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).

Patronising?? Who, you??

So if the judgement says that biological women are entitled by law to have single sex spaces, and if the commentary makes it clear that men or trans identifying men in a female single sex space means it is no longer a single sex space, then what does that say about the interpretation that is being made about the sex of trans identifying men?

Absolutely 💯

It has always been abundantly clear that this is, and has always been, all about men’s rights. Just another flavour of patriarchy.

Accurate, though. No one is under any obligation to pander to misinformation.

The ECHR will interpret. I’m happy with their statements and application of the judgement.

Single sex will be only for women. And sex is binary.

Honestly. These threads blow my mind.
On no other issue have people try to argue against and round known, universally accepted, facts.
My 3 year old knows he, his brother and dad are all boys because they have ‘a Willy’. I am not because I don’t. He is a boy. I am a girl and it will be that way forever. He can dress, date, love, play and be whatever he wants. But he will never be a girl. At 3 he knows this to be true.
Surely, this is where the argument starts and ends and everything else is just over complicated, misdirection.
How we needed a SC to determine beyond all doubt what my 3 year old knows, I don’t know. How we are STILL going round in circles and tangling basic, simple facts into knots, is just ridiculous and needs to stop.

How do they identify ?

but you are happy for women to be abused and scared in their safe spaces originally created to protect them?
The judgement had made it clear than biological women deserve protection and the law has been clarified to remind us that it already did that.

But this goes against the law. The court acknowledged that, should a trans woman be discriminated against because someone thinks she is a cis woman, then she will still be entitled to make a claim for sex discrimination in the same way as a cis woman.

I know, it's ridiculous beyond all comprehension.

All because of some entitled men.

Fortunately UK law isn't based on the musings of a three year old.

The chances of a transwoman using a female only space being mistaken for a biological woman are vanishingly small.

That higher rate for sexual crime pattern is repeated in Canadian statistics. Funny that it only remains a TERF talking point because most of the media and academia media refuse to look into these statistics. It is career suicide to even propose looking into these disturbing numbers because of the immense success of the trans lobby. The majority of victims are women and children.
torontosun.com/news/national/study-finds-nearly-45-of-trans-women-inmates-convicted-of-sex-crimes

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

The Supreme Court judgement said that, for legal purposes, transwomen are men. It referred to 'certificated sex' instead of the more-often used term 'legal sex' to describe the sex of someone who has a GRC, to underline the point that such a person is not in any recognised legal manner a member of the opposite sex.

Clearly, transwomen aren't biologically women, and it's now been clarified that they aren't legally women. Perhaps someone who believes that transwomen are women can say on what basis that is true because I'm not seeing it.

Not if it's a workplace ( which almost everywhere is)

The employer has a duty to provide single sex toilets and changing spaces under different legislation and transwomen will not be permitted in the female ones. The employer will have to make other provision to cover thr OTHER protected characteristic of gender reassignment if needed.

How would you know ?

Transwomen are transwomen and should campaign for spaces and groups that recognise this.

I do not understand why a transwoman would fight for admission to women only spaces when they would probably feel more comfortable in spaces of their own. In my experience it is an example of patriarchal entitlement.

As a PP correctly said the Equality Act does not mandate that single sex services are required it permits them to be provided. But there is other legislation that does mandate single sex provision in some circumstances.
There is a requirement to provide single sex changing rooms for employees whose work requires them to get changed. There is also legislation that requires single sex toilets in schools.

🤦‍♀️ you can argue that black is white all you like but you cant change what is fact. Fact confirmed by the SC (and my 3 year old 😉)

Trans men or women take hormones corresponding to the gender they identify with, undergo surgeries that give them the sexual characteristics of the gender they identify with so for me, once they pass as the gender they identify with, they are that gender. Because sex and gender aren't actually that simple.

They can take hormones which, as well as damaging their bones, their cardiovascular systems and their brains because they are not the hormones their bodies are designed for, can give some superficial appearance of being more masculine or feminine. Facial hair or some breast growth in the case of men. They can have their bodies surgically adapted to give the superficial and rough (in some cases very rough) visual impression of the opposite sex. But that's it. Chromosomally they are the sex they were born. The neo-penises and. vaginas made from sections of the thigh or the bowel don't function like the real things. Once the reality of constant urinary infections and kidney problems kick in, and once the loneliness of realising that only a tiny proportion of the population would consider you for a long-term, stable relationship, there is a lot of evidence that transpeople find life difficult.

And there's growing evidence to show that doing all this doesn't make many of them much happier, because the the conditions/ issues that commonly lead to transition (autism, MH issues, sexual abuse, eating disorders, homophobic parents, chaotic unstable childhoods) get ignored and go untreated in the rush to transtion. Read the Cass Review on this.

You are the sex you are born. You always will be. Even when you've been dead 500 years your sex will be obvious from your pelvis.

I think you have misinterpreted the ruling. That's ok, could your 3 year old draw up a summary to help you ?

You only have to look at how agressive they can be when challenged. Online you get rape/death threats. The signs they carry at protests like “death to TERFs”.

I might not agree they are women, but I’ve never wished ill on them. Certainly not death! I can’t think of any other women who would either. But these same people want to convince me they are just like me and aren’t a danger..

This is simply not true. Like most of the other things you've posted, it's wrong. You're either stupid or you know it to be wrong and you are deliberately trying to mislead people. A bit like sex, this is binary (and also not complicated).

People with the PC of gender reassignment have, and have always had, legal right of access to single sex spaces that match their sex, same as everyone else. There is no blanket ban on trans people in female only spaces.

Very easily it seems. They are so obvious to me, even if I don't see their faces first. Maybe it's male size, bodyshape or the way they walk etc, or maybe as a female I'm programmed at a cellular level to instantly spot males? I spotted one recently skipping along the road like a 6 year old while holding his male partner's hand. Dressed in a skirt and had long hair, but I instantly knew it was a male.

I complete agree with this. The mental acrobatics surrounding all this blows my mind. It is a simple and straight forward fact.
I am a white woman. I will never be a man. I will never be Asian or black. I will never be a cat.