'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?

I didn't read it, because it looked like one of eleventy million TRA gish gallop blogs from the description and I've come across Gellman before.

There's definitely no gender based rights.

@KimikosNightmare

What I do see, though, is the likes of Boris Johnson restricting women's access to at home abortions in England and Wales

What is this referring to?

AFAIR, during covid rules were changed to allow the early abortion pill to be taken at home. This was, I believe, a temporary emergency measure, but I think some were calling for it to become the norm.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-56580861

Wales, can't find anything on England.

@AScottishMum

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

I just gave you one example.

Both voting and property ownership were once sex based rights in the UK.

Once we developed the concepts of universal human rights, we learned that ascribing rights and responsibilities purely because of someone's sexual parts harmed women.

Okay. Can you direct me to where we 'learned that ascribing rights & responsibilities (did anyone ever actually ascribe responsibilities due to sex? Which responsibilities? When?) purely on the basis of sex harmed women'?

By which I mean, is there legislation, research, or any form of evidence that spells out exactly why sex-based rights are harmful?

Mumsnet Campaign

Worth reading the posts, interesting discussion

Following a poll of 8000 of you, we wrote to the Government urging it to retain telemedical abortion www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_campaigns/4482095-Following-a-poll-of-8000-of-you-we-wrote-to-the-Government-urging-it-to-retain-telemedical-abortion

we learned that ascribing rights and responsibilities purely because of someone's sexual parts harmed women

We corrected sexism in the voting system and removed discrimination.

Then the law looked at equity not just 'equality', and acknowledged that some groups were disadvantaged for various reasons. These disadvantages are described in the Equality Act. The 9 protected characteristics, which include 'sex'. As I'm sure you know. Sex is a protected characteristic. That's what we're talking about when we talk about a 'sex based right':

Plus, voting wasn't actually a sex based right, it was a status based right. Not all men could vote and some got the right to vote only when the first women got the right to vote. So this framing isn't accurate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepresentationoffthePeopleeAct_1918

As a result of the Act, the male electorate was extended by 5.2 million[2] to 12.9 million.[5] The female electorate was 8.5 million.

It only became a universal right with this Act, when all women finally got the vote.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RepresentationoffthePeoplee(EqualFranchise))Act1928

The Act added five million more women to the electoral roll and had the effect of making women a majority, 52.7%, of the electorate in the 1929 general electionn^,[4] which was termed the "Flapperr^ Election".[5]

@SamphiretheStickerist I am also beyond being nice and expending endless energy in justifying my position. At the end of the day, the no is all that matters anyway. There is no amount of moderation, tact, reason, sensitivity that makes the no acceptable to these people. Your experiences will never be enough, your politeness will never be enough. Women far more educated and erudite than me have patiently and repeatedly laid out our argument over and over again. The whole process is a narcissistic mind game designed to exhaust you and wear you down performing endless labour, perhaps even disclosing trauma and abuse, and I’m not playing anymore. They aren’t interested in your ‘lived experience’ - if your closing answer is still no that’s the part they don’t want to hear. It’s all they hear. So now, I’m just saying no. It’s powerful.

I use it naturally here as I have come from another country where I worked on the trade union side. And during uni and employment after, we called them women’s sex based rights. Because they included ‘affirmative action’ sections in the employment legislation for women based on laws to eliminate sex discrimination. And grouped in maternity rights.

You may parse the use of the term however you wish from your legal perspective. Your bias from your posts are clear. But if you are going by state that there are no ‘sex based rights’, then yes you must also apply that to ‘trans rights’ for balance.

Because they included ‘affirmative action’ sections in the employment legislation for women based on laws to eliminate sex discrimination.

The EA 2010 has similar for "positive action" to further the needs of any of the nine protected characteristics.

If I remember correctly ours were even called ‘Affirmative Action for Women’. Back in 1986.

I laugh whenever I see the narrative pushed that it is a ‘made up term’. It really was well used in the 90s at my two universities and employers. But then again, we weren’t in the special Human Rights departments and we were not having discussions about legitimacy of whether something was accurately fitting under what section of Human Rights so that all other usable labels would be considered false. We were talking to employers and employees directly, every day.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I didn't read it, because it looked like one of eleventy million TRA gish gallop blogs from the description and I've come across Gellman before.

I was aware but hadn't actually read any of Rebecca's outpourings. I have now had a surfeit of said outpourings and shall bother my eyes no more!

@DomesticatedZombie

www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-56580861

Wales, can't find anything on England.

Scotland had a consultation on whether it should be norm, but none of Scotland, England or Wales has so far reversed the decision.