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.

Now maybe the NHS can start referring to women as mothers again instead of derogatory shit like chest feeders and pregnant people.

I think they mean JKR (JK Rowling)

It is my understanding that the certificate will now become irrelevant.

So many thanks to For Women Scotland, Sex Matters, the LGB Alliance & the Lesbian Project for their contributions to this case and to every single woman (and man) who's spoken up in any way - no matter how small - to restore the rights of women and girls to privacy and safety

I agree. They’ve achieved something magnificent. Something that also never should have been in question.

I actually feel quite emotional about this. This is a very good day. We did it!

It's a typo they mean JKR aka JK Rowling, a leading voice for the protection of womens rights against much of the trans extremism.

I may never get to meet all the wonderful women and their teams on the front lines fighting all these battles but they have my eternal gratitude. Thank you to everyone involved for stepping up in their own ways when we needed you.

For my part I continue to politely push back where I can, slightly fearful of creating my own battle but prepared to do so anyway if it arises. That any of this is necessary continues to boggle my brain.

And that a woman could be raped whilst in hospital and be gaslit for two years by both police and the NHS (until she had a mental breakdown), because the legal act of rape can only carried out by a man and apparently there “were no men on the ward”. Just a woman with a penis who’d self-identified as female and then carried out a violent sexual assault.

Instead of the criminal investigation and prosecution there should have been, his right to deny biological reality was prioritised by two instruments of the state - our health service and our police force - over a real woman’s basic rights as a human being.

This was the case highlighted by Baroness Nicholson in the House of Lords at the zenith of this unbelievable madness.

Fuck all of them sideways and backwards that any one of us should have had to go through this in the name of some men’s rights whacked out political ideology. Fuck them.

I totally get the feeling of other people here - that this ridiculous debate should never have dragged on so long and got this far. It's taken so much energy and only strengthened the right while dividing and distracting the left.

Brilliant news. Although I'm sure it will be twisted into "you all want trans people to be dead" which is blatant nonsense.

Interesting. Does this mean Trans Men will need to use women's toilets / single sex spaces?

This is a court ruling on the meaning of the words used in the Equality Act 2010.

If Parliament chooses to, it can pass a new Act next week that supersedes the Equality Act 2010. In the UK parliament is sovereign over the law.

Whether they will or not is of course up to them. But the law in the UK is a very flexible thing; some of the reporting on this seems to think we are in the USA.

I don't see why not.

Women have brought this fight to the Supreme Court becasue it is women who are by far the most adversely affected by the idea that a man "is" a woman and can have access to anything that is for the female sex. It affects women's safety, rights, freedoms, awards, sports etc in a way that is not at all comparable the other way round (because of the differences between the sexes).

But clearly the law on this is about biological sex as it relates to both sexes - and in fact a key point of inconsitency has been the way women cannot legally be counted as men, however they identify, when it comes to claiming inherited titles. Men's right to be counted as a sex class clearly does come into this, and while the titles issue merely serves to demonstrate the sexism involved and to blow "born in the wrong body"-type arguments out of the water, I believe men to deserve the same dignity and privacy on a biological basis as women do - for example in gay men's groups and apps, men who request same-sex healthcare provision etc. and even men's sports, though it may be largely academic. No sex-based sporting category should include anyone who's not in that category, whether or not they can win, because it always takes a place from someone who does belong there.

Plus as the court has clearly shown, a lot of the reason they have arrived at the position they have is because of the illogicality, inconsistency and lack of evidence in taking any other position. Men can think logically and clearly and sort out the ins and outs of a tangled legal knot as well as women can.

Is that something covered by the Equality Act 2010?

The UK government has already issued a statement in support of the judgment.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgq9ejql39t?post=asset%3Affcb0b1c-7a92-4e02-b222-152b95fd9104#post

Yes, it will. And they use the fig leaf of 'trans' people, because they know they will look stupid if they say 'you're anti-male and you misandrists want men dead'.

They've changed the narrative from female vs male, from female rights to 'trans' rights. Misogynists know they cannot come out and say 'you are anti-men'. So, they've found a 'work around' so they can hit out at feminists, accuse us of being anti-men, while not saying men, but, as someone elsewhere on this site said, re-badged males as 'trans'. Sooo, they can look 'progressive.

They know it's about men. Males. They know that. But they manipulatively play word games. They know how bad they'd look if they accused us of hating men and wanting men dead. Hence the invented fig leaf of 'trans people' to give their misogyny a veneer of respectability, and be seen to stay within the bounds of 'progressiveness'.

I am hoping it might lead to a reconsideration of how to make trans people feel safe in the spaces allocated to their biological sex. Not an issue for transmen, but for transwomen the current solution of 'making women budge up and shut up otherwise be accused of discrimination' has been judged incorrect. Male spaces should be safe or have accommodation for all who are born male.

This is wonderful news. A few years ago I honestly didn’t think we would get here. Well done FWS and all of you magnificent women, I am proud to be part of the army.

UK government says ruling brings claritypublished at 11:19
11:19BREAKING
Reacting to the Supreme Court ruling, a UK government spokesperson says: "We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex.
"This ruling brings clarity and confidence, for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs.
"Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government.

I really hope that they actually mean this and there is no ambiguity.

What a weird few years it’s been.

Let's hope this lays the issue to rest!

They are women and no threat to other women, so yes.

I think the tipping point for even the most ardent #BeKind types came at the utterly offensive "reframing trauma" line trotted out by the cosplayer in charge of Rape Crisis Scotland. Unbelievable.

And yes, an odd few years.

Yes, if males feel unsafe in the male spaces (interestingly, gay men have never made the case that they are 'unsafe' in male spaces), then that's an issue males have to solve. Females are not human shields for males.

But it's never been about safety. Not least because there has never been one case of a transwoman attacked in male spaces (yet there has been cases of females being attacked by transwomen in female spaces), and many transwomen themselves say they've never been made to feel unsafe. But because the very fact they reject a call for third spaces/gender neutral, designed to give protection and privacy for them. If it was ever about safety, they would have embraced our third space compromise. But third spaces don't validate them as women. It's not the building itself. It's the females in that space that gives them validation as 'women'. Hence the rejection of third spaces.

It was never about safety, lets be honest; we all know it. It's only ever been about validation. Using the females in the space to validate them.

It definitely was for me.