Judges are getting it all wrong

[Seainasive]

Says Oscar Davies of Garden Court. In the New Law Journal no less. Gender Critical Cases Naking Bad Law?

But unfortunately there has been a real push to say that a male with a gender identity of female IS a female for all intents and purposes.

Especially since that what was the intent of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

By the time the Equality Act 2010 was drafted it had been realised that this caused problems, and the EA tried, unsuccessfully, to fix them with its "exceptions".

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/without-laws-recognise-exist-non-binary-people-vulnerable-2476799

Oscar claims to be the first non-binary barrister. He’s a very oppressed posh white man.

So are Oscar and Robin an indication that people who declare they are not the sex their body was formed as from conception cannot remain impartial when interpreting the law? Considering what McCloud has written these past few months, I am not seeing great examples of the ability of this group lately.

Looking at the Linked in thread, and Oscar seems to think that because trans identity is protected in discrimination law it thereby follows that disbelieving that trans women are really women, or disbelieving that trans people can change their gender, is discriminatory. But this doesn't follow at all. I can perfectly well respect a tran's persons rights and not discriminate against them, but this doesn't mean I have to actually believe or pretend to believe that transwomen are women. The religious analogy is apt. It's like saying in order to not discrmiminate against Christians you have to also believe that God is real.

They may also and separately be guitly of discrimination on gender if people who don't perform the stereotypes of their biological sex "correctly", of either sex and whether or not they identify as trans, are treated less favourably. Eg by inistimg on skirts and heeled shoes for female employees.

Do you mean gender reassignment? Gender is not a protected characteristic.

Oh I hadn’t realised ** is a they/them. That explains it.

I miss the days when we didn't have a uniform discrimination act. When it was recognised that each form of discrimination came from somewhere else and needed different remedies.

Especially where gender reassignment was concerned. The original regulations (the Sex discrimination (gender reassignment) regulations 1999) were only intended to prevent employers from treating gender reassignment differently from other illness absences, and to not withold employment from them unless a given sex was a genuine operational requirement of a given role

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/1102/introduction/made

Even though I think the modern concept of gender is nonsense, I accept that these are reasonably pragmatic privileges to offer someone, even if these privileges aren't extended to other un-evidenced beliefs.

But now it's just madness!

If Oscar doesnt want to be seen as identifying with either male gender stereotypes or female gender stereotypes he is no different to most of the rest of the population, they just dont make a song and a dance about it. People get the respect they deserve - whingers who want to think they are special tend not to get much respect.

Oh yeah, lovely Mx Oscar who confesses to reverting to being Mr Davies when in front of old and established senior judges. It's quite handy being able to also be a tall, white, posh man when it suits you. Not sure his female black colleagues, like his former colleague Allison Bailey could do quite the same.

I'd always assumed that people like barristers, doctors etc had to possess a certain amount of intellectual ability to qualify to practise their profession. I find it terrifying how many of them appear to be quite dim.

He's not only dim but arrogant and patronising. The worst possible combination. He's had his arse handed to him on that thread I was happy to see.

Don't all courtroom lawyers have to act as if their client's case is true, even if they know damn well it isn't?

I imagine it can become a habit, especially when it results in extra social and professional advantage

Oscar is an uber privileged white man (evidence his LinkedIn bio), and he is punching down. His non binary status is as irrelevant as his cheese preference.

Did anyone else notice his blue and pink tie on his Chambers profile?

Does Oscar in the piece ( I've not read it ) ever address the discriminatory behaviour against GC women? The process is the punishment, the endless HR actions against the employee, the social ostracism of GC people, not following procedures, bullying from colleages, colleages signing public letters condemning the GC staff member and requesting the company sack them. The utter unfairness of the whole process designed to make the GC person feel most unwelcome where they are judged a witch right from the start, and all the virtue signallers spend all their time trying to make the GC woman's life a misery.

Does Oscar address any of that? Because the tribunals take all that into account, which is why so many GC women win these large payouts e.g. Rachael Meade very recent win including exemplary damages.
I suspect Oscar subscribes to the "If she floats she's a witch kill her! If she drowns she wasn't a witch, oh well never mind." school of law with a large dollop Spanish Inquisition witness deposition training thrown in

Oscar: ‘Gender norms are detrimental to us all. I would argue that social expectations for men to suppress their emotions can help us explain their higher suicide rates. And the over representation of men in senior positions is likely due to widespread stereotypes that women are less capable of leading.’

I would argue the first half of that paragraph of men has its merits. The second half is so woeful he has no idea. BIOLOGY is the major factor. But why doesn’t it surprise me he has no idea about biology and child rearing? He doesn’t get the woman bit right because he is surrounded himself with misogynistic men.

It is not representative of the country. There are women leaders everywhere. But women also do the major childcare and have time out when babies are young to birth and feed them. And career breaks are difficult to recover from, and some families (shock horror) find it less stressful and more practical to divide the workload up for a decade with a couple of kids as, you know, pesky childcare. Then women have the menopause which can be a pain to get through.

Every man knows we are capable unless he thinks women are lesser.

Has a company ever sat down with a GC woman over a friendly cup of tea and just discussed things like adults with no threat or fear involved? Mutually agreed some ground rules and that was the end of it. No further drama or actions?

Oh come on, he wears make up. The very definition of oppressed. As long as you're male.

Oscar is also incorrect that 'gender' is entirely separable from sex. It would be fine if gender was simply a form of self expression that had no impact on anyone else. But unfortunately there has been a real push to say that a male with a gender identity of female IS a female for all intents and purposes. This is why males are now demanding access to female only spaces, sports, etc. If gender was entirely separate from sex then women asserting their sex based rights would have no impact on trans people whatsoever.

Yes. This is the simple issue that the word salad from Oscar and other TRAs is thrown up to hide.

Despite what they try and claim, the issue at the heart of this is not the validity or otherwise of "gender identity".

It's the assertion that this "gender identity" must now be used in place of sex in provisions, rights and supports that were set up based on sex without first assessing whether it fits the purpose and how that impacts the people, usually female, already relying on those provisions, rights and supports in their sex-based form.

This is the unevidenced assertion that we need to keep shining the spotlight on.

Do trans people - people who for whatever reason believe they have a mental characteristic "gender identity" of a type usually socially associated with the opposite sex? Yes, of course they do.

Does it therefore follow that they to all intents and purposes are the opposite sex, not just from their own POV but empirically to the point that they can be treated as the opposite sex in all practical ways with no impact on the people who are of that sex? Of course not. That needs to be proved, and thus far it very much has not.

• If trans people exist then sex is not gender.
• If sex is not gender they should not share the same name.
• If they don't share the same name there is no basis to extend women's resources to men based on gender.

Gender is a form of LARPing or cosplay, Obviously it is 'real' in the sense that people who do it, do it wholeheartedly, but it isn't 'real' in a way that transcends physical or temporal reality.

A group of people LARPing as early modern witch hunters would not be legally within their rights to hang women because they had cats. The law needs to set limits of when my fantasy has to give way to scientifically measurable reality and to the reality of the society we live in.

It strikes me that many retain their intellectual ability across a range of settings.

The inability to use critical thinking skills seems to be contextual and those closely related to their own sense of identity.

@OpusGiemuJavlo

They may also and separately be guitly of discrimination on gender if people who don't perform the stereotypes of their biological sex "correctly", of either sex and whether or not they identify as trans, are treated less favourably.
There is no "gender" discrimination in law. There is discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment, which means treating someone who claims a special identity less favourably than others of the same sex who do not claim a special identity.

Eg by inistimg on skirts and heeled shoes for female employees.

This is sex discrimination. I believe some female trainee solicitors brought a discrimination case against their employer's dress code. I'll look and see if I can find the case.

It was actually a petition, not a court case, Opus, sorry about that. But the guidance from random solicitor's blogs seems to agree that this would be a case of Sex discrimination. Nothing to do with Gender Reassignment.

Again, it's hard to work out if Oscar is supporting or demolishing the binary Oscar context-switches into and out of depending personal preference and conferred advantage.

Transmisia (also called Transphobia) is prejudice plus power; anyone of any gender can have/exhibit gender-based prejudice, but in North America (and really worldwide), cisgender people have the institutional power, therefore Transmisia is a systemized discrimination or antagonism directed against transgender/nonbinary/genderqueer/agender persons. Transmisia and cissexism are rooted in a desire to maintain the gender binary (i.e. the categories of 'male' and 'female'), a social construction which seeks to assign gender based on a person's declared sex at birth. Transmisia, as well as the gender binary from which it extends, obscures the reality of the spectrum and fluidity of gender and marginalizes the identities and experiences of persons whose gender does not align with their birth-assigned sex and/or who do not align with either category of male or female.
Trans folks can be agents of transmisia as well (particularly when acting as representatives of cis-dominated systems, such as higher education) by perpetuating the notion of gender binary or "passing" superiority and using it to discriminate against other transgender people. For example, a trans woman at a company may refuse to hire a genderqueer person because their gender presentation might "confuse" customers, or a trans male administrator at a traditionally women's college may deny the application of a non-passing trans woman for not "transitioning enough."

https://simmons.libguides.com/anti-oppression/anti-transmisia 

Gender norms are detrimental to us all. I would argue that social expectations for men to suppress their emotions can help us explain their higher suicide rates. And the over representation of men in senior positions is likely due to widespread stereotypes that women are less capable of leading.

Yes... which is why we're gender critical. We're the ones who don't want bloody 'gender norms'.
People should be able to be whatever 'gender' they want - fluid if needbe - the point is that you shouldn't get to be treated as if you were actually the other sex because of your gender. Most of the time sex doesn't matter - but when it does, it really does.

After the spectacular public be-clowning of Garden Court Chambers, I would love to know the general opinion of them in legal circles.

I mean...it can't be good.