For Women Scotland in Supreme Court - thread 3

[nauticant]

The proceedings in the Supreme Court took place on 26 and 27 November 2024.

Previous threads discussing the proceedings:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5182666-for-women-scotland-heading-for-supreme-court

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5218934-for-women-scotland-in-supreme-court-thread-2

The video of the proceedings over 2 days in 4 sessions can be found here:

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042.html

Similarly living as a woman in its broadest form could be seen simply as a transwoman asserting that they had some form of feminine identity. And that could be an internal assertion and not one necessarily made to others.

But yes you are asking as to whether you can ask if someone has a GRC and exclude on that basis. There isn't much case law but Dr Michael Foran thinks you can, but what you can't then do is share this knowledge with anyone else, which in some cases depending on your profession or role is a reasonably serious criminal offence.

Not my invention, sadly 😁

And yet, with the exception of a few brief glimpses of sunlight, the Supreme Court proceedings went on with the assumption that, in effect, transwomen were fully passing and the GRC would be an outing document with everyone about being shocked by the reveal, à la Hayley Cropper.

If section 9 women (men with a GRC) are women, that means they'll be permitted to perform mammograms in an 'all female' service. Even if the NHS could invoke some 'proportionate means to a legitimate aim' clause, they won't.

We all know what that will do to screening uptake and resulting morbidity and mortality.

But I think, henceforth, I shall be calling a GRC a £5 lady ticket.

I'm becoming an ever greater advocate of what it says on the tin mentality

I would be astonished if they don't read the whole GRA before determining this case.

I do so hope the SC judges realise that this concept of passing/indistinguishable from a woman idea has zero basis in reality.

Let's hope so. Although Didn't they appear surprised that the criteria appeared to be 'because they want one'.

To me, it's such a blinding undermining of the entire TWAW premise, I don't understand how it's not brought up every single time as proof of how actually nobody believed it in the first place.

Yes, it's very illuminating.

It was also disappointing. That even at the level of the Supreme Court, just about everyone involved is sharing and reinforcing lies, because everyone knows that these lies have to be maintained because it's the right thing to do.

They need some pictures of Dolatowski and predators like him in the bundle. Without that information, they cannot make a fair judgement.

We should never have dished out 'lady tickets' in the first place. All this upheaval in every area of life, and for what? Just so a small cohort of men could feel better about themselves/get their rocks off? Sadly that ship sailed long ago.

Because his crimes are the consequence of gender ideology.

I think the judges are very clear by the second day that a section 9 woman may look identical to a man.

(Interesting to hear the EHCR advocate distinguishing between a pregnant trans man and "a pregnant woman who is not a tran man_ - to me this sounds like despite everything he knows to be true in law, he still thinks of "trans man" as a subset of "woman".)

Edited because I got confused between men and women agh

@Ereshkigalangcleg
Thank you very much for providing clarity about what the Equality Act actually says about the provision of single sex services. I realise I have been misrepresenting some provisions.

I'm finally at the barnstorming concluding O'Neil speech and welling up and fired up and off the look at the gardening threads.

Women's rights are human rights.

I really hope that the court buys not just this (or they might go the EHRC route and boot it back to Parliament) but also all the fiddly legal arguments I've not followed that imply Parliament must have meant bio sex.

I'm finally at the barnstorming concluding O'Neil speech and welling up...Women's rights are human rights

How astonishing though that a barrister in a supreme court in the UK in 2024 has to make this his central and closing argument. We are not at a court in Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Why are we needing to base legal cases on reminding our UK Courts that women's rights are human rights?

At last got a chance to watch the final afternoon session.

'I just don't understand the point you're making' says the judge. Very politely. 😁

[after the lady with red hair and closed eyes whangs on about legal lesbians for five minutes]

(Just catching up on the thread now. Apologies if this is already addressed and I haven't got to it yet)

Yes... but the comparator for someone who has the protected characteristic of gender assignment is someone of the same sex who isn't "going through a process of gender reassignment. Regardless of the specifics (or lack of them) of what that process might be, it means that a boy/man who identifies as a girl/woman is entitled to the same sex discrimination protection as a boy/man who identifies as a boy/man (or in fact has no gender identity as all).

Men (i.e. anyone over 18) could get a GRC. Boys obviously can't. Without a GRC, this case has highlighted that the PC of gender reassignment doesn't change anyone's sex legally.

IIRC the gender reassignment protection was originally aimed at over 18s only but Press for Change had it lowered via secret lobbying and guidance updates?

Interesting. Does anyone know more about this? (Apologies if it's been expanded upon already and I haven't got to that point in the thread yet).

One change I'm hoping to see in the EA is that the PC of gender reassignment only applies to over 18s. There would obviously be lots of arguing over this but the Cass Report has raised the subject of children's vulnerability sufficiently high enough i.e. it is a risk to allow a child to socially transition, therefore the law should protect children from this risk as much as possible.

So this means that you have the protection of gender reassignment even if you haven't got a GRC.

I know, but if the school is relying on a single sex exception, as most girls' schools do, that is only applicable to women and girls, whether the outcome of this Supreme Court judgment is biological or "certificated". Gender reassignment discrimination isn't in itself about accessing opposite sex spaces.

It's possible to construct it as such, but it's also possible to construct that allowing men into women's spaces intended to provide privacy and dignity is sexual harassment.

There is very little case law.

Legal fiction or biological reality
accurate phrases indeed