Women's Rights in the UK

[UnhappyAndYouKnowIt]

I was talking with a friend this morning about the Supreme Court case, and she perceived it as removal of trans people's rights and a denial of their existence.

I wanted to emphasise that the need for a clear definition of "woman" is needed in order to ensure that women's rights are protected.

But when she questioned what I meant by women's rights, I got stuck for a minute. The discourse has focused so much on toilets and changing rooms that I actually couldn't remember!

Eventually I said it's the right to not be discriminated against because of your biology. Is that pretty much right?

So, the right to not be fired for getting pregnant.

The right to paid time off work to recover from pregnancy.

The right to access contraception to avoid getting pregnant.

The right to end a pregnancy in some circumstances.

The right to not be prevented from voting because of biology.

The right to not be prevented from having a bank account without a husband's permission due to biology.

The right to not be prevented from owning property because of biology

The right to not be paid less for the same job because of biology.

Am I missing anything?

Is the right to single sex spaces actually a woman's right? Or is it a human right because men also have the right to single sex spaces where it's necessary for privacy and dignity?

Could trans people's rights to be free from abuse and harassment eventually lead to trans spaces being enshrined in law for their privacy and dignity?

The other thing that always annoys me about this is that actually classing trans women as (the same as) women is actually harmful to them as a group in many ways.

There may be nothing wrong with being a trans woman, but it’s not the same as a woman. They have different needs and different life experiences. I can’t begin to understand the concept of how it feels to be “in the wrong body” or to tell my friends and family that, and so offering a trans woman the same support services as me if depressed, for example, may be inappropriate.

We don’t separate humans into different classes purely for fun, it’s also done for practical and useful reasons. Clearly it should not be done for discriminatory purposes, and that is clarified by the SC ruling and the EA, but if we don’t know the differing needs and experiences of groups then we cannot provide appropriate education/services/support etc for them. As an example, at the university where I work there was a poster up asking for ‘anyone who identifies as a woman’ to take part in a research project on sexual assault. Now I’m fortunate to have never been sexually assaulted, and I don’t know any trans women who have. But I’m going to guess that the experiences and possibly circumstances of sexual assault may be different between groups of women and groups of trans women. If we don’t differentiate between those groups in research, though, then how can we make either group safer?

It’s an important difference. And that’s the point about the EA. Women have different societal experiences to men or trans women. The single sex exemptions of the EA are both to facilitate privacy and dignity of those with PCs but also to allow advancement of them in areas where they have been previously marginalised. So a trans woman on a board of directors may well do a great job of bringing their skills, lived experience etc to that role. But that is not the same as a woman’s experience and should not be regarded as such. It also does not advance the representation of women in higher management roles or society.

And that’s before you even get to the nonsense of gendered NHS numbers, which means that trans people may well be inappropriately assessed due to blood results being compared to the wrong sex norms, for example, or failing to call patients for sex-based screening programmes because we can’t find them in systems. What an absolute shambles. And actually means that the demand for ‘equality’ leads to actively worse healthcare for trans people.

If Stonewall and TRAs had focused on ‘we’re different and this is why it’s important we’re represented and provided for’ rather than this fantasy of ‘we’re exactly the same and you have to treat is as such’ then none of us would be in this stupid mess. And that, unfortunately, is why it begins to look like validation and fetishism are maybe involved rather than it being a true rights movement.

And that, unfortunately, is why it begins to look like validation and fetishism are maybe involved rather than it being a true rights movement.

I began to follow the debate closely when a friend put a posting on Facebook last autumn to say that today was trans awareness day and that they are some of the most discriminated against. I thought, I doubt it, but I will investigate. I quickly found that it was mostly women being discriminated against, and that this was only the tip of the iceberg - we only saw the ones who went to Tribunals - we didn't have a record of how many women quietly gave up when confronted by a TW in their changing room say. Then the Sandie Peggie Tribunal started.

The end result is the opposite of what my friend hoped - I now assume that a TW is much more likely to be a voyeur, or get a sexual thrill out of it all than not. So her post backfired spectacularly.

Thank you for articulating so well my similar thoughts! It’s absolutely true that we are different demographics, and I should be able to say that without fear of being accused of being discriminatory…

It's that whole 'educate yourself thing, isn't it?

'They told me to educate myself.
I did.
And now I'm a TERF'.