Michigan court concludes that trans women are NOT women

[Seeingadistance]

thinkprogress.org/michigan-court-anti-transgender-planet-fitness-ruling-11d48ac24db8/

Well done to Yvette Cormier for continuing to fight against Planet Fitness's decision to penalise her for pointing out that there was a man in the women's changing room.

Do we still have unisex these days?

Gyms in the USA will also be awake to the possibility of being sued by women, irate (etc) at finding male members in the women's changing rooms.

I’ve asked a few times what the legal implications would be in the following situation:

*Gym makes changing unisex without explicit knowledge and consent of customer
*Man assaults woman in previously female only space

What recourse would the customer have? Previously she had a presumption of safety in there, now due to the actions of the gym she hasn’t.

Are the gym liable for damages?

In other words, the court agreed with Cormier’s perspective that transgender women are not women and that she never should have been expected to understand that a locker room for women would include transgender women. By not disclosing that it was taking the opposite position — respecting transgender people according to their gender identity — Planet Fitness was “failing to reveal a material fact” in an attempt to “mislead or deceive the consumer,” as the relevant Michigan law reads.

This is the crux of it for businesses. If they are going to have policies that make intimate spaces mixed sex then they need to be very clear to their customers this is the case.

I agree that this is an action that everyone can take right now. Write to your gym and ask if they use the permitted exemptions in the Equality Act to retain sex-segregated spaces. If they don't, they ought to be making it explicitly clear to all their customers that they could encounter a person of the opposite sex in their changing room. Just like signs are put on the doors of toilets to let females know a male attendant is currently cleaning in there.

I support all businesses having male, female and unisex facilities. Not only does it offer a solution for transgender people, it offers a space for fathers to accompany daughters, and mothers to accompany sons, or somewhere to use with an opposite sex carer or an extra toilet to use when the ladies has the inevitable queue and someone is too desperate to wait.

By male members do you mean members of the gym who are male, or mens willys?

I disagree. Don't do this. It provides a 'get out' clause for service providers. It suggests that men in women's spaces is OK as long as there is a notice.

It is never OK, in my view.

"If they don't, they ought to be making it explicitly clear to all their customers that they could encounter a person of the opposite sex in their changing room. Just like signs are put on the doors of toilets to let females know a male attendant is currently cleaning in there. "

I didn't mean put signs up - I meant making it clear the changing areas are now mixed-sex/unisex in their contract with gym users, if they are not using the exemptions in the Equality Act. It is false marketing to call a changing room single sex if it is not.

I mentioned male toilet attendants to show that service providers think it is important that women know they will find males in their spaces int hat situation. Sorry - it's late. Can't articulate well.

Doesn't the law hold that unusual T&Cs buried in the small print cannot always be relied upon? Arguably, even if a gym chain already said in their small print that "women" including "people with bodies typically associated with men" (or whatever wording the gym's lawyers decided to use), it doesn't mean that women who didn't realise would automatically have no case for false representation / misleading sales description

UpstartCrow

"There was another case where a judge ruled that it is legal to exclude trans women, where you would expect a space or service to be women only.

''In a final order filed last week, a judge wrote that in most circumstances — say, if Love had been denied a seat at a restaurant, a room at a hotel or an opportunity at her place of employment — her case could have merit.
But adding sex to the equation changes things, according to the judge.''"

I love this. Because this is essentially the key part of the argument. Yes, if you deny someone something because you think it's wrong a man pretends to be a woman, that is discrimination. But the judge acknowledges that this pretending doesn't actually make it so, and sex needs protecting. TRAs always pretend that if you argue the latter, you are also arguing the former, which is clearly not true. And which is why they are so desperately trying to replace sex with gender.

If people are going to dismantle women's protections, at least have the bloody balls to say so.

Totally agreed.
'Surprise penis' is never a good thing, no matter how 'stunning and brave' the owner thinks it is.

The interesting thing that gets buried about this story is that Cormier was upset because the trans woman had hung up her purse on a towel hook in the open changing area and then left it there.

What women does that? At the time, feminists expressed suspicions that the purse was rigged with a camera. The trans woman in question had quite a collection of photos posted online.

Yes, I remember that part at the time. Very suspicious.

I wonder (probably stupidly) whether there would be legal recourse against the facility that allows such a thing to happen?

Maybe they can make warning signs for toilet and changing room doors...like a yellow or red triangle with an image of a penis inside it. See what happens to their gym membership...

Even with no penis though, men are still stronger and more prone to male pattern behaviour, than women.

The TW in question is an AGP fetishist who admits they don't pass.

@iamawoman

Omg - so men could get cheaper car insurance why saying they are women. Now that is going to irk the insurance companies and the general public when everyones premiums go up to account for a rise in bad female drivers

Insurance premiums are based on risk, usually. If you live in a rough area your house insurance premiums will be higher. If you park your car on the street rather than garage your premiums will be higher. So if insurance companies can offer cheaper premiums to women it's because they have fewer or less serious accidents/claims.

Why would a woman poster feed into the women are 'bad drivers' myth?

...unless I've misunderstood your point, in which case I apologise

I thought she meant that accidents by the 'nouveau women' drivers (who would still drive like men) would skew the accident stats (as I believe male drivers have more accidents than women) and increase the policy fees?

AsAProfessionalFekko - that's what I got as well, when I re-read my own post right after I hit Post. Knee-jerk reaction to so many jibes about women drivers over the years.

😁 I'm just imaging a bloke like Buster Bloodvessel in a frock and badly applied lippy (and jaunty little pillbox hat), cutting other drivers up on roundabouts, waving his fist/swearing like a trooper.

(Apologies to Buster)

I don’t think that applies in the uk as if I remember correctly the EU said insurance companies can’t discriminate on sex (even though the risk from women is lower).

Yep, they removed the discount for women under EU discrimination rules.

The tw in question's Google results make for interesting reading.

I wouldnt be comfortable in a changing room with that person either.

Cormier’s lawyer hopes to win the case there without a trial, but such a victory will require the lower court to agree to erase the validity of transgender identities.

This is such bizarre language to use in reference to a legal case. It's religious, not practical, and courts shouldn't be legislating in support of religious beliefs.

Long time lurker on these threads. I think we need a range of small stickers we can use on toilet doors, changing rooms etc to alert users into querying what the rules are in gyms etc. Needs a natty symbol and small text. Something like the nuclear power no thanks campaign.

In the world of gender identity ideology it's always informative to look behind unclear headlines and neutral news reports:

genderidentitywatch.com/2015/03/09/carlotta-sklodowska-sklodowska1982-csklodowska-planetfitness-hrc-aclulgbt-usa/