So now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Woman means biological female,

[DialSquare]

can we now correctly sex males when posting on Mumsnet?

I am male and to the best of my knowledge I've always been doing sex correctly.

I would hope we could at least use Male.

When I switched to ‘male person’, I was deleted much less. So I have stuck to that over the years. I hate it but the deletions were mounting up.

I hope so because the court judgement itself does.

I would assume it’s ok to say ‘Jenny is a trans identifying male’.

To be honest, I think in recent months we’ve been managing Jenny is male, He’s a man, at least about people whose behaviour is dubious- criminals and sportsmen in the wrong sex category.

I think we’ve been avoiding pronouns for the likes of Eddie/Suzie and India.

Eddie has said himself that he doesn’t mind which you use and as far as I am aware, Mumsnet has let that stand.

What we have been told is that we are allowed to say people are male and call them he where it is relevant to the discussion.

There are certain male people who follow this board and complain, I believe, when they are correctly sexed. One of them, Robin Moira White, is a lawyer and, it is assumed, uses his lawyerly credentials to have such posts removed. It will be interesting to see, now that the Supreme Court has confirmed that he is legally a man, whether that will make a difference. Obviously, in this post, his sex is entirely pertinent to the point I am making.

“What we have been told is that we are allowed to say people are male and call them he where it is relevant to the discussion.”

I had missed this, @PriOn1 It’s interesting how quickly changes sweep across the board.

Robin was on R4 yesterday or perhaps the day before, sounding as male and irritating as possible. Fairly sure he said, without challenge, he would continue using the ladies. Woman’s Hour, it was.

Yes, I saw someone commenting on that. My thought was that, now we know the law is behind us, that women will feel safer in complaining about obvious men who continue to force their way into women’s single sex spaces. These men might find that the way forward is no longer made so easy for them.

Let’s face it, sex is always relevant to the discussion. We wouldn’t be discussing the likes of RMW under any other circumstances. He just isn’t interesting or relevant to the vast majority of my life for any other reason. <not intended nastily>.

The talk guidelines have always allowed us to correctly sex people, albeit with limits on how we do so. Whether policing re bloody pronouns will remain I don’t know - I think MNHQ’s position is about ‘civil debate’ rather than a legalistic one.

I hope so. I too heard someone on the radio who said they, a TW, would continue to use Women’s Changing Rooms. I think that the considerate TW who’ve never used female spaces will continue to be considerate, but the bolshy ones who’ve used female spaces will continue to do so. Yes, we can complain, but what I’d like to see is more robust protection for women to ensure no men go in our toilets and changing rooms. So, clear and firm signage, and the implication of legal action against male people who purposely breach our boundaries.

I wonder if one of the outcomes of this case is loads of historical claims like PFI - did your employer have a DEI policy allowing men to use the ladies loo, no-win-no-fee etc.

re PP point of trans women not being represented in the case, surely SG could have chosen RMW as their barrister but they (wisely) chose not to?

I’m not sure that sort of thing is applicable unless there’s a monetary loss?
I doubt the no win, no fee types would want to get into the world of employment tribunals, constructive dismissal cases etc.

I don’t know who said this but “Good men stay out so bad men stand out”.

RMW in the guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/17/supreme-court-tough-day-trans-people-labour

TW have spent a long time with people not pointing out the obvious, going forward many will be surprised that they don’t pass when they try to use female single sex spaces.

Yes, enforcement of our rights is important. It didn’t matter in the past, when society was a bit more civil, and men didn’t think they had the right to use women’s facilities.

Maybe we need a specific law passed, with penalties ranging upwards from a fine for a first offence. Getting a criminal record might make men think twice.

A person has to be tough to be transgender. … it requires mental strength beyond the ordinary. I should know – I have walked that path.

The vanity. He really does think he is so special. And the obfuscation in that opinion piece. There is nothing ‘confused’ about the Supreme Court judgement. We simply go back to accepting that ‘woman’ is not a costume or live-action role play. It just means adult human female.

There’s 2 distinct aspects to the legal enforcement that is likely to be required. One is against the individuals deliberately using inappropriate single sex facilities where they exist, but the other - probably more important one - is against organisations which persist in inappropriate provision of facilities, the ones who claim to have have ‘women’s’ services that allow males in.

So how could it work in practice if you saw someone who you suspect is biologically male use a single sex space for female? What would happen if you complained to whoever runs the establishment?

To be honest I don't see much changing. I don't think the organisation who runs the establishment could reasonably be expected to evict an individual because another individual says they are the wrong sex. Am I missing something?

One hopes that this judgement will very quickly put an end to lady penises being proudly waved about in women's spaces, at the very least. RMW and his ilk may be braying about how they will carry on as before, and perhaps they will, but I think they will find women's changing rooms a lot less fun than before now they can't troll women in the process.

Depends what situations we’re thinking about.
loos may still be open to misuse.
changing rooms - should be possible to deal with overt cases (the ‘Willy wavers’).

but really the more serious situations should be able to be correctly dealt with.
Prisons - they know without doubt what sex a criminal is.
Hospitals - they obviously need to sort out records to be correct (sex rather than the ludicrous ‘gender’ marker) but again, in reality they should know what sex each patient is in order to treat them properly.
Workplaces - again, employers should have accurate information about each employees sex, and ‘gender reassignment’ status if relevant.

However…we’ve strayed a bit from the OPs question. I wonder if it would be a good idea for people to remind themselves of exactly what the MN talk guidelines say, and then perhaps can discuss which, if any, might now be revised.

My take is that although we’ve cavilled at restrictions, on the whole they’ve served us pretty well over these troubled years. The one specific I’d personally like to see changed is around the use of the term trans-identified male/female. It seems the most accurate and unambiguous descriptor.

Have they? I thought there was a time when correctly sexing any person who didn’t want you to was banned on this board, under the special FWR rules.

I'd have like to have seen that.

Was Robin saying that the Supreme Court had got it wrong.

Robin was so sure he was right.

What would be unreasonable about evicting a person who had no right to be there?