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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Stating that sex is immutable is a 'protected belief' - really?

25 replies

musicalfrog · 02/03/2022 10:04

Just following the Gosport Ferry conversation on Twitter and something got me thinking. I'm sure you guys can clarify this for me.

How is stating sex is immutable a 'protected belief' when it's a scientific fact? Isn't that just like saying the world is round is a belief?

I feel like the word belief is wrong here. The belief you can change sex is only a belief, just the same way religion is.

But surely facts can't be beliefs?

OP posts:
NecessaryScene · 02/03/2022 10:07

The Forstater judgement was based not simply on her belief "sex being immutable", it was that "sex is immutable, and sex matters".

It was the last part that tipped it into qualifying under the "belief" clause of the Equality Act, I believe. Made it a philosophical belief rather than merely "knowledge".

(And hence the name of the organisation).

nauticant · 02/03/2022 10:10

It's because "protected belief" is a concept that comes from the Equality Act 2010 and the only way that someone can have protection for their views, ie that material reality exists, is to find a protected characteristic category that provides protection from discrimination. The best fit for knowing that material reality exists is a "protected belief".

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/2/chapter/1

NecessaryScene · 02/03/2022 10:12

And the other point is that "beliefs" is the simply way the Equality Act is written.

It never occurred to people that expressing "knowledge" or "facts" had to be something that was included as a specific anti-discrimination clause.

I'm not sure if it was necessary - as Forstater showed, as long as believe that the fact is important, and that assertion seems serious, then that covers it under "belief".

Helleofabore · 02/03/2022 10:13

Welcome to the cognitive dissonance.

Someone will be along shortly with a link to one of the usual sources lacking in credibility and that politicise other’s unrelated medical conditions to try to prove you wrong

And then there will be those who will argue that proven science is a ‘belief’ because there are many hypotheses out there that simply haven’t become well known enough to take the place of said ‘known and proven science’.

And then there will be those who use philosophy to attempt to destabilise proven science.

And then there are those who will use theories from people with various motivations, like Foucault, to destabilise societal mores and the ‘facts’ that policies are based on.

It is fun playing bingo.

Plasmodesmata · 02/03/2022 10:20

It's odd, isn't it. It makes it sound like "believing that you can't change sex" is in the same bracket as "believing in God".
When it's genderism that is more like a religion.

DomesticatedZombie · 02/03/2022 10:44

@Plasmodesmata

It's odd, isn't it. It makes it sound like "believing that you can't change sex" is in the same bracket as "believing in God". When it's genderism that is more like a religion.
I can see that in legislation both need to be protected - just as 'all beliefs and none' are supposed to be, so atheists aren't discriminated against just as any religious adherent isn't discriminated against.

And we have plenty of evidence of people who say they genuinely believe that sex change is possible. So we have that 'belief' and the generally accepted consensus 'sex is immutable', which is also counted as a belief.

It could get philosophical.

NecessaryScene · 02/03/2022 10:50

And it's worth noting of course that "sex is immutable" is specifically talking about humans.

We simply observe that humans don't change sex - just as clownfish do. We're not claiming that clownfish can't change sex...

It humans could change sex, we'd have to change the wording to "natal sex matters" - because clearly the hypothetical man with a transplanted/engineered female reproductive system would not be the same thing as a woman, and that would not qualify him for, say, women's sports.

(We don't say "natal sex matters" now, because that would imply that there was something other than natal sex for humans...)

nauticant · 02/03/2022 10:53

It never occurred to people that expressing "knowledge" or "facts" had to be something that was included as a specific anti-discrimination clause.

When a law causes a gap like this, judges have a number of choices. They can be (mildly) creative with the law as it's actually written, which they did in the Forstater case, they can stick to the letter of the law and allow the gap to be exploited, and as a result not reflect the intentions of those who enacted the law, or they can create new law, so-called judicial activism, which is often considered to be a bad idea because ultimately you'll be permitting partisan judges to create laws without any parliamentary oversight.

Beamur · 02/03/2022 11:06

This is a useful article breaking down the decision and what it means.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/forstater-judgment-what-next-peter-daly

Original poster
musicalfrog · 02/03/2022 11:47

Thank you all. It seems it is mainly a legal lingo thing, which doesn't make total sense in day to day conversation but I suppose is very important when it comes down to it.

OP posts:
NancyDrawed · 02/03/2022 12:05

It helps me to think of it as the opposite of a belief in Gender Ideology.

So there is protection in law that a person who has a belief in Gender Ideology cannot be discriminated against because of holding that belief - this ties in with gender reassignment.

Equally, a person cannot be discriminated against for NOT holding that belief - in other words for believing that sex is immutable and that sex matters.

Maya Forstater's original hearing threw up some corkers in terms of what was said regarding biological reality, I'll see if I can find some of them.

Abitofalark · 02/03/2022 13:11

@NecessaryScene

And it's worth noting of course that "sex is immutable" is specifically talking about humans.

We simply observe that humans don't change sex - just as clownfish do. We're not claiming that clownfish can't change sex...

It humans could change sex, we'd have to change the wording to "natal sex matters" - because clearly the hypothetical man with a transplanted/engineered female reproductive system would not be the same thing as a woman, and that would not qualify him for, say, women's sports.

(We don't say "natal sex matters" now, because that would imply that there was something other than natal sex for humans...)

Talking about humans here but don't count on the BBC. Just seen this in the programme notes for Woman's Hour yesterday about 'redefining the female of the species':

" You might be forgiven for thinking that the females of most animal species are passive, maternal and monogamous – because that’s been the long-standing scientific consensus. But now the zoologist and broadcaster Lucy Cooke wants to expose the stereotypes and bias that lie beneath our common understanding of how the sexes work in the wild. Her new book is called Bitch - A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal. You may also have heard her presenting a current Radio 4 series called Political Animals. Lucy joins Jessica to discuss redefining the female of the species."

Is this a new front in a war on sex - note language of the book title - or use of language inadvertently conflating refining our understanding about the sex class with replacing the actual definition of it? I haven't heard the programme to get a sense of it.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014wt2

Cailleach1 · 02/03/2022 13:26

Wonder if you could claim a belief that people can also change their species. Say to a clownfish. And have that pandered to. Could you be convicted of a crime? Tell the beak that as a clownfish, the legislation doesn't apply to you. Tell them to get their bench book out to learn about respecting your identity.

Abitofalark · 02/03/2022 13:39

Why not? It's worth a go. I suppose it might depend on whether the beak is a bird or a fish, and whether it changes from one to the other on different days of the week.

LaChanticleer · 02/03/2022 13:47

How is stating sex is immutable a 'protected belief' when it's a scientific fact? Isn't that just like saying the world is round is a belief?

ha ha ha ha! You should read Simon Edge's funny & fantastical and depressing novel (yes, all at once, all the feelings!), The End of the World is Flat.

www.eye-books.com/books/the-end-of-the-world-is-flat

It's very funny, but depressing. Fantastical because it has a neat ending, which I wish we might get, but I suspect we won't ...

nauticant · 02/03/2022 14:22

Abitofalark. did you know that Lucy Cooke is presenting a series on Radio 4 based on her work called Political Animals?

The first two were about science, the third is to be broadcast this coming Friday:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0014xxc

Sex-Switching Fish and Non-Binary Brains

... Justin Rhodes from the University of Illinois takes us on a remote tour of his lab, where he studies the sex-changing anemone fish

Abitofalark · 02/03/2022 14:48

Yes, nauticant, it's mentioned in the programme notes I posted above. Have you listened to any of them? I haven't and to be honest I'm a bit unenthused by the attention grabbing nature of the book title and a general feeling about the often disappointing quality of Woman's Hour's offerings of books for our attention.

Original poster
musicalfrog · 02/03/2022 14:52

I did see that about Lucy Cooke but her twitter profile has pronouns so I switched off mentally! Unless she using them ironically?

OP posts:
SamphiretheStickerist · 02/03/2022 14:58

What is the Gosport Ferry story?

I'm not on Twitter and can't find a whole conversation about it. Just IW apologising for GC comments.

What literally didn't actually happen this time?

TidyDancer · 02/03/2022 15:03

@SamphiretheStickerist

What is the Gosport Ferry story?

I'm not on Twitter and can't find a whole conversation about it. Just IW apologising for GC comments.

What literally didn't actually happen this time?

I didn't follow the whole thing, but India Willoughby went after someone for stating the truth that sex is real and matters (that's the bones of the matter anyway). The person in question had it in their bio that they were a Gosport ferry captain and so IW tweeted the company.

There are a fair few strange TRA but IW is one of the oddest. Properly downed the koolaid, that one.

nauticant · 02/03/2022 15:10

Let's just say that Gosport Ferry probably don't know what they're getting themselves in to:

twitter.com/TerfyMcTerfy/status/1498611012714512385

Abitofalark, I listened to the first two episodes of Political Animals which were interesting, heard the trailer for the third and thought "uh-oh", did the pronoun check that musicalfrog mentioned, and now am unsure of what I'm going to find on Friday.

SamphiretheStickerist · 02/03/2022 15:12

Oh! So... no actual customer was spoken to or about.

IW had a hunt around to find the names of a couple of organisations that do use the service and @them to add some weight to the implied threats.

Gosport Ferry went straight to apologising to IW and didn't stop to say WTF!?!

Yet more bullying twatishness from and increasingly irrelevant pseudo-journalist!

SevenWaystoLeave · 02/03/2022 15:26

The original judgement went into quite some detail as to why Forstater's views constituted belief not fact, and that part of the judgement was not overturned on appeal - the appeal started from the premise Forstater's beliefs were beliefs, but concluded the original tribunal was wrong to say they weren't protected when comparible beliefs were. So you could start by reading the original judgement to answer your question.

MangyInseam · 02/03/2022 22:28

You might reasonably be able to think about it in terms of language. Some people think the terms man and woman apply to biological sex, and some don't. What society thinks in terms of laws etc could go either way, theoretically. But we should (perhaps?) not consider that it is ok for people who think the other way should be hounded out of their jobs etc.

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