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).

You can't 'mute' a thread. Only ask MNHQ to remove it.

The mistake was to start an argument you will never win.

Trans women were never women in the first place.

I didn’t know 12 year olds were allowed on Mumsnet.

You can make that statement (TWAW) all you like OP but I don't see it that way and never will.

I don't hate trans women, I'm not disgusted or scared by them, I know some and care about them as people. I know they face challenges, but those challenges aren't mine.

I don't relate to them as women. They don't share my experiences of womanhood nor are they shaped, like I've been, by women's biology or society's treatment of women (which is 100% due to our biology).

You can't force people to believe something. Doesn't matter how many times you say it or post it.

So when will you be sharing some accurate information then?

You can continue to believe whatever you want to believe. Thats the joy of our society.

What this ruling means though, is that people cannot be compelled to believe this (even if they don’t), by having to allow mixed-sex provision of facilities based on gender identity rather than sex.

I think what is clear from the judgement, and generally from conversations around this, is that the transcommunity would be best served by energies focusing on the specific protections afforded to them on the basis of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment-it is clear in EA 2010 and the judgement that there is a basis for this, and a complex, unique issue.

Claiming protection under sex based discrimination was actually very disadvantageous to the transcommunity-by being excluded from the definition for discrimination under the protected characteristic of sex according to certificated sex rather than biological, the potential is double protection under 2 separate characteristics under the act-both their biological sex, and by way of gender reassignment. This potentially empowers the community for protection against discrimination they undoubtedly do face.

Some people do not want to see this, and are offended that the continued erosion of what it means to be a woman and invasion of our spaces and identity has now had the legal brakes put on. I wonder what their motivation could possibly be.
Hint-its not protecting women.

Yup, agree OP and also, something being law doesn't make it true or right. There is a long history of laws being used as a blunt tool for prejudice in order to oppress minorities.

Trans men are female so welcome in women's spaces 🤷‍♀️

If something has been categorized into two sex groups, men and women we should safely conclude the reason for this should be biological. And therefore transwomen should be excluded because they are not biological women.

I can’t think of anything where we exclude men as a class except for where physical biological differences matter.

1. sport competition for biological fairness
2. sport competition for biological safety
3. sport competition for reasons of social barriers due to biological sex
4. Single sex spaces for reasons of biological privacy
5. Single sex spaces for reasons of safety away from biological men who commit 98% of sexual crime against women however they identify.
6. Single sex spaces for religious reason where women, in the main, are held to higher standards than men in mixing with the opposite biological sex.
7. Single sex services for all the same biological reasons above.

I can, however, think of many areas where biological women are excluded where biological physicality is absolutely irrelevant. And biological men, even if they identify as a transwoman are not excluded.

1. Hereditary peerages
2. Private members clubs where business deals and contacts are made for financial gain.

Those pesky women wanting their rights eh? Who do they think they are wanting to be protected from the men who rape and kill them?!

Totally agree with you. I would be very happy in a world where males were happily swanning around in dresses and nail polish and generally being fabulous and getting to enjoy swishy hair and all that jazz - without needing to claim to be a woman. Just be a fabulous man!

🍿

I look forward to having women scrutinise if someone looks ‘female’ enough to use a bathroom. That will be delightful.

If you really cared about women’s safety you wouldn’t have now made it easier for men to use female spaces when they can just claim to be be a trans man.

There are females who are women and males who are men. This is quite simple to understand. The court made this clear. So where something is for women it is for women not for men and vice versa regardless of how they choose to dress

That's exactly it

So, if a provider has legitimate reason to provide single sex facilities eg refuge, or is obliged to eg single sex toilets for employees, then transwomen cannot use facilities for women aka females

The Equality Act.

it's worth remembering that these are people who have to date, never been told NO. Men have been given unconditional access to spaces where women undress and are vulnerable, where rape survivors wish to discuss their trauma, even to women in breastfeeding groups. Transwomen rapists, murderers, paedophiles and other sex offenders (all over represented in these crimes in Ministry of Justice data compared to the general male population) have been placed in women's prisons and even on women's hospital wards, so extreme has been the lack of boundaries in the NHS, the police, the civil service and all our institutions. Those meant to be responsible adults have unravelled safeguarding in order to gaslight even very young children that sex change is a possible and desirable option for them.

Finally the law has been clarified by the Supreme Court and now the toddler tantrums are epic with the lies and misinformation everywhere from transactivists who spend their lives trying to upend reality and deny facts and the truth.

The gig is now up. Nobody's a bigot for knowing that sex is binary and that women are a sex class that does not include men - no matter how sad, angry, violent or kind they are.

Time to grow up and start behaving like functioning members of society, understanding the social contract, abide by the laws of the land and appreciate that the rest of the population also have rights.

You are correct.

In practice this means that if you have good reason to offer a single sex service, space etc that you can exclude members of the opposite sex without falling foul of equality law. The ambiguity of sex vs gender identity has been removed from the protected characteristic of sex.

Could I ask a serious question? Because I’m confused.

My closest friend is a trans man (I knew him from when he presented as a woman). He now lives as a man and has had all the surgery. He uses the male bathroom. He is 6”, bearded, tattooed, lifts heavy weights and is broad and muscular. You would not look at him and think “woman”. And yet he has female DNA. If we are going to protect the women’s bathroom as a single sex space, I presume the same will apply for the men’s? At which point, he will have to use the women’s. Are we going to assume now that every 6” bearded, muscular, tattooed man who walks into the women’s bathroom is a trans man? I just feel that’s going to leave that female only space vulnerable to people who aren’t trans men claiming they are? Even if my friend pulled down his trousers, it wouldn’t prove his biological sex. Would he have to carry some sort of proof of genetic testing?

Yawn.

Easier? I don’t think that it could have been much easier than the days of TWAW and Stonewall deciding that anyone who self identified as a woman counts as trans (Even if they decided that only 30 seconds before entering a bathroom and did absolutely nothing to qualify for the role of transwoman.

Whereas of course before it was fine as any chap could claim to be a transwoman?

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

So if my DH wakes up and says "I'm not going to be Simon today cos I feel like being Simone" does the world and his wife have to indulge his whim?