As expected trans activists next step is to try and word-saladify the SC ruling and by "reframing" the words of the equalities a t (isnt that what they tried to do until now).
Once again the advise being given seems to be to go "beyond" the law once again.
The post from Facebook is being shared around on many activist forums so it is apparent that the fight for women's rights against more word salad continues.
Text follows below, I leave it here for you vipers to pick apart and also as a heads up for their next tactics. You can find the Facebook post by copying and pasting the heading into Facebook:
RECLAIM THE FRAMING OF UK TRANS RIGHTS
After the UK Supreme Court ruling, we need to be sharing accurate information.
Transphobic people are framing the results in a particular way, and we need to frame it with the truth. If we fight within their framing, we are reinforcing their framing.
Although I have a trans-related job, I spoke to three international human rights lawyers in my capacity purely as a private citizen, and this document lays out my takeaways. I am not a lawyer so this is not legal advice!
I am hoping this equips all trans people and all people who are in support of trans people’s rights to be emboldened to continue to fight for what is right.
--A ruling is one thing, but it must then be translated into policy.
Policies (and their interpretation) is where organisations can be in solidarity with trans people, and where the ruling will, I expect, prove unworkable in practice. As detailed below, organisations can continue to be inclusive, and even if not, an individual who violates a policy is not committing a criminal offence.
The ruling can also be challenged both inside the UK court system and via the European Court of Human Rights, but that’s outside of the scope of what I’m hoping to do here which is give as clear a picture as I can find of where we are at.
--Trans people are not committing any crime by existing in public.
We are free, and in fact still protected by the Equality Act, to live our lives - do our jobs, enter businesses and public spaces, use the toilet that is appropriate for us, get healthcare appropriate to our gender. The ruling has not changed any of this.
--Organisations are free to continue to create trans-inclusive policies.
These may be challenged in the courts down the line by cis women, if they feel their rights under the Equality Act are being infringed, but that would need to proven on a case-by-case basis, and would be a legal challenge to the organisation, not to any individual.
--Organisations are not obliged to exclude trans women or any trans people.
If an organisation does decide to create a space only for cis women, a trans woman is personally not committing a crime by continuing to access that space (ie toilets/bathrooms).
If you are somehow prevented from accessing those spaces, you could still bring a legal challenge under the protections of the Equality Act.
Taken to the extreme, if an organisation, for example, wanted to create the strictest bathroom policy possible, they would need to have security staff on the doors of the women’s bathrooms, have everyone undergo a genital check and/or have their birth certificate on them.
This is plainly ridiculous and a direction we don’t want to go in as a society, one of having to have our papers on us.
Even then, trans people are protected against discrimination by the Equality Act.
In practice, trans-exclusionary policies will likely affect gender-nonconforming cis women, particularly cis women who are perceived as more ‘masculine presenting’, or who don’t fit the white cis norms of ‘femininity’. It may be those women who need to bring cases that their rights under the Equality Act are being infringed in order to show how unworkable this all is.
--You have no obligation to answer any questions about your gender or sex by a private individual.
If someone challenges your presence in a single-sex space, you are legally within your rights to just ignore their questions, or, indeed answer them, and continue about your business.
In broad strokes, no private citizen has the right to detain you if you have not committed a crime*. Merely entering a single-sex designated space is not a crime.
You can walk away from any situation that doesn’t yet involve the police.
(I’ll let people who are more informed about interacting with the police detail what is and isn’t allowed in those situations.)
*There is some nuance around the ability to detain someone, but it doesn't apply to what we're discussing here. It is not a crime to violate a policy.
--You are not legally required to disclose any information in a healthcare setting.
For example, it's not a crime to not disclose your gender/birth sex to a healthcare provider, or to refuse to give more information than you are comfortable giving. (Of course, this information may be medically relevant sometimes, but it is not legally required.)
If you are, for example, placed in a gendered ward that does not match your gender, you can challenge that decision - trans people still have a right to safety, dignity and privacy under the Equality Act.
--There are a tiny amount of places where it would be legal to be trans-exclusionary:
- Cis women-only informal private groups (book clubs, nights out). This has always been the case, as they don't fall under the Equality Act.
Though: (a) it’s unclear how this would be enforced in a way that doesn’t exclude or place a burden on gender-nonconforming cis women and (b) as a trans woman you would still not be committing a crime by attending.
- Cis women only shelters - if it can be proved that this is legitimate and proportionate.
Again, this has always been the case. Many women’s shelters have inclusive policies which they are still allowed to maintain – they are not obliged to exclude trans people.
Any trans person who is excluded from any service may bring a claim for discrimination in court.
The service provider would have to prove in their defence that:
a. the exclusion is legitimate because they are a genuine single or separate sex service provider (ie the service genuinely cannot be provided to both men & women)
AND
b. Proportionate - ie the presence of the trans person would make it genuinely impossible to provide the service.
Any service provider can bar any person from their service, so long as the bar is not because of a person’s protected characteristic (or it is because they are in the tiny minority of cases who are using an exemption provided in the Equality Act, as above).
I hope that’s useful, I’m wildly open to corrections from legal professionals.
Thanks for supporting me in producing this document over the Bank Holiday weekend go to my friends and colleagues:
Claire Mahon, Executive Director of Geneva-based Global Human Rights Group
Julia D. Rowland, Human Rights Officer, GHRG
Stephen Whittle, who has been working in human rights cases internationally for 35 years.
Let’s reclaim the narrative and keep living our lives.
Another world is possible.