Should the UK have a simple, clear legal definition of sex, male and female?

I’ve voted no as we shouldn’t bloody need it.

World’s gone mad.

By definition your legal biological sex is whatever is written on your original birth certificate. How it got to be recorded as M or F is pretty irrelevant but it's a data point that will be correct for 100% of individuals except for a tiny number of individuals with DSDs where the original birth certificate is replaced with a new original birth certificate. It's an infallible definition. Everybody knows what sex is recorded on their original birth certificate even those with a GRC who get issued a replacement birth certificate.

The latter is enough for 99.95% of babies but further investigation of chromosomes may be necessary for the very few where there is a DSD.

Chromosomes, genitalia and gonadsmay all need further investigation. Corbett doesn't say chromosomes win out.

Corbett leaves the possibility open that someone can be legally male even if they are XX, or female if they are XY in chromosomes. Because in difficult to tell cases the court can make an individual decision, based on medical advice. Until that individual difficult case is brought before a court there is of course no way to tell how a court will rule.

It's also possible that the sex recorded in the register of births (and copied to a birth certificate) is was wrongly recorded, on the Corbett test. There is a recognized procedure for making a marginal note to say so.

The overriding point is that sex has nothing to do with social factors nor an individual's choice, nor is it open to question in the great majority of cases where gonads, genitalia and chromosomes do align.

The law isn't there to state facts; we should leave that to encyclopaedias. Neither facts that are true, nor "facts" that aren't. Day is day and night is night regardless of whether there is a law that says "day is night".

Legal definitions operate only within the law. This sounds trite, but it's important. The law cannot legislate to force people to use particular words in certain ways. What it can do is be clear how the words used in laws are to be interpreted.

Like I said earlier, if (even) everyone suddenly agrees to call a cat a dog, that doesn't make the Dangerous Dogs Act suddenly applicable to cats. Cats were not included in the mind of the legislators when the act was passed. They don't get added by dint of a later change of the meaning of a word.

Society can agree that that trans-identifying men are somehow "women", if it wants. (It doesn't want, but that's another issue). Even if that became true it doesn't affect how prior laws are to be read.

FWS didn't really clarify the meaning of men and women at all, because it has never been unclear. What it clarified is which meaning is the one that applies within the EA2010.

And no definition is ever going to stop some men from standing up to say they're women; they will simply say that your new definition is wrong.

that's not a definition though.

Of course it is. Everybody knows what sex is on their birth certificate. It's following the definition of biological sex in Corbett v. Corbett that it's fixed at birth and determinable by three specific, innate physical criteria: chromosomes, gonads, and genitals. The latter is enough for 99.95% of babies but further investigation of chromosomes may be necessary for the very few where there is a DSD.

We already have a legal definition of sex. It's what is on your original birth certificate. No further definition is required.

Oh my word, the batshittery is off the scale.

Firstly, I'm another who thinks sex does not need to be defined additionally to existing law.

Everybody knows what sex is, what sex they are, and can identify the sex of another person with reasonable certainty.

Defining sex in law would be like defining human in law. It's unnecessary because everyone knows already.

Anyone claiming it's complicated, or ambiguous, or that sex is a spectrum or a construct, or whatever, so what? People believe all sorts of things that aren't true.

What matters isn't what people believe, what matters is the correct interpretation and application of existing law.

Secondly, I don't believe that "gender reassignment" needs to be a protected characteristic. Anyone facing discrimination and/or harassment for not conforming to the gendered expectations of their sex (whether they claim a transgendered identity or not) could easily be protected under the protected characteristic of sex.

Bonkers.

I was just rereading what I wrote last night:

I think your idea is necessary, and I would welcome it.

I think, after having read some of the points put forward by other posters about all the case law, I guess I have changed my mind about thinking it is necessary. I think we have the case law we need, it's just that, having grown up in the US, I like laws that are specific, infallible, and written down! I'm not a fan of case law and laws which, to me, look "stretchable."

I would still welcome a definition, carved in stone, untouchable, and unexploitable (that's not a word, is it?) -but, on balance, I don't think we need it at the moment. Time to move forward with action.

Yes, all of this. Normality. Normal functioning of law and government, normal functioning of services. No more pandering to special interest groups who want to bring their whole selves and fetishes to work. No more political statements in the hospital wards and around our medics' necks. No more inventing crimes because the police can't control the crime we already have. A country where words go back to meaning real things, not fantasies. I want normal life back. Frankly, most of us remember what normal life looks. It really wasn't that long ago!

It's what's on your original birth certificate.

This is your legal sex. There is no need for any further more complicated definition.

But - if we truly already had a clear, unarguable definition, we would not keep ending up in court over whether male people can sometimes be treated as female in law.

SSSIS, I know that you know this, but we keep ending up in court because too many people are breaking the law. That's it. Creating an "unbeatable " definition of sex for the purposes of the law (leaving aside for the moment that we have the case law, as others have mentioned) would not stop the same people and organizations breaking the law (or it would not stop all of them, or enough of them).

If it were a simple thing to do, yes, I would like a clear definition. But, as others have said, it might end up being exploited, and I still think it would take too long to debate (crazy, right?) and we'd never get there.

And even if we did, we would still have people who would think it was morally right to keep breaking the law, and so we'd still end up back in court.

I want to start changing the way people act, and return to something like normality. If that means more court action for 10 years, and that's the only thing that speaks to people, then it's 10 more years of court action. Eventually we might be able to change people's attitudes, but let's start by actioning the laws we have.

Of course the people who won't accept the fact of biological sex are going to continue challenging the matter, as long as they have funds to do so. It's just pester power. It's a real drag, but we just have to stand our ground and keep fighting them off.

I am no lawyer but isn't there a risk that if you try to define sex it might end up being defined as something more wishy washy that includes people who think they are the sex they are not. It could make things more unclear

Pretty accurate

OMG I just watched one of those stupid facebook reels, where someone interviews a right-on person and asks him, "What is a woman?" The answer of course, is "Anyone who identifies as a woman." How do they not understand that this is a circular definition? How do they get to adulthood and remain so stupid?

But - if we truly already had a clear, unarguable definition, we would not keep ending up in court over whether male people can sometimes be treated as female in law.

Apparently, we would.

Male people can sometimes be treated as female in law. It says so in the Gender Recognition Act. Nobody is genuinely uncertain as to what biological sex refers to, or how it’s determined. That is simply a diversion disingenuous people argue when they don’t like the conclusions courts (and others) correctly come to about those limited circumstances where men can be treated as women.

If anything needs to be made clearer it’s the GRA.