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).

This is an important point . Too many trans people use others to validate their own beliefs about themselves. Transwomen insisting on undressing alongside women and girls in the swimming pool changing room are positioning women as support humans - existing only to validate the transwomen's personal beliefs. Their undressed bodies required to validate a man's belief he's really a woman.

It's a massive lack of respect for others and typifies how transactivism uses the rest of society to validate their own beliefs. It's anti social and disrespectful and is why so many people are exasperated by the lack of respect for others that seems baked into the ideology.

I expect @Lostcat knows all that perfectly well. They're just spreading disinformation to try to confuse others.

No problem. Because they are women.

For what record. What point are you trying to make exactly.

TM are women, do you think they’ll be in danger in our spaces?

Trans women make up 0.4% of the population. Why are you scared / hateful of them? If you are worried about your safety as a women, as you should be, what are you doing to protest against the increase of MALE violence and misogyny? Men don’t need to dress up as a women to attack women. 97% of rapists are never convicted.

I don’t really understand why anyone says this threatens their existence.

It doesn’t and it never did. It’s just the equivalent of a teenager shouting “Oh my god, I’m like so OPRESSED, it’s like you actually want me DEAD” a la Kevin and Perry, because they’ve been asked to put their mug in the dishwasher or something.

That article is misleading.

Whatever a civil servant says, however senior or experienced or closely connected to legislation they may be, they do not know or decide the intention of Parliament. The intention of Parliament is expressed in the words of statutes. That’s what the judges interpret.

Lord Sumption was just clearing up possible misconception - among those who haven’t followed the issue closely, presumably - about what the SC’s interpretation of the EA doesn’t compel.

(Sumption is one of the finest lawyers of his time and is exceptionally clever. The fact that he said ‘Equalities’ and not ‘Equality’ Act means nothing.

If you want to be scrupulously accurate it’s the Equality Act 2010 Chapter 15, long title:

“An Act to make provision to require Ministers of the Crown and others when making strategic decisions about the exercise of their functions to have regard to the desirability of reducing socio-economic inequalities; to reform and harmonise equality law and restate the greater part of the enactments relating to discrimination and harassment related to certain personal characteristics; to enable certain employers to be required to publish information about the differences in pay between male and female employees; to prohibit victimisation in certain circumstances; to require the exercise of certain functions to be with regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and other prohibited conduct; to enable duties to be imposed in relation to the exercise of public procurement functions; to increase equality of opportunity; to amend the law relating to rights and responsibilities in family relationships; and for connected purposes.”

So there.)

Agree with this. Nobody minded before Self ID was foisted on women with screams of “NO DEBATE” and “TRANSPHOBE” to anyone who dared to ask a question.

It’s a mess for trans people and the likes of Stonewall are to blame.

Er Harriet Harmon did not literally draft the Act, Civil Servants actually do the writing but Ministers approve it. The intention was as HH said.

It's discrimination but it's not sexism.

Lostcat is one of our resident scolders, here to tell us women why we’re wrong.

Well, we’ve had enough of that.

And we do, because they are female. No problem there at all, and because they're female they'll have the lived experience of being a woman therefore no threat at all.

@MarketPaper I could have misunderstood but I'm sure I read that refuge charity won't be changing anything for now

The GRA meant the state recognised someone's gender by issuing documentation with a new name a sex marker. It's called the GENDER Recognition Act rather than the SEX recognition act for a reason. The SC ruling simply clarified that difference.

It says that trans people cannot be discriminated against by virtue of being trans. That isn’t just limited to specific applied contexts (eg jobs) it’s across the board.
Trans people may be excluded from certain spaces - eg those that cater specifically to biological women- if it can be demonstrated that this discrimination is proportionate (eg refuges). This has always been the case.

Transwomen are men. And giving carte blanche for 0.4% to enter women's spaces can have a huge impact on women.

But what you seem to miss here is that giving admittance to any men means you are de facto giving admittance to all men. If a bloke walks into a woman's changing area, how are any of us supposed to know if he's a 'transwoman' or not?

YABU to wilfully misrepresent what the judgement said.

Transwomen still aren't women.

Edit : Didn't mean to quote the OPs post

You are too sensible for mumsnet.

For the millionth time! Women are happy to share their spaces with transmen!

Thankfully.

But do be informed that they’ll still try and access women’s spaces. Many online are saying that they’ll still go.

Because like the men they are, they believe the ‘NO’ of a woman doesn’t matter. Imagine they still haven’t learnt that no means no…

and they wonder why we want spaces away from them.

I think you ask a fair question, which I can answer only from my own viewpoint. I would never (as a woman) see your friend as a threat, because he was born female and therefore knows what it is to be a woman, therefore is unlikely to behave inappropriately towards women.

@Lostcat can you explain in what way trans women are women?

Dear TRAs,

Common sense has prevailed. Instead of blaming women for everything wrong in your lives, start campaigning for your own services, for your own spaces, take 100+ years and the loss of lives to earn those rights and spaces and services, ya know, like biological women did. Like gay people did. Like people of colour did.

Our rights and spaces are not for you to rock up in the last ten years and take for your own.

Cry harder. My heart at this point is a rock.

I know right?