR would mean a disabled woman could no longer specify same-sex carers performing intimate tasks, as any male with a GRC would “be” female. Women’s gyms, spas or domestic violence refuges could not bar a fully intact GRC-holding male.

Not only could single-sex services be sued but it would devastate social norms which protect women. No longer could a woman challenge a man in a female changing room. Sexually predatory men — again, I mean men — would exploit this, as they do the tiniest loophole.

What if lesbians wanted their own club, or female survivors of child sexual abuse formed a support group? A male with a GRC, even without the Haldane ruling, cannot be excluded. And with self-ID, literally any man could get one for the fun of menacing or upsetting women. And since the SNP believes 16-year-olds can pledge to change legal gender for the rest of their lives, girls’ schools will not be able to bar GRC-holding males or even exclude them from showering with girls.

Facing greater risk to personal safety and loss of single-sex services, many women — especially older ones and those from cultures that value modesty — may simply withdraw from the female-only services which would benefit them, or clubs they enjoyed.

Clearly the GRR has far-reaching implications for women. But what happens when they point this out? First, the bombastic know-alls who’ve ignored every female writer, lawyer and policymaker for five years pull out their manly opinions. Like Alastair Campbell, who chided Laura Kuenssberg for an interview with Sir Keir Starmer in which she dwelt on the GRR, which affects half the population — but not the important half. Or Lord Falconer, who pompously wafts away concerns, tweeting that “the vast majority” of new male GRC holders “are likely to be genuine”. So what’s a few women facing sexual assault or indecent exposure, an intimidated lesbian or two, or a class of girls unhappily undressing with a teenage boy? These “It might never happen, love” guys don’t think women deserve legislation that protects us in principle. We’re expected to pray that careless laws, framed for others’ benefit, don’t hurt us in practice. And if they do, it’s just an “isolated incident”. Suck it up. And the next one. There’s no pattern. Let’s ignore the inconvenient truth that males commit 98 per cent of sex crime and 90 per cent of violence, whatever their gender identity.

Then there are the angry men who can’t even bear to hear women’s voices. No debate. Shut up, bitch. Sit down, bigot. We’ll ban your meeting, ignore your legal submissions.

Women have had years of this now. “Keep Mumsnet out of politics,” said a placard at a demonstration where Russell-Moyle shared a platform with the trans woman Sarah Jane Baker, who served 30 years in prison for kidnap and attempted murder. Boring old mums, pesky women seeing through the GRR’s outrageous misogyny and sophistry to say: this is our business.