Thread by @WDI_UK

Women’s Declaration International UK (WDI-UK) has today launched a campaign to restore safeguarding for women and children, by ending the falsification of sex in UK law, policy and practice.

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WDI-UK has written to the Prime Minister and other Ministers setting out a detailed case for removing the concepts of “gender identity” and “gender reassignment” from law and policy, and for repealing the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

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The Gender Recognition Act 2004 enables individuals who meet certain criteria to be recognised as the other sex for legal purposes. WDI-UK believes that the effects of this legal fiction are detrimental to women, children, and other vulnerable groups.

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Everyone must be protected from harassment and discrimination. We argue that people who consider themselves to be the opposite sex can be protected using other legal provisions without maintaining the legal fiction that they have changed sex.

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WDI-UK'S paper details some of the ways in which giving the subjective concept of “gender” primacy over the reality of sex harms women and children, especially girls. It addresses specific concerns in the areas of health, education and criminal justice.

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HEALTH: There is already a high incidence of sexual assault in the NHS. Placing men in women’s wards creates a heightened risk. The Cass Review shows that puberty blockers present a mental health and safeguarding risk to often vulnerable youngsters.

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EDUCATION: Many schools teach children that they can change sex and ‘socially transition’ them without their parents’ knowledge.

> It is a safeguarding risk to allow boys to use girls’ toilets and changing rooms;

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> requiring girls to participate in the fiction that someone they know to be a boy is really a girl encourages them to suppress their natural self-protective responses.

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CRIME: Crime data show sex is the most significant factor in patterns of criminality, particularly for sexual offences. Male pattern offending ignores “gender identity”. These links are obscured when sexual offenders are recorded as “female”.

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WDI-UK's campaign launches in the wake of Supreme Court hearing "For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers", which will decide the meaning of “woman” in UK law (specifically, in the interaction between the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act).

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The hearing included an almost forensic analysis of the legal absurdities that will be created if a man who obtains a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Recognition Act is deemed to be a woman “for all purposes”.

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The key issue was whether s.9 (1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 means that a man with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) becomes a “woman” for all purposes, including for the Equality Act.

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During the hearing it quickly became apparent that the application of s.9 (1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 makes the Equality Act 2010 unworkable and erodes many of its protections for women, children and vulnerable groups.

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It means that men who hold a GRC cannot be excluded from some spaces and services designated as women-only.

Heterosexual men with a GRC become legally “lesbians” and cannot be excluded from lesbian associations of more than 24 women.

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Women who hold a GRC would be deemed "men" in all circumstances, including pregnancy.

This means they would be treated as “pregnant men”, and so denied all of the protections for pregnant and nursing women afforded in the Equality Act and elsewhere.

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Additionally, serious safeguarding risks have been created by policies based on de facto self-declaration of “gender identity”, which have been widely adopted throughout the UK in recent years.

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WDI-UK's paper demonstrates how the current situation endangers women and children and impacts on major areas of public policy, including criminal justice, the national health service and education.

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It sets out a rationale for restoring safeguarding through:

a) repeal of the GRA

b) removal of “gender reassignment” as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act

and

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c) ending de facto self-declaration of ‘gender identity’ in public and private institutions and identity documents.

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The paper also suggests ways in which individuals who currently have the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" could retain full legal protections from discrimination and harassment.

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ABOUT WDI: Women’s Declaration International (WDI) advocates for the sex-based rights of women internationally. Our advocacy is based on the Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights, which was published in 2019:



21/24womensdeclaration.com/en/

The Declaration reaffirms that the rights of women and girls which are set out in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (the CEDAW) are sex-based:



22/24ohchr.org/en/instruments…

WDI believes replacing the category of sex with ‘gender reassignment’ or ‘gender identity’ in law, policy, and practice discriminates against women, and undermines society’s ability to safeguard women, children, and other vulnerable groups from harm.

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Sign the Declaration on Women’s Sex Based Rights and find out how else you can help to:

> restore safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults

> end sex falsification

> protect the sex-based rights of women and girls



24/ENDwomensdeclaration.com/en/