Thread by @MForstater

Yes this is right - there have been some significant changes in the most recent update of the Equal Treatment Benchbook.

https://twitter.com/OHaraMaureen9/status/1475547609955717133

In the new bits there is a shift from seeing "gender identity" as inherent to seeing it as a preference and a courtesy

And a dialing back on the sweeping legal statements about the effects of a GRC (this was clarified in the Forstater judgment 😊 )

Another bit of dialing back here

Some additions...

A long quote from Baroness Hale

(I'm not sure what the point of all this mood music is, other than I guess as a sop to offset the other additions)

This is a significant shift - from recognising "gender identity" to balancing between a person's desire to be referred to in a particular way (and to keep their sex secret) and other considerations

Here is the meat of that. Its set out in annoying language of "assigned at birth" but it is an important shift.

(Me: Fundamentally it comes down to the obligation of witnesses to tell the "truth, whole truth, nothing but.." and ppl who want to keep something that is blatantly obvious "private" (the right to privacy is limited)
Judges rewriting history as in the JLR case should be stopped)

A bit more dialing back here

And here

And here, on "deadnaming"

Removal of "cis" here

Recognition that "cis" is not acceptable to all

(or as @anyabike said in my tribunal "who are you calling cis?")

There is a new section on gender critical belief!

And then in the Appendix an extraordinarily long section on my case

It includes all the stuff the judge said my case didn't mean...

(this is really extraordinary, no other case is covered in this detail - (by comparison Lee v Ashers gets about half a paragraph)

All in all it is a step in the right direction, as a result of my case, efforts by academics, lawyers and legal commentators incl. @OHaraMaureen9 and the excellent @Policy_Exchange report by Thomas Chacko

policyexchange.org.uk/publication/pr…

Still, the whole thing could do with cutting 💇‍♀️💇‍♀️💇‍♀️ down. Simpler, clearer, aligned to the law.

These case examples that come from the @EHRC should be reviewed (is this really what the law and case law says ?🤨 )

The process of writing and reviewing the guidance is opaque.

Which organisations have inputed? We are not allowed to know. The Judicial College says it doesn't exist for the purposes of FOI (we are still working on this!)

Still, this revision is positive.