'There are no sex-based rights'

[lifeissweet]

Has anyone noticed that this is the position of the month for February? I am seeing it said repeatedly on Twitter, but I am not sure what point they are trying to make.

They seem to be quoting anti-discrimination legislation to suggest that introducing equal pay laws...etc 'brought an end to sex segregation' and that the Equality Act does not confer rights on anyone.

Does that slightly shoot them in the foot, though? If women have no rights by virtue of being women (and I would argue they absolutely do - the right to be protected from discrimination is a right - as are rights around maternity, which are also women's rights) then surely, they have no rights either.

And isn't it a weird thing when people go scrabbling around trying to find legal get-out clauses to excuse transgressing boundaries? We shouldn't need statutes to make people behave with common sense and decency.

What's the best way to counter this argument?

The worst thing about females having rights is that it so gets in the way of male people's freedom of agenda to make use of them.

“It would be unthinkable that general discomfort could prevent a cisgender woman from using segregated showering facilities after she had a double mastectomy.

I find it 'unthinkable' that women even have that 'general discomfort' in relation to the diversity of other woman's bodies. He's viewing that woman through his male gaze, isn't he?

Yes.

Can't sex? Can't see sexism.

One of the big issues for women is they have certain rights and laws to protection

But they are worth jack shit in principle without the ability to enforce them.

Women struggle to take it to court where they are discriminated against because of the stress, time and cost (something that men don't have to consider in the same way because they don't face discrimination on the same scale).

Rape is a criminal offence but its effectively been decriminalised.

Harassment tends to have more female victims. The police have limited powers to protect women or don't take women seriously.

The family courts are frequently abused by ex partners as a tool of coercive control and there has been a lot about how judges lack any knowledge of it or are flat out just sexist.

So its probably true women don't have the sex based rights - because in practice the system doesn't work in womens favour.

However the whole argument thats being talked about here is bullshit nonsense based on opinion not the actual law.

@drwitch

I know I'm a minority on here but I don't think sex based rights is useful framing. I would rather use protections, mitigations etc. It has a clearer fit with the equality act and does not play into the hands of being saying we are asking for something like apartheid

I don't want my life to be mitigated becasue I am female, thanks. That feeds straight into the misoginystic, patriarchal framing of 'Little Women'

I DO want to have my rights defended in law from those who would override them because I am female, a Little Woman!

And if anyone chooses to use words like Apartheid when discussing and safeguarding isues I will call them a twat to their face!

I am beyond 'playing nice' for the gallery. The gallery hasn't shown much interest, so maybe being less 'womanly' might shake things up!

misoginystic ??? No idea! Apologies.

@TheCurrywurstPrion

It’s an argument that pops up periodically and may, of course, be the latest flavour of the month,

It’s simply another bad-faith debating technique. They know they can’t justify removing our rights, so they pretend we don’t have them.

Their aim is to distract you from a point you’ve just scored for which they have no defence, and direct you into a description of which rights you have.

I suspect the correct response is a brisk “nonsense, women have rights and they’ve always been based on sex”, then a return to whatever point or challenge they’re trying to distract you away from. Go right back to it and ask why they are unwilling to respond.

Repeat as necessary.

Exactly this ^^

Hi there— Property and Voting used to be sex based rights, but these days the entire march of jurisprudence is towards recognise people's universal human rights and their civil and political rights—which are universal with some qualifiers such as nationality. For example, I have the universal right to vote in the UK, where I'm a citizen, but not in France, where I'm not. In both the UK and France though, because both States are signatories to treaties which recognise Universal Human Rights I have human rights.

Certain pieces of legislation makes it an obligation to allow groups of people who have difficulty accessing their human rights, their civil and political rights and equality rights to make it possible to access these rights.

Example: A disabled person claims they cannot access the Town Hall, and are being discriminated against.

The Council Leader says "Don't be daft, EVERYONE is allowed to access the town hall, we have no specific rules which say you can't come in!"

The disabled person then points out they can't because of the stairs.

In this case, there's a de facto bar on the disabled person them from a public building, which means the Council is in breach of the Equality Act, because they've not made it possible for the disabled person to access the Town Hall, AND the Human Rights Act, because in order to pull themselves up the steps the right of bodily autonomy (Article 8 ECHR) and the right to be free from degrading treatment (Article 3) are not being respected.

The solution is not telling the wheelchair user to stay home, but to build a wheelchair ramp so they can access their right to enter the public building.

Universal Human Rights are of course where teh concept of rights are: no one has 'special rights' because of their sex. What we have is the recognition that the State has a responsibility to ensure our universal human, civil and political rights are repected and facilitated.

Whenever we talk about equalities: when we talk about BAME rights, or Disability Rights, or Women's Rights, or LGBTI rights, what we're saying is everyone has these rights but SOME groups require advocacy and actions on the part of government because of systemic inequality, to access their rights. The right to an abortion, for example, is thought of as 'women's rights', but in the framework of human rights it falls under the right to bodily autonomy—a right which everyone has. Everyone has the right regardless of age, or sex, or gender identity or ethic origin, to their right to bodily autonomy and to the right healthcare for their bodies. Women's rights campaigners fought hard for the right to bodily autonomy to be recognised and facilitated by the UK government.

Its extremely dangerous to start advocating that there are 'sex based rights' because it undermines the entire concept of universal human rights—and it also creates a fascistic/conservative 'flip side' of 'sex based responsibilities.' We don't want the State to determine we have special 'responsibilities' because of our genetalia. That's been tried in the 20th Century in Germany and in Russia, with disastrous consequences for women. I don't want Boris to start demanding I have babies for the Fatherland, right?

Oldish blog but still relevant (and written by an actual lawyer) legalfeminist.org.uk/2021/03/13/sex-based-rights-a-remedy-to-sex-based-wrongs/

Its extremely dangerous to start advocating that there are 'sex based rights' because it undermines the entire concept of universal human rights

How does it? Why can't we have sex based rights in addition to human rights?

Your post is interesting, but I am not understanding the conclusion you've drawn. And awarding 'rights' doesn't necessarily lead to 'responsibilities' unless that's written in, surely?

I think this is semantic hairsplitting. What are "trans rights" then?

When we say "sex based rights" we mean what we used to call women's rights, before the genderists got their claws in to claim that this included males who identify as women and excluded female people who identify as "men" so wouldn't be covered. Surely you get that, ScottishMum?

It is much more dangerous to start advocating that there NO 'sex based rights'

Those rights were not introduced on a whim.
They were hard fought for & absolutely necessary.
That need has not gone away.
If anything it is MORE important today.

e.g.
FGM is a SEX based issue.
Surrogacy is a SEX based issue.

Neither can exist without biological women because they are things that are done to biological women.

The sanitised 'she wanted to help us have a baby' so let's pretend surrogacy isn't human trafficking picture that those who buy babies want to promote is not the real picture of poverty, desperation & abuse behind an industry that treats women worse than bitches at a puppy farm.

If you can't have sex based protection, you can't protect women from those sorts of abuse.
They don't & can't happen to men or transwomen because they are not the sex these things happen to.

You also can't let women (& by women I only mean biological ones) live with any expectation of safety or dignity when they are forced to have male born people in the spaces created to provide women with that safety & dignity.

It would be unthinkable that general discomfort could prevent a cisgender woman from using segregated showering facilities after she had a double mastectomy.

Perhaps men have told Pete they feel discomfort when they accidentally view pornography with women who have had double mastectomies or have other surgical scarring. He seems to be assuming such anecdotes would reflect how women feel about women who've had double mastectomies or similar.

Indeed. A woman would be viewing another woman in that awful situation with sympathy and care for her, it's a shared experience of living within a female body.

What Pete appears to be thinking, is as a pp says, of his own disgust at a woman who has lost her breasts and has scarring. And assuming that there can be no difference between this awful sight and a male body.

Which tells you more or less all you need to know about Pete and that Pete is absolutely clueless about women or any part of this situation. And that's apart from wondering what Pete feels his qualification for providing his er.... expert opinion.... might be.

The right to an abortion, for example, is thought of as 'women's rights', but in the framework of human rights it falls under the right to bodily autonomy—a right which everyone has.

This is a slightly odd statement. I would agree with you regarding abortion rights falling under bodily autonomy but as the only people who can have abortions are women, it additionally makes it a sex based right.

I also have to agree with Ereshkigalangcleg, what are trans rights in that case? Do other protected characteristics have rights? Is it just women who apparently don't in this brave new world?

As an example of the whole 'rights and responsibilities' thing, from what I've recently seen in youth clubs and schools, children are told that their rights are immutable - those rights aren't contingent on meeting responsibilities as they are entitled to those rights regardless.

I don't want Boris to start demanding I have babies for the Fatherland, right?

I’m really not sure I follow how the state / law conferring sex based rights ends up with the state owning my fertility.

Being given rights doesn’t buy me does it?

This is a slightly odd statement. I would agree with you regarding abortion rights falling under bodily autonomy but as the only people who can have abortions are women, it additionally makes it a sex based right.

It makes it the right to bodily autonomy. The first mention of Sex Based Rights I can find in Hansard is 2015 by Joanna Cherry. Prior to this the discourse has been focused on universal human rights, civil liberties and equalities for all marginalised groups. Women's rights are human rights: the recognition that women find it hard to access rights to healthcare, bodily autonomy because of systemic patriarchy.

Whereas voting really was a sex based right. You had to be a man in order to have the right to vote, and this changed when women campaigned during the First Wave Feminism. This led to the universal right of suffrage—voting for everyone over a certain age. Voting is not a 'sex based right'. It's a universal one.

Shifting the discourse on human rights to some watered down notion of 'sex based rights' does not fit with current jurisprudence or public international law, and legally speaking they don't exist. We have human rights, and civil and political rights, and the State has a responsibility to facilitate access to them for all marginalised groups. That's what 'women's rights' 'black rights' 'disability rights' or 'gay rights' means. It doesn't mean that people don't have rights on paper, it means they have trouble accessing them because of systemic inequalities.

The new term of 'sex based rights' was coined by GC Feminists who wanted to specifically exclude trans people from the women's movement, and turn what in the old days we'd just have called 'women's rights' to defining woman soley in terms of reproductive function.

Take your right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to the correct reproductive healthcare for your body. This comes under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights 1950, and Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998. Yes 'only someone with a womb can have an abortion' but that right of bodily autonomy IS universal. It covers men who need prostate cancer treatment, as well. A man's right to prostate cancer treatment isn't a separate 'sex based right'. It's just covered under the usual obligations of the State to provide appropriate care. The right to vote is no longer—thankfully—a 'sex based right'. It's a universal civil and political right. But back when 'votes for women' was the chief feminist ontological statement? Men genuinely thought that if women had rights of suffrage recognised they'd somehow LOSE their rights.

Be very ware of those who are telling you you will lose your rights if other people have theirs recognised or are allowed access to their rights. There's nearly always an agenda at work behind this. If you feel you're threatened, you can be convinced to get behind all sorts of abusive laws and behaviour.

Also, I am actually trained in human rights law and hold a masters in public international law. Prior to giving birth to DD, I worked for a major UK legal centre.

The new term of 'sex based rights' was coined by GC Feminists who wanted to specifically exclude trans people from the women's movement, and turn what in the old days we'd just have called 'women's rights' to defining woman soley in terms of reproductive function.

There we go.

No, this is not about being randomly mean and snotty for want of something better to do, this is about female accessibility and specific need being based on the reality of their biology and reproductive function. Always the deficit model; if females try to talk about this it's a whole world of 'but you're excluding men' (and yet biology doesn't matter).

Sorry. I'm really not interested any more in how male people feel about female people talking about their realities, those male people need to realise their own sexism and own their poor behaviour in making everything all about them. The reality is that female biology has specific needs, it is based on reproductive capacity, female bodies arent different, equality requires specific spaces and resources to meet those biological needs because those bodies are different to male ones, and male people wanting to be in there too for whatever reason excludes females and harms their access.

And since male people have made it abundantly clear that they have zero care or respect for female need or reality or difference or anything else that gets in the way of male people getting whatever they want right now - and there are a lot of very silly people busy supporting this male supremacism - law is required to protect females.

Rather like we can't rely on the jolly good chap principle to prevent car theft, and so we have locks, laws and police procedures as an actual deterrent. Because chancers are going to treat other people badly, with no respect for them or the impact on them.

Just coming back to this:

It is much more dangerous to start advocating that there NO 'sex based rights'

Those rights were not introduced on a whim.
They were hard fought for & absolutely necessary.
That need has not gone away.
If anything it is MORE important today.

e.g.
FGM is a SEX based issue.
Surrogacy is a SEX based issue.

Yes, these are sex based issues. But the specific legal rights we're talking about here are actually Article 3 of the Euoprean Convention on Human Rights (for FGM), the right for everyone to be free from inhuman and degrading treatment, torture etc. FGM falls under Article 3 and I know this because Article 3 was the article we invoked in deportation cases for women at risk of FGM if they were returned to their country of origin. At no point did I or any other member of my legal team term 'protection from FGM' specifically a 'sex based right'. We brought it, as we are trained to do, under the locus of International Human Rights.

I hope that clarifies things. Issues are separate from legal discourse on rights, and I think that's possibly where some of the confusion is coming from.

But protection from FGM IS a sex based right, simply because it applies only to females.

This is yet more obfustication and word salad to try and get females to please, please please stop saying nasty things about their own needs like 'sex based rights' because it makes male people feel left out.

Frankly, tough. Female needs and rights specific to female bodies have nothing to do with male people, male people do not get a say.

There we go.

No, this is not about being randomly mean and snotty for want of something better to do, this is about female accessibility and specific need being based on the reality of their biology and reproductive function. Always the deficit model; if females try to talk about this it's a whole world of 'but you're excluding men' (and yet biology doesn't matter).

I am female, and Im talking to other female people about this, in an internet community Ive been a member of since my daughter, now 12, was born (by C-Section, but I do proudly have a vagina and two X chromosomes and all the rest of the proofs you need to know that my voice is a valid one (in your eyes) in this discussion. I've tried my best to give you my perspectives, based on my legal training and education, as a woman (natal, biological, female bodied, etc.) You've heavily implied here I've offered a 'male opinion' on women's discussions. I've correctly stated the history of the term 'sex based rights', and when it first appeared in the Parliamentary discourse, and which group of people first coined it. If you think this is factually inaccurate then you're welcome to dispute my assessment.

What you're not welcome do to is assume my sex from my opinions—which are based on my professional experience and an advanced degree specialism in human rights law—merely because you think my opinions don't match your preconceived ideas.

In social terms 'sex based rights' may exist in the social, and especially online discourse: but they don't exist in law for very good reasons.

Failing to understand what these 'good reasons' are that sex based rights don't exist.

Frankly, tough. Female needs and rights specific to female bodies have nothing to do with male people, male people do not get a say.

I don't see any men in this discussion. What I do see, though, is the likes of Boris Johnson restricting women's access to at home abortions in England and Wales.

Which is a far more important 'sex-based' issue than the current attempts remove existing protections from trans people—the sole focus of some who define as 'radical feminists'.

Tory men are making these decisions. Unfortunately from what I can see the sole focus of discussion appears to be focused on the fact that trans women need to pee.

So while your real, actual human rights (your term for your right to sex based bodily autonomy) are under threat, you remain distracted by conservative hate campaigns against the LGBTI community.

I'm sorry if you think my posts are word salad. Legal issues are actually fairly complex and require nuanced explaination, not simplistic twitter-style slanging matches. You can check out the ECHR 1950 and the scopes of the various articles yourself. Or I can post some links, if you'd prefer.

Nowhere has anyone suggested your sex was relevant.

And no, I do not need to see your CV thank you. You have no way of knowing who is posting on this thread and what their experience and knowledge may be while assuming that you are the voice of authority and are here to set everyone else straight.

Dismissing female equality as merely being distracted by conservative hate campaigns against the LGBT+ community..... ffs, many women here ARE the LGBT+ community. And that thing whizzing over your highly educated head is the point.