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 don't know who the GCF faction are, but in any event the key message in the judgment is that "woman" in the Equality Act means biological woman, aka adult female human. As a result transwomen are men for the purposes of the Equality Act but are covered by the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Adult aged 18 or over
Human homosapian
Female of the sex class which produces large immobile gametes

Or if you prefer
Female person without an SRY gene

Well she'll have to do her knitting at home won't she.

What I genuinely don’t understand is why trans activists haven’t used their resources and support to create their own special category and spaces.

So much time and energy trying to squeeze into women’s spaces and share protections. If they’d devoted this energy over the last decade campaigning for their own thing they’d be sipping champagne in victory today.

you know an adult it is right?
you know what human means right?
female has XX chromosomes

Trans women are not and never have been women. They are biological men who do not have the right to enter biological women's single sex spaces.

I do not care how anyone chooses to dress, if they want to say they are whatever. I care when single sex spaces, resources etc are compromised.

There is only ONE side who has spent years vilifying one side, and that is the TRA/MRAs. They cannot expect to give us rape threats, death threats, dehumanise females and drown us at out at their counter protests (that we never do against them), and expect silence from females. We pushed back. And we won't stop until every single male is out of our facilities and spaces. And they just need to accept that.

It doesn't even matter why, because the Supreme Court has spoken, and if you don't like it you now have to persuade our democratically elected parliament to legislate to erase women in law. Good luck with that.

I also think such a group would be discriminatory towards men who don’t identify as women.

if you include men who identify as women in your group, you lose it’s single sex status. On what basis do you exclude other men?

It isn’t called “The Equalities Act”. It’s the Equality Act. He is a former judge, there’s no excuse for him to get the name wrong. I guess everyone here thinks we shouldn’t have had COVID lockdowns either? And that the life of a cancer patient is less valuable? https://www.theguardian.com/law/2021/jan/17/jonathan-sumption-cancer-patient-life-less-valuable-others

Most importantly, now that reality is back in the room, can the trans activists stop with the ludicrous "assigned male/female at birth". Sex is deternined at conception (male or female, even if there's a rare DSD anomaly). It just makes them sound insane. Nobody is in the room standing by with a clipboard to look at the baby's genitals. I just assume that the people that say AFAB/AMAB are too young/inexperienced to have been involved in human reproduction yet and hence don't know that most parents find out the sex of their baby during pregnancy, not at the birth.

Maybe Mabel just wants to knit and doesn’t think that is a female only activity to begin with.

Maybe Mabel is fine with sharing her knitting with her trans friend.

Maybe Mabel dares to have an opinion!

A definition entirely based on chromosonal sex doesn’t work - e.g. women with CAIS.

Why are you so desperate to get into women's spaces?

This is not correct - you have made the mistake that Harriet Harman did in her interpretation - men who say they are women are men and therefore never able to access single sex -female- provision

in the judgement there is a potential to exclude women who say they are men in single sex -female- provision but this must be proportionate and reasonable otherwise it would be deemed discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment

I am. As i said, I'm autistic and i really cannot wrap my head around it. I would love to understand.

I was also wondering about the 6'' hight.
At least in the UK, there are not that many women who are that tall, and out of these exceptionally tall women, how many would decide to transition?
So how many 6''+ transmen are there really, and how many are more of the Elliot Page type?

If you believe a woman or even an adult human female cannot be defined then I'm dying to hear your objective definition of a "woman gender identity" without using either woman or female as words of reference

You're only about the 7th person to say that on this thread, and the 512,000 person to say it on mumsnet since the judgement. And it's still invalid as an argument as we know a female from a male.

It changes a lot for those people who thought that saying "TWAW" loud enough made it enforceable in law. It's now clear that it's not (and never should have been).

It changes a lot for anyone who has been under the impression that it's transphobic, bigoted and illegal to state out loud "I don't believe a man can become a woman".

Woman = adult human female

Woman = 2 XX CHROMOSOME

Wow it’s as if this is not that complicated after all.

Please now explain what what a woman is when referring to gender?

It has been, and still is, a necessary prerequisite to be a man in order to be a transwoman; and for women to be adult human females in order to give these men a destination to aim for.

I reallly wish some posters would stop saying this is about toilets.
It's not.

For instance, DH works in a large company that gives an award for disadvantaged women in STEM. Particularly women from minority communities who struggle to even get an education.

Guess who applied last year?