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?

Oh dear god get a different playbook. One written for audiences older than 5. It clearly didn't work the first time and it's really fucking tedious now.

Can anyone who is old enough to remember the 80s remember any such thing actually happening?

Oh ok, I’ll bite, just this one more time:

So you are totally ok with lesbians being threatened with corrective rape by trans identifying men who insist that lesbians must learn to appreciate “girl dick”? That’s fine by you? Because this ruling has explicitly protected lesbian rights, which you would know if you had gone within half a mile of the actual words in it rather than getting all your opinions from Pink News.

Also, I agree, you must be young. I was young in the 80s and it was all about acceptance of gays, lesbians and gender nonconformity. No one gave two flying figs if lesbians used women’s toilets.

(edit - spag)

"the lesbians" are women
transwomen are men
the women don't want the men in the women's changing rooms
it really is that simple

I assume lots of pro trans groups submitted evidence.

If I understand the fox killer correctly, not easy when he goes full kimono, lots did yet also didn’t bother because he’d spoken with specialists and 3 KCs who told him that FWS had an inarguable case.

He wrote a blog post which is now no clearer for being printed in the Independent.

All rape is committed by men regardless of gender identity.

According to prison stats trans women are statistically more, not less, likely to commit rape and/ or sexual assault than other men.

The reason more men who do not identify as trans women commit rape than men who identify as trans women is quite simply because there are more of them.

I'm going with "isn't it brilliant that transmen now have the protected characteristic of pregnancy/maternity, in recognition of their sex, which the Scottish government were trying to take away from them!"

Exactly this.

So, coming back to the point of the thread.

@Micaela64, The decision of the Supreme Court is final. It is both reasonable and legal for women to have single sex spaces which do not include trans women, because including trans women would make those spaces not single sex anymore. You may not like that decision, but you must accept it. The Supreme Court is the highest court in the land and there is no further possibility of appeal. That means that the only way of changing the status quo is to amend or repeal the Equality Act. This would mean that the government would have to introduce new legislation to the effect that biologically female people do not exist as a distinct category in law, that we do not have any sex based rights, and that trans women's rights take priority over female people's rights. This would need to be publicly debated in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords before it could be passed into law. Quite frankly I think the chances of that happening are pretty much zero, so you need to accept it and move on. The conversation about whether women are allowed to exist in law and have sex based rights is over. The women have won. Advocates for trans rights now need to focus on ensuring that trans people's rights are also provided for, on an equal but separate basis. I suggest you focus your energy on that conversation going forward.

You’ve been warned before about publicising that top secret recruitment film. Especially in the springtime. Did the producers give you permission (or an opportunity to invest)?

Well thanks for that. Just spat my tea all over myself.

🤣🤣🤣

I’m not disappointed - in that I didn’t require a court to tell me that having a uterus made me biologically female.

I am however confused that needed saying - people know what they were born as.

I do think it’s a shame that women are apparently just the sum of their body parts. That doesn’t feel progressive at all.

I may have been born female, but I’m more than just a reproductive system and a chromosomes.

I'm suggesting you lot share the tactics of the far right by taking a small number of wrong doers and tarring an entire group with it

Fuck me, my irony Klaxon just exploded.
(and not for the first time…)

Any one on this thread filled their bingo card yet?

These people seem only to think in false binaries and extremes. They can't seem to wrap their head around negotiated agreement or disagreement. The Hitler was vegetarian thing all over again. Like splitting the world into trans and cis based on the ABSENCE of an affliction. That people who do not have that form of (frankly indeterminable) distress "incongruence" are not obligated to completely reorient themselves around trans needs while neglecting their own as well as receiving zero consideration from trans people about how their demands affects others' lives. That gender nonconformism has no bearing on the material reality of sex. That man and woman are expansive terms which accommodate all forms of said expressions. That a short haired woman (post hysterectomy and/or double mastectomy or who is infertile or has a female DSD) who doesn't perform femininity remains a woman while a man in pancake, toting bolt-ons isn't and will never be one.

I mean, this is a thread to rehearse what to say to people who don't like the Supreme Court judgement, so in a way it's helpful to have someone here who has come along to play the role of the trans activist.

I hope we get a Guardian reading "be kind" type next.

Twice, and I’m running out of shot glasses. Hic.

I'm glad someone else said it. I've been sitting here, only 2 cups of tea in (so not fully compos mentis yet) and thinking "But...but...doesn't that phrase make that poster guilty of the exact 'crime' that they are accusing 'you lot' of committing?"

The obvious problem with Stonewall exhorting companies to “go beyond the law” is that they were actually misrepresenting the law they were exhorting those companies to go beyond.

They were actively encouraging those who obeyed to remove women’s rights.

And isn’t it typical that this thread, where we are trying to discuss positive ways that transactivists can move forward is the one where a transactivist is trying to derail it with all the usual non-sequiteurs and obfuscation. 🙄

Are you for real? There was a massive hatred and stigma against gay people in the 80s following the HIV crisis. Of course a bunch of transphobes shouldn't be expected to know anything about LGBTQ+ history

As for the "girl dick" thing I'm not prepared to play your game and use a tiny minority of idiots to tar an entire group.

just posted a grin, forgot that the app is a bit broken at the moment.

No trans people/organisations were consulted

The Scottish Government is a trans organisation isn’t it?

In any case, JoMoFoKimono says none applied (followed by blah blah cry cry), soooo:

@Micaela64 So you think the "bunch of transphobes" you so pleasantly refer to are not perhaps themselves gay or bi? And know nothing of their own history?

Blatant homophobia there.

Edited for spelling

I mean, it rather smacks of tarring everyone with the same brush...

@Micaela64 What point do you think you are making here?

This is a thread about how to respond to people who are disappointed with the Supreme Court judgment which confirms that the protected characteristic of "sex" in the Equality Act means biological sex.

The Equality Act also makes "gender reassignment" and "sexual orientation" protected characteristics.

This means that all LGB people and all trans women and trans men have at least two protected characteristics and possibly more. They are all protected from discrimination based on their sex, gender reassignment status (if applicable), and sexual orientation.

People's knowledge of "LGBTQ+ history" is the reason why these protections exist, and have done for the last 15 years.

All the Supreme Court judgment confirms is that women also exist and have sex based rights.

So what exactly are you complaining about?

There was a lot of homophobia against gay men in that horrible era, mostly from other men.