Sex based rights in the UK?

I'm shaking with anger. The paragraph that accepts that a woman raped by a male should have the discretion to refuse intimate examination by someone they perceive as male but no right to exclude transwomen as a class from the role of rape examiner is horrific. So the woman trying to survive a rape is put in the position of declining an examination by a trans woman that she perceives as male (with a dose of implied transphobia) or having the examination and feeling further violated. Why the f should anyone be put in this position? Could transwomen not have the decency to excuse rape victims from the task of validating them and instead choose another career of the eleventy billion available. The tone of the article is sneering and mansplaining. And I'm livid. I'm only a baby GCer, I'd like to find a middle way, but this article is shameful.

Barracker for clarity my last post was not replying to your post so my "I'm not sure you're right" comment isn't referring to your post.

I'm not sure you're right.

The Debenham's case didn't go to a Tribunal but it was based on her being discriminated against because she was transgender- nothing to do with a man being preferred over her. It links to the NI legislation and I'm not immediately seeing it saying that the comparator is what you say it is.

The other case isn't considering whether the employee was treated worse than a male employee- the employee there was treated worse than employees of either sex whose status is the 3 letter word which is banned on here.

www.equalityni.org/Footer-Links/News/Individuals/Transgender-woman-settles-case-against-Debenhams

www.legislation.gov.uk/nisi/1976/1042/article/4A

www.pureemploymentlaw.co.uk/employee-awarded-47000-in-transgender-discrimination-case/

And here's a situation where discrimination would be on the basis of sex.

Two people apply for a job. Both are (on paper) female. But one is literally female and the other is male and identifies as female. The employer rejects the female who looks as though she might one day get pregnant and need maternity leave. He employs the 'female' who he can plainly see might father a child but won't ever get pregnant.

This isn't covered under pregnancy and maternity discrimination. That doesn't apply to women who aren't pregnant yet.

The employer can claim he sees no distinction between the two women. If 'women' and 'female' are terms of identity not sex then there has been no discrimination against women, and no discrimination against females.

The only recourse is to defend the need to recognise that the two applicants are of the opposite sex, despite there being no legal evidence of this, and that sex is the characteristic that has been unlawfully discriminated against.

Regarding job discrimination, surely we accept that the examples given above demonstrate why trans people need to be included in anti-discrimination laws, but is this happening a lot? By and large, most jobs are not sex-specific so yes, it shouldn't matter if the applicant identifies with their birth sex or not. But there are jobs where sex matters to a client or patient. It's these types of instances where it feels like TRAs are trying to label anyone who requests a same-sex nurse, midwife, counsellor (for example) to be transphobic if they would not want a TW performing that service for a woman. It's a gross misappropriation of what the law was intended to do. Medical care should always put the patients needs first, and not be used to validate someone's illness.

Was trying to find the court case: sorry, I can't track it down. Someone more clever than me will remember. But the decision was that unless a GRC was held changing legal sex, the comparator to check for less favourable treatment was someone of the same sex.

E.g at a job interview where candidates are a natal man, a natal woman and a transgender woman. If the transgender woman is the best suited but gets passed over because she is transgender the discrimination has nothing to do with the other candidates' sex.

I see what you mean, but I think that in that situation the comparator works as in the same way as the precedent in the court case that set it. Has the candidate been treated less favourably than their comparator (the male candidate)? Yes, unquestionably, because of their transgender status. Discrimination.

In situations such as should a male person be able to identify into a female prison? The comparator is another male prisoner. Is the transgender male person being treated less favourably than any other male would be because of their transgenderism? No, they are being treated equally to any other male person.

This perspective isn't very interesting because the writer lacks a basic grasp of both specific legislation and the workings of equality and human rights law.

True. But silly claims like the OP's are actually quite useful in demonstrating how weak the trans lobby is. Yes, it's backed by big money, big drug companies and big organisations. But its arguments can be pushed over with one finger.

Of course its trans backers will never give up, and the drug companies will hold on as long as possible to this lucrative market.

But the other major supporters, which rely to various degrees on public opinion, will reverse at top speed when enough people say No.

The protected characteristic of gender reassignment prevents discrimination against someone proposing to under go 'gender reassignment' where the comparator is someone of the same sex

Where do you get that from? I don't think that's the case at all. The comparator is a person who is not transgender. E.g at a job interview where candidates are a natal man, a natal woman and a transgender woman. If the transgender woman is the best suited but gets passed over because she is transgender the discrimination has nothing to do with the other candidates' sex. The same would apply if a trans man were passed over.

Your application of how the protected characteristic works would make it largely ineffective.

Terrible helpful to give the women here an opportunity to offer a comprehensive rebuttal to the steaming turds that pass as the best line of argument from those who can't take a woman's no for an answer.

The article writer is misrepresenting the equality act.

The protected characteristic of gender reassignment prevents discrimination against someone proposing to under go 'gender reassignment' where the comparator is someone of the same sex. The comparator isn't someone of the opposite sex (unless that person has a GRC, which is unlikely because of the number have been awarded).

In fact, if a service provider provides a single sex female space and allows transwomen in, then they could be said to be discriminating against other men.

It would be interesting to challenge this in court.

Nobody has any legal right to demand that there be a single-sex space.

Except that's not true. You have the right to a single sex space at work to breastfeed or express breast milk. It cannot be a toilet or a public space.

tm;dr

(too mannish; didn't read)

So the writer is American?

Why are they wasting time misunderstanding UK Equality Law when they could be fighting for legislation that actually protects trans from discrimination in the US?

I didn't find it an "interesting perspective". It's a pile of piffle composed by a lazy git who hasn't done their homework.

The experience of course is replicated when someone feels the need to pop over to remind female people on MN that it would help if they believe they're powerless as a sex class in the fact of unwanted male access to them and no one cares about their feelings or consent. One wonders why they find this experience rewarding.

Barracker great post.

The 'identifying as' seems to me as a female to involve inordinate amounts of experiencing male people telling me I have no choice, no right to boundaries, I cannot stop male people from having access to me if they want to and my feelings don't matter - and the impression that they're actually quite enjoying this smug, you can't stop me experience of demonstrating their perceived power over women.

It's no different in experience at all from the smirking sod on the scaffolding shouting "You're beautiful when you're angry darling'" if you glare at him for bellowing across the street what he thinks of your tits.

Same basic message : I have power over you, I'm really enjoying that you can't stop me even though I know you're hating what I'm doing to you. Who has this power regardless of how they choose to identify? The sex class with the penises. Who is the recipient of this behaviour regardless of how they choose to identify? The sex class born without.

Demonstrating in fact why females in the UK need sex based rights.

This makes me uncomfortable” is never a valid reason for making law

Except this is rubbish. Legally and morally, rape victims and people who are undergoing intimate medical examinations very much have the right to say "this makes me uncomfortable". There is a point where one person's discomfort does not outweigh another person's inconvenience, and that is the kind of judgement that has to be made in equality and human rights law all the time. It would be good it it were possible to discuss this without being silenced because "no debate".

Single-sex spaces existed long before the Equality Act was even conceived, and even well before the Equal Pay Act 1970. But they weren’t fought for over the centuries, but rather the patriarchal social structure meant that women were considered a lower class than men, and thus disqualified from sharing their spaces.

Yes, the nature of the EA is that it recognises that discrimination can be used both positively (blue badge parking) and negatively (steps preventing access). Legislation and planning law seeks to balance competing needs. This is not new.

Conclusion: This perspective isn't very interesting because the writer lacks a basic grasp of both specific legislation and the workings of equality and human rights law.

"They have also tried to claim that the act describes “protecting dignity” as a legitimate aim, which indeed it does. However, protecting dignity is rather fuzzy notion. Again, the racial segregationists argued that it was undignified for black people to share space with white people; indeed any abhorrent argument can be made in the name of protecting dignity, and in the event of a legal challenge, it would be a court judge that would make that decision."

Not this bilge again.
Comparing single-sex spaces to racial segregation is just plain offensive.

"Gender Criticals love to use this phrase to imply that trans people are somehow stripping them of these rights, and thus frame trans people (trans women in particular) of not only being anti-feminist, but actually bigoted."

Only the first paragraph in and they've already set up their argument with a false pretence. GC feminists do not think trans people are doing this. It's the very vocal and nasty tra's who are doing it. These activists may or may not even be transgender, but they definitely hate women who want to protect women's spaces FOR women.

But this law placed on the service provider. Not the member of the protected class using it. This is a very important point, because it’s one that the Gender Criticals always fail to grasp: Nobody has any legal right to demand that there be a single-sex space. A service provider has a right to say it is not practical to provide one, or that it is not practical to provide a unisex space.

No its a completely irrelevant point. It's true that some people do not understand this, but it isn't the basis of serious legal opinion from lawyers like Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, so the argument is a straw man.

First thing to note - the terminology used in the article is incorrect . The Act notes, 'exceptions', not 'exemptions.'

Curious, RobinMoiraWhite, what you saw in this article that would be "interesting" to feminists?

For anyone who would like to read this but does not want to click on the main source, it's archived here: archive.is/lSRNr

For me - it's five wasted minutes of my life, as it's written by a misogynist child who substantiates nothing.

If someone here is US American and/or interested in US politics - which is what this author is talking about, although she has no real knowledge of US politics either - here's a much more nuanced take: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3311184.

Generally speaking, it's always enlightening when a male person explains that he won't use male facilities with fellow males because they make him uncomfortable, but that women have no right to exclude him because he makes them uncomfortable.

The right to choose who is around us doesn't exist. Noone can force unwilling people into our presence.

The right to choose who isn't around us does. Gellman should perhaps read the law a little more closely. The explanatory notes do a helpful job of explaining the law to those who have failed to grasp proportional and legitimate, with examples that clearly explain that if women are likely to avoid using a service for their own sex because a member of the opposite sex wants to use them, excluding that member of the opposite sex is allowable.

Gellman's little 'history lesson' about the exclusion of women has been written from Gellman's perspective as a member of the sex that wasn't excluded. Perhaps that accounts for the errors. Gellman is a member of the sex that had public toilets, whilst my sex did not. Even where public toilets were not available, Gellman is of the sex that has always been able to pee outside up against a wall or a tree, without needing to undress. To this day it is acceptable for the male sex to urinate in public, and they still do.

Bold move to claim that sex-based rights don't exist. Transparent, unfortunately, that the author has celebrated this misconception (despite apparently identifying with my sex) as a gleeful thing.

It reads as a long and inaccurate diatribe of "the female sex have no rights, I am thrilled to believe this, and if I as a member of the opposite sex want access to you all, there's nothing you can do to stop me"

Fortunately, Gellman is wrong, and this piece helpfully illustrates the lengths to which the opposite sex will go to demand that we have no rights to exclude them from accessing us.