In response to the UK’s Secretary of State to Scotland, Alistair Jack, blocking the GRR Bill from referred (it’s a different country’s legal system so it doesn’t completely make sense to me,) center-left reaction has been loud and raucous. Women who have objected are being excoriated and denounced as transphobic. Even in Parliament, where generally debated is addressed to the Speaker and not to other members, an MP referred directly towards a female MP who had explained how this affects women and children. He was later asked to apologize for his breach of decorum, but stated that he was engaging in heated debate as is the standard in Parliament.
A common response to requests to consider the safeguarding issues for allowing men to easily get a GRR and access women’s spaces is reflected in the following tweet:
I consider this a tone-deaf response, especially in an environment such as the UK where the safeguards for women are tenuous, and in fact work against them in many cases. The Metropolitan Police force has been exposed as dangerous to women, with violent misogynists embedded as career officers due to a lack of screening before hiring. This is the agency that women are expected to go to for help when they have been assaulted and report a crime so that the criminals are arrested and tried. Women are finding that they can’t trust the Met, and are possibly endangered by the simple act of reporting the crime to a rapist.
Gibbs is ignoring, whether by choice or due to true ignorance of the history of trans-claiming men assaulting women in women’s spaces (most brutally in prison where women are already devalued and treated sub-humanely1) it’s hard to say. But in this particular thread there are replies informing her. Whether she chooses to read them or brushes them off as bleatings by hateful transphobes, we will see.
Quoting myself from the miscellany room at Butterflies and Wheels:
This is the “men have already been invading women’s spaces for years, and the GRR doesn’t really change things, so just accept this new piece of paper” argument. And what we take out of this is the very tone-deaf repetition that there is only one demographic whose needs are important, and everyone else needs to accommodate them. Much like the guy in BC who only feels “comfortable in women’s spaces because men are muscular and I’m a slob,” it doesn’t really matter how the women in the restrooms, gyms, prisons, and other spaces where they are vulnerable to sexual assault, battery, or even just the leering that men do, as long as the men get access.
And, yes, it’s only really a problem for men in women’s spaces. Trans ID women do not bother men in private spaces because we are very rarely subject to such assaults by women, and are often flattered by women or men checking us out in the gym. We take it as admiration, not as intrusion.
What she conveniently ignores, or has decided doesn’t matter, is that this is a men’s movement to break away what few barriers have been propped up to give women space away from men. One wonders what trans ID males did to pee back when public office buildings only provided restrooms for men. Did they have to “hold it” until they got home, as women did? Did they have the urinary leash?
And another thing that is completely illogical about this GRR fracas: if it really changes nothing, then why is it so important to steamroll it through and to create a crisis in Scottish Devolution? It’s either absolutely vital or no big deal, it can’t be both.
Imagine a one-room apartment being shared by strangers. One of them is male and the other is female. In order to be discreet when changing clothes, they agree to a room divider. The room divider affords a degree of privacy by agreement between the two. It will not prevent one from peeking behind it, but they respect each other and don’t do so. Would Gibbs argue that the male is able to peek, so the room divider is not necessary? Probably not. She would see the sense of the arrangement.
Women appreciate and need such simple barriers as room dividers because the large majority of men abide by them and respect them, but those who don’t are easily identifiable. Such men raise red flags because they don’t respect an artificial boundary. There is no forcefield on lavatories that can detect the sex of a person entering, and no one is claiming that reserving private spaces by sex will erect one. Men who commit assault can still enter without being bounced back by an invisible shield.
But, there is the the simple fact that if a man is observed entering into a woman’s locker room, gym, restroom, prison cell, or any other reserved space set aside for women, they are subject to being stopped and turned back. With the easy availability of a Gender Recognition Certificate, women are not allowed to raise the red flag. If they do, then they are shamed as being transphobic. If they even ask to see a GRC, they are committing a social violation. If a business makes a rule against a man entering a women’s space and asks for a GRC, that is a violation of the Equality Act of 2010, and the business may be subject to sanction.
If a business asks for evidence of your legal sex, you can use your birth certificate. You shouldn’t need to show your gender recognition certificate (GRC).
If they ask to see your GRC, this might be discrimination - they’re treating you differently from other people because you’re trans.
It’s illegal for businesses to tell other people you’re trans without your consent - they could get a fine of up to £5,000. You can find out more about your right to privacy as a trans person on the Galop website.
In 2022 in the UK 1 in 100 rapes resulted in arrest.
Imagine how hard it will be for police, those who actually want to investigate and arrest rapists, to handle rape cases if more men get access to women’s private spaces and then claim to be women. In the GRR there is no requirement for a man to change anything about himself to gain a GRC and have as much access to women as he wants. It’s not transphobic2 to point out that this sets up conditions that allow rapists even more opportunity to access their prey. For some of them, it may be too easy and they won’t take advantage because it reduces the “thrill of the hunt.” I don’t know.
But think of all the men who are now willing to spend years grooming a young woman so that he can assault her, now realising that they need only fill out a form on line and then with that in hand can run down to the local train station and keep an eye on a girl as she enters the lavatory? 3 He can just follow her in, corner her, and leave knowing that no one can say anything about a man entering and leaving a woman’s loo.
This is a man’s movement. And the idea that the only true feminism is one that includes men is a horrific lie that further cements the idea that women are being set up for a reduction in the rights that they have fought so hard to attain. Enablers such as as Sarah Gibbs are being tone-deaf when they refuse to listen to the women who try to tell her how they are harmed. They only see one demographic that matters.
Men.
Hi guys!
It’s by design.
Not that I care.
Women are also reporting that now that men are aware of this, they don’t even bother with the certificate and will flat-out tell women who try to safeguard “You can’t ask for it, Love.”