BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Grails iCalendar plugin//NONSGML Grails iCalendar plugin//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTAMP:20260919T161219Z
DTSTART;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20190502T121500
DTEND;TZID=Australia/Melbourne:20190502T141500
SUMMARY:Sex self-identification and costly signals of assurance
UID:20260919T161219Z-iCalPlugin-Grails@fe80:0:0:0:700d:17ff:fe6b:a9eb%3
TZID:Australia/Melbourne
LOCATION:The University of Melbourne\, Melbourne\, Australia
DESCRIPTION:The UK Government consulted in 2018 over proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act that\nwould allow &lsquo\;self-identification&rsquo\; for sex\, by way of a single-step statutory declaration. New Zealand is\npoised to implement a similar change\, and several other countries have already done so. Debate over\nthis proposal has been either non-existent (there was no consultation in New Zealand\, and\ndisagreement from gender critical feminists receives very little publicity) or has focused\noverwhelmingly on the vulnerability of trans people. I focus on the specific issue of sex self-\nidentification in law emboldening entry by transwomen into female-only spaces. I argue that focusing\non the vulnerability of transwomen is unfairly addressing only one of the stakeholders to this legal and\nsocial change. I focus on the claims that female people have to spaces without male people\, and argue\nthat given the history and scale of male violence against female people\, and the attitudes and\nbehaviour of male people against female people\, women have a strong claim to such spaces. Any law\nproposing to undermine this claim would need to provide women with sufficient assurance that they\nwere not likely to face the same risks or threats they face in fully mixed sex spaces. I draw on the costly\nsignalling literature to assess a strong\, moderate\, and weak gatekeeping requirement for legal change\nof sex: sex reassignment surgery (as is required in most states of Australia)\; living for at least two years\n&lsquo\;as&rsquo\; the sex the person wishes to acquire (currently required in the UK)\; and single-step statutory\ndeclaration (proposed in the UK and about to become law in New Zealand). I argue that the first\nprovides strong assurance\, the second provides weak assurance\, and the third provides no assurance\nat all\, and so the latter\, at least\, is an unsatisfactory as a legal proposal for change of sex. I also say a\nbit about how to assess the tradeoffs over physical threat (e.g. sexual assault) compared to other kinds\nof threats (e.g. attitudes of toxic masculinity)\, and the extent to which threats of suicide should be a\npart of the discussion of transwomen&rsquo\;s vulnerability.\n
ORGANIZER:
METHOD:PUBLISH
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR