Oxford City Council trans rights plan approved amid 'intimidation'

Honestly, it's up to you to read the actual article, Aston. Maybe ask AI for a summary of the article's contents? AI isn't a perfect tool, but it will produce something more accurate than the summary you came up with.

"We specifically argue that HIV transmission does not meet the appropriate harm threshold to constitute GBH and that if criminal law is ultimately about preventing or regulating harm, the ongoing criminalisation of HIV transmission is counter to that aim."

I mean, I guess it makes sense on some level that if you're going to redefine what words mean, you could decide to redefine knowingly transmitting an incurable disease as 'not harm' .
(Edit for clarity)

Sorry, that's not how discussions work.

If you don't think something I've said is accurate, the onus is on you to demonstrate how.

Not simply throw accusations about and then refuse to back them up.

And the conclusion:

The ability of individual citizens to interact sexually with others throws a series of criminal law concepts, such as consent,147 risk, recklessness, and harm into a kaleidoscope, in which they might be examined and contested. Yet, our framing of criminal law is often underpinned by transient moral and normative understandings which reflect the shifting attitudes of society.

Nuff said.

Whole article: if you fuck around with language and concepts in a superior and excitingly progressive way, you can make it sound as if it's wrong that someone encounters legal consequences for knowingly and intentionally inflicting a lifetime, lifechanging condition on a non consenting, unknowing other.

Classic activist batshit really.

OK so here's an AI summary...

Max Morris does not argue that people living with HIV should avoid using protection. Instead, his sociological and legal research focuses on how modern medical advancements protect individuals and why the criminal justice system needs to catch up. 1, 2]

In his co-authored paper, Bareback Sex in the Age of Preventative Medication, Morris argues against the criminalisation of reckless HIV transmission under English law (such as charging individuals with Grievous Bodily Harm). 1]
His core arguments center on the following points:

• Medical Advancements as Protection: He highlights that modern treatments like Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) suppress the virus to an "undetectable" level. Under the medically validated framework of U=U (Undetectable = Untransmissible), an individual with an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit HIV, meaning the treatment itself acts as a highly effective form of biological protection. 1, 2, 3]
• Flawed Legal Standards: The research points out that the law continues to penalise condomless sex ("bareback sex") based on outdated fears from previous decades, ignoring the efficacy of contemporary preventative measures like PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and PEP (post-exposure prophylaxis). 1, 2]
• Reduction of Stigma: Morris argues that prosecuting individuals harms public health by perpetuating trauma and social stigma, which ultimately discourages people from getting tested or seeking treatment. 1, 2]

*
There's a fair bit of nuance and complication there, because, well, scholarship is about nuance. But it's clear that Aston's summary was pretty wildly inaccurate.

As an academic though, I would encourage people again to read not just the summary, but the actual article.

Peace and love everyone.

Is HIV transmission criminalised?

Presumably it's the intentional transmission of a disease that might meet the standard of GBH?

As an academic though, I would encourage people again to read not just the summary, but the actual article.

As somebody who has an O-level in biology, I think it is important to consider the question of when transmission of a disease might meet the standards required for GBH, but 'trans women are women' still deliberately obfuscates the reasons that women need rights because of their sex.

It's the equivalent of claiming 'I don't see race' to argue that racism doesn't exist, but worse because sex has rather more definitive consequences than race.

I think that's the case re disease spreading. There was an incident during covid of someone spitting at another person and that was treated very seriously as there was the potential for deliberate disease spreading. IANAL though.

Nothing in the AI summary contradicted what I've said.

Im glad a proper academic is here to explain it to us though. Us lowly non academics need to be educated.

Do academics usually recommend that people use AI to get a summary of an academic paper?

Seems a bit risky to me...

Indeed.

Especially when its all so terribly nuanced.

AI is not good at nuance.

As a slight tangent, I wouldn't have thought that queer theory and Law make natural bedfellows (if you pardon the expression).

Since the motion passing, the Supreme Court has defined “sex” within the Equality Act as “biological sex” and “sex at birth”.2 These phrases don’t have agreed medical or scientific meanings and there is no agreed identification to substantiate them, other than self-identification.

Oxford colleges weren't just overwhelmingly male only until relatively recently; the university capped the number of female students from 1927 to 1957.

How did they know?

The issue seems very similar.

If you mess around with language then:

a man is a woman
a straight man is a lesbian
a person intent on removing women's access and equality to benefit men is a feminist
and intentionally giving someone a lifetime, lifechanging and possibly terminal illness is not criminal
in about the same way that sex by deception is ok if you look at it from the right queer theory angle.

Served with a heavy side order of scolding, snobbery, pseudointellectual verbiage and crowbars to twist the language around the right corners. But the aim is always the same; to try and make harm to others sound not only reasonable and acceptable but the choice of the right thinking modern person.

Well said, @Wishesandhorses . 👏👏

I don't know what you're getting from it, but most people will be getting that he wants to have unprotected sex, despite having HIV, and doesn't want to be penalised for it, because it can be treated.

So his attitude is instead of concentrating on preventing you getting it, you can get it, but the treatment is fine, so what's the issue?

Gay friend who was infected in the 80s, has lived a life based on endless medical monitoring and treatment and has for the last decade been extremely unwell due to it. Treatment is not 'fine'. Just means that with hard work and lifechanging medical needs it's less likely to be an immediate death sentence.

The selfishness of the position of 'I want so here's a lot of wangle about why I ought to be able to get to do this to other people without consequences'.... staggering.

As an academic though, I would encourage people again to read not just the summary, but the actual article.

News to me, I thought this person on a previous thread said they weren't on the academic staff but admin.
Maybe the reason they couldn't provide a summary without the help of AI is because they don't know enough of the subject to do it themselves, on account of them not being an academic after all.

Identify as academic?

Fab summary 👌

Usually with heavy implication of 'if you don't understand then it must be because you're not clever enough, its far too complicated to be explained to the likes of you' - rather than by providing any useful, logical and cogent arguments which would explain their position.

Your use of AI has led you to misgender Dr Morris. Top work ‘trans ally’.

On top of the excellent points others have made, my mind keeps getting dragged back to the use of the word "bareback" in an academic paper.

Did this word in the context of unprotected sex not originate from Johns asking for it from prostituted women, and porn?

It's just adding to my overall disgust that someone would argue for the decriminalisation of unprotected sex while knowing that there is a risk of passing on HIV to an unsuspecting partner who therefore can't consent to that risk.

I wonder if Cllr Morris, in his professional capacity as an academic whose area of expertise includes gender, ever has to do public engagement and outreach work? Explaining complex concepts in terms an ordinary person can understand should have been part of his academic training.

I’d be interested to hear authoritative definitions in simple, understandable terms of what gender identity is, what a trans person is, what non-binary is etc. etc. I see some of his funding is from the Economic and Social Research Council, i.e. the taxpayer, which implies public accountability somewhere.

Anyway, there is something about this paper that makes me think that Morris believes that the current law discriminates against a particular group of people who might have the capacity to wear a condom in a way that does't involve blowing it up and putting it on their head.

Has this group of people ever thought of just identifying as a different sex?

Quite.

It's very telling that almost all this shit revolves around men's sexual rights.

He wants to shag unencumbered and is actively campaigning to be allowed to do so, despite the lifelong health risk to his partners.

Personally, that's, so far so fucking entitled.

It's dressing it up as some kind of progressive activism that fucks me right off. Does he really think that people can't see it?

Men: "I would like consequence free sex. I just want to be able to do what I want do do without anyone chasing after me or blaming me for anything".

Women "I would like consequence free sex. I will always have to negotiate specific medical care, and live with the knowledge that it may fail".

Not quite the same is it?

ETA: and that's before you even begin to think about consent.