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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Apr 21

We have received many requests to "rejoin the fight" since the SC judgment so tenaciously fought for by @ForWomenScot. The judgment vindicates the position on sex in both EA2010 & wide legislation, as well as in other areas including data collection.

kpssinfo.org/wp-content/upl…

We agree that our work, including an (unpublished) redraft of EA2010 which leaves sex "as is" & locks down all concepts "gender", should be at the forefront of what comes next. However, we recognise that there is no space for us with the GC Sector, or politically.

For that reason we shall not be restarting KPSS.

Hat tip also goes to @AlessandraAster, who has also been vindicated & who should also now be at the forefront of future work.

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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Jun 30, 2024

This is our final thread setting out the work we have done. We have saved Scotland until last. This is a hard thread to write. Whilst the situation is hard everywhere in the UK, it is particularly so in Scotland, where children, women & vulnerable adults are under threat from a government seemingly hellbent on destroying the very possibility of safeguarding, as well as placing restrictions on freedom of speech that are only fitting for a totalitarian regime. And what of this government? The institution that is Holyrood appears rotten to its core. It is so steeped in cronyism & nepotism, that, from what I have seen, the principles of parliamentary democracy no longer exist within those walls. This is shameful & terrifying.
Whilst the bravery & determination of overwhelmingly women, but men too, is a beacon of light & inspiration, this remains a dark & frightening time.
Our relationship with women & organisations in Scotland has always been very special and has resulted in much joint working (including been behind the scenes). As we made clear in our Exit Statement earlier in June, Kate will be continuing to support women in prison, former offenders & whistleblowers: many of these are in Scotland and she will continue to work with our colleagues where needed.

The following posts outline the work we have done in Scotlaand:

In December 2022 we published a supplementary document: How Police Scotland Record Suspects' Sex in Crime & Incident Reporting:

We included Police Scotland in our 2023 update:

In both 2022 & 2023, Police Scotland demonstrated their commitment to recording self-declared gender identity, not sex as registered at birth.kpssinfo.org/how-police-sco…
kpssinfo.org/how-police-for…

In December 2022 we published our supplementary document on Disclosure Scotland checks & identity change. We found evidence of the same loopholes in the DBS system that have been created when someone changes gender as part of changing thei identity:

kpssinfo.org/disclosure-sco…

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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Jun 27, 2024

In this penultimate thread we will be setting out our work & achievements for prisons in England & Wales. Our final thread will be on Scotland.

We will also use this thread to set out some of the gatekeeping. exclusion, interference in our work, abuse, gaslighting & bullying Kate/KPSS has been subjected to. This has come from groups & individuals across the GC “movement”. We won’t name names so please don’t ask us to. This may help some of you to understand why we have decided to close KPSS.

KPSS was set up in July 2020 by Kate with what was a small Twitter account. By 2021 our work was having an impact: this included well-attended briefings for Parliamentarians and professionals working in the CJS, regular written and oral parliamentary questions that enabled us to find out information that we could not access otherwise, successful media engagement.

One of the most important pieces of work we did was the two lots of “prisons amendments” to the Police Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill brought in the House of Lords. You can read about that here:

kpssinfo.org/house-of-lords…

These amendments came at a time when the MoJ was revising the policy that permitted male prisoners to be allocated to women’s prisons: that policy had lead to many bad decisions as it was based on a flawed “risk assessment” which also gave preferential treatment to those with GRCs, no matter their conviction.

One might have thought that Kate would have been supported in the prisons amendments within the GC “movement”. However she was met with contemptuous sneering for choosing the “wrong” peers and was told no one would want to know. There were attempts to take them over that included issuing inaccurate briefings. Finally, she was instructed to abandon them, told that they were just “blundering” and that “prisons must take its turn”. Kate was upset, anxious & confused.

Kate consulted her own advisors, external to the GC “movement” who urged her to continue, explaining that this was a one off opportunity that would not come again, particularly in consideration of the timing around the MoJ policy review. We continued with the amendments. Through these amendments we got almost 3 hours debate in Parliament & extensive media coverage. It was a major tipping point in getting the MoJ policy changed.

After the amendments Kate was given a complete rollocking for having disobeyed and not done as she was told. This was an extremely difficult & isolating time.

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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Jun 25, 2024

In May 2023 we published our report, Sex and Gender in Legislation: The Case Against "Legal Sex Change". You can read it here:

A supplementary document providing information on the research we conducted when writing the report can be found here:

kpssinfo.org/sex-and-gender…
kpssinfo.org/uk-legislation…

Our motivations behind this report were our grave concerns at GC groups pushing to split the concept "sex" in legislation into "legal sex" and "biological sex".

We urge everyone with an interest in this area to read these documents.

Since the passing of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill at the end of December 2022, “legal sex”, and related concepts, have become established in debate, with the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA2004) being described as enabling “legal sex change". In tandem, and with the intention of protecting the sex-based rights of women and girls, there have been calls that this necessitates a qualification of the protected characteristic "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 (EA2010), amending it to “biological sex”.

However, our position is that this understanding of GRA2004 is erroneous and overstates the effect of a gender recognition certificate, that "legal sex" has been misconceptualised, and that, whilst clarification of the law is desirable, qualifying “sex” in legislation in any way is unnecessary, has undesirable consequences and carries significant risk throughout domestic legislation, as well as to sex-based rights under international law.

We argue that GRA2004 does not operate to effect a "change of legal sex”. Rather, this “Act to make provision for and in connection with change of gender" enables a qualifying individual to obtain legal recognition of their "acquired gender”, with resultant legal consequence related to that individual’s legal status. Our position is supported by a reading of GRA2004, prior case law and the wording on a full GRC.

The consequence of the legal status of an “acquired gender” is unclear, in particular where it comes into conflict with rights of men and women on the basis of sex. This lack of clarity, together with concerns about privacy have acted to obscure sex in law. In tandem, the meaning of the term “gender” in law now lacks certainty, and, given the social trend to use the terms sex and gender interchangeably, requires clarification.

Whilst we agree that “legal sex” is a concept that has legal standing, our position is that an individual’s legal sex is simply the legal registration by the State of their sex as observed at birth, which forms part of their legal identity. This registration is fixed and unchanging, just as sex observed at birth is immutable. Hence, GRA2004 could not, by definition, effect a change of "legal sex”. Section 9(2) clarifies that this registration of “legal sex” remains an event unaffected by the grant of a GRC. Indeed, the operation of the exceptions to legal recognition of acquired gender in section 9(3) depends on the persistence of this "legal sex". If a GRC holder underwent a “change of legal sex”, that individual would effectively be able to claim that they had legal recognition of both sexes, male and female, one as registered at birth and the opposite as "changed" in accordance with GRA2004. This is incoherent and legally undesirable.

When legislation refers to “sex" it is referring to the registered sex observed at birth of persons legally recognised in law via State registration. In EA2010, "sex" was not left unqualified due to error, omission or confusion. It was also not replaced with the adjacent term “gender”. Rather, there was no need to qualify what sex is in law: it is a fact registered at birth and part of a person’s registered legal identity and there is no basis in legislation for any other interpretation of “sex”.

The contrary position, with which we disagree, sees “sex" in legislation split into an unchangeable aspect (“biological sex”) and a changeable aspect (“legal sex”). Splitting sex into two separate concepts in this way means that for any individual and at any time, whilst their “biological sex” is fixed, public and (in the overwhelming majority of circumstances) known, their “legal sex” is changeable, private and, unless and until declared, unknown. This complication creates uncertainty and impacts data collection. If robust data on sex registered at birth is not being collected, it is impossible to measure and address discrimination against women on the basis of sex.

It is unnecessary to clarify that “sex” in legislation means “biological sex” and it is also undesirable because the very act of adding a prefix or qualifier implies that “sex” has been, or may be, split into separate concepts, with each prefix requiring a stable definition. In our view such a move results in more uncertainty, not less, that due to the interwoven nature of legislation and policy will have an inevitable widespread impact.

Registration and recording of sex at birth, as a key demographic statistic of significant importance for policy decisions, is a legitimate function of the State. Yet, disrupting “sex” in this way operates to break the system of sex registration at birth upon which legal protections for women are founded.

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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Jun 20, 2024

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1801202252851372076

Data collection throughout the criminal justice system has been a major concern for KPSS & has been a focal point for our work.

We previously tweeted about our work on data collection by police forces. Here:

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1801202252851372076

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1801209860006064589

And here:

https://x.com/NoXYinXXprisons/status/1801209860006064589

A major concern is that not only is self-declared gender identity NOT recorded in lieu of sex registered at birth recorded, but that neither is legally recognised acquired gender, where an individual has been issued with a GRC.

In ALL cases it is sex registered at birth that MUST be recorded. No exceptions.

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Keep Prisons Single Sex

@NoXYinXXprisons

Jun 15, 2024

In 2022 we published our report DBS Checks & Identity Verification: Safeguarding Loopholes Created by Changes of Identity.

You can read it here:

kpssinfo.org/dbs-checks-and…

We also published a Supplementary Document on Disclosure Scotland, which you can read here:

kpssinfo.org/disclosure-sco…

In these reports we set out the safeguarding loopholes that are created when individuals change gender, including by self-declaration, as part of changing their identity. This is because of the enhanced individual privacy rights that are awarded to anyone who changes gender, regardless of whether they are issued with a GRC (not that restricting these enhanced privacy rights to GRC holders only is any sort of solution for safeguarding).

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