Supreme Court rules the term sex refers to 'biological women'

[everythingthelighttouches]

Finally.

There is no “triumph” for me.

i am delighted though.
I feel relief that this reasonable request for clarity has been heard.

The judge also said “the law still gives trans people protection against discrimination.”

As it should do. No one ever argued otherwise.

No one is “assigning” anything. The looking and noting what sex the baby is method is what will be used, as it always has been. A chromosomal work up is only needed in a tiny minority of cases where a very rare DSD is present which makes genitalia ambiguous. Or to diagnose a medical issue. It is not needed to determine/observe (not assign) sex in something like 99.9% of cases.

Well yes, but someone going about their life saying they're a woman when they are biologically male won't have any implications for me, as long as my workplace, gym, hospital, bar etc are able to state that they shouldn't go into single sex women's spaces. And up to now they have felt that this would put them on the wrong side of the equality act - this clears up that they're not.

A very good point, thank you. I omitted it for conciseness but in retrospect I should have said "They just won't be protected by the Equality Act from being discriminated against on grounds of sex in all the same ways as if they were a biological woman."

Yes they will, and the judgment makes exactly this point. Perhaps you should read it.

I agree that voices have been drowned out as a result of the most vociferous and unreasonable voices occupying much of what little debate we have been able to have. But the debate will not go away, and we are kidding ourselves if we think it will. So I hope everyone now engages positively.

A few years ago we were told "no debate".

Now we are being told that the debate won't go away.

That's a vast improvement.

Profoundly grateful to the formidable For Women Scotland and all those who have helped them along the way. Sad that they had to climb that mountain against the weight of the Scottish government, shockingly led by a woman and the women who went along with it in cabinet. It's an emotional moment - mixed emotions and I shed a tear but considering all that women have been subjected to, we would be justified in celebrating, whether seen as triumphal or not.

Joy is tempered by knowing that we had dedicated legislative protection all along yet it counted for nothing and even the body that is supposed to uphold and monitor the operation of the law couldn't see its way to do that.

I've always thought that the Equality Act 2010 was very clear and didn't need amendment so I didn't support a recent petition for a specific additional clarification. This judgment bears it out, with its detailed analysis of the text and application of normal legal principles of reading the words of a statute. The Labour government rejected the idea, although for different reasons - party political and protecting their Act and record. The recent talk of amending statutory guidance made me think certain people must have caught something of the way the wind was blowing from a high place. And here it is, clear and strong like the wind that's been gusting here all day.

Very good point!

I have thanks. See the post above yours.

And frankly, a person with ambiguous genitalia has much bigger problems than the definition of sex in the Equality Act.

They will always have problems categorising themselves as either a woman or a man. Today's judgment has absolutely no impact on that, as far as I can see.

Well you said transpeople can't use facilities for women. Well transmen can because they are women, if there's a single sex provision for women they can use it.

You said "So public services will still be faced with a continued standoff between women's rights and trans rights. The needs of the two protected characteristics are incompatible with one another", and I don't think the ruling said they at all. Transwomen never had the right to be treated as if they were women. Woman= adult human female.

The needs of women and the need of people with the PC of gender reassignment never needed to be a battle, if gender ideologues hadn't tried to take women's rights from us. That needs of women and of transpeople aren't incompatible, as long as you grasp that ID'ing as trans doesn't make you the opposite sex. Anymore than the needs of people with the PC of disability and the needs of people with the the PC of religion or belief are incompatible. They're separate distinct groups.

You only use people/trans/community to mean male in your post

Males who are sent to prison can be "safe" or as safe as the State can manage in a male prison. Females who claimed to be male were not placed in male units. Funny how there was an investigation launched when a woman was transported and once discovered held in segragation until transfered in a mens prison but dangerous males were routinely allowed into the female prisons

Why are you claiming that a male placed on a NHS male ward is unsafe?

Why do you think that there are no male DV refuges?

Why do you think that the lack of provision for males the responsibility of women not the State?

Who do you include in "everyone"? I'm not sure that women need to be involved in this campaign. Some of them have worked hard enough already!

Weird that I should feel relief at a bloke in a wig stating the bloody obvious 🙄. But here we are.

FWS should be applauded for their principled tenacity though.

Various solutions have been suggested/introduced and dismissed out of hand because they don't provide validation.

An open swimming category introduced by World Aquatics at the Swimming World Cup Event to allow for a balancing of needs = No entrants
https://www.bbc.com/sport/swimming/66993112

A wing for transgender prisoners (Downview - E Wing) was introduced. And where opportunities for males to socialise with women are prioritised over women's safety.
https://kpssinfo.org/the-transgender-unit-e-wing/

For rape crisis services, an example would be the current court case where rape crisis services in Brighton will provide men's, women's (in reality mixed sex) and specialised trans/non binary rape crisis support groups but refuse to provide an additional female only group for survivors.

There's currently a court case where a nurse was not only allowed to voice her discomfort about a male using the female changing rooms but was also censured by her employer for avoiding using that space herself.

Third spaces have been suggested repeatedly (here and elsewhere) but dismissed as transphobic and othering.

Women were accommodating and had their services decimated in response. We're taking our stuff back

This puts me in mind of a practical difficulty. If a transwoman presents as a woman, so that nobody seeing them has any idea of their gender reassignment history, then in practice they won't be excluded. And if it so happens that a specific individual who would otherwise have been perceived as female and admitted is excluded because the workplace, gym, hospital, bar etc happens to know they were born male, well, could it be argued that they are being subjected to discrimination on the grounds of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment under s7 of the Equality Act? After all, a person with similar appearance who wasn't known to be trans would have been allowed in.

What this ruling does help with, of course, is the oft-cited example of a predatory man who gets a gender reassignment certificate purely to gain admittance to women-only spaces, without even attempting to present or identify as female. A certificate is now useless for that purpose, and what matters in practice will be how a person appears and behaves.

Quite, and the callous way people with DSDs have been categorised as some sort of freakish third sex to try and justify this mania for eroding biological sex in some quarters is disgraceful. Most DSDs come with health problems and infertility which in many cases can be a lifelong battle. My friend’s sister has Turners which has caused her issues throughout her life. To suggest she is also not a woman, not female because it supports narrative is just horrible. This is a DSD which only affects females. She is a woman with a DSD, not a third sex.

Can we have Hampstead Ladies Pond back now?

Feeling much relief and joy today.

So glad (and honoured) to have been able to do a wee bit of gardening for the FWS cases.

Catching up on the news and listening to Jane Fae on World at One claiming this Supreme Court judgement being based on biology means it is a disaster for ‘Cis’ women because, as shown by the Olympics, so many ‘Cis’ women have no idea that they’re intersex 🤷‍♀️🙄

Transwomen who pass are often discussed but rarely found in the wild. Outside of carefully posted and filtered photos, humans are really good at knowing each others' sex.

The only transpeople I personally have mistaken for the sex they're not is teenage transmen, who can sometimes pass for teenage boys (if you're a short sighted not very observant middle aged woman, which I am). Only then til they speak or I pay attention though.

If that scenario did happen maybe would come under the discrimination discussed in the ruling whereby the discrimination is by the perception that a person is a given sex, even if they're not that sex (not a direct quote so I hope you know the part I mean)

And some of them, like me, believe that any group discriminated against on the basis of sex, colour, sexual preference, disability etc etc deserve support from like minded people. I have stood firmly with women for 46 years, i am one after all (vagina, uterus and all). I have simultaneously stood firmly with others who have been discriminated against when they have needed it.

You are creating an argument with me that is unnecessary, because there isn't one to be had.

It doesn't even matter what TW look like (though 99.99999% are clearly men in a dress) it's how they move. Their skeletons are different so they move differently to women. Gait analysis is used by the security services for a reason.

You’ve got a cheek, you’re over on the other thread back slapping the people calling the women who’ve fought for this ‘anti-trans obsessives’, and as you personally termed them ‘trumpettes’ and ‘right whingers’. It’s brilliant news down to the women you were slagging off.

Yes it’s down to those who stuck at it despite attacks like that.

Not showing themselves in the best light over on X....