Trans former judge to take government to ECHR

[CervixSampler]

Trans former judge is taking the government to the European Court of Human Rights over SC ruling

The human rights argument - women and homosexuals should have their human rights in law destroyed because this stops me using them how I want to, and this makes me so sad.

Words fail.

There really do seem to be those who believe had someone been able to rant emotively about their feelings to the judges that the judgment would have found for them. The capacity issues here are vast.

But isn’t it fair to say mccloud is in some instances two sexes at once ie male (reality/biology/for purposes of equality act) and female on some pieces of paper (ID like birth certificates, passport etc)?

I agree it’s ridiculous but while he argues that everything should therefore reflect his gender identity/pieces-of-paper “sex”, I come to a different conclusion - namely that it’s silly to keep going with this legal fiction and pretend that people can change sex, particularly now it’s been clarified that GRCs do not, quite rightly, entitle people the rights of the opposite sex.

I saw the Guardian article on the proposed case and rushed here to get expert analysis!
I am confused why Mcloud is going for Article 6? And their reference to "ordinary women" not being represented in the SC case. 🤔

Yes. The current situation would seem to be certificated sex and biological sex IN the context of the EquAct because otherwise it's incoherent and removes protections for other groups.

Pushing for it to be one or the other end of, would seem a bit of a risk to take with certificated sex being able to continue to survive as a thing.

That does seem very odd.

How did the Supreme Court not follow standard procedure?

The Equality Act is wholly based on biological sex there's no part that references certified sex

Will there be crowd funding for this case...?

I feel a bit more reassured that the judges knew what they were doing when they decided what to include or not.

If that’s the basis. I mean you can never know for sure but McCloud is using phrases such as female anatomy and ordinary women incorrectly and subjectively. Like the JM barrister their emotions seem to be taking over.

Thanks to those who have pointed out that VMcC had to resign because he was, by his own admission, incapable of carrying out his judicial duties free from political bias. While that merits full marks for self-awareness, it's nul points for impartial judginess.

Not a robot in disguise then, I take it...?

I think they were warned when the GRA bill was being debated (there was a MN thread last week on the original GRA debates) but they chose to ignore the potential pitfalls on the basis “that will never happen”.

To be fair to the politicians involved in approving the GRA, online culture wasn’t a mainstream thing like it was today - this was in the time when MySpace was new, and when Facebook and Tumblr hadn’t even launched yet.

Not only was people’s understanding of transsexualism completely different back then, but transgenderism as a separate movement didn’t really exist back then.

I’ve read the article now and McCloud isn’t correct in saying they have ‘female anatomy’, that’s not possible.

A lot of AGP -style trans-identified men fixate on breasts. Artificial cross-sex hormones (it is NOT HRT!) will give men breast like growths, but they're generally nothing like the actual shape (nor any of the functions) of a mature female breast.

They seem to know far less about the more fundamental sexed characteristics of female anatomy. One has to feel for their ex-wives ...

If McCloud's argument is that passing should confer different rights, where does that leave people who don't pass? Is this setting the cat amongst the pigeons?

Yes, the Goodwin ruling was engaged with in some detail.

I was referring to the judgment which explained at length why certificated sex could not work for the Equality Act, therefore making the distinction between certificated sex and biological sex for trans people with GRCs.

Another problem - the obvious one - raised in the judgment is that you cannot ask to see evidence of holding certificated sex, there is no means of distinguishing a man with a certificate and a one without, and therefore it would be impossible and impractical (judgment explains at length in several places) to try and have allowances for men with certificates in the spaces covered in the EA. If it's any man it's all men. Which would be a mixed sex space.

That said, the GRA is the most poorly-drafted statute I’ve ever read, and there was no excuse for the level of shoddy drafting and lack of scrutiny on the actual wording and possible consequences, regardless of what was known about transsexuals.

Had the GRA been drafted properly with clear definitions (including defining gender identity for the purpose of the law), this mess could easily have been avoided.

Yes, the Supreme Court Judges spent some time outlining how the law is often very much about its context. The GRA was written at a very different time to now...when people were still referred to as "post operative transsexuals" and before gay marriage equality.

Quite! Which goes to show that ill thought through and poorly drafted legislation makes for bad, unworkable law.

Apologies I misread your post as "certified and biological" in the EA rather than certified for non EA purposes and biological for EA purposes

@LonginesPrimeThat is true. Now we have this movement which men use each year to challenge women and push onto children what should we do?

Continue with all the rewriting of basic biology and men / institutions use lies, threats and violence to paper over the obvious problems or scrap. I’m pretty clear on the former not being good for anyone, so I’d say repeal and start with something else that works.

I find it quite scary when we have judges and doctors (and teachers, charity bosses etc....) in powerful positions able to make decisions about other peoples lives and they are living falsehoods and fantasies.
Imagine standing in his court and having to take what he said seriously.. .when he thinks he's a woman!
Very, very scary.
I would be tempted to identify as 'not guilty'.

I think this case there will ultimately succeed, and the UK government will then have to go back to giving primacy to the GRA, or amend equality act to comply in UK law

What case, @OneGreyScroller? There is no case.

Even if there were, the EctHR has no powers to nullify national legislation.

I doubt it will ever happen because of the optics, but I agree with starting over completely on the GRA.

Obviously, it’s usually preferable to amend an existing statute, but I swear a part of me dies every time I have to read a provision of the GRA, as there’s nothing in there that makes sufficient sense to actually amend in the first place.

I wonder if there might be an argument for repeal and fresh law on the basis the context of what it means to be trans had changed so significantly from what it meant in 2003-4 that the original law is no longer workable. I think most trans people would also agree with that, once they accept that the SC ruling isn’t going away.

I can only imagine it’s because McCloud applied to intervene and was not allowed to as an individual (because apparently the SC rarely hear from individuals). Presumably he’s now trying to say this is unfair because the SC didn’t hear directly from trans people (even though the SG the EHRC and AI all put the case for trans) I wonder what McCloud thinks he could add beyond “do what I say or people will kill themselves”.

I think something like you can’t change sex. You are M or F and that is it. So pre GRA really.

You can dress how you like etc and shouldn’t be discriminated on that basis.