'There are no sex-based rights'

Clearly new situations call for new terminology. The drive to pretend that some men are women is precisely the kind of event that requires new language to describe what we had, and what is being removed.

Quite. We seem to have otherwise hit the same points, but this gets to it a bit better.

There's been a similar, even more ridiculous thing, about "biological sex" being a new usage.

nitter.unixfox.eu/jessesingal/status/1492970492336082944

Well, yes, previously we wouldn't have needed to be specific. "Sex" would have sufficed until people started allowing legal/documentation sex to be recorded differently from actual sex. The term arose because of the need to be clear that we were still talking about the same thing we had always been talking about.

Funny how ScottishMum isn’t lecturing us on the fact that “trans-rights” don’t exist either.

Schrodinger's framework, innit. "Intersectionality for me, but not for thee". Squillions of axes of oppresion, but sex ain't one.

What a surprise. The term “sex-based rights” was coined right around the same time it became obvious that there was a massive move to remove them and replace them with “gender-identity based rights”.

Sex-based rights obviously included any and all laws where the words woman or man were used. Often, though not invariably, these would be for the protection of women (such as single sex prisons) but were framed as universal.

Clearly new situations call for new terminology. The drive to pretend that some men are women is precisely the kind of event that requires new language to describe what we had, and what is being removed.

Funny how ScottishMum isn’t lecturing us on the fact that “trans-rights” don’t exist either. Universal human rights are a commendable idea and frame, however when there is a conflict between separate groups within that framework, it is obviously necessary to define where the conflict lies.

FWIW, I'm not a fan of "sex-based rights" either - but it's no better or worse than "trans rights". You either talk about both or neither. You don't get to play Schroginger's framework where you flip position depending on who you're talking about.

Be very ware of those who are telling you you will lose your rights if other people have theirs recognised or are allowed access to their rights. There's nearly always an agenda at work behind this. If you feel you're threatened, you can be convinced to get behind all sorts of abusive laws and behaviour.

The irony of this one w.r.t to the screaming heebie-geebies from certain quarters over recognising women's rights is preposterous.

Have you seen IAmSarah's interactions with a crisis service provider who thinks it would apparently be the end of the world to have female-only provision, but are falling over themselves to have specialist trans/nb/whatever provision?

Only one side is trying to block the other side from having any provision here, and it's not women.

Thread reminds me of a certain green who merrily celebrated on twitter the "defeat of sex based rights" in some green vote.

Chilling.

And Scottishmum can look at Peter Dunne's logic as i posted below, and justify how women being allowed a space without penises is the same as barring women who have a mastectomy, another example of tip top legal reasoning on this issue.

I'm just baffled that anyone would want to make it HARDER for women to have protections that were put in place for our safety and dignity.

I'm even more baffled when it's a woman.

WHY? What's in it for the people who want sex based protections taken away or made more difficult to access?

What rights do trans people not have just now? And can you give me an example of when those trans rights do not shit all over the rights of women who are expected to share their safe spaces with them now?

But protection from FGM IS a sex based right, simply because it applies only to females.

This is yet more obfustication and word salad to try and get females to please, please please stop saying nasty things about their own needs like 'sex based rights' because it makes male people feel left out.

Frankly, tough. Female needs and rights specific to female bodies have nothing to do with male people, male people do not get a say.

I'm frankly baffled by this persons cognitive dissonance and their fond imagining that they are in a position to push their belief as the reasonable one.

All humans have human rights.
Some human need additional rights so that they can participate on an equal footing with everyone else. Some people need access ramps, or BSL interpreters, or the right to breastfeed without being harassed. Not all people need those specific rights which is one reason why they are not included in general universal human rights.
The other reason is that they are not obvious if you don't need them. The people that do need them often have to ask for them, frequently and insistently.

If you are being churlish about some people having specific needs; you aren't really on board with human rights.

This.

The new term of 'sex based rights' was coined by GC Feminists who wanted to specifically exclude trans people from the women's movement, and turn what in the old days we'd just have called 'women's rights' to defining woman soley in terms of reproductive function.

You may have been legally trained to a high degree, but you've still bought into a faith based belief system.

What other definition do you imagine "woman" has, realistically?

Be very ware of those who are telling you you will lose your rights if other people have theirs recognised or are allowed access to their rights. There's nearly always an agenda at work behind this. If you feel you're threatened, you can be convinced to get behind all sorts of abusive laws and behaviour.

Let's look at transwomen being housed in the female prison estate. That includes those who have self identified and do not hold a GRC (particularly the case in Scotland) and as we were informed by a visiting TRA (and confirmed by MOJ documents), the prison service don't have the right to view a person's GRC, meaning that self identification is essentially policy across the board. It also includes a disproportionately high number of those convicted of sexual offences against women and girls as well as a number of transwomen who immediately (and apparently completely coincidentally) detransition upon their release from prison. Housing transmen in the prison estate which matches their gender identity doesn't seem to happen in order to ensure their safety, strangely enough.

When you say 'if others have theirs recognised or are allowed access to your rights', do you include the situation which I have detailed above? There are specific exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 which allow discrimination against males (including those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment) in certain scenarios. Keep Prisons Single Sex's submission to the Government outlined how single sex spaces are a proportionate response by service providers - committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/16850/html/. The exemptions are being ignored in favour of self identification and as was detailed in the MOJ judicial review, validation of transwomen is actively given a higher value than protecting women from risk and fear. As these are exemptions allowed under the Equality Act, under the protected characteristic of sex, it's pure semantics to claim that they are not sex based rights.

I would consider this to be abusive laws and behaviour. The agenda behind it is clear and was in fact openly stated by James Morton of the Scottish Trans Alliance as an experiment in order to force the issue on other 'less controversial' single sex spaces.

It's telling that it is always the toilet issue brought up by TRA's. The specific realities of the prison situation is always studiously avoided or handwaved away as 'women shouldn't commit crimes then!'.

The Geneva Convention (as well as the European Prisons Standard) calls for separate facilities for women deprived of their liberty. But the UK prison system (and increasingly the US) have no such qualms.

Failing to understand what these 'good reasons' are that sex based rights don't exist.

I just gave you one example.

Both voting and property ownership were once sex based rights in the UK.

Once we developed the concepts of universal human rights, we learned that ascribing rights and responsibilities purely because of someone's sexual parts harmed women.

Unfortunately from what I can see the sole focus of discussion appears to be focused on the fact that trans women need to pee.

Where are these discussions taking place? I haven't seen them on here. Did you post this on the wrong forum by mistake?

Which is a far more important 'sex-based' issue than the current attempts remove existing protections from trans people—the sole focus of some who define as 'radical feminists'.

Can you be more specific here? What 'existing protections' for trans people do you believe we want to remove?

Legal issues are actually fairly complex and require nuanced explaination, not simplistic twitter-style slanging matches.

Really? Fuck me backwards, that is some patronising you're managing there, missus.

Bedtime for me. Night, all.

All humans have human rights.
Some human need additional rights so that they can participate on an equal footing with everyone else. Some people need access ramps, or BSL interpreters, or the right to breastfeed without being harassed. Not all people need those specific rights which is one reason why they are not included in general universal human rights.
The other reason is that they are not obvious if you don't need them. The people that do need them often have to ask for them, frequently and insistently.

If you are being churlish about some people having specific needs; you aren't really on board with human rights.

Unfortunately from what I can see the sole focus of discussion appears to be focused on the fact that trans women need to pee.

Ah so you're new to this board.

Do open one of the eleventy million threads here that will explain what female issues actually are instead of what you're assuming them to be based on political prejudice. Then perhaps engage with those and we can have an actual conversation.

Nowhere has anyone suggested your sex was relevant.

And no, I do not need to see your CV thank you. You have no way of knowing who is posting on this thread and what their experience and knowledge may be while assuming that you are the voice of authority and are here to set everyone else straight.

Dismissing female equality as merely being distracted by conservative hate campaigns against the LGBT+ community..... ffs, many women here ARE the LGBT+ community. And that thing whizzing over your highly educated head is the point.

Frankly, tough. Female needs and rights specific to female bodies have nothing to do with male people, male people do not get a say.

I don't see any men in this discussion. What I do see, though, is the likes of Boris Johnson restricting women's access to at home abortions in England and Wales.

Which is a far more important 'sex-based' issue than the current attempts remove existing protections from trans people—the sole focus of some who define as 'radical feminists'.

Tory men are making these decisions. Unfortunately from what I can see the sole focus of discussion appears to be focused on the fact that trans women need to pee.

So while your real, actual human rights (your term for your right to sex based bodily autonomy) are under threat, you remain distracted by conservative hate campaigns against the LGBTI community.

I'm sorry if you think my posts are word salad. Legal issues are actually fairly complex and require nuanced explaination, not simplistic twitter-style slanging matches. You can check out the ECHR 1950 and the scopes of the various articles yourself. Or I can post some links, if you'd prefer.

Failing to understand what these 'good reasons' are that sex based rights don't exist.

There we go.

No, this is not about being randomly mean and snotty for want of something better to do, this is about female accessibility and specific need being based on the reality of their biology and reproductive function. Always the deficit model; if females try to talk about this it's a whole world of 'but you're excluding men' (and yet biology doesn't matter).

I am female, and Im talking to other female people about this, in an internet community Ive been a member of since my daughter, now 12, was born (by C-Section, but I do proudly have a vagina and two X chromosomes and all the rest of the proofs you need to know that my voice is a valid one (in your eyes) in this discussion. I've tried my best to give you my perspectives, based on my legal training and education, as a woman (natal, biological, female bodied, etc.) You've heavily implied here I've offered a 'male opinion' on women's discussions. I've correctly stated the history of the term 'sex based rights', and when it first appeared in the Parliamentary discourse, and which group of people first coined it. If you think this is factually inaccurate then you're welcome to dispute my assessment.

What you're not welcome do to is assume my sex from my opinions—which are based on my professional experience and an advanced degree specialism in human rights law—merely because you think my opinions don't match your preconceived ideas.

In social terms 'sex based rights' may exist in the social, and especially online discourse: but they don't exist in law for very good reasons.

But protection from FGM IS a sex based right, simply because it applies only to females.

This is yet more obfustication and word salad to try and get females to please, please please stop saying nasty things about their own needs like 'sex based rights' because it makes male people feel left out.

Frankly, tough. Female needs and rights specific to female bodies have nothing to do with male people, male people do not get a say.

Just coming back to this:

It is much more dangerous to start advocating that there NO 'sex based rights'

Those rights were not introduced on a whim.
They were hard fought for & absolutely necessary.
That need has not gone away.
If anything it is MORE important today.

e.g.
FGM is a SEX based issue.
Surrogacy is a SEX based issue.

Yes, these are sex based issues. But the specific legal rights we're talking about here are actually Article 3 of the Euoprean Convention on Human Rights (for FGM), the right for everyone to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment, torture etc. FGM falls under Article 3 and I know this because Article 3 was the article we invoked in deportation cases for women at risk of FGM if they were returned to their country of origin. At no point did I or any other member of my legal team term 'protection from FGM' specifically a 'sex based right'. We brought it, as we are trained to do, under the locus of International Human Rights.

I hope that clarifies things. Issues are separate from legal discourse on rights, and I think that's possibly where some of the confusion is coming from.

The new term of 'sex based rights' was coined by GC Feminists who wanted to specifically exclude trans people from the women's movement, and turn what in the old days we'd just have called 'women's rights' to defining woman soley in terms of reproductive function.

There we go.

No, this is not about being randomly mean and snotty for want of something better to do, this is about female accessibility and specific need being based on the reality of their biology and reproductive function. Always the deficit model; if females try to talk about this it's a whole world of 'but you're excluding men' (and yet biology doesn't matter).

Sorry. I'm really not interested any more in how male people feel about female people talking about their realities, those male people need to realise their own sexism and own their poor behaviour in making everything all about them. The reality is that female biology has specific needs, it is based on reproductive capacity, female bodies arent different, equality requires specific spaces and resources to meet those biological needs because those bodies are different to male ones, and male people wanting to be in there too for whatever reason excludes females and harms their access.

And since male people have made it abundantly clear that they have zero care or respect for female need or reality or difference or anything else that gets in the way of male people getting whatever they want right now - and there are a lot of very silly people busy supporting this male supremacism - law is required to protect females.

Rather like we can't rely on the jolly good chap principle to prevent car theft, and so we have locks, laws and police procedures as an actual deterrent. Because chancers are going to treat other people badly, with no respect for them or the impact on them.

This is a slightly odd statement. I would agree with you regarding abortion rights falling under bodily autonomy but as the only people who can have abortions are women, it additionally makes it a sex based right.

It makes it the right to bodily autonomy. The first mention of Sex Based Rights I can find in Hansard is 2015 by Joanna Cherry. Prior to this the discourse has been focused on universal human rights, civil liberties and equalities for all marginalised groups. Women's rights are human rights: the recognition that women find it hard to access rights to healthcare, bodily autonomy because of systemic patriarchy.

Whereas voting really was a sex based right. You had to be a man in order to have the right to vote, and this changed when women campaigned during the First Wave Feminism. This led to the universal right of suffrage—voting for everyone over a certain age. Voting is not a 'sex based right'. It's a universal one.

Shifting the discourse on human rights to some watered down notion of 'sex based rights' does not fit with current jurisprudence or public international law, and legally speaking they don't exist. We have human rights, and civil and political rights, and the State has a responsibility to facilitate access to them for all marginalised groups. That's what 'women's rights' 'black rights' 'disability rights' or 'gay rights' means. It doesn't mean that people don't have rights on paper, it means they have trouble accessing them because of systemic inequalities.

The new term of 'sex based rights' was coined by GC Feminists who wanted to specifically exclude trans people from the women's movement, and turn what in the old days we'd just have called 'women's rights' to defining woman soley in terms of reproductive function.

Take your right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to the correct reproductive healthcare for your body. This comes under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, and Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. Yes 'only someone with a womb can have an abortion' but that right of bodily autonomy IS universal. It covers men who need prostate cancer treatment, as well. A man's right to prostate cancer treatment isn't a separate 'sex based right'. It's just covered under the usual obligations of the State to provide appropriate care. The right to vote is no longer—thankfully—a 'sex based right'. It's a universal civil and political right. But back when 'votes for women' was the chief feminist ontological statement? Men genuinely thought that if women had rights of suffrage recognised they'd somehow LOSE their rights.

Be very ware of those who are telling you you will lose your rights if other people have theirs recognised or are allowed access to their rights. There's nearly always an agenda at work behind this. If you feel you're threatened, you can be convinced to get behind all sorts of abusive laws and behaviour.

Also, I am actually trained in human rights law and hold a masters in public international law. Prior to giving birth to DD, I worked for a major UK legal centre.

I don't want Boris to start demanding I have babies for the Fatherland, right?

I’m really not sure I follow how the state / law conferring sex based rights ends up with the state owning my fertility.

Being given rights doesn’t buy me does it?