I wonder if unpicking it is helpful.
The UK has provisions that mean that organisations and people can legitimately discriminate against a group of people based on a protected characteristic needing to be protected. ie Sex discrimination is separated into legitimate vs illegitimate discrimination.
Through the falsehood that somehow a male person with a belief that they are female, extreme activists sought to by pass the legitimate discrimination clauses that allowed female people to have single sex provisions (ie. spaces, opportunities including sport).
Remember, being a 'female person' when you are a male person is only a belief, sincerely held or not.
Illegitimate discrimination is still protected against in the EA as was mentioned in the judgement. This means that a transgender person should not be prevented from employment, housing, etc because they are transgender. The activist groups over reached and told organisations and individuals that this also included not being able to have single sex provisions if someone had or planned to get a legal certificate that was a legal fiction about their sex.
Some people think any discrimination is bad. But it is the very basis of safeguarding principles that are used to protect people in the UK. It can be argued that it is, in fact, discriminatory that one group of male people get special treatment in getting access to female sex based provisions. This is where it needs to be recognised that there has been additional privileges created for this group.
For instance, the human right for accessing a safe toilet should be based on 'what society views as reasonable'. Society understands that absolutely no spaces are 100% safe.
This is another fallacious argument that we see. The tactic goes 'because you cannot be 100% safe if this law is enacted, why bother? Bad people will still do bad things.' It is just bonkers when you start to unpick that, and again, what law is ever expected to deliver 100% safety. But still we see it rolled out.
So, the human right is that everyone should have access to a safe toilet.
And society has to balance out how to do this. They can only get the safety up to a reasonable level. This might shock some people. But it is considered acceptable risk that people of the same sex as the sex that the space is for use that space.
No male person has a human right to expect privacy and dignity from other male people in a single sex space for instance. The category that is considered for those human rights decisions, is that they are male.
This is based on male strength and power, unique male needs, and male patterns of criminality.
Conversely, it is considered reasonable effort to put female people in with other female people. We shouldn't expect privacy from other female people in those spaces and there is considered acceptable risk that an average female person will be able to defend themselves from and / or run away from other female people.
When people start to claim that it is a human rights issue, they don't seem to understand the basis of the human rights they are claiming. And they are attempting to leverage a sub group of male people into the female sex based category.
Remember, those male people are only female based on their 'belief' which they believe is how a female person feels. Evidence shows that hormones and surgery do not change male patterns of criminality. A male person who has lost their penis due to disease or injury is just as male as one who has opted to have their penis removed due to their belief.
It seems to be all based on this misinformation that somehow this group should be given additional privileges above everyone else because of their belief? And what other belief in UK society gets this special treatment.
The example of a racially categorised film showing is not really working. Because it is a group restricted to them based on the characteristic and it is an event not a facility. If trans people want their own events, this should be protected for them to have. Just like people of a religious faith should have their own events and even buildings. But they are not a special privilege in the same way.
For instance, a group of male people have not only access to their single sex spaces, which we know other male people with transgender identities use without issues, but they get additional privileges if they have access to female single sex spaces and also they can use mixed sex 'gender neutral' spaces as well.
Another is why should any group of male prisoners have access to the female prison estate? No other vulnerable male prisoners get that privilege. They are housed in the vulnerable male section at a male prison. Accessing the female prison should be seen as a privilege. The human right is for safety and the provision of vulnerable male wings should fulfill that.
No other group of male prisoners are treated as if they are not the sex they are. And these male people are not female. It is only their belief that they are. No other group gets this special treatment where they are treated as something that they materially not. Only this one.
And why should any male person be given a role that should be for female people to progress female people (ie a woman's officer in the university's student union) when that male person has no fucking idea what it actually means to be a female person at that university. Just labelling themselves as a female student is not actually being a female student. But that student officer has been given a privilege in addition to others because they should not be in the category at all.
This is what I mean by additional privileges. And I understand that options can be given and if it is open to all and not dismissing the needs of others, should be. However, when I unpick all this, I have to ask what are those privileges based on exactly?
A belief about one’s self that doesn’t reflect material reality.