#LDConf My speech on motion 32:

“This is my first time speaking at Conference..."My issue is solely with lines 14 and 15. However as we were denied an amendment on this point I have no choice but to speak against the motion as a whole."

#LDConf It is our duty, as a party, to foster good relations between protected classes of people and this motion will not do that. Line 14, the central tenet of this motion, is untrue and unsustainable.

Transwomen and transmen to my knowledge deny that they are literally

#LDConf the opposite sex; they say that their birth sex is crucial to their transition; and that to state that trans people are the actual sex they transition to minimises & erases their transition.

@BuckAngel says:
“Every time you attack biology you attack my transition.

#LDConf I was born female and transitioned using medical assistance to live fully “male” today. I am still biologically female and will forever be. It is transphobic to say biology doesn’t exist. ”

Dr @DebbieHayton understands that Debbie is male: “if trans people like me

want to be respected for who we really are, it is vital that we can be recognised as gender non-conforming members of our own biological sex, not members of the other one.”

@Devohn1990 insists:
“Biologically Transwomen are men and always will be... just like I’ll always be

#LDConf biologically a female. Even thou I’m a transguy.”

Do you think that these people and many others, who have suffered gender dysphoria, don’t know that sex is dimorphic and immutable in humans?

I have read the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act; each provides

#LDConf significant exemptions which deny the claim in line 14. Not even the drafters of the GRA think that a trans person who is a parent is the opposite sex to the one they were born as. (Section 12). A transwoman would still be able to inherit a peerage; a transman is

#LDConf forbidden to do so - they can’t disappoint the expectations of a younger brother. “leapfrog” is the term in Hansard’s record of the debate.
In section 20 the GRA stops a rapist from claiming that they can’t have committed rape (a sex specific offence) because they are a

#LDConf woman.

S19 of the GRA (and the Equality Act) know that, for fair competition and women’s safety, male bodies should be excluded from women’s sports; and World Rugby, who held an international seminar of experts on the topic, endorse that.

We should celebrate that

#LDConf transwomen are transwomen and transmen are transmen; worth celebrating for their own sake.

“Sex” is a protected characteristic, recognised, like gender reassignment, under the Equality Act. What is proposed contradicts the Act. “By focusing on the rights of one

#LDConf oppressed group you can (unintentionally) discriminate against other protected classes.” You can not expect line 14 to be upheld in a court of law - and if you push this through it WILL be challenged in the courts.

#LDConf How can councillors like me be expected properly to uphold equality law in the course of our work if we're forced to accept something that goes against it?”

@threadreaderapp unroll please