For Women Scotland have lost their appeal

[ArthurbellaScott]

https://forwomen.scot/01/11/2023/court-decision-reclaiming-motion/

The court rules that in some cases, men with a GRC are women.

Yet to read the full judgement. Here is the conclusion:

Conclusion

[65] The Guidance does not conflate two separate protected characteristics. A person with a GRC in their acquired gender possesses the protected characteristic of gender reassignment for the purposes of section 7 EA. Separately, for the purposes of section 11 they also possess the protected characteristic of sex according to the terms of their GRC. For the purposes of section 11, individuals without a GRC, whether they have the protected characteristic of gender reassignment or not, retain the sex in which they were born. No conflation of the protected characteristics is involved. A person with a GRC in the female gender comes within the definition of “woman” for the purposes of section 11 of the EA, and the guidance issued in respect of the 2018 Act is lawful. The reclaiming motion is refused.

FFS.

Although I suppose it is a silver lining that it is confirmed that no GRC = birth sex.

The more that I read about the GRA and GRCs the more it seems to me that it was a stupid foolish piece of legislation that has caused total chaos for women and women's rights. To codify into law that a person can change sex, when they cannot do so in reality is just a nonsense.

We need a clear distinction between 'sex' and 'gender'. Understood by the courts, service providers, and society in gender.

Yep.

Repeal the GRA. it's been exploited to the point of insanity, and should be repealed on the basis that it's not doing what it said it would.

'the guidance doesn't conflate two seperate protected characteristics' and then goes on to conflate sex and gender.

Right ho then.

Oops. Wont that cause havoc in prisons? Doesn't a GRC gets a male prisoner risk-assessed as a woman? Especially if we do get legal self-id but even if we don't.

I'm having trouble articulating quite how fucked off I am right now!

Yes.

Doesn't this indicate that the GRA is more meaning than simply a piece of paper, which many TRA and politicians claim?

If a man with a GRC becomes a woman, how do politicians hope to maintain meaningful SSE? What is the point of SSE if a man can be excluded one day , but included the next simply for having a certificate?

I cannot work out how the exceptions in the equality act apply if a GRC means that the person now has the protected characteristic of their "acquired" sex? How can you exclude a "legal woman" with a GRC to prove it from women's services using the reasonable exception situation?

Hopefully this ruling will be the thing that breaks this whole charade!

its not just a piece of paper. At least that statement is now shown to be a bloody lie!

It's giving all the power to men.

It's 2023 for fucks sake do why do i feel like we are back in 1823?

Oh Joy - it’s fucking endless…

My brain has gone totally "oopsie daisy, silly them, that must have been a mistake"

Seriously though, it's whack-a-mole. No sooner does Ireland - at last! - get a campaign together to recognise that a GRC doesn't turn anyone into a woman in prison, than Scotland gets a ruling saying a GRC makes men into women. One small step forward for Ireland, one giant leap backwards for Scotland.

A quick zoom through:

the gist seems to be

a) words have been successfully fucked up so nothing means anything

b) this means women can't stop men doing/having everything

c) this is a mess and parliament will have to fix it

End conclusion: the EA is fucked in terms of protecting the sex class formerly known as women and the equalities of plenty of other people due to the government having done fuck all about political capture and intentional mangling and manipulation of language terms.

This will in fact end up meaning:

Biology will have to be fixed back in the EA and the GRA has to go.

Let's bloody well hope so.

Yes the conclusion doesn't make any sense. We are well and truly in la la land.

It's self id in Scottish prisons already.

It is interesting how this might impact the ongoing Section 35 process though.

Disappointing. Very disappointing.

Does this mean more broadly that a transwomale's protected sex characteristic counts as both female and male?

So depressing - and yes, perfectly exemplifies the bad faith of those involved who argued that this was a minor issue to protect the fragrant few sacred caste.
How will this judgement that male born sex offenders, paedophiles, rapists etc really are legally women impact on England?

Well let's face it, this all moves slower than molasses and is bloody frustrating as a child could see the inevitable issues, but the evidence and harms keep building and building and building. It only goes one way and it keeps forcing things to be reviewed and reviewed and rejigged.

In short: it functionally doesn't work. It never will.

I actually think this is really, really important. The lunacy has to be fully played out. I live in Ireland and obviously we had those abortion referendum situations. The lunacy of the courts brought significant attention on the impacts that the ill conceived equal right to life of a woman and her unborn child legislation was having on real people’s (women’s) lives.

They aren't practically applicable. Any politician that says they support women's "safe spaces" needs to be asked how the exceptions can be applied IRL.

Yes but there was some degree of discretion about de facto self id. I think transwomen with GRCs were already treated differently but this result could mean that a GRC legally requires men to be treated as women, housed in women's prisons and be risk assessed exactly as if they are women.

Michael Foran's initial thoughts on the matter...

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1719703680503443834.html

Still working through the judgment from the FWS appeal but first thing to note is that in my view this confirms that the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill would change the operation of the Equality Act and so would modify the law as it applied to reserved matters.

If sex in the Equality Act is taken to mean biological sex unless modified by a GRC, then changing the process by which you can get a GRC modifies the operation of provisions relating to sex in the Equality Act.

An analogy here would be if there was U.K. legislation that gave welfare benefits or social care to people who meet certain criteria and Scotland introduced legislation changing the criteria for qualifying for these benefits. That would modify the operation of the benefit scheme.

This wasn’t expressly stated in this judgment bc it wasn’t the legal Q at issue but this decision means that one potential hurdle in the s35 judicial review has been avoided. If the court here had held that sex isn’t modified by a GRC the s35 case would have been more complex

Another point of significance here in this judgment is the upholding of what has long been the clear position that if you don’t have a GRC you are legally considered to be your biological sex and have no right to use single sex services intended for the opposite sex.

I might write a longer thread on the judgment when I’ve finished reading though it again in detail.