Challenging the response from Alister Jack on proposed changes to the GRA
On 23rd January I received an unhelpful response from the representative of Mr Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland, regarding my proposed changes to the GRA identified in the post:
I responded:
«Note: in the letter the footnote [1] I linked to an appendix, which I have replaced with a link to the substack post for people to use in correspondence with ideologically captured organizations
»
The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Gender Recognition Act: a proposed solution
I do not accept your representative’s response to my proposal:
How can a falsehood, namely that it is possible to change sex and issue a birth certificate to that effect, constitute the application of “proper checks and balances”?
One of the three exceptions of the Act, namely peerages, states:
a person’s gender change does not affect the descent of any peerage or dignity or title of honour. Neither did it affect the devolution by will or other instrument of any property that passes along with any peerage or dignity or title of honour, unless the will or other instrument provides that it should do so1
If the eldest child of a Duke, say, the daughter, changes her sex from female to male, then why should not ‘he’ be entitled to the rights due the first born male? She has either changed sex or she has not. The inconsistency is glaring, insulting to women, and confirms the legal fiction of the GRA.
When, in George Orwell’s ‘1984’, the protagonist Winston Smith traces “2 + 2 = 5” in the dust, does that make 5 an even number (as there is a mathematical rule that the sum of two even numbers must be even)? It is not possible to change sex, so do not make laws that contradict that fact: the consequences can only be bad.
The nub of my proposal is the addition of a secondary sex marker to indicate that the person does not identify as their sex (male or female) observed and registered at birth (DNIBS) and the replacement of a GRC with a DNIBS certificate; the birth sex remains unchanged. As Kemi Badenoch is pushing back on the Scottish Government to reconsider their GRR Bill so that there are not incompatible rules for granting a GRC across the UK, please can you forward my proposal to her for consideration?
With regard to the Equalities Act 2010 please can you and your colleagues sign the Sex-Matters’ petition?
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/623243
The Government must exercise its power under s.23 of the Gender Recognition Act to modify the operation of the Equality Act 2010 by specifying the terms sex, male, female, man & woman, in the operation of that law, mean biological sex and not "sex as modified by a Gender Recognition Certificate"
This would mean that the government could retain the Gaslighting GRA, and protect the rights of women, girls and the same-sex attracted via the clarified 2010 Equalities Act.
I wrote to my MP Kwasi Kwarteng:
“I would remind you that the ideological capture of government and its institutions, the NHS, the Judiciary, the police force, universities and schools by Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence and GIRES happened on a Conservative watch. This is an ideology pursued for the benefit of less than 0.5% of the UK population at the expense of the other 99.5%. It cannot be allowed to continue.”
I have an appointment on 24th March to see him about my proposed changes to the GRA.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Neill
A response from the Equalities Hub
On 7th Feb 2023 I received a response from the Equality Hub, ignoring my requests. The first part of the response (not shown here) simply explained the rationale for Alister Jack making an Order under Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 which prohibits the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament from submitting theBill for Royal Assent (something I already knew and understood). Then followed:
I am writing a letter to the Equalities Hub identifying every question that requires an answer and insisting that they answer each question truthfully, as it will be published on this substack.
I have this theory that all politicians and government officials attend a cumpulsory three week residential course on how not to give a straight answer to a question. The course is intensive, bordering on the sadistic. The day starts at 8am and ends at 6pm or midnight at the latest, as for every time the course member gives a straight answer to a question 30 minutes is added to his or her day. On the last day, at 6pm, as each attendee heads home after 21 gruelling days, he or she will be asked what they thought of the course. If they give a response in any way connected to what they thought of the course they will have to attend the course again.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/notes/division/4/16 (accessed 18 Aug 2022