Supreme Court For Women Scotland

[Cismyfatarse]

The Supreme Court is about to tell us whether we are women

www.thetimes.com/article/6a59421a-6945-4121-9c02-44c5059e0602?shareToken=7e6c99a84676224be2c793794ffb6028

It looks like this is imminent. Article by Akua Reindorf. Haven't read it yet but here for anyone that wants to read it.

Thank you 🙏🏼 for the link.

Encouraging to see more his detailed in The Times:

"If it is the latter (turn men legally into women), the result is chaos. It means that under the Equality Act a lesbian is either a female without a GRC or a male with a GRC, who is attracted both to females without GRCs and to males with GRCs, but not to females with GRCs or to males who identify as women but do not have GRCs. A lesbian couple could consist of two males with GRCs, but not two males who identify as women but do not have GRCs (those would be gay men) or one with a GRC and one without (that would be a straight couple)."

Thanks for the share token.

Is this the final ruling for FWS, does anyone know? If this court says men are women, are there any further steps they can take, or is this the final word?

An article which pulls no punches. Thank you for share token.

Thank you for the share.

This makes me feel slightly nervous. The correct ruling seems obvious, of course men can never actually turn into women and conversely women can never actually turn into men. Hair, makeup, clothes, medication, surgery and even paperwork do not have the ability to change a persons sex.

And of course females and males have different needs, different risk and threat profiles, different strengths and weaknesses etc that are directly and indirectly linked to physical sex not psychological identity.

So the result seems like it should be clear and simple, but I have this strong feeling they're going to get it wrong.

Fingers crossed it goes the way of common sense. Men cannot be Women or lesbian.

Thank you. Wonderfully written by Akua Reindorf.

The European Court of Human Rights - where the trouble started in the first place.

The problem is the courts are not ruling on reality, they are ruling on law. And GRCs try to create a false reality that is imposed on us all.

Oh god.

A possible outcome of the case is that the judges will decide that a GRC does make a male into a woman under the Equality Act, but will also suggest that parliament considers amending the legislation to sort out the problems this causes.

Does this herald the outcome, do we think?

I'm very afraid it may well do. And we know what Labour will do. Sex fudge.

If this goes the wrong way - and I'm not giving up yet - then I expect the next practical thing to do will be to demand a change in the law, more loudly than we've ever demanded anything before. They could fix this by repealing the GRA and nullifying all existing GRCs, or by clarifying the EA to say it means biological sex. I rather think the right strategy would be to demand both, loudly enough that the government will be glad to get us off its backs with only the latter. (For now.) Remember, the public is increasingly united in being, in effect, gc. The challenge will be how to enlist all those people who agree with us but haven't so far made noise about it. I think that will go slowly, then all at once.

Re not giving up yet: Akua Reindorf is a commissioner of the EHRC, which intervened in the case with that rather hand-wringing "well yes technically but it makes the law an ass" intervention. So in that sense, in this piece, she is still in role. I don't know to what extent there are genuine legal disagreements and to what extent it's strategy, but the FWS and Sex Matters cases were pretty convincing that the court could just find in FWS's favour! (I recently rewatched it - recommended.)

Anyone seen anything other than the appearance of this piece to say that the judgement is "imminent"? I do hope so.

Part of the point being: up to now, it's been possible for politicians to fob us off as they have done repeatedly, when asked to clarify the EA, by saying the law is already clear (with the implication that it already means bio sex, except that then there are others claiming that of course it doesn't, which is how we got here...). Whatever the judgement is, they won't be able to do that any more. Either the judgement will say the law isn't clear, or it will have been made clear in our favour, or it will be clearly against us and we'll be able to hold politicians' feet to the fire concerning whether they agree with it and if so why we should vote for them.

No, Akua wouldn't be allowed to hint at the outcome, but as previous posters have said, this was basically the EHRC's position (and not an unreasonable one, in terms of legislative interpretation).

Will be fascinating to see how the government responds to the judgment (probably very weakly).

Should they rule that we are now men, I wonder if the Justices will say the law is an ass (they have no choice) and refer back to the government to rectify. Is that a possibility?

That’s 100% the problem. They’re not been asked if it’s a good or bad law, they’re being asked to rule on the law as it stands

I fully expect them to throw it back to the government with a recommendation for clarity

which the government will do nothing about leaving it up to individuals to keep bringing cases

This is my guess too. The government might be told to lay an amendment allowing lesbian associations, which as Akua says is a massive problem with the current law. But I don't think they'll do more unless really forced to.

Excellent article from Akua Reindorf.

I am an optimist and I think the SC will rule in FWS's favour.

I definitely agree that if it's thrown back to the government, it will be harder for them to stick nothing to see here.

The Telegraph/IPSOS ruling that makes in sport can be referred to as males is helpful. Other newspapers will either go to IPSOS with their own submissions or publish anyway and wait to be damned. There is nothing so successful at getting the media on side as telling them no.

The SP case has also had wider recognition and not only is there more to come, but there is a queue of other cases to raise awareness further. Less captured reporting, will again be helpful.

If the Supreme Court concludes anything other than a woman in law is the biological variety, the press will be all over it and it will be a massive talking point everywhere. The LP can't hold the traditional red/blue wall if they deny biology. Outside metropolitan bubbles, people simply don't buy it.

And much as I hate to say it, the Trump factor comes into play too. Starmer won't want Trump/Musk/Vance to be able to say that they don't know what a woman is in the UK.

Is there any evidence that the Supreme Court is about to issue its ruling? Does Akua know something the rest of us don't?

I didn’t read the case but did they also argue human rights? Article 14 of the European Convention on Human rights prohibits discrimination in accessing rights on the basis of sex or other status. How can that hold if the GRC makes men legally women under the equality act? Even if they steal our words, then surely women are discriminated against under ‘other status’ ie our biology including by the theft of our words?

I agree. Reform are all over this, and Labour are as worried about losing seats to Reform as they are to the Tories now. They will fudge this issue at their peril.

I think we are getting towards the end of the expected timeframe for the ruling, so it must be imminent now.

Sadly Labour are not worried enough yet. They have four years and a huge majority to do a lot of damage first.