Is the concept of 'Legal' sex dead and burried?

It may have been relevant before the legalisation of same sex marriage. It shouldn’t matter now.

One unintended consequence of this inconsistent mess unravelling might be that the case for transwidows to obtain an annulment might be seen as unecessary - after all, their husbands haven’t changed sex.

"Certificated sex" is actually rather clever. It can refer to the sex on a Gender Recognition Certificate and/or a falsified birth certificate.

I'm confused about this part too. Let's say two individuals, who both look biologically male in appearance, turn up at a women's support group. They say they are women. The group organisers say "prove it". They produce ID in female names. The group organiser says "anyone can do that". One of them has a GRC and produces a birth certificate with a female name. The group organiser says "well, anyone can do that too, if they jump through the right hoops". What breaks this stalemate? The judgment seems clear that neither male has a right to be there, but if the only evidence of someone's sex is their (obvious) appearance and voice, do you actually end up in court having to say "of course he's male, he's six foot four with a baritone voice and five o'clock shadow"?

Basically, I'm just saying what you said, trying to digest it!

I think that the upshot might be that everyone is allowed to have both single-sex and trans-inclusive things, to serve various purposes including being nice to trans people. But they are two different things, and trans can't insist on admission to the single-sex thing on the basis that they have changed sex.

I think the affect on marriage is that a man pretending to be a woman is registered as female on the marriage cert, so he and his husband, on paper, are registered as a heterosexual couple. We're told this is extremely important for the individual - to have their pretend sex on the paperwork. To have their real sex on there is undignified.

Doesn't it suggest that people have 2 sexes - a biological one and a certificated one. They can be the same or they can be different.

Which sex matters depends on the circumstance.

However this brings up a new problem, of how is bio sex proven? Because birth cert sex isn't a reliable indicator of bio sex any more. This is the mess we've made. Birth cert sex used to mean bio sex, because birth cert sex was based on a test for bio sex. Now birth cert sex is based on the bio sex test until 18, and after that, adults get to choose. Not changing the sex marker is a choice. Any of us can apply for a GRA, because anyone can do what is required to meet the criteria.

What we're facing now, is a women only service using this ruling to exclude a man with a GRC, and the man saying prove I'm a man (as my understanding is that you can't ask about the existence of a GRC because his right to privacy means you can't do that - he's allowed to conceal documentary evidence of trans status).

The wang about GRA only changing gender doesn't wash because it's used to change the sex marker on the birth cert.

I think, despite saying "for all purposes", there was then a list of exclusions (like women inheriting titles) and a statement to the effect that other laws might curtail this too.

True. It shouldn’t be necessary.

Except that the intention of the GRA was that people could actually legally change sex.

Section 9, subsection 1
"Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman)."

But Lord Hodge said that trans people have protection against discrimination and harassment whether or not they have a GRC.

It's a piece of paper that gives the holder no additional rights. Pointless.

I think if the GRA isn't repealed it will in time become one of those laws that languishes on the statute book like a defunct appendix that noone can be bothered to cut out.

I can't quite make it out, to be honest
In the judgment, it does say that

"Although many provisions of the GRA 2004 have been overtaken by other legislative developments, we consider that the Act continues to have relevance and importance in providing for legal recognition of the rights of transgender people. This recognition of their changed status has practical effects for individual rights and freedoms (including, for example, in the context of marriage, pensions, retirement and social security) but also in recognising their personal autonomy and dignity and avoiding unacceptable discordance in their sense of identity as a transgender person living in an acquired gender."

So, the GRA serves a purpose in making GRC-holders feel good... Ok... But I don't really get how it would affect marriage nowadays, and as for pensions and retirement, I don't really see how a different pension age is justifiable given today's ruling... I don't really see how the scope of a GRC can go beyond letting people change their birth certificates for the purpose of a "sense of identity" and privacy, and even those things are in reality precarious, because if it's obvious that the GRC-holder is not the sex they claim to be, they can still be excluded from single-sex provisions.

I think it's still meaningful for the Register of Births Marriages & Deaths and for applying the SSEs, because they are asymmetric as between people with and without GRCs. Or are they?

Maybe there’s a clue in the name ‘GRA’. It’s a certificate which recognises ‘gender’, it should be seen as completely separate to sex.
It should protect gender nonconforming/gender dysphoric people against genuine discrimination due to their gender presentation.

Maybe we can sway society’s use of the term ‘legal sex’ and start referring to TIMs/TIFs as people with a ‘certificated sex’?

The judge used the term certificated sex. Not sure how language will change.

I agree. We’ve won a huge battle, but the war isn’t over yet. We will have to quote this ruling for some time to come and that will include using the phrase ‘legal sex as state in the Supreme Court ruling of April ‘25’.

I don't think so. Not as long as the GRA still exists.