Sending love to trans people on MN and beyond

[cassandre]

This isn't an AIBU. I just wanted to send love to trans people, in the UK especially, and to other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

This hasn't been the easiest week for trans people, but there are a lot of us out there who accept you for who you are. We have your backs and we believe that eventually, tolerance and compassion will win.💖💖💖

Love from a longtime MNer and trans-inclusive feminist.

Please explain hown Act which states that discrimination in the provision of goods and services against people with the PC of gender reassignment is illegal, is 'opening the way to legalised hate'.

Once again, have you actually read the judgement, or just trans Reddit?

Another person being wilfully blind. That isn't embarassing - that's something far worse.

Maya went out of her way to use a male pronoun.

Trans brains may be different - or may not be. but given little else demonstrates this in the way of academic research I’m inclined to think not. It hardly upholds your statement of “Being truly transgender is a measurable biological phenomenon”

People use strong words like hate when women start speaking up. We say how it’s a way to shit us down.

It’s not hate to want single sex spaces. Never will be.

What does bodies matching hearts” actually mean? I Jay does a Woman Heart look like?

Wluldnt is just be easier all round to tell people they can’t be the opposite sex but to empower them to know that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is merely biology and socially it can mean anything. Get rid of this pink and blue gender nonsense that pigeon holes people into thinking if they don’t have certain tastes there must be something wrong with them? Rather than telling lies and giving them impossible aspirations.

So, all you did was read the abstract.

Thank you for confirming that.

So, you used an abstract to support your absolutely worded statement but now you say it is all grey. You tried to make a conclusion sound stronger than it was.

I will look at the other study that is open access. But considering you now are telling us that you cannot even provide any answers to the questions that I asked that might confound the studies, and of course, we cannot even read the limitations that normally would be published, you could declare anything you like and because we don't have academic access, we are supposed to just trust you. After making a declaration that you don't seem to be able to support?.

Great. So, you over reached on this, and you are over reaching on shaming Maya Forstater.

You haven't read the judgement, have you?

If RMW and their ilk truly, trulyknow themselves to be 100% women in every fibre of their being, in every cell, every last drop of DNA etc. Then why do they need to access single sex spaces to validate themselves?

If I never accessed another womens' only space ever again, I would still know myself to be 100% a woman. Forever.

Why should a woman officer have to strip search a man just because she’s he’s deluded enough to think he’s a woman? Why should a woman share her cell with a dangerous man? Why should women in a hospital ward share their ward with a man? Why does HIS delusion trump truth, reality and women’s safety privacy and dignity?

What makes your friend a woman? I bet £100 it’s everything to do with sexist stereotypes

On a final note, no one is defined by the arrangement of their chromosomes

Hahahha. Except they are. They’re also discriminated against because of these chromosomes. Nobody asks a baby girl what her gender is before performing FGM.

This isn't drama - its just the unwinding of 15 years of fabulously useful legislation

Legislation hasn’t changed. Your mate was just using it incorrectly

So what. Samantha IS a man. Maya was correct. Why would she use females pronouns towards a man?

There is no subtlety to it though. A person who undergoes extreme body modifications to suit their philosophical belief about themselves does not change their sex. Single sex provisions are based on sex and not on how a person looks and feels.

Call for all the nuance you want, it doesn't change the fact that single sex provisions were always for only that sex.

Eh? The Equality Act hasn’t changed. The meaning of words hasn’t changed - the judgement has just removed the confusion created by Stonewall and other activists lying about the content of the EA.

Can you explain why you think we have a ‘two tier Equality Act’? Do you think women deserve protections in the basis of our sex which we cannot change?

Oh wow! Maya answered a simple question with truthful words. She didn’t ’go out of her way’ to do anything - she used the most direct path which is the truth. Shame you don’t like it.

'On a final note, no one is defined by the arrangement of their chromosomes. Diminishing women to that level is not what the true feminists were seeking to achieve.'

It seems that you have some confusion here.

Chromosomes absolutely are involved in categorising the sex of human beings. This is uncontroversial. They are not the only aspect of the human body that is considered in categorising a human into one sex or the other, but they cannot be ignored.

And no feminists are 'diminishing' women to any level by recognising the sex of the people they focus their political activism on. As far as I recall, feminists campaigned for the needs of female people by way of equitable outcomes to create equal opportunity. They did not insist that female people did not have unique needs due to them be female.

This is a weird bit of misinformation that I have seen repeated on MN that feminists somehow dismissed or ignored the needs of female people due to their sex. As if feminists didn't acknowledge that there are differences between the sexes.

No. Feminists would have been very unwise to ignore the sex based differences between male and female people. What they sought was equal access to opportunities through equity and equal treatment where it was suitable.

It sounds like your friend is male so that is all entirely correct and appropriate. It’s not women’s problem to sort it if he doesn’t like it.

Right for the people who are too lazy to read the actual judging, here are some pertinent bits. Bolding is mine:

260. Consequently, *transgender people (irrespective of whether they have a GRC) are
     protected by the indirect discrimination provisions of the EA 2010 without the need for a certificated sex reading of the EA 2010, *both in respect of any particular disadvantage
     suffered by them as a group sharing the characteristic of gender reassignment and, where members of the sex with which they identify are put at a particular disadvantage, insofar as they are also put at that disadvantage. Again, this does not entail any practical disadvantage or involve any discordance between the claim and the individual’s position in society. On the contrary, the claim will be founded on the facts of a particular shared disadvantage. Transgender people are also protected from indirect discrimination where they are put at a particular disadvantage which they share with members of their biological sex

261. For all these reasons, this examination of the language of the EA 2010, its context
     and purpose, demonstrate that the words “sex”, “woman” and “man” in sections 11 and
     212(1) mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and
     biological man. These and the other provisions to which we have referred cannot properly
     be interpreted as also extending to include certificated sex without rendering them
     incoherent and unworkable. In other words, in relation to sex discrimination (for the
     purposes of sections 11 and 212(1)), a person with the protected characteristic of sex has
     the characteristic of their biological sex only: a trans man with a GRC (a biological female
     but legally male for those purposes to which section 9(1) of the GRA 2004 applies) is a
     woman for the purposes of section 11 and a trans woman with a GRC (biologically male
     but legally female for those purposes to which section 9(1) applies), is a man and not
     entitled to be treated as a woman under the EA 2010. This conclusion does not remove or
     diminish the important protections available under the EA 2010 for trans people with a
     GRC as we have explained. To the contrary, this potentially vulnerable group remains protected in the ways we have described. In these circumstances, and notwithstanding
     that there is no express provision in the EA 2010 addressing the effect which section 9(1)
     of the GRA 2004 has on the definition of “sex”, we are satisfied that the EA 2010 does
     make provision within the meaning of section 9(3) that disapplies the rule in section 9(1)

The 1999 Regulations, enacted in response to P v S, created a new protected
characteristic of a person intending to undergo, or undergoing or having undergone
gender reassignment. The 1999 Regulations did not amend the meaning of “man”
or “woman” in the SDA 1975 (paras 54-62).
(iv) The GRA 2004 did not amend the meaning of “man” and “woman” in the
SDA 1975 (para 80).

Gender reassignment and sex are separate bases for discrimination and inequality. The interpretation favoured by the EHRC and the Scottish Ministers would create two sub-groups within those who share the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, giving trans persons who possess a GRC greater rights than those who do not. Those seeking to perform their obligations under the Act
would have no obvious means of distinguishing between the two sub-groups to
whom different duties were owed, particularly since they could not ask persons
whether they had obtained a GRC (paras 198-203).

The interpretation of the EA 2010 (ie the biological sex reading), which we
conclude is the only correct one, does not cause disadvantage to trans people, with
or without a GRC. In the light of case law interpreting the relevant provisions, they
would be able to invoke the provisions on direct discrimination and harassment,
and indirect discrimination. A certificated sex reading is not required to give them
those protections (paras 248-263).
(xviii) We therefore conclude that the provisions of the EA 2010 which we have
discussed are provisions to which section 9(3) of the GRA 2004 applies. The
meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the EA 2010 is biological and
not certificated sex. Any other interpretation would render the EA 2010 incoherent
and impracticable to operate (para 264).

Anyone want to tell me how any of this is stripping transpeople's rights, making a two tier EA, denying transpeople's existence or any of the other hyperbole being spouted by people who are so busy being righteous that they didn't actually read the judgement?

When referring to a man.

When referring to a man in a discussion about the sex based needs of female people (ie. women and girls).

It is rather remarkable when you consider this. If clear and accurate language cannot be used in a discussion about the sex based needs of female people, when is it ever going to be?

Yes. I admit I was writing informally. But I did not claim proof, or anything absolute. There are few absolutes in the life sciences.

And the research I’ve cited does show that there are some pretty good measurements for trans identity in the brain.

The social pressure to use preferred pronouns is very much on the wane.

The incoherency of pronoun usage etiquette has reached the point of being too cumbersome for people to remain engaged I think. Maybe first was the male sports people such as Thomas and Hubbard. Then came Bryson and all of a sudden we were told that rapists don't deserve pronouns and this played out in different court cases where finally women did not have to refer to their rapists as being women and she/her.

Then came Wadhwa, I guess. We were suddenly allowed to not have to use pronouns there either. Although, not really officially like Bryson.

Somewhere in there was Eddie Izzard who enlightened the world as to how he changes pronouns depending on the role he is taking. That he may be in boy-mode or girl-mode. I think that really caught people's attention after Bryson and Wadhwa.

Then Dr Cass was clear that social transition was not a neutral act.

Then came Upton. A real test case. And so many people around the UK listened to interviews, some of us even got to watch the trial, and pronouns were not used and the stark clarity of what had happened became undeniable. A female nurse was suspended because she was uncomfortable getting undressed in front of a male colleague. And women used the correct sex pronouns for that male person. News outlets also.

I doubt that the preferred pronouns will be used as much now. Each month or two at the moment there seems to be something that points out just how ideologically driven it all was. And more and more people are realising that they don't agree with philosophical belief that says that male people can be female.

It is really remarkable to see someone demonise a woman for not using the demanded pronouns, in a discussion about sex based rights. That she has been demonised in this way shows the lack of proportionality when you consider who she was speaking about. Not directly to, but answering a question about.

I have given you three references above, before going to dinner. That was an hour ago.

So, now you are saying that you did not mean the absolutism in your statement.

And the research I’ve cited does show that there are some pretty good measurements for trans identity in the brain.

And you seem unable to answer the rather pertinent questions about the studies that you posted and you declared supported that absolute statement you made.

Your references are flawed though and utterly useless. You may as well linked a banana.

It is entirely possibly to abhor FGM and also to think that yesterday’s decision may yet be regretted