For Women Scotland have lost their appeal

Perhaps based on this, it needs to be flipped to assuming that one is not held unless it is produced and evidenced.

But again, practically....

Really this just boils down to 'this is an unholy fucking mess that doesn't work'.

I don’t see this as a complete disaster, what it is is a shit show, However , it lays out clearly that any “trans “ woman, without a GRC is still is, and remains a man, any “trans” man , without a GRC is , and remains, a woman.

Repeal the GRC, it’s a lie and always has been.

Lets assume the ruling is correct. What isnt consiered is that having a GRC is a secret and no one is permitted ask a person if they have one. So de faco anyone who says they are a woman has to be treated as though they have one

But if it's a hate crime or incident to ask if someone has a GRC then in reality anyone can claim access to all spaces.

Its good that the PC of GR does not mean that the person should be treated as if they were the opposite sex. That means that those men shouldnt be in spaces marked for women. It questions the need for state issued identification in the wrong sex, too. A review of the process is needed, at least.

We need a way to differentiate between a man, a man with the PC of GR, and a man with a GRC.

We need clarification when holding a GRC allows a man to be treated as if he were a woman. Is it in certain SSE, or is it certain men with GRC?

We also need clarity about the intention of the GRA. Was it to allow men who have a GRC to be seen as woman for admin purposes- pensions for example, or was it more? Are politicians going to state that the GRC is intended to make everyone see a man as a woman?

Another point of significance here in this judgment is the upholding of what has long been the clear position that if you don’t have a GRC you are legally considered to be your biological sex and have no right to use single sex services intended for the opposite sex.

Perhaps there's "no right", whatever that might be, but that doesn't mean that if someone excludes a man self-IDing as a woman, they're not going to be facing the risk of a discrimination case over the PC case of gender reassignment, which doesn't require a GRC.

To put this another way, the intersections of the various laws creates such a mess that unless there's law reform, each and every point has to be won by fighting a legal case costing tens of thousands of pounds but even that won't work because some of those cases will result in perverse judgments because of a captured (in part) judiciary.

Michael Foran's thread is good. It really makes it clear that the new gender reform bill in Scotland means that the Equality Act operates differently in Scotland and England/Wales.

I don't think this ruling is necessarily bad news. I think there are only about 6,000 people with a GRC in the whole of the UK, so the number who benefit from the ruling (at the moment) is tiny. Obviously it shows that if you make it easier to get a GRC, then you significantly undermine the protections afforded to women in the Equality Act.

So the obvious step for politicians now is to amend the Equality Act to make it clear that "sex" means "biological sex" not "legal sex". They really need to get a shift on and do that.

Well there we are, then.

Feck.

https://twitter.com/ForWomenScot/status/1719716513639260248?s=19

They can take it to the Supreme court but the s35 case may mean they don't have to.

Is transwomale a typo or an actual thing?

Presumably it could go to the UK Supreme Court.

Sorry cross post WinnieFosterFights.

The reality of course being that you can't ask to see a GRC. None of this ever works functionally outside of a court room.

can FWS do anything more now?

The myth that a GRC is just an admin exercise can hardly be maintained in light of this result. Surely the SG can’t win the S35 case off the back of this?

So self ID is definitely NOT enough. That's good to have that confirmed at least.

I'm not sure if I'm following it completely. Are they saying that only a GRC 'changes' sex - not self-id. But, with self-id, Scotland has made a material difference to the meaning of sex and the protected characteristics which means the s35 challenge has more evidence to support that the ScotGov has overstepped. So although this judgement is disappointing and frustrating for Scotland. It might make it easier for WM to intervene?

Whatever is most advantageous in any given context.

Yes.

Same old patriarchy in different clothes.

Michael Foran's initial thoughts on the matter...

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1719703680503443834.html

Still working through the judgment from the FWS appeal but first thing to note is that in my view this confirms that the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would change the operation of the Equality Act and so would modify the law as it applied to reserved matters.

If sex in the Equality Act is taken to mean biological sex unless modified by a GRC, then changing the process by which you can get a GRC modifies the operation of provisions relating to sex in the Equality Act.

An analogy here would be if there was U.K. legislation that gave welfare benefits or social care to people who meet certain criteria and Scotland introduced legislation changing the criteria for qualifying for these benefits. That would modify the operation of the benefit scheme.

This wasn’t expressly stated in this judgment bc it wasn’t the legal Q at issue but this decision means that one potential hurdle in the s35 judicial review has been avoided. If the court here had held that sex isn’t modified by a GRC the s35 case would have been more complex

Another point of significance here in this judgment is the upholding of what has long been the clear position that if you don’t have a GRC you are legally considered to be your biological sex and have no right to use single sex services intended for the opposite sex.

I might write a longer thread on the judgment when I’ve finished reading though it again in detail.

Yes but there was some degree of discretion about de facto self id. I think transwomen with GRCs were already treated differently but this result could mean that a GRC legally requires men to be treated as women, housed in women's prisons and be risk assessed exactly as if they are women.