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

What an utter MESS this all is. My God.

'What it means to show that you've lived in the aquired gender, what is your position on that'
'after lunch, milady'

Unintentionally hilarious!
'What is your position on acquired gender?'
'Do you mean before or after lunch, milady? - well I'm female at the moment, before lunch, and will eat my lunch as such, but I intend identifying as male after lunch when the washing up has to be done...' 😂

And this is relying very heavily on arguments relating to 'postoperative transsexuals'. Questionable transferability to all with a GRC, IMO.

Biological determinants: Goodwin decision proceeded on basis of departure from biolgical dterminant understanding of sex

Section 9 does so ... giving word 'sex' the extended non-biological meaning which could not be given in Bellinger

I am concerned about this case because the GRA does clearly say it changes a person’s sex for all purposes. Yes that creates legal absurdities and practical nightmares, but it does expressly say that’s what it does. My concern is that the court will consider the law is too clear to interpret it other than on its obvious wording. The EA2010 came after and so should have dealt with the GRA to make the position clear, but it didn’t. My concern is the court will recognise it’s a mess, but will ultimately say parliament has to fix it if they didn’t intend to create this mess.

'sex' the extended non-biological meaning

Trying hard not to make a joke about dildos.

If the judges did say the law was a mess would that put any pressure on the gov to fix it?

Judge: 'you say it's legal fact not legal fiction'

'by analogy with adoption, for example'

'Good analogy milord'

Legal fact or legal fiction, asks a judge.

At least the mess would be recognised. Then the move would be to clarify the EA.

Section 9 is a 'deeming' provision

Saying. "Presumption qualified or unqualified" shows you have a law degree....but that you'll "explain further after lunch"

God this is hard to follow

No idea wtf she's on about now. It's very garbled imo.

Quoting NIck Wallis' tweet:

'LI sex matters say that 9i is a weak deeming provision in their submissions. Amnesty do not describe 9i as a weak deeming provision. Refer instead to clarity of the for all purposes. We think it doubtful 9i is a deeming provision'

"Presumption, position, construction, provision; let's call the whole thing off"

I'm at the "huh? What?" Point. I fear by the time they actually explain how you live as a woman it won't be heard over my snoring.

God, please, lunch break now.

Another hour yet!

Regarding pregnant F2M, they can make sense of it because in their eyes the same thing that both sex and gender are is gender/gender identity. To them, it's just a random coincidence that they happen to have a uterus etc - anyone might have one. I know it's mad, just trying to frame the argument as TAs would.

*
Caveat: I'm not watching the barrister. But it sounds to me that her approach would only make sense if sex was entirely about certificates. Listing the documents you change to "live as a woman" seems to imply that. That's a flaw for me - surely what she has to show is that the word Sex in the EA means bio sex+legal sex depending on context, not that Sex has been completely replaced by the concept of certificated sex in the EA because that is blatantly not the case.

**
Adoption is a legal fiction - but adoption doesn't involve pretending that your mother/father are your biological parents. Adopted children are allowed to seek out their birth mother. And adopted children aren't screened for genetic diseases or conditions which their adoptive parents have. Your parents are deemed to be so by the state, which is exactly the approach SM (I think it's them) are taking to the GRA. You are deemed to be of the opposite sex, you are not actually of the opposite sex.

Yes it could do - and as @chilling19 says, at least there would be a clear argument that the law as drafted doesn’t work and needs clarifying. But what sort of shitshow would we end up with in the meantime, and can we trust the government to clarify it appropriately to bring back single sex protections? I hope I’m wrong and the court finds a way, but I am worried!

"After lunch"

Again!

'I don't have an answer, perhaps i may consider it and come back after lunch'

Hahaha! "After lunch" !!

'After lunch' for the bingo card 😂

Back to the feelings and special identity.