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.

The judgment is clear that if a male who identifies as a woman (a transwoman) enters a female only space (like a female only toilet) then that space is no longer 'female only' and single sex, but becomes a mixed sex space. So the second a transwoman uses a 'female only' space it ceases to be a female only space. Mixed sex spaces are fine and permitted under the Equality Act. However, if a provider wants to provide a single sex (like a female only) space, they are permitted to under the single sex exception in the Equality Act. If a provider wants a space to be female only, then transwomen (whether they have a gender recognition certificate or not) may be legally excluded from that space.

Fabulous news!

Very happy about this. Sanity has prevailed.

Oh do give it a rest. ‘Personhood’?! Refusing to accept the lie that people can change sex isn’t degrading, cruel or inhumane. Women do not want men in our spaces, no matter who they think they are, who they tell us they are, or if they have pieces of paper with lies written on it. People can’t change sex, it is immutable. If they want to pretend otherwise they can do it from the safety’ of a third space.

It doesn’t?

‘The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.’

Seems pretty clear to me.

But I’m interested in your analysis….

The ruling reinforces a framework that often benefits cisgender, middle-class, white women - the group most historically to be heard in feminist spaces and institutions. Meanwhile, it has a risk of side-lining the lived experiences of those already navigating layers of exclusion based on race, class and gender identity
intersectionality issues always get lost in these of legal binaries

What do you actually mean by this? Can you explain how a ruling that sex means biological sex is bad for ethnic minorities, any particular class or anyone else? What's the mechanism by which that would happen? Or are you just saying this because it sounds woke and righteous?

OK, it's not great for the very small minority for whom "gender identity" means thinking they have the right to force other people to pretend they have changed sex - but they don't actually have that right. This is just clearing that up. And btw that is not all trans people because some do understand that they have not changed sex.

It seems to me that being clear about who is what sex, a characteristic that cannot be changed and that everyone has, would be a social leveller. I fail to see how it would disproportionately benefit "cisgender, middle-class, white" people at all. It does benefit women, but only because women as a sex class have been losing their legal rights by stealth and misrepresentation, and that needed sorting.

In fact, many of the people for whom clarity about sex, and the right to single-sex spaces, matter most, are disadvantaged or minorities. I give you lesbians who don't want to be expected to accept males in their dating pool or clubs, religious women for whom single-sex spaces are and important part of their beliefs and traditions, disabled people who need intimate care, rape victims needing single-sex support, girls of school age who are at risk from male harassment and rape culture and need single-sex toilets and changing rooms. Working-class people, poorer people, people raised in care, people with MH problems and special needs, are all more likely statistically to end up in prison or to have health problems, and so to be in prison wards or hospitals where, if they are female, they are endangered by males being included in "same-sex" provision. And so on.

And I would love to see a poll of what proportion of middle-class vs working-class people think trans women really are women. I'd bet my house it's more mc than wc people who are going to have their luxury opinions challenged by this.

It allows for the possibility that in some cases particular rights , entitlements and services etc may be reserved for women assigned female at birth, based on a specific protected characteristic of “sex” (as understood under the EA 2010), as long as that would not also unreasonably discriminate against/ violate protections for trans women on the grounds of gender reassignment, who are also protected in the act, of course.

It does not mean that trans women are not women , or not welcome in female spaces.

You know, I almost....almost feel sorry for you. Except you can't even be gracious in your (massive) defeat.

It could not be any clearer (except to the deliberately obtuse, but theres not much that can be done about them) that trans women are male. And that woman refers to the female sex class.

Why can they not?

When deciding whether the single sex exemptions of the EA can be applied there is no need to consider the completely separate PC of gender reassignment

Ah, you’re going down the ‘deliberately obtuse’ Road.

But that's not the ruling.

A GRC is a protected legal document. That's it. It doesn't give rights to invade other protected legal spaces.

You really are filling up our bingo cards today!
Telling TIM’s to not invade women’s spaces is ‘cruel, degrading, inhumane treatment’ and now we’re ‘highly divisive and transphobic’.

My personal favourite is ‘they just want to pee’, closely followed by ‘they’re just gentle, gendered souls’ and not forgetting ‘why are you so obsessed with people’s genitalia?’

And yet parag 2 reads

“it is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman” other than when it is used in the EA 2010”.

All the judgement is doing is affirming that there are distinct / specific protections reserved for women assigned female at birth under the Equality Act , which do not cover trans women with a GRC , but trans women with a GRC are also separately protected under the act on the basis of gender reassignment.

I suspect its the judgement as interpreted by the Fox Botherer and RM 'my book was inaccurate the minute it was published' W.

It does not mean that trans women are not women

To be fair, transwomen were never women and legal judgements were always totally irrelevant to that anyway.

Great result for MN as well. We've fought years for this.

You're welcome to your own personal interpretation, but I don't think you should expect it to stand up in court.

It does not mean that trans women are not women , or not welcome in female spaces.

It means that trans men are not legally women and cannot identify into services and spaces and protections designed for women.

It was also very clear in that some male people should not have ‘additional’ rights over others. And inclusion into provisions that use exceptions under the EA is very much a part of that.

'Transwomen' with a GRC are protected from discrimination on the grounds of their reassignment. This does not give them access to single sex spaces that don't belong to them.

The constant, blatant dishonesty from the TRA side is mind blowing. You'll just lie and lie and lie.

Of course if they know that's the rule and choose to follow it, so they effectively self-exclude, they will be excluded. I just meant that the organisation that set the rule wouldn't be able to exclude them effectively.

This was all on the basis that this hypothetical person won't be identifiable as their birth sex. In practice, I don't examine other people in the loos very closely. You may doubt this would ever happen, but in a poorly lit nightclub toilet, for example, I suspect nobody would bat an eyelid in many cases.

No. It means that there are specific protections under the EA reserved for women assigned female at birth, just as there are specific protections under the EA for trans women on the grounds of gender reassignment.

as long as that would not also unreasonably discriminate against/ violate protections for trans women on the grounds of gender reassignment, who are also protected in the act, of course.

There are no protections for women that discriminate against men. Protections for women acknowledge there are particular vulnerabilities that are unique to women as a sex class, that mean they need spaces, services and supports that exclude men.