Transgender Judge Seeks Leave To Intervene in FWS Case re Legal Definition of Woman

[LoobiJee]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/28/transgender-judge-seeks-leave-to-intervene-in-uk-court-case-over-legal-definition-of-woman

Of course it seems reasonable to you. You're a man. You have no skin in the game. Just like our learned friend Master McCloud, it doesn't affect you so it's not a problem.

Why? In your mind, what specific disadvantages do you think women’s shortlists are aiming to address? Why do you think they are necessary?

Some people find the idea of being marginalised very attractive.

You're not wrong! Oppression cosplay would appear to be a thing.

So, a male announces he is a TW, and HR immediately re-writes their contact for 15% less wages?

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

🫣😂🤫

Thanks. Having seen @SaffronSpice 's reply, I realised that this case does not fit into the paradigm of our previous discussions, which were about impermissible discrimination (we agreed that discrimination against a trans person could be proved by comparison to a non-trans person of the same legal sex, or any person of the opposite legal sex, so possession of the GRC didn't ultimately make a difference).

This case is about permissible discrimination - mandatory representation of a previously underrepresented group. Needless to say I don't agree with you that historic underrepresentation of women can be fixed by turning some of the existing men into women!

This intervention is a good thing for the FWS case.

1 - GLP virtually always lose. Having the fox batterer against you is a bonus not a disadvantage. He has inappropriate legal skills, remember Joly Kimono is a TAX lawyer, trying to do complex equalities and constitutional law. Moreover he is more interested in making money, gaining publicity, than winning.

Trina on twitter pointed out this:

Crowdfunder is for £30k. Probably about 2x as much as needed for legal costs for an intervention. Why are they fundraising for something they haven't even been granted permission for? If they are turned down where does the excess money go? Surprisingly little detail on the page..

2 It is likely that GLPs badly designed intervention will give a great example to the supreme court of how batty TRAs are. They are at their most successful when they are sneaky. This attempt may not even be heard, but trying to do it, the publicity in papers like the Times makes the pro-woman side stronger because it gives a concrete example of the sexism going on. Because FWS employ competent lawyers rather than random grifters it may be they could even use aspects of the attempt to intervene during the case itself to show the threat to women's spaces.

3 GLP's reputation is mud amongst the senior legal profession because their grifting lawfare, which is not only time wasting, but as mentioned earlier is constantly incompetent. Lawyers admire winners, those who win cases, no matter what the cause they fight for. Again this helps the women side because it undermines the idea of TRAs as being victims.

4 It diverts money that might be spent on effective TRA campaigning into buying JM new kimonos.

5 It peaks people and gives FWS more publicity so raises more money for our side. The gardening plot has gone up another 9000 in the last few days over 150,000 now. Newsflash making women more and more angry is NOT a winning tactic. The longer the mumsnet thread, the more GC twitter rants the more powerful the pro-woman side becomes.

The very definition of cake and eat it.

@fromorbit great post!👏

I suppose it could, just, have happened in the Birmingham Council case (where the male binmen were illegally paid more than the female dinnerladies and cleaners, for equally tedious work). I like to think that a transwoman working in the kitchen - particularly if too puny for hefting bins - would have benefited.

Of course there's a wider problem that 'women's work' is undervalued, so men who choose to do it, whether trans or not, are also undervalued. But we can't be solving all of the problems all of the time...

Imagine this scenario at an employment tribunal
Employee “you’re not paying me the same as all the men who do the same job as me”
Employer “we pay you the same as all the other women though”
Employee “but I’m actually a bloke”
Employer “really? You’d never guess! Do you want the same pay as the men then?”

I can pretty much guarantee that if an employer has employed a transwoman they will also be paying both sexes equally.
where an employee transitions whilst employed, I very much doubt their employer will reduce their wage based on a fictitious change of sex.
Unless you can prove otherwise?

Don't they just

I don't have a problem with treating males and females equally. But sometimes we have to give females a boost, or extra protection, to mitigate for biology and the historic disadvantage that flows from it, and it's then that they swoop in to try and grab some of that for themselves.

I know I'm stating the bleeding obvious, but the Scottish government must surely employ some clever people? Why don't they understand that affirmative action needs to be laser focussed on the disadvantaged group (yes, trans are disadvantaged too, you can give them their own shortlist if you like, proportionate to prevalence in population), not sprayed around indiscriminately at anyone standing in roughly the right area?

Great post that bears repeating.

That peaking and fury is evident if you read the hundreds of thousands of comments just on the Times & Telegraph sites. Men and women furious at all this and fully cognisant of the range of outrages - legal, criminal and ethical.
It always amuses me that the small number of anti women posters spend so much time on here looking for opportunities to repeat a bit of propaganda or spout their own half baked notions, bumping threads like this that allow knowledgable women to clarify complex issues.
The same thing is happening x10000 elsewhere yet they're somehow obsessed with the mummies & women on here. 😂

It couldn't be a woman's short list if it had a male on it. TW have no similarities with women so the discrimination they face has nothing to do with sex based discrimination
TW are not women and never will be. It would be a vile act of misogyny to allow a male onto a (alleged) all women short list.

Everytìme someone states that a male should be on an almost women short list or in any woman's space, they do a lot of pro women work because most people see that for the oppression and hate that it is.

This sounds like a case of indirect discrimination, so a man claiming to be a woman working as a dinner server for Birmingham Council would definitely have benefited. Any man working as a dinner server would (in theory) have been paid the same as the women. The work being held to be of equal value to the binmen's work meant that although women could be binmen, in practice they worked as dinnerladies and cleaners so the job of cleaner/dinnerlady being unfairly underpaid would impact women more than men. The job itself pays more now so anyone doing the job, male or female, gets an uplift and (I assume) backdated pay.

If it was a case of direct discrimination, then women in the same job, or substantially the same job, as men would have been paid less. So that would have been a case of women working on the bins being paid less than the binmen or men working as dinner servers or cleaners being paid less than the dinnerladies or women cleaners (hollow laugh).

Can you say why it seems reasonable to you that a man who identifies as a woman should be on a woman's shortlist?

yes, trans are disadvantaged too, you can give them their own shortlist if you like, proportionate to prevalence in population

An all trans shortlist would be interesting.

Given that nobody needs to undergo any medical or surgical treatment and you only have to propose to undergo a process to reassign your sex - anyone can claim to be trans?

Imagine the howls of outrage if non-trans people claimed those places.

Imagine the howls of outrage if non-trans people claimed those places.

Tsk, tsk. "Non-normative trans", please. 😉

McCloud has no interest in anyone else except themselves. Every point they make is related back to their own situation.

When the EHRC provided guidance to Kemi Badenoch about the positive and negative consequences of changing the definition of sex in the Equality Act to biological sex, they outlined 3 potential disadvantages, the first of which I think would be the basis of the Judge's argument.

The change would be more ambiguous or potentially disadvantageous in three areas.

• Equal pay provisions. At present, a trans woman with a GRC can bring an equal pay claim by citing a legally male comparator who was paid more. A trans man with a GRC could not. The proposed biological definition would reverse this situation. The effect would be to transfer this right from some trans women to some trans men.

• Direct sex discrimination. At present, a trans woman with a GRC can bring a claim of direct sex discrimination as a woman. A trans man with a GRC could not. The proposed biological definition would reverse this situation. The effect would be to transfer the right from some trans women to some trans men.

• Indirect sex discrimination. At present, a trans woman with a GRC could bring a claim of indirect discrimination as a woman. A trans man with a GRC could not. The proposed biological definition would reverse this situation. The effect would be to transfer this right from some trans women to some trans men.

https://dev.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/2023/letter-to-mfwe-definition-of-sex-in-ea-210-3-april-2023_0.pdf

A transfer of rights from transwomen to transmen?

A plan with no drawbacks!

In other words, by clarifying sex on the basis of biological sex, people would be protected based on their sex. Why is that a drawback?