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).

Look, I’m not going to keep explaining it to you because a) you are spouting disingenuous nonsense, and b) you seem tediously determined to wilfully misunderstand.

Posters have explained it to you over and over again why you’re wrong. Maybe, in the words of TRAs and their ilk everywhere, you should educate yourself.

I don't think the police will be visiting the women of TERF island to arrest them for being mean online at the moment, so maybe don't take this to your local police station.

I have no issue at all with trans men in women’s spaces, because they are female. I don’t understand why you think that would be a problem.

Done, thank you!

What human rights would they be prevented from exercising?

Dignity, safety, protection from harassment, privacy, access to essential services, protection from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment, life…

I don't believe mental illness entitles you to take something that doesn't belong to you.

I do believe that there should be better access to medical care for those who are suffering.

Is that clear enough?

None of these are affected.

Accessing single sex spaces that don't belong to you is not a human right.

But that's the thing...I haven't seen anything anywhere from men about fear from transmen entering their spaces. I haven't read of any cases of women dressed or presenting as men going and masturbating in male toilet, or using their trans status to ask for prostate exam or turning up to the few male only support centres / services. If your friend "passes" as well as you say, they could enter the male toilet with noone blinking an eye and there would be no danger from them to the biological men any more than any man is in danger from another. This is not the same as biological men entering a female toilet where, should they choose too, they could most definitely be a danger to most women. The fact that most won't is not the point.

@Lostcat, you are conversing here with women. Biological women. Instead of arguing, listen to what we are saying. Understand how we feel and why we feel that way. You cannot tell us how we should be reacting because you don’t know. You don’t get it.

All the judgement has done is clarify exactly what you've just said. That there's a difference between transwomen and women, and that in some circumstances it's legal to enforce that difference. So what's your point?

Id still love for you to clarify why women and transwomen are the exact same in your view. Please help this autistic woman understand.

"What human rights would they be prevented from exercising?
Dignity, safety, protection from harassment, privacy, access to essential services, protection from cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment and punishment, life…"

Do you actually think that this unfounded hyperbole is going to help the people you claim to be concerned about, in any way?

And that is fine because they are women. This decision has improved the lives of some transmen because they can now claim maternity related benefits. I don't see people shouting this as a victory for transmens rights. The focus is all on transwomen. Why Is this? Is it because this, as usual, is all about what the men want and the women/transmen come second?

The SC said they might face sex discrimination because of their perceived sex. So if an interview panel thought an interviewee was a woman and didn't hire her because they didn't want to hire women of childbearing age, that would be sex discrimination even if the interviewee was actually a trans man and unable to get pregnant

Throughout history women have had to fight and campaign for acknowledgment that they have any rights at all. Women have had to fight to be acknowledged to be able to vote, they have been used as property when entering into a marriage. All their worldly goods and inheritances immediately transferring to their husband. As time has passed women have gained the right to be treated equally and acknowledged as valuable members of society. A woman is ‘a woman’ and women’s rights need protection. Trans women are ‘trans women.’We are going backwards when men are again allowed to walk over women and try to steal their gender. I don’t care what trans women do, they can live their lives how they want to, but not at the expense of women.

@baddrivers

And now they’re forced to share those spaces with trans men. Slow clap. If you refuse to accept trans women into female spaces and into male spaces where they aren’t safe then you have to accept trans men into yours to not be hypocrites.

Actually no. Had you read the judgement it specifically deals with your failed "gotcha ". Transmen can use male spaces. Even if it didn't, transmen are female and none of the reasons we wish to exclude males apply to them. HTH

I am a biological woman. How about you don’t co-opt that “we” eh?

Yes, but in practice it didn’t happen because of the nonstop dogma that ‘trans women are women’ and the insistence that if you question or deviate from that in any way then you are the devil incarnate. That’s how you ended up with the chief executive of a rape trauma service telling women they needed to ‘reframe their trauma’ because they wanted those services to be female only. That’s how you ended up with male sex offenders being incarcerated with women. And so on and so on. In such contexts, whenever people pointed out that they were allowed to offer single sex spaces and services, a frequent response was ‘yes but trans women literally ARE biological women, so you have to include them!’

As others have pointed out already, the tragedy for the many trans people, especially trans women, who were just trying to quietly live their lives, is that in the contexts of toilets, changing rooms etc but women were perfectly happy to quietly get on beside them. They have been caught in the crossfire of an increasingly vitriolic landscape, and their lives will be harder as a result.

They are entitled to all of that under the GRC section of the Equality Act.

So we just give people anything they want because they believe something? So if a man believes he wants to have sex with a woman with or without her consent he should just be able to do that, because he ‘believes’ he should be able to?

I don’t think you live in the real world, have you bothered to read anything about how this ideology negatively and dangerously impacts on the lives of women and girls?

As a man and/or transwoman, the OP has a right to barge into women's spaces.

Or rather he used to.

I agree with this but to be honest, I discount adolescent thinking and behaviour around genderism. It’s nothing more than the contemporary way to piss off your parents. In my day, it was being a punk or a goth etc. Now it’s “being trans”, gender fluid or identifying as a cat/being a furry etc.

I do however believe a tiny minority of “trans kids” are actually gay, but it is easier to be trans, as that is trendy, than to come out as a gay youth, sadly. I do empathise with those young people but all the adult men pretending to be women can go take a hike.

Not all discrimination is bad.

That is why it is lawful to discriminate against people on the basis that they do not have a particular protected characteristic, if you are providing a space or service for people who do have that protected characteristic, and you can demonstrate that there is a reasonable justification for providing that space or service.

In other words, if you are providing a space or service for people who have the protected characteristic of being members of the female sex, you can exclude the male sex. This is discrimination, but it is lawful as long as you can demonstrate that the female only space or service has a good reason to exist.

The crux of the judgment is that if you allow some members of the male sex into a female only space, on the basis that they believe they identify as female, it is no longer a single sex space from the point of view of its female users. That means you have not properly applied the exemption and you are now just directly discriminating against men.

There is no exemption in the Equality Act which allows you to provide a single gender identity space or service (because gender identity is not a protected characteristic).

They don’t have any uniform so it isn’t an issue.

I think boys would have to be pretty brave to wear a skirt in school especially before six form. Teenage boys are not gentle on their peers.

They don’t care about you or me. Unless you have the magic status of trans our thoughts, feelings and rights can fuck right off.