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 sex is biological, immutable, and fixed at birth at the latest has been settled law for decades and how to determine sex is down to biological factors - based on evidence relating to chromosomes, gonads, and external genitalia. This is all from the decision in Corbett v Corbett (1971), as explained by Dr Michael Foran in: https://knowingius.org/p/sex-has-always-meant-biological-sex?utmcampaign=post&utmmedium=web

So they're ignorant ideologues.

You'd think they'd be embarrassed. It does at least explain why bodies like NHS Fife or the Arts Council defend the indefensible - idiotic advice from firms like that.

ETA: cross-posted

There is going to be a lot tantrumming, kicking and screaming. I hear some sort of protest event is to be held in a local park near to my home, later today.Someone also suggested that some men may try and pretend to be trans men in order to access the women's facilities in order to thwart the ruling.... ( a schoolboy escapade if ever there was one)

This was to be expected and we'll need to ride it out. There will need to be continual vigillance for legal and other sorts of challenges. Still a long way to go until the supreme court ruling is firmly established and accepted by all.

Perhaps they're doing it deliberately to try and drum up a bit of business by getting people worried?

As you said, the Supreme Court said it is straightforward. The Supreme Court cited a case (Corbett v Corbett [1971]) which was all about a man and a transwoman getting their marriage annulled because they were both men.

The transwoman didn't want an annulment but wanted a divorce instead so that they could have half of the other's assets.

The High Court ruled that sex is biological and cannot be changed. They went on to say that sex can be determined by evidence relating to chromosomes, gonads, and external genitalia. And that is all, there is no need to consider hormone levels or gender identity.

The decision in Corbett has since been approved by other court cases over the last 50 years.

So there is a pretty well accepted legal meaning in England & Wales of what biological sex is.

Sex Matters dot org have the Corbett judgment on their website:

https://sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Corbett-v-Corbett-1.pdf

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.

The SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) is totally captured. I speak with insider knowledge as I have a friend who works there.

They should all be stripped of any biology GCSE's for starters.
Do the trans community realise they are sounding Trumpian every time they deny reality? Wouldn't have thought they'd have chosen those allies....

transwoman barrister Robin Moira White, also states that a “refusal to accept a trans person's gender identity” constitutes transphobia,

All this is such an embarrassing waste of time. RMW knows that gender isn't sex. We know that gender isn't sex. RMW knows that we know that gender isn't sex. We know that RMW knows that gender isn't sex.

Stonewall know so well that gender isn't sex that they take great pains to differentiate them.
Their very definition on what transgender even IS relies fully on the concept of sex and gender being different.

This dishonest pretending serves no purpose whatsoever - it just looks like a desperate hope that if the words are muddled enough, some people might believe that the SC judgement said something that it did not.

I didn't have the greatest of regard for RMW after their little rants on here but I did actually think they were above this very intentional word-mangling. I was wrong.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when this important card gets handed over to someone on the front desk at a leisure centre in Barnsley or Grimsby because a male has decided he wants to get changed with the girls and has been told no.

Perhaps the leading barrister could explain that whilst they might “require your name” they have as much authority as a leading barista as to whether you actually give them your name.

The trans be raging.

That's good, when they're explaining they're losing.

I did not know biological sex was settled case law, thanks for sharing. Why do TRA bang on about it being a spectrum and the definition of biological then... (err stupid question to ask i guess)?

Good Law Project are raising funds to go to the High Court to challenge the Supreme Court ruling on the basis that it's incompatible with the ECHR.

They've already raised £45,000.

Does anyone know if this is a feasible way to challenge the SC ruling? I thought the HC was a lower court than the SC court so I'm confused as to how this would work. Any lawyers know what they are plotting. Or is it just another Jolyon grift?

The statement on the crowdfunding page is deranged. It's like they got a teenager to write it...

"We believe that the Supreme Court – which disgracefully refused to hear from trans people before handing down a decision with the profoundest possible consequences for trans lives – has placed or revealed the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act.

In a 2002 case called “Goodwin”, the European Court of Human Rights said: “A conflict between social reality and the law arises which places [a trans person] in an anomalous position, in which he or she may experience feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and anxiety” and found the UK in breach.

Following that case, the UK introduced the Gender Recognition Act to make us compliant. The Minister introducing the Act said it was intended to alter the definition of man and woman in equalities legislation but the Supreme Court, because it refused to hear from any trans people, appears to have been oblivious to this critical fact and decided references to men and women were to “biological” sex.

After the Supreme Court case, our so-called Equalities Minister, Bridget Phillipson, said “the ruling was clear that provisions and services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”, and the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said he no longer believes that trans women are women: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.”

The decision and these statements shamefully deny the reality of trans existence and will lead to daily humiliation for trans people and for cis people who choose not to dress “normally”. And they will not make anyone safer, cis or trans.

To use single sex services, trans people and “non-conforming” cis men and women will be required to “prove” their “biological sex”: goodness knows how. Trans women, and cis women who don’t abide by gender norms, will be “frisked” by men. Trans men will be forced to identify themselves to everyone as trans by using female services. Younger trans people will be humiliated at school and at university.

The Nazis forced the LGBT+ community to identity themselves as “degenerates” by wearing pink triangles. Labour’s policy means that for trans people to move through the public sphere they will need, similarly, to identify themselves as trans in an increasingly violent and transphobic world.

We believe the UK is now in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention of Human Rights and we plan to ask the High Court for a declaration of incompatibility. We believe the legal arguments are strong – but we must also point out that the Supreme Court has revealed a readiness on the part of our courts to disapply, in the case of trans people, normal legal and procedural safeguards.

We have put together a legal team involving several KCs and at least one trans barrister. The legal team will be supported by heavyweight policy specialists in equalities law and will be informed by the lived experiences of trans people. We will publish the legal documents in the case as they become available and as the law permits. This is no small undertaking – but, for the trans community in Britain, it is literally existential.

We would be grateful for your help."

The supreme court’s decision is final, and not open to appeal.
It’s just more nonsensical hot air.

It's absolutely bonkers. I have only been following this for a short while so am not that well versed but the SC ruling makes it clear they had to look at any detrimental impact on transpeople. They are protected from discrimination under their own protected characteristic of gender reassignment. They have not lost any protections or rights.

Re Good Law Project and its challenge - I know past performance is no guarantee of future results yada yada but... As far as I'm aware GLP has never won a case in the field of genderism and I'd stake a fiver that this one will fail as well.

Why do TRA bang on about it being a spectrum and the definition of biological then... (err stupid question to ask i guess)?

Well, quite! The usual reason. What's also lovely is that psychological factors and genital surgery is specifically excluded from consideration when determining sex for legal purposes.

They are protected from discrimination under their own protected characteristic of gender reassignment. They have not lost any protections or rights.

Exactly. But their own protected characteristic/trans rights isn't good enough, they want to steal ours.

They won't be happy until they've completely subjugated women and taken/destroyed everything that's for us, as their pathetic letter of demands yesterday perfectly demonstrated.

I thought the GLP had announced that they weren't going to take on gender cases anymore?

I'm guessing loads of people wanting to spend money persuaded them it was their moral duty to step up.

“The case in question arose from a challenge brought by a transgender woman who was seeking to compete in elite-level women’s sport”, hallucinated the firm.”

'hallucinated the firm' is, hands down, the most spectacularly comedic and accurate description I've ever read.

The entire case is worth it, just for that

The article is great, that lawyers called the advice "grossly misleading" is legal polite speak for totaly wrong / batshit.

Moreover though the reference to the Legal Feminist blog was a good find for me. Their advice from february 2025 spells out the law clearly and references what the clear implications will be given the possible outcomes of the SC ruling.

They also have an (old 2021) review of a transgender law book that is searing to say the least. They totally rip it to shreds.

'hallucinated the firm' is, hands down, the most spectacularly comedic and accurate description I've ever read.

I thought the same when I read it.

It's like (and I can't remember where I heard it possibly Billy Connolly),

Fuck off, he hinted

@Signalbox

I don't know if a declaratory action could even work, but surely it's inviting far too much scrutiny of the massive clash between trans Article 8 rights (privacy) and sex equality. You can't have sex-discrimination law without knowing what sex people are.

Not just any kimono but a 'too small' kimono. Jolyon was keen to paint quite the picture.

So by that statement, everything should be mixed sex because there is no possible way of knowing a person's sex. Yet that's not what they're arguing for is it?

I love it that they think we can't tell 🙄🤦.