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

Judge is desperate to know what living in the acquired gender means and SG are determined not to say.

Later, later

She can't answer, can she.

Surely refusing to answer judges questions doesnt look good? Very long pause after that final refusal.

I wonder if they thought the judges wouldn't ask.

Ahh. Question from Lady Rose on the panel that issues GRCs. In practice we know, because a Judge of that panel has said somewhere, that they very very very rarely refuse them.

Yes. Several questions the judges have asked the Scotgov lawyers have asked to answer 'later'

She's admitting that the requirment to live in opposte gender is without adequate explanation......but it will be dealt with after lunch when discussing a particular case.

She’s mighty keen not to answer those questions…

Sunlight - no one’s got a fucking clue what living in the acquired gender means aka what is a woman.

Someone somewhere will desperately be trying to put an answer together that isn't "hair and make-up m'lady".

Wonder whether these distinguished female lawyers are wondering whether they are doing living as a woman right?

I hope they're not planning on simply running out of time before getting to this question, because I genuinely want to know what it means to live in one's acquired gender

That would be a serious mistake.

That will be dealt with by the "doesn't apply to me because reasons" field.

lnterchangeability of terms 'sex' and 'gender'

I'm amused that the judges seem to be struggling to follow as well

Previous courts/judgements have used the terms interchangeably

She's effectively admitting that the law as it relates to 'Sex' lacks necessary clarity...and that means that for all intents and purposes Sex and Gender are the same thing.

'the reference to sex is nothing to do with biological determinance'

At some point they need to admit that in order to 'live as a woman' all a man has to say is " I am a woman". Because let's face it there is fuck all else if it's not clothes and make-up

If they manage to dodge that 'living as a woman' question, will AON have a chance to address it when he appears later?

No difference between sex ad gender, and sex nothing to do with biological determinants!

She's now quoting the words in the Acts to show that they are used interchangeably.

That's fine. I dont' know that it helps their cause.

...or lady balls and a beard......" Expanding the bandwidth of what it means to be a woman"