The Clarity of Labour

In common with many others, I am spending my time writing to MPs and MSPs, which is not doing wonders for my day job. Still, since I am writing a book on the long culture war against trans people, I can claim it as research, I guess.

The relevant local ones for me are Labour. Actually, Nicola Sturgeon is my constituency MSP, so I sent her a fangirl letter of thanks for being a decent human being, but otherwise I am concentrating on Labour MPs and MSPs, unless they seem ideologically committed to the anti-trans cause (cough Pauline McNeill). That means: Dr Zubir Ahmed MP, Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP and Anas Sarwar MSP. In addition to seeking a response from them to the Supreme Court decision, I asked for a meeting to discuss this in person.

Dr Ahmed, who seemed amiable enough when we met outside the poling station, but seemed surprisingly surprised that I was an actual local (from literally two blocks away) has not yet replied. Ms Duncan-Glancy, to her credit, replied very quickly, but to her discredit gave me clearly the form Scottish Labour position (oddly, it is the SNP's fault apparently, and it is all now clear). Mr Sarwar's office took about a week to reply, with an even less tailored form letter. .

I am not posting my original emails or the form responses (which are hardly worth dignifying), but suffice to say that their insistence on the ‘clarity’ of the situation is, very disturbingly, making me think of the ‘Alles klar catchphrase of a certain character in The League of Gentlemen. Anyhow, in case it might be helpful to anyone else trying to extract sense from the current Labour Party, here is my response to Anas Sarwar's office.

Response to Letter from the Office of Anas Sarwar MSP

Dear [redacted],

Thank you for your email, which, regrettably, fails to address any of my issues adequately. I wish to meet with my elected representative, Mr. Sarwar, to discuss these matters fully. I would be grateful if you could arrange an appointment at your earliest convenience.

In the interests of "clarity", I summarise the heads of the discussion:

• what does "biological" mean, given that it is defined neither in EA2010 nor the Supreme Court's judgment?
• what does the protected characteristic of gender reassignment now mean?
• in what circumstances is my birth certificate no longer valid, and
• how will the invalidity of my birth certificate be proven?
• how does the Supreme Court judgment protect "biological" women when it has twisted the single-sex exemptions to exclude trans men from women's spaces and services?
• how can it be true that (Scottish) Labour always supported the protection of "biological" women (and the exclusion of trans women) when it specifically introduced the Gender Recognition Act in 2004 with the assertion (per Hansard) that those with a Gender Recognition Certificate would be on an equal footing with those of sex assigned at birth? This is, after all, the literal reading of §9.1 of the Gender Recognition Act - as the Supreme Court recognised.
• does Scottish Labour regard the Supreme Court ruling as a legislative amendment as described in §9.3 of the Gender Recognition Act?
• does Scottish Labour agree with the Supreme Court's false claims about the intentions of the drafters of the Equality Act, which are a matter of public record, and backed up by the EHRC's statutory guidance, which is now in the process of being rewritten?
• why were no trans people heard in this process?
• how are my Convention rights, especially Articles 8 and 14, being respected?
• what is Scottish Labour protecting single sex spaces from, and can it document any instances of harms caused by trans women in toilets or hospitals?
• if the Gender Recognition Act is now meaningless for the purposes of the protected characteristics of sex, why will not the Labour government unblock the progress of the Gender Recognition Reform bill to Royal Assent?

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to the opportunity of discussing these questions—in the interests of clarity—with Mr Sarwar.

With best wishes,

Isabel