Maya Forstater’s appeal - discussion thread 2

[Sophoclesthefox]

I see the last thread filled up, but there might still be enough to discuss as a round up of the afternoon’s events to keep going into a second thread.

Thread one here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4228233-Maya-Forstaters-appeal-skeleton

(That was a reply to EmbarrassingAdmissions.)

I’m interested in what constitutes a ‘belief’.

Yes me too, to me and to most people who walk on the earth biological sex is fact.

It is a belief system (gender ideology) that opposes this fact.

As far as I know legal definitions were not discussed in the appeal submissions.

How knowing the fact that sex is different from gender has ever been controversial or deemed 'not worthy of respect in a democratic society' in the original judgement, beggars belief.

@Anovaneway

EHRC submitted that the law treats sex as biological and binary and gender identity as social.

A GRA changes your legal sex not your gender identity though. Anyway thanks for engaging those that have have been civil.

No, it doesn’t. The clue is in the sodding NAME!

@SelfPortraitWithEels

Not Mary Wollstonecraft?

Understandable if Wollstonecraft is accepted as a key figure in feminism but there is a certain allure about the "Courage Calls to Courage" message and the additional portraits around the plinth.

Good article from Jo in The Critic

thecritic.co.uk/is-a-victory-for-freedom-of-speech-in-sight/

I’m interested in what constitutes a ‘belief’.

Yes me too, to me and to most people who walk on the earth biological sex is fact.

It is a belief system (gender ideology) that opposes this fact.

This is a good summary:
thecritic.co.uk/what-is-the-case-against-maya-forstater/

Jo Bartosch

"Central to the case in Forstater’s favour is Article 9 of European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. Categorising Forstater’s observation about the biological reality of sex a “belief” seems topsy-turvy, but as noted in EHRC skeleton papers, “A belief may be theistic but may too be based in a belief that something is a scientific reality.”

@lifeturnsonadime

I’m interested in what constitutes a ‘belief’.

Yes me too, to me and to most people who walk on the earth biological sex is fact.

It is a belief system (gender ideology) that opposes this fact.

As far as I know legal definitions were not discussed in the appeal submissions.

How knowing the fact that sex is different from gender has ever been controversial or deemed 'not worthy of respect in a democratic society' in the original judgement, beggars belief.

“Central to the case in Forstater’s favour is Article 9 of European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”. Categorising Forstater’s observation about the biological reality of sex a “belief” seems topsy-turvy, but as noted in EHRC skeleton papers, “A belief may be theistic but may too be based in a belief that something is a scientific reality.”

From the article molly links above, might help understand that. It does seem a bit mad, but there we are.

Cross post with R0! She’s quicker on the draw than me

Embarrassing v interesting post, thanks. CS Lewis made pretty much the same point about falsely arguing for what we 'think another person's view is (and then being resentful) in The Screwtape Letters (1943)

A GRA changes your legal sex not your gender identity though.

But as has been pointed out to you repeatedly, having one does not give you the exact same legal rights of a person biologically born into the sex you identify as on your revised birth certificate.

As is often the case, I’m a bit confused:

Is the GRA badly worded when it describes the GRC? Or is this just the setting up of the legal fiction for amending a birth certificate?

9. General

(1)Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

Oops, looks like I’ve cross posted with Erish

@Anovaneway

EHRC submitted that the law treats sex as biological and binary and gender identity as social.

A GRA changes your legal sex not your gender identity though. Anyway thanks for engaging those that have have been civil.

The GRA is the Act of Parliament, a GRC is a Gender Recognition Certificate which creates a legal fiction by allowing people to alter the sex marker on their Birth Certificate, what it expressly does NOT do is change your BIOLOGICAL sex which is what the Law operates on, hence the exceptions in the EqA.

The lack of civility, if there is any, is that this information was on the first thread and is widely available everywhere including on this Board if only you care to look.

The Law, despite what Twitter or certain Lobby Groups would have you believe, does not say what you think and want it to say.

R0wantrees, thanks that was a good summary.

Looks like the original EJ went completely off piste.

What is horrible about that is that it has fuelled the flames of TRAs, that GC view are not worthy of debate in a democratic society.

Is the GRA badly worded when it describes the GRC? Or is this just the setting up of the legal fiction for amending a birth certificate?

Its very badly worded, deliberately so.
The terms sex and gender (referring to gender identity) were deliberately conflated in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. Lobby groups Press For Change advised parliamentarians that this confusion of language was neccessary.
Parliament failed to scrutinise the Act sufficiently and it was largely agreed behind closed doors so the public were unaware.

twitter.com/MsGiveZeroFox/status/1371516308387459072/photo/1

Guardian Patrick Barkham
22 January 2013
'Voices from the trans community: 'There will always be prejudice''
(extract)
[Stephen] Whittle, who "transitioned" nearly 40 years ago, was one of three trans men and three trans women who did an unusual thing in 1992: they went to meet Liberal Democrat MP Alex Carlile in Westminster. The unusual element was not the meeting but the fact that they travelled together – at the time, trans people never dared to because it increased the likelihood that they would be spotted and abused. These six wanted to start a campaign group; Carlile advised them to avoid the word "transsexual". So, in Grandma Lee's teashop opposite Big Ben, an anodyne name, Press for Change, was chosen(continues)

In the 90s, when she was chair of the Women's Supper Club of the local Conservative party association in Cheshire, [Christine Burns] quietly joined Press for Change. Even then, the new activists dared not be openly trans. "The thing that held us back in the 1990s campaigning was that fear of being out," admits Burns. Eventually, she came out in 1995; she jokes that she realised she was more embarrassed to be a member of the Conservative party than openly transsexual.

Much of their campaigning remained on the quiet. The passage of the 2004 law to give trans people legal status was "remarkable," says Burns, because "the government was able to pass an entire act in parliament without anyone throwing a fit in the press". In popular culture, the activists became more forthcoming in their attempts to increase popular understanding of trans issues." (continues)

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jan/22/voices-from-trans-community-prejudice

@R0wantrees

Picnic at Hampstead Heath Women's Pond?

yes please!

Thank you for reiterating the distinction between exceptions and exemptions on this thread. It is an important distinction and not one I’d appreciated before.

@lifeturnsonadime

R0wantrees, thanks that was a good summary.

Looks like the original EJ went completely off piste.

What is horrible about that is that it has fuelled the flames of TRAs, that GC view are not worthy of debate in a democratic society.

Yes the abuse ramped up and that phrase of not worthy of debate in a democratic society was used as a shield to hide behind.

I can't figure out how to watch this thread from my phone so just posting so it goes to threads I'm on, apologies . Been explaining all this to DH this evening. Very interesting and worrying.

I heard this reported on the 6 o clock news on R4
I just thought all over the country people will be going
eh? what?
as they explained that someone had to defend the belief that there are 2 sexes and that people can't change sex.
It was great because you really can't report the case without explaining what it was she said and say that some people think she shuldn't be allowed to say it....when it's what 100% of people actually believe.

Something that I'm thinking about at the moment is the difference between something being allowed and it being required.

The Equality act allows discrimination if it is a proportionate means to a legitimate end. So a Counselling group for sexual abuse survivors is allowed to be for biological women only, and can exclude trans women. So if a service provider is running a single sex group, they are legally protected by because the exceptions to the Equality act allow this.

However, the EA does not require a service provider to run single sex services. So even though they could, they might choose not to. What is the legal recourse for a woman who wants to access a single sex service in this case?

Thank you R0wantrees - that explains a lot.

Having worked a lot with HSE legislation, it’s hard to comprehend just how such nebulous wording got through.

[quote R0wantrees]I’m interested in what constitutes a ‘belief’.

Yes me too, to me and to most people who walk on the earth biological sex is fact.

It is a belief system (gender ideology) that opposes this fact.

This is a good summary:
thecritic.co.uk/what-is-the-case-against-maya-forstater/[/quote]
Would urge people to read this if they haven't already.
For reference, the Grainger principles are listed there:
"In a case called Grainger, Mr Justice Burton explained how “philosophical belief” had been defined in earlier rulings:
The belief must be genuinely held.
It must be a belief and not… an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available.
It must be a belief as to a weighty and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour.
It must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance.
It must be worthy of respect in a democratic society, be not incompatible with human dignity and not conflict with the fundamental rights of others."

The earlier analogy of Climate Change was quite a good one, I thought.