Law firms in a muddle. (Roll on Friday)

[Imnobody4]

https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-law-firms-get-sex-muddle-over-supreme-court-verdict
Lewis Silkin was accused of being "grossly misleading" when it produced an analysis of the verdict which advised that men who identified as women were still entitled to use the single sex facilities of their choice in the workplace, and that employers who stopped transwomen from doing so could be sued for discrimination.“If employers do provide single sex spaces then (based on previous cases) it is likely to be gender reassignment discrimination to bar trans people from using the facilities of their choice. As this does not relate to GRCs [Gender Recognition Certificates], it is unaltered by the Court’s judgment", stated the analysis........After ROF asked the Law Society if the template policy, promoted by the SRA, potentially placed firms which adopted it in legal jeopardy following the ruling, it added a note at the top of the document warning, “We are currently reviewing this guidance in light of the recent Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers. Firms should continue to seek their own advice on these issues as applicable to their own circumstances”. The document, drafted by the Law Society's LGBT+ Committee and transwoman barrister Robin Moira White, also states that a “refusal to accept a trans person's gender identity” constitutes transphobia, which would now appear to catch the justices of the Supreme Court.Former tax barrister Jolyon Maugham, who runs the Good Law Project, might approve. Having predicted that "FWS will lose. The law really is pretty clear", following the verdict he posted on Bluesky that "There is a very real basis to believe - and I am a KC with an unblemished record - to believe that something very bad, delegitimising, happened in the Supreme Court", and claimed that the judges were "hubristic, reckless or bigoted".

”That’s a lovely card, dear, oooh and laminated too! My name is NotBadConsidering of 53 I Don’t Give A Fuck Lane, Little Whinging, postcode GRC 40, that’s ‘for nothing’. Now, off you pop.”

At least Jolyon “unblemished record” Maughan has never done anything insufferably ridiculous, like bludgeoning a fox to death with a baseball bat whilst wearing his green satin kimono, and then tweeting about it.

These oh-so-eminent KC’s really are Gods among men, eh?

This is wild, but I suppose an expected response from a firm of solicitors.

However, we do at least have the guarantee that whatever "biological sex" means there will he some form of physical referent, precluding self-ID on the basis of "feelz".

Let’s hope they don’t consult that other intellectual titan, Dr. Beth Upton, who reckons that as he feels like a woman AND is taps nose biological (which is a nebulous term anyway), and conclude that the intention of the legislature was to include in the term “biological woman” anyone with a cock and/or balls. As LS seems to advocate.

Is Alison Bailey’s “dear friend” a certain Miss Rowling by any chance?

JFC I have second hand embarrassment for some of these lawyers. It’s the legal equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting la-la-la-can’t-hear-you.

Jolyon with his ‘unblemished record’ has passed the point of no return in the quagmire of delusion.

On the plus side I suppose it’s a reminder that generative AI is not a replacement for critical thinking, and to carry out due diligence before choosing a lawyer given the excessively low quality of some.

I believe the logic goes:

"I want this thing"
"These words appear to give me this thing"
"Therefore these words must be true"

Which is all of Genderism in a nutshell really.

Single sex are meant to be that though so what’s the deal here

How sad that the Silkin name is brought so low. Lord Silkin worked for the Attlee Government and did hard work on the New Towns in 1950s.
Nobodies trading on a historic name. Contempt!

Not just " can be excluded"...but actually that when you admit a man ( GRC or not) it is no longer single sex and so is against the equality act.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) cannot directly overrule the UK Supreme Court. The UK Supreme Court is the highest court in the UK and has the final say on legal interpretations within the UK.

As above, GRC is meaningless because it is an admission ticket to nowhere.
If you say, run a small business where it has been common practice to allow a specific TW to use the Ladies loo, because they are polite and accepted by the women. Now it is clear that that room, those facilities are no longer single sex and open to every other man in the factory. The Women might object and you as an employer has to direct the trans person to the men's room.

I think it could be improved with the addition of END OF at the end.

I'm confused by lawyers and law firms saying that the concept of 'biological sex' hasn't been defined and so is confusing/unclear. The Supreme Court said it was essentially a basic, common sense concept that didn't require expert elaboration (and in any event, the Equality Act says women are female and men are male). Are these law firms similarly confused by concepts like 'age'? Courts are required to determine someone's age all the time in immigration disputes (where the level of protection varies depending on whether if one is a child or an adult.) And are they really meaning to imply that the concept of biological sex is so difficult that if it wouldn't be capable of legal definition?

No, no, no! You’ve got that wrong, I’m afraid, @Vinvertebrate!

It was his wife's green satin kimono.

I'm sure he’d want the record to be unblemished.

As you were

😂

That card isn’t correct though?

Is it? Single sex is just that regardless of the ruling mentioned.

I read this article and took issue with that section - I hadn't realised that there had been a furore about it.

Of course, since the first version there has also been the Scottish court case about the unisex loos in a school which said that you do have to provide single sex facilities.

I didn't know that there was a difference in the application of the Equality Act between service providers and employers. Whether it makes that much of a difference remains to be seen, though.

I am reliably informed that "hallucinated" is code for written by Chatgpt, which is often described as hallucinating facts. A fascinating insight into what those high hourly rates go on 😬

They rely on the fact that people will defer to them being lawyers in order to ignore the big fat porkie that they're spouting. If they can pretend that biological sex is such a nebulous concept then men get to retain their right to access women and girls undressing, cheat women out of sports etc.

It's a level of stupidity that until recently wasn't exposed to the horrified masses. But, we now have to watch so many once respected professions and individuals beclowning themselves with lies and fantasies. It's been a profitable gig for some up until now. But it's over.

There is case law. According to Corbett v Corbett, sex is defined by karyotypical, gonadal, and genital sex at birth, and subsequent modifications don't count.

Obviously, people with DSDs might present a legal conundrum but I couldn't find any case law, and it would be a pity to give up on sex-discrimination law because of 0.018% of the population 🙄

Why don't 'lawyers' know this?

This was Jolyon Maugham giving his view about the authoritative, and shall we say supreme, nature of the Supreme Court in 2019:

https://x.com/rafaellacj/status/1913291759297368298

IAAL. Albeit a rather cynical one. There is money to be made by law firms from the (plentiful) areas of law where existing judicial interpretation of legislation does not (say) align to the specific facts of a case, or may need to be distinguished for other reasons that were not before the court. These firms are trying to find any reason to re-litigate the EA issue before the SC, and imply that there is doubt in certain terms, presumably in order to convince any gullible TRA-esque organisations to give them a mandate to do so.

They are trying particularly hard because, as employers and partnerships, they went from pale, male, stale and often homophobic partners, to rainbow-farting shops whose aspiring young lawyers were proudly gay, straight, bi and every other permutation. These male partners didn’t have an epiphany, they just noticed that their clients kept peskily insisting on their firm’s DEI stats when they pitched for work, and were more than happy to gulp the Stonewall Kool-Aid and continue to beast young lawyers for 2000 chargeables a year, however they identified.

In short, they are opportunistic, avaricious numpties who will now reap the whirlwind.

Aw Jolyon, hoist with his own petard. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving chap! 😂

I'm wondering whether a market will emerge for some law firms to provide misrepresentations of the law that align with the ideological requirements of their clients. Traditionally, a good law firm wouldn't do this because they'd risk being sued for misrepresenting the law but when you're pretty sure your client wouldn't sue you over this...

supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

Section (1) Terminology, para 6:

"... a biological man, ie who was at birth of the male sex ..."

and

"... a biological woman, ie who was at birth of the female sex ..."

Same section, para 7:

"We also use the expression “biological sex” which is used widely, including in the judgments of the Court of Session, to describe the sex of a person at birth, and we use the expression “certificated sex” to describe the sex attained by the acquisition of a GRC."

Do Lewis Silkin also want definitions of "sex", "person" and "at birth"?

I understood that previously decided cases could be reopened or appealed out of time if the law is reinterpreted like this. Or at the very least, the situation behind the cases could now give rise to a new more winnable case. So there'll be more business for all the lawyers!