To be shocked by a transwoman guest on Jeremy Vine today asking a female caller what sex she is - and whether she’s “been tested?”

If we show the statement 'the earth is a ball' to a group of flat earthers, the fact that the flat earthers are likely to dislike the statement does not make the statement incorrect, harmful, discriminatory, or prejudiced.

You're just sealioning.

The statements that were made are not factual , they are very clearly harmful, expressing prejudice and discriminatory. You are struggling to see that as people often do when they are a) not the person suffering the discrimination, b) in fact share the discriminatory attitudes themselves. That’s why I recommend you show them to a sample of trans people who will be in a much better position than you to judge.

Attitudes don't alter facts. In the same way feelings don’t.

None of that says transwomen are violent predators or their identities are not valid

You believe these statements you just made because you share the same attitudes as that PP.

Show these statements to a sample of trans women and ask them if they agree with you or me. That might help clarify things for you.

Gender is irrelevant to the PC of sex in the Equality Act. That is the point of the judgement

except it’s not. That’s the part you are misunderstanding.

1. the purpose of the judgement was much narrower- simply to clarify the use of specific terminologies for the purposes of understanding diff provisions in the EA
2. (related to your misunderstanding of this discrete, narrow aim) the situation is not as black and white as you think it is and that is the problem. Sometimes “gender” may very well be relevant to the PC of sex in the equality act. - eg when trans women experience discrimination as women and when trans men can be excluded from female services. ( thats not to say that gender is the PC - the PC has been clarified as birth sex, but that doesn’t mean gender is “irrelevant” as you claim)

Whenever you exclude trans people , or any people, with a protected characteristic from a service you have to show that it’s a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. In order to do so you have to show that your logic is consistent/ makes sense is not arbitrary. The EHRC guidance applies the following two (contradictory) logics at the same time, for the purpose of justifying excluding trans people from services:

1. trans people can never , in any circumstance, be treated diff from people of their birth sex in relation to same sex provision because it would automatically be discriminatory to do so, (eg if you admit trans women , the service has to be open to all men otherwise discrimination), sex presentation / transition is irrelevant.

1. trans people can be treated differently from people of their birth sex sometimes without being discriminatory . Sex presentation/ transition may be relevant.

None of that says transwomen are violent predators or their identities are not valid. It says that some TRAs are violent (and you know that’s true- look at placards and the website terf is a slur if you are unaware) and that their female identity is not the same as being of the female sex. This is also true.

Sigh

The aim is not to exclude transpeople. The aim is to exclude everyone of the wrong sex. This is about sex, not gender. That's the part you keep missing. Gender is irrelevant to the PC of sex in the Equality Act. That is the point of the judgement. The PC of gender reassignment is a completely different PC. The two are not connected.

**If you are going to exclude trans people from services you have to show that your logic makes sense .

Trans people are humans too and they are still protected under the EA - the SC made that clear.

if you are struggling with this language because it describes the experience of people who aren’t exactly like you, I’ll re-phrase it. It makes no difference to me :

To be clear , it is my personal view that it is not unseasonable to have exemptions where transwomen can be excluded from female spaces , and where trans men can also be excluded from female spaces, where it can be shown in the particular context that it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (eg rape crisis support). This is how the law has always been and I think it’s reasonable/ proportionate.

What is beyond unreasonable (and unlawful) is the EHRC guidance which declares that trans women must never be allowed to use women’s facilities (and trans men must never be allowed to use men’s - although no one is actually bothered by this, but it has to be added of course for appearances)

You can’t just write trans people out of the narrative , “soz”.

If you are going to treat trans people differently you have to show that your logic makes sense - it doesn’t because it is this:

1. trans people can never , in any circumstance, be treated diff from people of their birth sex in relation to same sex provision because it would automatically be discriminatory to do so, (eg if you admit trans women , the service has to be open to all men otherwise discrimination)
2. then argue that actually trans people can be treated differently from people of their birth sex sometimes and that’s not discriminatory

The two statements are entirely contradictory.

@Lostcat maaaaateeeee! Are you getting your analysis from Reddit? Have you read the judgement?

What is beyond unreasonable (and unlawful) is the EHRC guidance which declares that trans people must never be allowed to use facilities in accordance with their gender.

No one at all, trans or not, is allowed to use facilities in accordance with their gender. Because facilities aren't provided by gender.

No,.you are seeing it from the wrong end of a telescope. This is not about what we do and don't do about transpeople. This is about what we do and don't do, about men and women.

All the people of one sex are excluded from the provision for the opposite sex - no men allowed in the women's DV shelter.

Also, in limited circumstances, some people of the same sex are also excluded because they will cause distress to the users - no passing transmen (all 5 of them) in the women's DV shelter.

Not everything is solely focussed on transpeople. Soz.

To be clear , it is my personal view that it is not unseasonable to have exemptions where transwomen can be excluded from female spaces , and where trans men can also be excluded from female spaces, where it can be shown in the particular context that it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (eg rape crisis support). This is how the law has always been and I think it’s reasonable/ proportionate.

What is beyond unreasonable (and unlawful) is the EHRC guidance which declares that trans people must never be allowed to use facilities in accordance with their gender.

You cannot at the same time

1. argue that trans people can never , in any circumstance, be treated diff from people of their birth sex in relation to same sex provision because it would automatically be discriminatory to do so, (as per the over interpretation in the guidance)

2. then argue that actually trans people can be treated differently from people of their birth sex sometimes and that’s not discriminatory (As per guidance + provisions in the SC judgement)

The two statements are entirely contradictory.

Hope this is clear now.

Weird that you have decided that Lord Sumption's interpretation is correct

Well you would find it “weird” because you obviously haven’t actually read my posts 😂.
my posts were oriented at explaining exactly why the EHRC interpretation cannot be correct as it is contradictory, Inconsistent, arbitrary, discriminatory and therefore clearly not compatible with the law.

Yawn yes we get it, you think if passing transmen are excluding from a women's rape support group because the women would read them as male, it's not fair to exclude transwomen from women's toilets. Because somehow to you that's equivalent. I asked you this morning if that was seriously the look you were going for, apparently it is. You do you.

And again here. I am well aware that it is in the judgement. The provision in itself is not unlawful as I have said repeatedly.

Here is one example.

And again

As I have said repeatedly the issue is not with that provision per se, the issue is that that provision (which is indeed in the judgement) is not compatible with the broader way that the SC judgement has been interpreted/ expanded in the EHRC judgement. Specifically the fact the EHRC has interpreted the judgement as mandating exclusion of trans women from all female spaces (based on the logic that if they are open to trans women they must be open to all birth males). This is not how the judgement was intended as per Lord Sumption’s clarifications.

There is no need to reply to me if you are not actually going to read my posts , its a complete waste of (everyone’s) time!!

Try reading it. You are claiming that EHRC are wrongly interpreting the judgement in order to arbitrarily be unkind to transpeople. Or something.

If you read what I posted, which is the actual text of the actual judgement, you will see that the circumstances in which a transmen could be excluded from a woman's provision, and it not be discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, is from the judgement itself. It's not EHRC or posters here or anyone else misinterpreting what the judgement says, it is from the horse's mouth.

You said it was very important for people to know the actual law and not erroneous and discriminatory interpretations of the law? Well there it is.

This is not how the judgement was intended as per Lord Sumption’s clarifications.

Weird that you have decided that Lord Sumption's interpretation is correct, and no others are, when all of the interpretations I have seen apart from his and the Lewis Silkin one which Lewis Silken quickly took down when it was pointed out that they were laughably incorrect, all say the same thing. Female= no transwomen.

Edited as Lostcat decided to change her post after I posted

Omg, are you reading my posts? I know that is in the judgement.

As I have said repeatedly the issue is not with that provision per se, the issue is that that provision (which is indeed in the judgement) is not compatible with the broader way that the SC judgement has been interpreted/ expanded in the EHRC judgement. Specifically the fact the EHRC has interpreted the judgement as mandating exclusion of trans women from all female spaces (based on the logic that if they are open to trans women they must be open to all birth males). This is not how the judgement was intended as per Lord Sumption’s clarifications.

Please don’t reply to me if you are not actually going to read my posts , its a complete waste of time!!

Ok Lostcat just for you I went back and found the relevant paragraph in the judgement. Note that this is not the EHRC guidance, this is the actual judgement

221. There is nothing in the wording of this provision to indicate that paragraph 28 was directed specifically at those holding a GRC, nor is there any basis for concluding that this is its likely context as the Inner House suggested at para 56. (The example given in the explanatory notes at para 740 also does not distinguish between transexual people with a GRC and those without: “A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful”). We can see nothing to support the Inner House’s conclusion that “the importance of this paragraph is that it provides the only basis upon which a person might be permitted to exclude a person with a GRC from services which are provided for their acquired sex”. Nor is the EHRC correct to assert that paragraph 28 is redundant on a biological interpretation of sex. On the contrary, if sex means biological sex, then provided it is proportionate, the female only nature of the service would engage paragraph 27 and would permit the exclusion of all males including males living in the female gender regardless of GRC status. Moreover, women living in the male gender could also be excluded under paragraph 28 without this amounting to gender reassignment discrimination. This might be considered proportionate where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example, because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken in the context of the women-only service being provided. Their exclusion would amount to unlawful gender reassignment discrimination not sex discrimination absent this exception.

Again, this is not the EHRC guidance, to which you have taken such exception; this is the actual judgement, and therefore law.

All this could be avoided if you read the judgement instead of blustering around claiming other people are interpreting it wrongly.

I don’t think you have understood very much of the little you appear to have read.

Well according to the EHRC Apparently they can change sex (for the purposes of treating them differently to other members of their birth sex under equalities legislation) but only if the result is their exclusion from public services.
According to the EHRC they also can never change sex (never be treated differently from other members of their birth sex) where that reasoning facilitates their exclusion from services.

As long as the result is that trans people are excluded from services then the logic is entirely flexible.

That’s the problem with the guidance.