For Women Scotland heading for Supreme Court

[Imnobody4]

You can read the reasons etc in For Women Scotlands crowdfunder. They are launching this review
UK Supreme Court: The Definition of Sex in the Equality Act

The Inner House of the Court of Session Judgment

We believe the Equality Act was drafted on the basis of the ordinary, common law understanding of the biological differences between the two sexes. The protected characteristic of “sex” in the Equality Act is defined as a reference to a man or a woman, where man means “a male of any age” and woman means “a female of any age”. We think it is quite clear that these are distinct and separate groups and that “woman” is not a mixed-sex category.

However, in our recent judicial review, For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers [2023] CSIH 37, the Inner House took the opposite view and decided there is a relationship between the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) and Equality Act 2010 and held that the meaning of sex in the Equality Act incorporated the GRA framework.

The court decision stated that a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in their acquired gender has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. Separately, they also possess the protected characteristic of sex according to the terms of their GRC and have a presumptive right to access the single-sex services of their acquired gender.

The Supreme Court will consider a request brought by For Women Scotland (FWS) who argue there are “strong grounds” for its challenge, which will almost certainly overturn contentious Scottish government legislation if successful.Campaigners for women’s “sex-based” rights reacted with delight to the news, including Magi Gibson, the poet, who posted on X/Twitter, that it was “game on” on in the “fight for the protection of women’s rights within the UK legal system”.Dennis Noel Kavanagh, a lawyer and the director of Gay Men’s Network, said: “Getting permission to go to the Supreme Court is really hard and very rare but FWS have it. The question ‘what is a woman’ in law will now be heard by our highest court. Massive news.”

www.thetimes.com/article/088ae0ce-fba9-4b97-8331-01a32195bef5?shareToken=3ada340957f5d2af2e20b01a7c15da3b

I think that the issue with “for all purposes” was highlighted well with the reference to protections against pregnancy discrimination. A pregnant transman with a GRC would have no right to pregnancy discrimination protections but an intact male transwoman with a GRC would if the term woman were to mean “certified sex” ss72 EA onwards use the word “woman” repeatedly.

It appears highly unlikely that is what Parliament intended when drafting the EA. The only reading of those provisions that makes sense is to take the natural meaning of s212 that woman = biology.

This case reminds me of the HoL debate about transwomen in women’s prisons where some Peers were assuming all tw had surgery and then it was pointed out that almost none of them do. You could see the lightbulb moments. It was similar today with the ease of obtaining a GRC and the lack of tangible action needed.

If the drafters of the EA accepted that males with a GRC are female for all purposes and carved out the SSEs as an exception to this general rule, that means that they intended transmen to lose the protection of pregnancy & maternity PC, as an example. The SG can't have it both ways.

I think the thinking behind the SSEs was that even a transsexual with full GRS and a GRC remained male for the purposes of the Act, but could be included if they "passed" sufficiently well. I am guessing, but I think the assumption was that all transsexuals would ideally be aiming for full GRS and anybody with a GRC would be considering, taking steps or would have actually made changes. The PC of GR covers anyone who is thinking about making changes or has made changes, not specifically anyone who has a GRC. So the SSEs underline that woman is biological, but take account of the possibility that a male with a GRC might pass sufficiently to fit in at the hairdresser's, but would not be welcome in a rape crisis therapy group however well they passed - because they were male. So the EA was taking account of the GRA, but not in the way that SG claim. It was balancing the promises of the GRA against the reality of bio sex.
IANAL, obviously.

Such a relief to see that reasonably factual summary from the guardian. The repeated experience of seeing perfectly reasonable concerns glibly misframed as transphobic in the guardian creates a nagging low-level trauma every time I dare to click on their pages.

Agreed, and your last sentence reminded of another good point AO'N made: that the point of a GRC was its symbolism.

That was really quite an accurate depiction that no comedian would try to do these days.

Glad the link worked. Sometimes there's a delay before the programme is available on Sounds. Thanks for the more accurate guide on timing. I see lots of posters have been commenting on the interview with the SNP spokesperson which followed. I wouldn't like to think of anyone listening to the comments about women 'rapists' which were such a contrast with the calm logic of FWS.

Some more TRA perspectives

www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/s/r8fvnFp1nB

www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/s/oMww5rUWJG

www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/uNAox0SCi4

And that particular comedian appears to be cloaking himself in NonBinary Cloak of NonAccountability these days!

Apologies. They/themself.

www.independent.co.uk/tv/culture/david-walliams-non-binary-gender-b2653707.html

@Ereshkigalangcleg thanks for the Reddit stuff its just fucking laughable these lunatics walk amongst us

Also note how they've taken over ostensibly non trans related subreddits like the main Labour one and the United Kingdom one, their mods will ban you if you say anything "anti trans"

Just having a late night twitter scroll when I chanced upon this

https://x.com/Justabaker17/status/1861430038798721370?t=336MOIOaIwHDIe7ZGEn4WA&s=19

Hey Boiled how about a FWR Christmas card?

Omg the reddit stuff

Don't listen to any of it, it's scary and pointlessyou might hear / learn something sensible he's rude to the judges (no luv, he's being rude the the concepts being suggested, which are tra concepts.)

Argh I won't be able to hear any of it today; look forward to reading here later.

Here we have the definitive statement on the matter...
https://twitter.com/stevenvoiceover/status/1861442206038397139?s=19

What time do we start today, 10.30?

Yes 10.30am

Also can't watch today, but that could be a blessing in disguise.
Looking forward to your comments later.
Keep Calm and Carry On Terfing!

I predict it's going to be enraging.

I have all my scrubbing and cleaning stuff at the ready for angry scrubbing should it be required

I'm feeling optimistic fwiw. I think we may well lose this case - the law is such a mess that whichever way they come down there's going to be something that doesn't really make sense - but the sunlight on the absurdities may be what finally pushes Parliament (perhaps not under this government but under the next) into clearing up the whole messy situation. If, from here, they go into clearing it up, it won't be possible for them to do so on the basis of TWAW, if only because of the n other genders and the gender fluidity etc. - it's completely clear now, as it wasn't when the GRA was passed, that gender is not just a way of explaining how someone could want to be the other sex, but a completely different thing from sex, and something which is so uncheckable and variable that legislating on the basis of it leads inevitably to nonsense. So I think, for example, we might end up with an "improvement" to the GRA which means that it's really easy to change your gender and your gender can be whatever you want (so the government that makes that change can be seen as progressive and trans-friendly) - but at the same time, the EA and other legislation gets clarified so that your gender has no effect on anything, being seen as clearly legally distinct from sex. Which would be perfect.

We can dream?

the sunlight on the absurdities may be what finally pushes Parliament (perhaps not under this government but under the next) into clearing up the whole messy situation.

Memories are very short, I'm not sure anything currently will affect the next government.

Not if the issue went away in the meantime - but it won't, will it?

Please can anyone point me in the direction of the link to watch todays proceedings?

https://www.supremecourt.uk/live/court-01.html

@Nerdles here you go!