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).

Which researchers, and what is the source of this quote? The question about whether trans women retain male patterns of criminality is the key one it seems to me, but I haven’t found it very easy to find reliable research that answers this question. If you’ve got some I’d like to know.

So, on The Right Side of History:

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but also

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Have you actually read the judgment? It clearly states that if you allow trans women into a women only space it is no longer a single sex space.

So on what lawful basis are you now excluding other men?

The was discimrination law works is that you identify a "comparator" who doesn't have the protected characteristic. So in this case if a man wants to join your "women + TW" session, the comparator would be someone similar to the man, but without the proected characteristic of being male. So the comparator is a woman.

Since that woman would be allowed to join the session, but this man is not - the session would be discriminating on the basis of sex.

This is allowed only in a few specific circumstances, e.g. the provision of a single-sex service. But since you're not doing that, this would be illegal.

Thank you i appreciate it.

This is of course not legal advice, but here is my interpretation, and I haven't seen any other which makes sense of the judgment:

Basically the starting point of the EA2010 is that you are not allowed to discriminate at all on the basis of protected characteristics (of which sex is one).

The only way you are permitted to do so is if there is an exception set out within the Act that allows you to do so in certain circumstances.

To justify discriminating on the basis of sex (e.g. excluding men from something) you have to fall within that exception. Whichever exception you use, in broad layman's terms this will basically mean that you have to be able to articulate why there is a good reason for limiting whatever it is to women only and why that should weigh more heavily in the balance than the discrimination against (exclusion of) men.

Because 'women' now very clearly means female people am however they identify and 'men' means male people however they identify this means you have to justify why female people need the exclusion of male people.

If you do that but then turn around and include a subset of the male people (transwomen) alongside the female, you have defeated your own legal justification for the discrimination against (exclusion of) men in the first place. Legally speaking, it's obviously not true that you need to separate women from men in order to achieve your outcome, because you are in fact now running a mixed sex service, but still purporting to exclude some men in the basis of their sex. Those excluded men are likely to be able to claim sex discrimination because your original lawful reason for discrimination against them is demonstrably invalid (due to your own actions undermining it).

Gender reassignment protections quite rightly mean that you cannot treat someone with that protected characteristic any less favourably than someone else of their same sex class (so you couldn't say that men can be included in a mixed sex event except transwomen) but transwomen now unambiguously fall into the male sex category for that comparison and transmen into the female.

Amnesty was one of the organisation who presented their case to the Supreme Court and failed to- just like you, they claim the law states what they want it to be rather than actually what it says - stop the misinformation

men who say they are women are MEN and will be treated as Men in terms of the protected characteristic of sex.

Some dogs look an awful lot like wolves. Encountering them, on the face of it, may make me nervous. On balance though going about my daily business I'd still rather encounter a domestic pet than a wolf.

Any transmen who truly pass by stealth (and I don't think this is many) are unlikely to have any issues using male facilities. They may decide to to use female spaces, as is their right, as a form of protest and potentially it may cause some problems.

It's still a lesser problem than having men in women's spaces though because as a sex class, men are far more dangerous to have around than women who have taken testosterone and had body modifications.

From the observations I've made of women who identify as trans very few seem to fully embrace 'living as a man' anyway. Many of them seem to adopt some sort of hybrid where they still seek out women's spaces, women's groups, lesbian spaces. A lot seem to favour using disabled spaces where available. Which is somewhat understandable because most don't actually lose the instinctive female wariness of men.

A human being is the result of a complex developmental process that definitely does not include a female embryo developing into a male at any point after conception, or vice versa.

And I just said that the definition of a definition means the definition does not have to stand up to your whataboutery

a definition doesn't necessarily need to cover all instances or variations of a word or concept. Definitions are often used to clarify a term's meaning within a specific context, and may not aim to be exhaustive or perfectly comprehensive.

I'm going to keep asking you this, it should be a very easy question for you - define woman gender and man gender, enlighten us as to how this is a more robust than biology.

No, that's not what the Equality Act is about. Business and services have to offer their business/service to everyone, unless there is a legal reason not to. If there's a legal reason not to it's ok - eg not letting 50 year olds go to primary school is completely legal age discrimination, not letting girls go to school because girls don't need to know how to read is illegal sex discrimination. The Act sets out what is and isn't a good reason to discriminate. It's the organisation that is doing the discriminating, not the individual who shouldn't be there. There's no investigation required, this is about organisations have legally compliant policies and then enforcing them.

We should see a shift so women are separate and no longer part of the same groupings including men.

What do you mean by that? And where does that segregation begin and stop?

I think the people who pushed for it to be defined did so for the publicity.
I do feel like there is biological women and trans women. A trans women will always be a trans women but there isn’t anything wrong with that. It is who they are.

There is no "record." It's a chat forum.

Women suffer discrimination because of gender stereotypes that transwomen seek to perpetuate. The idea that you literally become a woman if you wear a dress/make up/use a feminine name. Dresses, make up and feminine names aren't what makes someone a woman. Being female is.

I completely agree.

You think For Women Scot went through this to be…famous?

I agree. I think more “trans men” pass than “trans women”. I think it’s up to men to say whether they are happy with them in male spaces, tbh. Not everything is women’s job to sort out.

Heard it all now 😂

Why are they not called 'trans people'? By putting the word woman/man in there it's implying they're the sex they aren't.

No you have been provided with a coherent explanation of what a woman is but you ignore it. You asked for a definition that would include woman with CAIS and this has also been provided

There is no sex classification called 'trans women'. The are male which is a different class to women who are female.

And the poster is not sharing accurate information. Quite the reverse.

I've often wondered what "Trans" actually means.

Transitioning to what? They cannot transition to the female sex, so they must then be Transvestites. The often very much accepted way of men "pretending" to be women. Which is the current situation anyway post SC.

Men are Men regardless of whether they dress in a frock and wear heels - the judgement is clear - men who say they are women cannot be discriminated against on the basis of female sex only because of gender reassignment. A Man cannot demand access to single sex provision if its based on female sex - doesn’t matter if they have a GRC or not - that is explicitly stated in the judgement - your interpretation is incorrect

stop with the spreading of the stonewall and amnesty interpretation of the law