For Women Scotland in Supreme Court - thread 3

I definitely think this is the best thing to come out of the hearing. If the Scottish government lawyers had toed the trans activist line, they'd have had to say that any man who says he is a woman is one, and the GRC makes no difference, thereby sabotaging their own case. To win, it's essential that the GRC, and the GRC alone, changes a man's legal sex.

Unfortunately for them, this line of argument will not endear them to the trans activists, who are already foaming at the mouth. Worse, their own line of reasoning commits them to spouting obvious absurdities, such as saying that
a man without a GRC cannot be a lesbian, but a man with a GRC can.

I imagine so, but many complain that they can't get a GI clinic appointment to start the ball rolling.

Having only just now watched yesterday morning's session, one thing that stands out is how Crawford throws transwomen without GRCs under the bus. That's because she needs to jettison them to win the case.

Most of the UK transgender subreddit don't seem to have grasped the importance of clarifying in law that only males with GRCs are treated as women in terms of the sex PC. They seem to think it's some arcane legal point.

For an example of how confused people are about the law, and the pitfalls of believing TRA propaganda see this Reddit thread, where a site promoting Stonewall law is cited as gospel truth that men who identify as women can use female spaces, even without a GRC.

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/URRk1HsQUX

Or explain to me if I have understood matters incorrectly and that they’re both fighting for the same protections for women?

And - see thread about WPUK closing, stopping campaigning

Or explain to me if I have understood matters incorrectly and that they’re both fighting for the same protections for women?

Because what they think is the right outcome dont necessarily tally, but the legal question is part of the process they think needs to be addresses.

EHRC’s opinion (which seemed to be a fudge trying to keep both sides happy in a situation where there’s an actual conflict of rights so this isn’t possible)

No it isn't a fudge. It is, which is their job, an interpretation of the 2 laws as currently written. And as the authorised group empowered to see that certain laws are correctly implied it is incredibly important that they have said the interactions, as written are difficult, if not competing, as working laws.

For the group that is appointed to arbitrate or advise on equality legislation, it is really signifigant that they have said to a court, that as written the law(s) are unworkable.

It occurs to me that any one of us probably could suggest answers to the questions that the SG seemed unable to answer. I mean I know broadly a TRA approved and court acceptable answer to ‘what does living as a woman mean?’ that doesn’t rely on stereotypes. I can come up with a sensible explanation about why the GRC isn’t required to change your sex but should exist for those who want it.

so why the hell did the legal teams and clients not anticipate these questions and form a useable stock answer?

Thanks for setting up thread 3, the discussion has been very interesting and enlightening to date!!

Having read through the various commentary here and followed Tribunal Tweets/Nick Wallis over the last couple of days, and having skimmed the written submissions, I’m still not entirely clear why Sex Matters and For Women Scotland seem to be involved in the same case but arguing for different interpretations of the effect the GRA and EA are having on women’s rights.

I found myself more entirely in agreement with Aidan O’Neill’s arguments to the Supreme Court than Ben Cooper’s during the hearing and I felt that Sex Matters’ interpretation of the issues was somehow less strong in support of women having exclusive women’s rights and a bit more in keeping with the EHRC’s opinion (which seemed to be a fudge trying to keep both sides happy in a situation where there’s an actual conflict of rights so this isn’t possible).

Could anyone give me an idea of why these two GC orgs are fighting for slightly different legal interpretations/protections for women but are still seen as supporting each other’s argument?

Or explain to me if I have understood matters incorrectly and that they’re both fighting for the same protections for women?

Ta muchly!

I think they's been following threads here on FWR and sort of did a double take, and realised this hasn't been thought through.

The introductory notice to the report defintely has points made on these threads!

Lets hope they didn't appropriate them through "scraping"!

It looks as though they're expecting major changes. I don't think the changes will be good enough but if they get rid of the 'cannot ask to see the certificate' this will be a step in the right direction. I'm hoping more changes will come because, my god, did the case show how badly women have been treated

Kucinghitam · Today 11:47

I must admit I was rather surprised that ScotGov went right ahead and committed Literal Gendercide

As they decided to dig in and fight FWS on the beaches, should that be Littoral Gendercide?

It’s deffo brand new, no time to read it til later tho!

Sloppy or deliberate misrepresentative "journalism"?

I think most people here stopped giving the Guardian the benefit of the doubt quite some time back. There have been too many bad faith articles. Although @prh47bridge makes a fair point about trial reporting. But if the Graun thinks readers no longer see it as a paper of record, it only has itself to blame.

For those who haven't seen, or maybe dont care, it seems the WPUK is closing. Or at least not being active.

Their statement read to me like they trusted Labour to do the right thing!

Anyway not to derail this thread, there is a thread about it https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5219610-wpuk-statement

Or maybe because you are so enraged that you overlooked the fact that there is a link to day 1 in the article. Also, if you click on the Transgender link to the left of the headline, that takes you to a page where both articles are listed alongside each other.

I'm not sure what you searched for, but a search for "for women scotland supreme court" on Google shows the Guardian's report of the first day twice before listing the report of the second day.

When reporting a trial, the Guardian (and, indeed, most other news sites) just report the current days proceedings and don't include links to the previous days. Not sloppy or deliberate misrepresentation at all. Just normal journalism.

Off work this afternoon and catching up - thank you all for the commentary and links.
Off topic: I'm going to have to Google the case about discrimination related to the height of lamp posts - did I hear that properly?

The House of Commons Library has posted this new (updated?) briefing

Gender recognition and the Equality Act 2010
This briefing analyses the debate on the interaction between the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10137/

That is unfair to the Guardian. The report covers yesterday's hearing, which was essentially about one side of the case.

Well if that is the case just shows how unprofessional the Guardian is.

Or maybe because they exist in their own tiny echo chamber they dont even bother to speak with those outside of LOJ's fanzine circle.

Like I am sure many do I searched on line for news reports. This came up. I read it. ie as many other random readers might.

They should have included a foot note saying, the article covered day 2 and for day 1 see (link to article)

All they have done, but maybe wanted this, is created a headline that implies transgender people have rights.

Sloppy or deliberate misrepresentative "journalism"?

It was at one point but I just looked and the current policy is to accept both bio females who say they are boys and bio males who say they are girls. They also accept bio females who claim to be non binary but exclude bio males who claim to be non binary so fuck knows what they are aiming for because it’s all very muddled.

Maybe they should rebrand as ‘Self ID Girls, Bio Girls, Trans Boys and Nonbinary AFAB Guides’?

edited to add the link: https://www.girlguiding.org.uk/information-for-volunteers/running-your-unit/including-all/lgbt-members/supporting-trans-young-members/

If boys-who-identify-as-girls were allowed into girls schools then girls-who-identify-as-boys would surely have to be expelled? Expelling female students who claim a male gender identity must qualify as discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment (being treated less well than other female students).

Isn’t this what Girlguiding is already doing?

As far as I can evidence the Gender Reassignment protection only became applicable to school pupils in 2014, for the first 4 years it only applied to staff.

The changes came about via ‘technical guidance’ but there is very little about the realities of how schools should adapt to the change (the gov document links to TRA org GIRES and the some random 2012 guide to gender in schools from Cornwall, which seems to have been memory holed. I guess a TRA must’ve been pretty influential in Cornwall during this period?)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7e3237ed915d74e33f0ac9/Equality_Act_Advice_Final.pdf

Also found a GIRES info sheet from 2017 so adding it here for posterity.

(anyone else else a bit weirded out that the 2012 Cornwall stuff and 2014 changes to EQ10 that made GR applicable to kids maps with the massive rise in referrals to GIDS? Almost as if the government are complicit in spreading the social contagion 😬)

The thing is it’s not just the EA2010 that uses woman. So just changing the EA2010 is insufficient. For example the Abortion Act 1967 uses pregnant woman, the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act 2021 uses mother and expectant mother.

Plus we don’t want the term pregnant people, we want pregnant woman and for it to mean a natal female. It’s interesting that FWS and Sex Matters are the ones who want sex to mean natal sex so that pregnant transmen with a GRC have maternity and pregnancy protections. It’s the Scottish GMT, Amnesty and EHRC who are arguing against. The reason being, for them it’s not about Transwomen so it doesn’t matter.