'There are no sex-based rights'

The right to an abortion, for example, is thought of as 'women's rights', but in the framework of human rights it falls under the right to bodily autonomy—a right which everyone has.

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.

I also have to agree with Ereshkigalangcleg, what are trans rights in that case? Do other protected characteristics have rights? Is it just women who apparently don't in this brave new world?

As an example of the whole 'rights and responsibilities' thing, from what I've recently seen in youth clubs and schools, children are told that their rights are immutable - those rights aren't contingent on meeting responsibilities as they are entitled to those rights regardless.

Indeed. A woman would be viewing another woman in that awful situation with sympathy and care for her, it's a shared experience of living within a female body.

What Pete appears to be thinking, is as a pp says, of his own disgust at a woman who has lost her breasts and has scarring. And assuming that there can be no difference between this awful sight and a male body.

Which tells you more or less all you need to know about Pete and that Pete is absolutely clueless about women or any part of this situation. And that's apart from wondering what Pete feels his qualification for providing his er.... expert opinion.... might be.

It would be unthinkable that general discomfort could prevent a cisgender woman from using segregated showering facilities after she had a double mastectomy.

Perhaps men have told Pete they feel discomfort when they accidentally view pornography with women who have had double mastectomies or have other surgical scarring. He seems to be assuming such anecdotes would reflect how women feel about women who've had double mastectomies or similar.

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.

Neither can exist without biological women because they are things that are done to biological women.

The sanitised 'she wanted to help us have a baby' so let's pretend surrogacy isn't human trafficking picture that those who buy babies want to promote is not the real picture of poverty, desperation & abuse behind an industry that treats women worse than bitches at a puppy farm.

If you can't have sex based protection, you can't protect women from those sorts of abuse.
They don't & can't happen to men or transwomen because they are not the sex these things happen to.

You also can't let women (& by women I only mean biological ones) live with any expectation of safety or dignity when they are forced to have male born people in the spaces created to provide women with that safety & dignity.

When we say "sex based rights" we mean what we used to call women's rights, before the genderists got their claws in to claim that this included males who identify as women and excluded female people who identify as "men" so wouldn't be covered. Surely you get that, ScottishMum?

I think this is semantic hairsplitting. What are "trans rights" then?

Its extremely dangerous to start advocating that there are 'sex based rights' because it undermines the entire concept of universal human rights

How does it? Why can't we have sex based rights in addition to human rights?

Your post is interesting, but I am not understanding the conclusion you've drawn. And awarding 'rights' doesn't necessarily lead to 'responsibilities' unless that's written in, surely?

Oldish blog but still relevant (and written by an actual lawyer) legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/03/13/sex-based-rights-a-remedy-to-sex-based-wrongs/

Hi there— Property and Voting used to be sex based rights, but these days the entire march of jurisprudence is towards recognise people's universal human rights and their civil and political rights—which are universal with some qualifiers such as nationality. For example, I have the universal right to vote in the UK, where I'm a citizen, but not in France, where I'm not. In both the UK and France though, because both States are signatories to treaties which recognise Universal Human Rights I have human rights.

Certain pieces of legislation makes it an obligation to allow groups of people who have difficulty accessing their human rights, their civil and political rights and equality rights to make it possible to access these rights.

Example: A disabled person claims they cannot access the Town Hall, and are being discriminated against.

The Council Leader says "Don't be daft, EVERYONE is allowed to access the town hall, we have no specific rules which say you can't come in!"

The disabled person then points out they can't because of the stairs.

In this case, there's a de facto bar on the disabled person them from a public building, which means the Council is in breach of the Equality Act, because they've not made it possible for the disabled person to access the Town Hall, AND the Human Rights Act, because in order to pull themselves up the steps the right of bodily autonomy (Article 8 ECHR) and the right to be free from degrading treatment (Article 3) are not being respected.

The solution is not telling the wheelchair user to stay home, but to build a wheelchair ramp so they can access their right to enter the public building.

Universal Human Rights are of course where teh concept of rights are: no one has 'special rights' because of their sex. What we have is the recognition that the State has a responsibility to ensure our universal human, civil and political rights are repected and facilitated.

Whenever we talk about equalities: when we talk about BAME rights, or Disability Rights, or Women's Rights, or LGBTI rights, what we're saying is everyone has these rights but SOME groups require advocacy and actions on the part of government because of systemic inequality, to access their rights. The right to an abortion, for example, is thought of as 'women's rights', but in the framework of human rights it falls under the right to bodily autonomy—a right which everyone has. Everyone has the right regardless of age, or sex, or gender identity or ethic origin, to their right to bodily autonomy and to the right healthcare for their bodies. Women's rights campaigners fought hard for the right to bodily autonomy to be recognised and facilitated by the UK government.

Its extremely dangerous to start advocating that there are 'sex based rights' because it undermines the entire concept of universal human rights—and it also creates a fascistic/conservative 'flip side' of 'sex based responsibilities.' We don't want the State to determine we have special 'responsibilities' because of our genetalia. That's been tried in the 20th Century in Germany and in Russia, with disastrous consequences for women. I don't want Boris to start demanding I have babies for the Fatherland, right?

misoginystic ??? No idea! Apologies.

I DO want to have my rights defended in law from those who would override them because I am female, a Little Woman!

And if anyone chooses to use words like Apartheid when discussing and safeguarding isues I will call them a twat to their face!

I am beyond 'playing nice' for the gallery. The gallery hasn't shown much interest, so maybe being less 'womanly' might shake things up!

Can't sex? Can't see sexism.

One of the big issues for women is they have certain rights and laws to protection

But they are worth jack shit in principle without the ability to enforce them.

Women struggle to take it to court where they are discriminated against because of the stress, time and cost (something that men don't have to consider in the same way because they don't face discrimination on the same scale).

Rape is a criminal offence but its effectively been decriminalised.

Harassment tends to have more female victims. The police have limited powers to protect women or don't take women seriously.

The family courts are frequently abused by ex partners as a tool of coercive control and there has been a lot about how judges lack any knowledge of it or are flat out just sexist.

So its probably true women don't have the sex based rights - because in practice the system doesn't work in womens favour.

However the whole argument thats being talked about here is bullshit nonsense based on opinion not the actual law.

Yes.

“It would be unthinkable that general discomfort could prevent a cisgender woman from using segregated showering facilities after she had a double mastectomy.

I find it 'unthinkable' that women even have that 'general discomfort' in relation to the diversity of other woman's bodies. He's viewing that woman through his male gaze, isn't he?

The worst thing about females having rights is that it so gets in the way of male people's freedom of agenda to make use of them.

'There is no such thing as sex-based rights' has long been an MRA chant over on Reddit, the idea you might have the legal right to breastfeed or not be sacked for being pregnant seems to make them angry.

And this is where it leads us. Magical thinking.

Isn't this just magical thinking?

I thought people grew out of that around the age they start school.

Forgot to link any sources:

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/5149172/snp-breast-cancer-patients-id-row-mastectomies/amp/

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3788251-Scottish-GRA-consultation

www.womenarehuman.com/women-outraged-after-academic-compares-breast-cancer-survivors-to-male-bodies/

Yeah, "non-comformative" bodies - people who have disfigurements, surgery scars, birth defects or conditions, tattoos, piercings, body modifications, artificial or missing limbs, medical conditions that affect the appearance of their body..................who gives a crap.

They are are still sharing the facilities OF THEIR OWN SEX CLASS.

Also, you odious little Oik, intersex people still belong in a SEX CLASS, either male or female, very few have ambiguous genitals and even if they did, they are still male OR female.

Trans women have nothing "wrong" with their bodies, they are in perfectly healthy MALE bodies and should use the facilities of their MALE sex group with the other MALES.

Why are trans people so different you ask? Could it be that 99% of trans women KEEP their male genitalia (wonder why?). Could it be that they belong in a different sex class?

How about we start letting grown men shower with children and teenage girls? Why not?
It's just body diversity people!

Wow, Ereshkigalangcleg, I hadn't heard that. That's awful.

The idea that women with post mastectomy bodies are "tolerated" in female spaces is horrible in and of itself, but then look what they make flow from it.

The most egregious example of this type of gaslighting I can think of is when Peter Dunne of Bristol University contributed to the Scottish government report on changes to GRA to allow self identity.

I quote:

“It would be unthinkable that general discomfort could prevent a cisgender woman from using segregated showering facilities after she had a double mastectomy. In reality, UK law tolerates a considerable amount of bodily diversity when cisgender and intersex persons use single-gender spaces. Why are trans persons treated differently? … If cisgender and intersex persons can use women-only and men-only services, even when they have non-normative bodies, concerns about bodily diversity do not justify the current legal position under the 2010 Act.”