Trans women are still women

[Lostcat]

AIBU to share what the Supreme Court judgement on the meaning of women in the Equalities Act does and does not do/say/mean.

Although there are now moves to take the ruling and embed discrimination against trans women into uk law, this was not the intention of the Supreme Court judgement. In fact, the judges made it very explicit that politicians, media and activists shouldn’t seek to weaponise the judgement for political gain. Unfortunately that is exactly what people (including a whole host of mumsnetters) are doing.

So what does the judgement do?

Myth: the UK Supreme Court says trans women are not women

Myth: the ruling means trans women can’t claim legal protection as women

Myth: the ruling says you can ban trans women from women’s loos or other women only spaces

What the ruling actually says:
“It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain 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 provisions of the [Equality Act] 2010.”

The ruling says that in sex-based provisions under the Equalities Act 2010, sex means “biological sex” and refers to one of two biological sexes.

The ruling reiterates that trans women are protected from sex discrimination as women - because they experience the same sexism as women do.

The ruling affirms also that trans people are protected under the law from discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment.

As before (and as the law has stated since 2004) trans women, with or without a Gender Recognition Certificate, should be treated as women and given access to the relevant women’s services - as before, an exception may be made under limited circumstances where the need to exclude trans women may be proportionate (the law gives women’s refuges as an example of a space where this may be necessary, sometimes).

The ruling merely states that in legal references to “sex” the words “man” and “woman” in the sex discrimination clauses of the equalities act refer to “biological” women and men - it is merely about the use of language in legal cases of discrimination.

The very real impact of this on trans and non-binary people’s lives comes from misinterpretations of what is meant or intended by the ruling.
The trans community is fearful because of the inevitable spin manufactured by biased news media and the powerful gender critical lobby (including wealthy and high profile people such as JK Rowling who claim they are “silenced” by trans advocates).

I really think trans women now need to move on from this. To keep trying to interpret the ruling in your favour over and over again benefits no-one. Put your energy into now campaigning for your own designated spaces, on a level playing field. Biological women no longer want to be part of your disillusionment. We’ve won the fight and now just want to move on with our lives, being safe in our safe spaces. Move on with yours. Campaign for your own spaces, and better provision for your MH. I suspect though that you don’t want your own space, as this is, and has always been, about forcing us to share ours. We no longer want to be part of your ‘fight’.

You lost me at "woman assigned female at birth".
I expect we will see how things play out. I dont think Jonathan Sumption is right.

You said they were losing all those things under this judgement.

What TW are losing is the automatic right to be included in women only single sex spaces.

The debate is toxic, on both sides.

Please don’t try and suggest that TRA’s are the only ones that have been behaving that way - we’ve all been on the internet the last few years.

The debate has been long, aggressive on all sides, and for those of us who haven’t engaged in it and lobbied in either direction - unnecessary.

I cannot begin to tell you how bored I am of loading X and seeing the same rubbish every day, from the same people.

Or how boring it is being called a man for not agreeing (which I think is what is happening to OP now), or how boring it is ticking off the handmaiden/misogny bingo card.

The trans rights lobby have tried to cover all their bases here, making the following arguments simultaneously:

• trans women can be excluded from women's single sex spaces if organisations want to do this, but they don't have to, most of them don't use this exemption because they're not transphobic and trans rights groups lobby these organisations not to provide single sex services to women and lobby local authorities to defund organisations which want to
• trans women with a gender recognition certificate cannot be excluded from women's single sex spaces because sex means legal sex and their legal sex is female
• we don't know but we think the Equality Act should be amended to remove "sex" as a protected characteristic and replace it with "gender identity"

Talk about cake-ism.

Thank goodness the Supreme Court told them where to stick it.

Wow that’s a hell of jump on what I said.

i can fully understand why people want women only’ spaces but to those saying the should create own spaces I can see why they haven’t .

I can understand why women want their own spaces but can see why trans women are upset.

I don’t know what the answer is but I also fail to see how it will ever be policed.

You weren’t assigned anything at birth, your sex was observed as it has been for everyone for millennia.

You clearly don’t like women who disagree with you, you have a very male, entitled way of interacting with us on here, so it’s not a big leap to suspect you are a man. I don’t know how you have come to believe the things you believe, but people can’t change sex, it’s immutable, that is a biological fact not an opinion, and that has now been clarified in law.

Your lack of empathy for women is astonishing, your whole post centres men without exception, if you are a woman I don’t understand your attitude.

Sharon Davies the swimmer has fought this for years and rightly so it's not ok for a man to compete with women in sport and then win because they are born male and bigger and stronger, and wearing a wig dress and heels doesn't make you female that's actually an insult to women who back in my day were expected to DRESS UP for work and now we can now just wear slouchy clothes and now yet again we have me telling us to be female you must wear a dress skirt or heels!!

I love the way you say the debate is toxic on 'both sides', but what have the GC side done that is in anyway equivalent to this?

terfisaslur.com

I'm fed up with this both sides are toxic.

Women are not the ones making rape and death threats and getting people sacked

You were female from the moment of conception, registration (or whatever you care to call it) is merely a recording of what was observed when you were born.

Had you undergone appropriate testing in utero, your sex would have been clear before birth.

You are right. I don’t think you could.

The answer is to legislate based on verifiable facts eg sex rather than something that can't easily be verified like someone's gender identity.

It can be policed as it used to be. A mix of legal enforcement and social cooperation

@Neemie
Thank you for your response. Yes indeed about the boys and skirts, we had one year 11 boy who wanted to identify as a girl and wore a skirt. He was a vulnerable autistic lad but he was right at the end of year 11 so it didn't cause much impact. I don't think he was bullied because most of his peers weren't like that and protected him as much as possible.
I personally would prefer trousers for all but our headteacher feels strongly that girls should be allowed to choose. We already have a third space toilet, the deputy head decided on it years ago, she said it's just common sense and also we would punish a boy for going into the girls toilets so we need to be clear. Which is pretty much what that judge said in the Supreme Court.

Yes, it has always been the case - that is what this judgment has clarified. But as I understand it, this clarification only came about due to the previous judgment (Haldane?) which said that possession of a GRC rendered the holder female (or indeed male) "for all purposes". So if "sex" in the EA included GRC-obtained sex, it would have been unlawful to exclude trans-identifying individuals from single sex facilities and services. This judgment makes it clear that that interpretation was wrong.

*you said they were losing these things under this judgement”

No I didn’t, I said the opposite. Did you read the OP?

Which is fine. Because they are women. And, if women know that the places where it really matters (NHS wards, prisons etc) police this properly, women in those spaces will know that a woman who presents as if she may be a man (facial hair etc) is nevertheless female otherwise she wouldn’t be allowed to be there. So there will be no problem.

If there has ever been a problem with women accepting transmen into their spaces (and I don’t actually think there has been) it is because women have learned that organisations they ought to trust have let men into female spaces, and then told them those spaces were still single sex. Any culture of suspicion has been founded on that. Once that worry is removed, there won’t be a problem.

*registration (or whatever you care to call it) is merely a recording of what was observed when you were born.
*

Absolutely. I don’t disagree

I haven’t seen any women threatening to rape, kill or torture transwomen. And yet I could share probably thousands of posts and photos where TRAs have threatened to harm and kill women who try to stand up for their rights and safety. So don’t try that BS on me. The responses from both sides are in no way equivalent and pretending that they are is complete nonsense. Women hurting men’s feelings does not equal men threatening women’s lives.

People with the PC of gender reassignment are still protected against being discriminated against in the provision of goods and services. None of that has changed. No rights have been taken away from transpeople.

You know this, because I copied and pasted parts of the judgement for you that shows this, on a different thread yesterday.

You're just trying to spread misinformation and in doing so are likely to frighten vulnerable people who believe their right to exist has been removed, because people like you keep telling them that everyone hates them and wants them to have no rights. Is that kind? Is it helpful, to anyone?

Also if you insist on getting absolutely bodied by the intelligent and informed women on MN who have actually read and understood the judgement, could you try to keep it to one thread? Only I've got stuff to do today.

Sport, for one.
Trans women can absolutely take sport away from women.
A quote about Lia Thomas, a trans woman who was a male swimmer, not doing very well, but who then broke records as a female swimmer…
”The fact that the University of Pennsylvania swimmer soared from a mid-500s ranking (554th in the 200 freestyle; all divisions) in men’s competition to one of the top-ranked swimmers in women’s competition”

Particularly in the USA, sport comes with scholarships for university etc. So education opportunities.

Obviously both US examples but it could have happened here. Now it can’t.

Fighting to not be raped in hospital, then told you weren’t raped because it was only women on the ward. Because the trans woman who raped you was really a woman??
www.economist.com/britain/2023/10/12/why-british-politicians-are-defending-women-only-spaces

That's just to start with. No
mention of toilets yet.

One side is stating biological facts - that is not toxic

Belief shouldn’t and doesn’t override facts and law, we have parameters for a reason, to keep as many women safe as possible. TIM offend sexually at a higher rate than men in general, so excuse me if I’m not going to be persuaded to admit them to women’s spaces based on their mistaken belief about themselves. I believe they are men, because they are.

Now we are following the actual law and not the law Stonewall has been misrepresenting for the last few years, it will be easier to enforce it, single sex spaces worked perfectly well for decades before the arrival of this insidious ideology.

When have feminists or GC women shut down protests or debates and talks that trans people have organised? When have they en masse physically harassed, threatened or assaulted any of these groups? They haven’t. Does anyone remember Maria Machlachlan?