Thread by @MForstater

Lets talk about "trans rights"....

Human rights are universal.

Art. 8 ECHR is "Right to respect for private & family life, home & correspondence".

We all have it.

It is the right that gave us the Goodwin decision

Which led to the GRA

filia.org.uk/news/2020/5/16…

It is a qualified right "There shall be no interference by a public authority except in accordance w law, necessary for democracy, security & safety, economic wellbeing, prevention of disorder or crime, protection of health or morals, protection of rights & freedoms of others.”

So everyone has the right not tell other people their sex (or their name or their age, or the contents of their hard drive etc...) except for the reasons above.

And the government does not have the right to demand that we share this information (except for the reasons above)

The right not tell other people your sex is a pretty trivial, because 99.9% of the time people can tell immediately in person.

And because people understand that if you were a male yesterday, or ten years ago you are still male today.

Some people believe other things about the nature of sex (or "gender" as they like to say)

And some people have a desire not to be perceived as the sex they are

But there is no right to force other people to believe these things or to deny what they can see & know

So everyone has the trivial and limited right not to tell other people their sex when it is none-of their business.

This has implications for obligatory & general-purpose govt issued identity documents, organisational policies and data protection.

There has been a general move towards medically endorsed change and/or "self ID" in these documents -where people are able to change their recorded sex.

This goes well beyond the right in question which is about *privacy* of info, not the right to falsify official records.

And it creates risks and harms particularly for women and children -- in prisons, refuges, schools, all safeguarding situations, sports, single sex spaces etc...

Places where sex matters, and *is* other people's business.

Resolving this needs serious consideration on two fronts:

1) The limited right: How should general ID & data systems reasonably accommodate privacy over a person's sex?

2) What are the situations where sex matters (e.g. all safeguarding!) where this right is overruled?

My proposals focus on the first area: how to practically balance the limited & qualified right to privacy w the areas of law and life where other people need information about sex.

We also need to talk about returning sex to the heart of safeguarding!
medium.com/@MForstater/wh…