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

Exactly @Mmmnotsure - I read over a thousand in the last year, up from over 800 the year before

This is where Ben's points yesterday about the nonsense of treating people with a GRC differently from those without, when you can't tell them apart and the GRC is confidential, comes in so powerfully. It doesn't matter that there are so few people with a GRC: the existence of any has wide-reaching effects.

The relatively low number of GRCs given has no bearing on the principles of law, surely? ( she says 430 per year currently awarded)

She's deliberately given an average, rather than presenting an increasing trend. Hopefully that figure will have been supplied in the bundle somewhere.

Numbers with GRC are not the issue, all people intending to 'transition' are protected by equality law surely

Now she's moving onto the GRA.

More Section 9 chat

Proper interpretation of Section 9.

Judge asks her to speak up.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/9

In fairness I’d speak slowly and quietly if I had to present this nonsense

Ms "I'm not a statistician" barrister has simply taken the number of GRCs issued over the last twenty years and divided by twenty. Cheap but effective. I hope there are better stats in someone's submissions. How can the judges not think that, given the increased awareness of trans nowadays, it won't be an even pattern.

'the core stat purpose of the gra is to provide fundamental rigths of legal recognition to a change in gender identity' - ref Goodwin

Judge: "Low Lady voice needs to be louder, Madam"

They need to get RMW in......

'gender and sex changes for all purposes'

But not all would be classed as the opposite sex, only those with a GRC.

I think her natural voice is quite mumbly and she's having to focus on articulating. Which creates a barrier, IMHO.

I laughed.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/notes/division/4/9

27.Subsection (1) states the fundamental proposition that once a full gender recognition certificate is issued to an applicant, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender, so that an applicant who was born a male would, in law, become a woman for all purposes. She would, for example, be entitled to protection as a woman under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975; and she would be considered to be female for the purposes of section 11(c) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and so able to contract a valid marriage with a man.

28.Subsection (2) provides amplification of subsection (1), making clear that the recognition is not retrospective, so the certificate does not rewrite the gender history of the transsexual person, and that the new gender applies for the interpretation of enactments, instruments and documents made before as well as after the issue of a certificate.

29.Subsection (3) means that the general proposition is subject to exceptions made by the remainder of the Act and, for the future, by any other enactment or subordinate legislation.

Well thank god the Judge asked her to speak up.

I'd hate to have to hear her when she was near enough mumbling.

And Labour, of course, want to make it even easier to get one and increase the numbers of people who have one.

Indeed

Anyone else finding the video feed keeps dropping? I need to refresh every few minutes.

Can anyone remind me of who this woman, is, please?

Louise Irvine for the Scotgov

One thing is being made abundantly clear - the GRA completely trashed the human rights of women.

Is she going for the sympathy angle?