United Response has fallen

A letter from a subscriber

Hi Graham,

I'm not sure if this is of interest to you, but I just received an email from an organisation called United Response which is a charity that supports people with learning disabilities, autism and mental health needs, at home and in the community. 

They regularly send out an Easy News bulletin which aims to simplify current events in the news to make it easier for people with disabilities (including Autism) to understand. The most recent edition featured an article Celebrating LGBTQ+ History Month.

It is full of misinformation and misleading information about sex, gender and the law. I emailed a reply to United Response addressing some of the key points I believed were misleading, but wondered if it was something you might like to take a look at or maybe include in an upcoming substack.

I'll copy in my reply to United Response, I'm not a legal expert - but I don't think you have to be to see the state of this and I was typing in a hurry as I was so furious!

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Hello,

Thank you for forwarding this edition of Easy News, however I wanted to point out some misinformation and legal errors in the current edition:

“The ‘T’ in LGBTQ+ stands for the word transgender. This is a person whose gender identity doesn’t match the sexual identity they were given on their birth certificate.”

Sex, rather than sexual identity, is observed and recorded at birth (and most often before birth via ultrasound scans) and is not 'given' to someone at birth. This is not a legal reality. Sex is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, not sexual identity.

Sexual identity is based on whether you were born with a penis or a vagina. Gender identity is based around whether you feel like you are a man or a woman in your brain.  

Again, sex is observed and recorded at birth (or before) and not sexual identity. Clearly, a baby is unable to state how they identify.

The government in Scotland have just tried to change their laws to make it easier for transgender people to change gender, but the UK government blocked the new law so they can’t change it.  

There are existing laws in Scotland, and across the UK that enable people to record that they have changed their gender for legal purposes. The proposed changes to this law, the GRR that would bring in a declarative system known as self-ID, was blocked by the UK's use of Section 35 of The Scotland Act (never before used) as it would have impacted on the operation of The Equality Act 2010 which is UK wide - which the SNP was advised of before they tried to rush through the legislation.

 Treating somebody differently because of their race, religion, gender or sexuality (for example, for being gay) is called discrimination.  

This is a miswording of the The Equality Act 2010 and is misleading - the protected characteristics under the EA are:

Age 

Disability, 

Gender reassignment

Marriage and civil partnership

Pregnancy and maternity

Race

Religion or belief

Sex

Sexual orientation.

It is against the law in the UK for anyone to be discriminated against because of their gender, sexuality, disability or race. This is because of The Equality Act 2010.  

Again, the wording here is potentially misleading - it is sex (not gender) and sexual orientation (not sexuality) and there are also other protected characteristics.

There are some people who think being LGBTQ+ is a choice and can be changed using conversion therapy.  

The use of conversion therapy practices for lesbian and gay people included the use of violence, aversion therapy, poisonous medication and other harmful strategies. 

The use of the term 'conversion therapy' in the case of people who identify as transgender is used to refer to any approved talking therapies such as counselling for gender dysphoria/acute psychological distress or what was previously called 'watchful waiting'. 

There is robust evidence from UK gender clinics to show that a large number of autistic and children with co-morbid mental health conditions have identified as trans and then have desisted or detransitioned and many cite the lack of alternative therapies before they made life-changing decisions. 

Therapists, parents and educators have been told that they can be penalised for wanting to explore why a child or young adult believes they may be trans and are advised that an 'affirmation only' approach is the only acceptable approach to treating distress around gender identity. Talking therapies aimed at supporting children and adults who have distress about their bodies and their lives is not comparable to the 'gay conversion therapy' which has been practiced for homophobic purposes.

Additionally, many young people who transition have stated that as they have aged, they have come to believe they were gay or lesbian but faced homophobia and internalised homophobia which informed their decision to transition. Combined with the practice of Early Affirmation, transition should be seen as another, even more extreme iteration of gay and lesbian conversion therapy - as practiced in countries like Iran, where being gay and lesbian is often punishable by death.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are two different states of the human experience and should not be conflated or confused when discussing conversion therapy.

Lots of people think this is wrong and want this therapy banned.  

Most rational people agree that gay and lesbian conversion therapy is barbaric and must not be permitted. However, talking therapies and genuine support and holistic care for children and adults with gender dysphoria is not conversion therapy and can provide relief and comfort to many children and adults, especially those with co-morbidities and those with Autism or other neurodiverse conditions. To conflate the people who don't want to see children and adults being rushed into serious medical and surgical intervention with those who advocate for gay conversion therapy is misleading, disingenuous and cruel.

The UK government have refused to ban conversion therapy. They say the issue is too complicated to be banned at the moment.

The UK government agrees that gay and lesbian conversion therapy should be banned on the basis of sexual orientation. The complication when it comes to trans identifying people is that gender identity is not the same thing as sexual orientation. Sexual orientation does not require medicalisation, surgery or legal changes - and it does not impact on the rights of other protected groups. There is no evidence that affirming someone's decision to change their secondary sexual characteristics always alleviates gender dysphoria or distress, but there is growing evidence to suggest that better support and talking therapies around the time of transition would have been beneficial for many people. This is not conversion therapy and should not be reported as such.

 Lots of people are arguing about whether trans sportspeople should be allowed take part in men’s and women’s sports events.  
It is clear that males who transition to female retain many or most of the physical advantages of a male puberty despite measures taken to transition. Many male athletes who wish to compete in women's categories retain not only their male advantage but also their male genitalia and many women and girls have been disadvantaged by the fact of males competing in their categories as well as having to change in facilities with males present.

Some people say it is unfair because they have different bodies to the other athletes so they might find the sport easier.   

This is not the only reason it is unfair. It means that women and girls will miss out on opportunities to compete if male-bodied people are in their categories, they may take prize money and opportunities meant to advance women in sport, it will mean that many women and girls will self-exclude from sports if boys and men are participating. This issue cannot be simplified, or reduced to discrimination - we have had women and girls sports categories precisely because women and girls have different bodies to men and boys. Men who identify as women are not excluded from playing sport as they can participate in male categories or advocate for specialist categories.

I am concerned that this publication is sharing potentially misleading information with people who have disabilities, who are vulnerable and those who may be experiencing distress around their sexual orientation or gender identity.

There are other alternative resources available which may be useful to consult before circulating information for LGB and T people, especially young people. such as: 

Genspect

Transgender Trend 

For clarification around the Equalities Act and discrimination law, check: 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission

Sex Matters