Jennifer James taking UK Labour to court over all women shortlists

[Nephilim1964]

Have just seen this on Twitter. If this happens it will be huge.

Nephilim - LM says something about another candidate making a great speech, so there was some type of election process

@JenniferJames might be interested to note that Labour Students reserved some positions on the committee to be filled via AWS - and that self-identified women were eligible to stand for election to these posts.
labourstudents.org.uk/home/resources/labour-students-elections-2019/

It'll be interesting to see all the results in due course

I just fail to understand how LM keeps getting elected to women's positions when he's done sod all for women. It's beyond ridiculous.

Oh my goodness this is very exciting!

I also don’t understand why LM keeps getting elected to womens officer-are there no born girls that want the position or are they being bullied into letting LM win? Labour needs to address this issue but they refuse to acknowledge they might have been wrong about TWAW.
It’s all very well supporting a minority but not at the expense of another marginalised group.

'think we have to be prepared for the outcome being the end of AWS rather than them upholding the proper Equality Act definition.'

Agree.
Result here could be the loss of other protections under EA as well though?

...Well yes. The courts ruled that pension ages had to be equalised, and they were never going to be equalised downwards.

Then there was car insurance, where you can no longer offer cheaper premiums to less crashy female drivers.

LM has a huge publicity machine, other student candidates will just get bulldozed.

I doubt Lily's opponent has a column in Teen Vogue

Neither will they for too much longer. Flavour of the month and all that. Style over substance.

"Then there was car insurance, where you can no longer offer cheaper premiums to less crashy female drivers."

Gender neutral was imposed across teh board fro individual insurances.

So men won with life insurance as well, women are subsidising them.

Annuities were cheaper for women and after this decision men would have subsidised us > strangely though a while after the Gender Neutral Directive, the UK govt unexpectedly changed the rules effectively pulling the plug on the annuities market.

They also subsidise us in health insurance BUT in UK most people with private healthcare its through work so more men than women in the type of jbs with these benefits + it comes out of company pocket.

Not sure about income protection where men would also have to subsidise us. How many men v women have it etc

Result here could be the loss of other protections under EA as well though?
I think thats a probable outcome. I resent donating my hard earned cash to have my own rights removed, and I don't understand why an organisation that breaches The Equality Act has to be challenged by a crowdfunded civil process, while other individuals have the State at their beck and call.

As for the other examples, I've never understood how an insurance company can charge me more because of my postcode but not less because of my sex; especially while young drivers are still charged more because they are classed as a higher risk.

Because a group of MRAs used laws created to protect women, against us, and won. Is the answer.

I was all for this legal action when it came out but this thread has made me think,
If they decide that it is OK to ignore the EA and let self id in this situation, won't that set a precedent for self id everywhere.
Or, is it the case that the judge (?) will simply have to refer to the EA and see if the law has been applied correctly (it hasn't).

I don't think it's that they will get away with not applying the EA correctly (assuming some fucker hasn't done away with sex as an EA protection by the time this gets to court).

There is a very good case that the EA is not being applied correctly by allowing self ID males to use AWS. I think that the high court will most likely understand that it's not been applied correctly.

What is more likely is that Labour will drop AWS altogether as there is no law that obliges them to have AWS in the first place - the Tories don't have AWS.

Unfortunately that will be a victory for all the men that hate the strive for women's equality in the first place and funnily enough there's a huge crossover with those men and transgender activists.

LordProf since I found myself, a while ago, alone in a pool changing room with a clearly male bodied person, using his phone to record, I haven’t been swimming. I am afraid of the humiliation and indignity and embarrassment of finding myself in the same position again.

I used to swim a lot. I miss it. (I’m sure I’m fatter now.)

Reality is there’s nothing to be done if you find yourself in that position. No one will give a fuck if you feel intimidated. Because you’re just an old fashioned not brave or stunning or sparkling woman, who wants a bit of privacy. Not like the new improved sort of woman!

I do hope it doesn’t happen to you. It sucks.

There has to be a trump to trump trans. I just need to figure out what that is! I could pass as a transsexual I guess...

we have to be prepared for the outcome being the end of AWS rather than them upholding the proper Equality Act definition

True enough but Labour had ended them anyway, de facto. Better for them to be withdrawn publicly as a result of a court deciding to uphold the law rather than them sneakily being removed. Also, this way Labour will be asked to explain what they're decided to do and why.

Hopefully this would be a high interest case as well, and help to get the ridiculousness out into the open more?

Losing AWS would would be shit but wouldn't be the worst outcome.

The Equality Act (s. 104, paras 6-7) says that short lists based around a protected characteristic are only legal if the protected characteristic is sex (so you couldn't legally have an all BAME shortlist or an all LGBTQUERTY shortlist for example).

People who are legally women, and so eligible to stand on an all women shortlist, are actual women and tw with a grc (which changes your legal sex, though not your actual sex).

The labour party is acting unlawfully by allowing self id tw to stand on aws because self id tw do not share the protected characteristic of sex with women. Not even legally.

If Labour are allowed to get away with this policy then it creates a precedent for the word 'sex' to be interpreted in law as how a person identifies and this precedent could then be applied wherever the word 'sex' appears in the equality act.

This case could make or break every right we have under the EA.

I've never understood how the Labour Party thought that, legally, it could get away with allowing self-IDed transwomen to stand on AWS - the legislation is so clear that only transwomen with a GRC are able to stand.

I've never understood how the Labour Party thought that, legally, it could get away with allowing self-IDed transwomen to stand on AWS

i don't think grown ups who understand that they need to comply with the law are in charge at the Labour Party ATM

Could the Labour Party get even more unelectable?

Good for JJ. watching (and hoping) with interest.