Reframe your disappointment

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

Inspired by a couple of other threads about the reaction to the Supreme Court judgment from trans allies, I thought it might be interesting to have a thread to discuss what to say to people if it comes up in conversation.

Comments I've seen so far seem to suggest:

• the judgment was legally wrong and this isn't the end
• the judgment might have been legally correct but it was morally wrong and the law needs to be changed
• trans rights are now being rolled back
• this is a victory for the far right
• this was orchestrated and bank rolled by the far right
• this decision will now embolden transphobes to harass and victimise trans people

Perhaps we could brainstorm the best ways to respond to these (and any other) talking points, should they arise?

Do you genuinely think that roughly 4 billion people all share the same gender identity and roughly 4 billion people all share another gender identity and a small number of super special non binary people have a different gender identity which is neither one nor the other?

If so, why?

Where is the evidence for this?

What are the characteristics of the identity that you believe all women share?

There are definitely a whole swathe of university courses which need to be got rid of. Those pointless grifters Judith Butler and Sally Hines should be first in line for their P45s.

Then they are welcome to think of other words for their special identities, rather than using the only word we actually have for female humans.

I get fed up with how often this cycles back to toilets, but changing rooms are an interesting way of thinking about this.

The old-school trans people I've known who had real psychological distress over their sexed bodies - I read it as a body dysmorphia similar to anorexia - were people who were very unlikely to use a communal changing area, because they wouldn't want anyone to see their bodies.

Of course they're heavily outnumbered by male people who get off on exposing themselves in female spaces.

I've sometimes asked TRA friends, can you make a case for self-ID that isn't a flashers' charter? I've never had a good response to that. And I stopped asking it after Wi Spa, when I was depressed (but not surprised) by the number of progressive men who thought defending flashers was the civil rights cause of our age.

Yes, the "nice trans people" I hear from all say they want nothing more than to blend in. The behaviour of people like India Willoughby and Beth Upton seems wholly at odds with that.

I genuinely feel bad for the trans people who just want to live a quiet life and not bother anyone. I'm struggling to think of any group so poorly served by the activists who claim to represent them.

Nope, because gender is fluid and changeable and sex isn’t. I believe males and females are born as such, but what their individual gender identities are, couldn’t tell you!

Why, because they’re the wrong wave of feminism?

I’ve forgotten enough of my studies to not particularly have a preference either way, but it’s 2025 - it’s about time we moved on from Greer etc.

OK, so if it's that woolly fluid, why on earth is it something we should be organising society around?

I genuinely don't understand the view that humans can't be neatly categorised into two biological sexes, but that they can be divided into two gender identities and that this is a sensible way in which to categorise people.

Greer, unfortunately, was right.

Butler and Hines aren't the wrong wave of feminism. They aren't any wave of feminism.

I think the argument is that they can’t be organised into two genders, because there are many more of those.

Definitely two sexes, lots of genders and ways to identify with them.

Yes but why do we care about gender? What function does it serve?

Surely sex is a much more sensible basis on which to organise, for example, toilets.

There are infinite numbers of ways to categorise people, but it seems to me that basing toilet provision on which kind of plumbing you have is simple and workable.

We don't demand separate toilet provision for Capricorns, and determining people's star sign is much easier than the ever shifting sands of gender identity.

Oh it’s just the whole way that people identify themselves and know who they are 😂

Some, not all, admittedly. But still

That's a useful post - I can completely go along with your assertion that sex is not fluid and changeable, because it means that no man can become a woman, or vice versa.

Whatever 'gender' is, I agree with you that it is fluid and changeable, the stereotypes vary across historical eras and cultural groups.

So transwomen are men, transmen are women, because their sex is neither fluid nor changeable.

Gender is neither here nor there - well it is here and it is there, it's so all over the place and not a good basis for law-making.

I am shocked into agreement about astrology being more rational in its definition than gender (identity).

How far from the path of rational thought has the general discourse strayed.

It’s like Naomi Cunningham and the analogy of being peanut-free.

I get where you are coming from on this, and I think some of the 'analyses' in media headlines don't help. I've been frustrated by the number of headlines and commentators saying things like 'women are defined by their biological sex', because that phraseology is depressingly reductive.

But (thankfully) that isn't what the SC judgment said. It said that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, the WORD 'woman' is defined in terms of biological sex as an adult human female. For the rule of law to work, it needs to be based on clear definitions of the words it is written with. If we don't have that, we have nothing. [And in fact the lack of common understanding of what words mean is a major obstacle in effective dialogue on matters of sex/gender. It's almost as if some people don't want there to be clarity...]

So for the purposes of assessing whether or not something constitutes sex discrimination, the determining factor is biological sex. And, for the purposes of defining whether something falls within the single sex exemptions in the Act (i.e. places where it is lawful to treat one sex differently from the other), the determining factor is biological sex.

This is good. This clarification confirms that the protections against sex discrimination, which were put in place as recently as 1975 (1976 in Northern Ireland), remain intact and have not been eroded. For those of us who belong to the sex class that has traditionally been seen as second class, this is really important because those protections remain valuable.*

Thankfully, we are all more than the sum of our parts. Those of us who are gender non-conforming women have been fighting against reductionist gender stereotypes all our lives. We don't necessarily have a 'gender identity' (although I accept some people believe they have one, just as some people have religious beliefs, which are real to them even if they are unprovable to the rest of us), but neither does our sex determine all aspects of our personality or imposes limitations on (eg) our career ambitions or our hobbies or interests.

*The protections on grounds of sex are, of course, not the only ones in the Equality Act. For trans people, the protected characteristic of gender reassignment is vital in protecting them from discrimination. Those are undiminished by the SC ruling. If more is needed in order for trans people to live their lives safely, then that is a discussion to be had - in a grown up way, not through hyperbole about denying people's existence, demanding their erasure, literal genocide etc... But their protection cannot happen at the expense of the sex-based protection of women.

[Sorry that was long!]

But it's just their personality.

Why is it relevant to what spaces they should be in?

We may as well organise access to toilets and sporting categories by star sign, favourite colour or Myers Briggs personality type.

In a world where we couldn't split facilities by sex, I would be happy to share toilets, although not changing rooms, with the INFJs.
(Giving the idea of splitting the facilities by the mutable and indeterminate idea of gender the respect it deserves.)

All the transwomen I have met in real life are heterosexual - i.e. they are attracted to women.

Same here. We can't be the only ones where 100% of the trans identifying males we know are attracted to women.

I believe males and females are born as such, but what their individual gender identities are, couldn’t tell you!

Which is exactly why it’s impossible to segregate people into gender classes in any meaningful way, and hence why biological sex is a necessary distinction for spaces such as toilets and hospital wards.

And if it were gender identities that were the defining feature that society had to be organised around, how is it that it only ever breaks down into men and women and not the other myriad genders out there? Why is no one bothered that an omnigender/agender/etc person is forced to used facilities and spaces that don’t cater for them?

Why is no one bothered that an omnigender/agender/etc person is forced to used facilities and spaces that don’t cater for them?

I think that’s the NB grievance, to be fair.

I had a look at the Truscum Reddit today (roughly speaking, these are trans people opposed to much of the gender ideology and activism) and there was just anger and despair over what the activists have done.

I dont think Stonewall could have made a worse job of representing trans people if they'd tried.

You can tell the gender identity stuff is nonsense by the fact you don't apply the same logic to any other area in life.

"A woman is anyone who appears to be a woman". So I guess a wine loving transperson would be fine with buying an expensive Burgundy and discovering its a rebottled £5 Merlot?

I used to, but I now have big difficulties with that because the ones I know, as well as wanting a quiet life, also demand that I actively go along with their self perception. So the only way they will accept me is if I refer to them as they want - and if I don't, I'm "not accepting them".

Yes, I’m afraid that to be trans seems to mean wanting to deceive others about your sex and wanting others who correctly perceive your sex to behave as if they are deceived.

I find someone who wants to deceive me and control my behaviour quite an uncomfortable person to be around. Be a feminine man or a masculine woman, fine.

My XH is AGP. He is livid that he can't go into womens toilets and changing rooms to act out being "girlie" He is also a heterosexual letch so missing out on ogling women and especially teen girls. I'm so relieved that the SC put a stop to this.