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 think (small) knitting groups are fine to include whoever they want, because they would be ‘a group’ rather than ‘a service provider’ and the Equality Act only applies to groups of over 25 people, which are defined by the act as ‘associations’.

The Scottish Government used that to say lesbians who wanted women only groups would be fine because they could limit the groups to under 25 people.

That also means they are free to exclude who they want as well.

I'll admit, this is actually a new line of attack I haven't seen before - " cognitive sex" rather than "gender".

This wordsmithery hath me in thrall - I now understand that a man who believes he is a woman is in fact in all ways a woman. And it doesn't matter to me that this cognitive sex is completely unobservable and unmeasurable.

Yep, that’s the long and short of it!

The ECHR has already put a statement out on a likely move to third spaces.

Women will have single sex re established. Firstly where the law says they should have them.

Props to you for the lettering @Kucinghitam!

If you were born with both a Y chromosome and a clearly identifiable penis, you are not, and never will be, a woman.

In other news OP, the world is not flat

Reading this and other threads (esp glancing, briefly, at Reddit) and a certain Guardian columnist who deserves special credit for writing a spectacularly muddled article about why the Supreme Court judgement actually complicates matters (!), it looks like we will need to wait patiently for the penny to drop that it actually is as simple as XX and XY. There has been a lot of brainwashing.

I get how hard it must be to do a 180 with all that this entails: taking responsibility for the (in some cases irreversible) harm that has been done to children and women.

As for ‘cognitive sex’ influencing someone’s biological sex - it doesn’t. It may well be an earnestly felt gender identity but if there is misalignment between one’s gender identity and one’s biological sex, that falls under the umbrella of mental health disorders and should be treated, compassionately, as such, without compromising the rights of 51% of the population.

Third spaces are absolutely the way forward. As has been said many times before (but not enough, it seems, for some people to actually take it on board), expecting women to accept men in their spaces is unfair and unreasonable.

You asked for a definition that would include woman with CAIS and this has also been provided

I must have missed that, what was it?

You do know that the theory of a sexed brain has been debunked - stop your nonsense - and if you, as you say you are an adult human female - you should be ashamed of spreading this nonsense

you will be telling us next that you admire the fox beating kimono wearing tax KC and work for stonewall

This is the bit I don't understand.

To me, a women and transwomen group is ok. It's not single sex, but isn't claiming to be. Women are a group protected by equality act by virtue of their sex.
Transwomen are a separate group who can be identified as having begun or prosing to begin a process of gender reassignment (can't recall the exact wording in the Act). They are protected under gender reassignment.
Why can't you have a group that includes these two protected groups but excludes "cis" males (using that term so you know who I am talking about)? People here are insisting you can't but I don't see why.

As long as Sue and Mabel are running a group labelled for women and transwomen, that is two now clearly defined and protected groups, surely?

Here it is again OP

The one and only absolute criteria to be a transwoman, is to be a man.

🥱🥱🥱

Transwomen are NOT, never have been, and never will be Women

It is not an “attack”.

It’s an attempt to accurately explain/ describe something .

Having the PC of gender reassignment means you.cant be treated less favourably than someone who doesn't have it, in the provision of good and services. So you can't be not offered a job purely because you have the PC, or not allowed in a shop because of it.

It doesn't mean you have to be given a service just for people with the PC of GR. It's a prohibition on illegal discrimination, it's not to force companies to give you what you want.

It'd be hard for an organisation to offer services exclusively to people with the PC of GR because in practice, there's no way to disprove someone doesn't have it - if I rock up to a trans swimming session, no one can tell me I'm not eligible, because there's no criteria for being trans other then my ideas about myself in that moment.You can blame the likes of Stonewall and their trans umbrella for that. But a transwoman cannot come to a women's only swimming session because the lawful basis of excluding men disappears, if you let trans IDing men in.

I have seen events badged as 'queer', which presumably your relative could comfortably access, with the needed support, as again, there's no criteria for being 'queer' (also blame Stonewall).

I dont think anyone should waste their time giving you any more definitions until you provide your own. Define woman gender and man gender.

Third spaces? Great idea, except Ts will now feel more vulnerable than ever using them, because everyone will know they are trans and not the gender they feel they are, i.e. using female spaces as their right. Can see that going down like a lead balloon somehow. But the law is the law, and TW cannot use OUR female spaces anymore.

This is a complex and emotionally charged topic, and I want to start by saying that I believe trans people deserve to live safely, freely, and without fear of harm or discrimination. Of course trans rights are human rights because everyone deserves human rights. In that sense, the slogan feels like it’s stating the obvious. All people, regardless of identity, deserve dignity and protection.

At the same time, I have real concerns about how gender ideology is being imposed on society, particularly around what it means to be a woman. I don’t fear trans people, and I support their right to live as they choose but I object to being told I must deny biological reality. Humans are male or female, with some individuals who are intersex. There is no solid scientific basis for the idea of “male” or “female” brains, or for the belief that someone can be “born in the wrong body.”

Women come in all shapes and sizes, with hugely varied experiences. But what we share is our biological reality which influences everything from fertility and miscarriage to menopause. It also makes us more physically vulnerable than men. This isn’t prejudice; it’s biology.

What concerns me most is the medicalisation of gender distress in children. We’re telling young people they can change sex, when in reality they can’t and the medical path is deeply invasive and often irreversible. It can lead to infertility, sexual dysfunction, and long-term health risks like osteoporosis. These are serious outcomes, and I don’t think most people fully understand how extreme and experimental some of these treatments are.

Nailed it!

Thankfully the Supreme Court has more impact with their definitions.

only males can have CAIS - the clue is the XY chromosomes

stop weaponising DSD conditions - it’s extremely rare and not the gotcha moment you male rights activist think it is

OP I had some sympathy for you initially - despite your stupid headline and misrepresentation in the initial post - because the judgement is sometimes being misrepresented. But transwomen are not and never will be women. Sex is binary and no amount of guff or misrepresentation of disorders of sexual development changes that. Also transwomen can not claim legal protection as women because they are not women. They can legal protection if they are perceived to be women and experience sex discrimination - but that is not the same thing at all.

Yes people can still discriminate against women in certain circumstances if they wish to blatantly pander to a mens rights movement - but in other circumstances that is now beyond any doubt illegal. And they cannot claim to be providing a service that is for women while including tranwomen.

It's unfortunate that transpeople have been misled into believing this makes them more unsafe or "denies their existence" because it does no such thing. The spoilt children need to calm down and stop tossing their toys out of the pram. They retain the protections they have always had but can not trample over women quite as easily.

Ok well that’s much more helpful than chromosomal sex which is how most people on these threads define sex.

Now please tell me what counts as a “functional testosterone receptor”- where the cut off is? And please tell me how we will enforce and measure this in a reasonable/ proportionate/ non discriminatory way for the purposes of public policy where we want to enforce sec segregation according to this definition?

Trans women are women within one gender system out of dozens that exist. The laws around sex don't line up with any gender system because they are about sex. Gender systems are about applying social expectations and norms to sex, usually varied by age and other factors, but as many have said, they aren't the same.

Within cultures with well established gender diversity (for lack of a better term), males who take on feminine presentation and some feminine roles and expectations still retain some of their male roles and expectations, and are always a separate category. Same when it's women taking on the masculine (though they often have additional expectations or in some cases requirements like never having sex).

The idea of a person of sex becoming entirely the other sex is a new development with the trans/cis gender system which has, from the start, come out of academia in a long line of European history of certain branches of 'science' trying to classify people by behaviour and internalise as much of it as innately part of the person as possible. Literally, it all started with German social scientists labelling who wear clothes of the other sex (transvestites vs cisvestites) and making assumptions to explain it. Over time this has gotten worse for many reason with societies that have become more individualised and internalised.

When similar explanation were applied to race, many now call it scientific racism. When it's applied to sex... we end up with arguments about having to define sex, as if human sex should be treated entirely differently from every other animal we sex, every plant we sex, based on potential gamete production regardless as to whether the individual could currently do so. The complexity isn't how we sex anything else, worker bees are still female even when they're reproduction has been turned off by the queen, so why make it more complicated for humans? People may use human chromosomes as a shorthand rather than get into gametes, but we know what people using those for female and male. Pretending otherwise just looks like arguing for arguing sake.

Many Intersex advocacy groups have said time and against to stop using DSDs - which are medical conditions, some of which are fatal without treatment - as a shield in the entirely unrelated discussions of gender. It's really inappropriate, I'd argue even potentially ableism to take another person's condition as a gotcha. My disabilities don't change biology, they require knowing the norms of biology to ensure the best quality of life currently medically possible.

If they’d devoted this energy over the last decade campaigning for their own thing they’d be sipping champagne in victory today.

I think that's part of the problem. Some of the loud organisations want a fight for some reason.

I've seen it noted elsewhere how Stonewall UK changed after same sex marriage became legal. They could have sat back and sipped champagne, they could have turned towards internal issues that go across many lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and other gender diverse communities like higher rates of addiction, mental illness, and so on. They could have rallied around just generally supporting not conforming to gender system and the issues faced like the issues that has been long discussed in toilets (which are generally poorly placed and not thought out with security in mind).

But instead they focused on the 'issue' that the marriage law allows spouses of those who go for GRC to have a say in if they want to remain married to a person legally transitioning and then the push and actively teaching organisations incorrectly that sex in the Equality Act is the same as gender identity and seemed to actively encourage the idea that being gender nonconforming made someone less of their sex and more some other identity for some fucking reason that IME only increased the bullying and mental distress many face.

I think they knew how this would go but rather than take the win or the relevant much lower hanging many would support, they and others went for the fight, even when it harmed many of the people they claim to support.