Just one article to convince someone that it's not just about sport?

[Emilesgran]

Hi all,
I normally come here to learn rather than to post because there are so many brilliant women who just "get" everything that I feel I don't have much to contribute. Plus lack of time TBH.

Anyway, my DS who's in his late 20s and living abroad so we don't sit down regularly to talk, has been holding back on the whole trans thing. I've felt for ages that he didn't agree with me but was being "careful" not to say the wrong thing, and I didn't want to push it.

So now, at last, after the SC ruling, he finally said something on Whatsapp about "the strange SC judgment". I asked him "why strange", and he replied with quite a detailed post:
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Well I'm not as engaged as you are. But the judgement is ham-fisted, reads like a biased SCOTUS opinion and lowers my opinion of UK Supreme Court. Extract:
"The definition of sex in the EA 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man. Persons who share that protected characteristic for the purposes of the group-based rights and protections are persons of the same sex and provisions that refer to protection for women necessarily exclude men. Although the word “biological” does not appear in this definition, the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman. These are assumed to be self-explanatory and to require no further explanation."

That's just a dereliction of duty by the court, and will cause problems as it enforces gender stereotypes on the entire population.

And then he concluded: The sports issue is a minor aspect that needed correcting. That's sorted, but at the cost of cruelty to another section of the population who would never dream of picking up a tennis racquet competitively - nor assault children in bathrooms.
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Italics are mine - to show his words, bolding is his.

I was going to reply, but I don't want to get this wrong. Nor end up with a to-and-fro that will just lead to him disengaging again. I feel like this is a chance to win him over - if I can get it right.

I also know he won't read lots of different articles about it - he's not concerned enough. But if someone has an idea of just one article - not one with lots of horrifying anecdotes about abusers, that's not his style, but rather something analytical that will explain why it's a woman's rights issue, rather than trans rights, or - well I don't know, something else - that'd be fantastic.

I can respond to some of his points, that it's not just about competitive sports for instance, because girls only get to a competitive level by coming up through the ranks of school and club sports, and that women need to play more sports generally anyway. But like I say, I'd really like a single authoritative article about why this is not about dislike for transgender but about erasing women. He already knows about JK Rowling, of course, so it needs to be in a bit more depth than that.

I'm sure if I took the time to search here, I'd find something, but apart from the fact that it's a daunting task, I'd really like some advice on how to go about it talking to him about it as well.

He also has a 13 year old cousin who's currently in the throes of thinking she might be trans or NB, so OTOH her obvious unhappiness and confusion might help my argument, but I don't want to sound like I'm rejecting her either. Because I'm not.

TIA

The "being realistic about sex is enforcing gender stereotypes" confusion sometimes arises because people don't realise that there are three, not two, ways of thinking about how sex relates to gender stereotypes. The following is a bit of a caricature but it shows the differences:

1. Traditional/conservative: A woman is a person with a female body. Women like wearing dresses and makeup, and if they don't, they should, because that's what real.women do. Men are superior because they are not interested in that sort of thing. If they are, they're effeminate and a waste of space.
2. Gender ideologist: A woman is a person with any kind of body who likes wearing dresses and makeup. If they don't, they're a man. Or possibly non-binary. Or cat-gender. Or (insert preferred gender here).Also altering your body to fit your preferred gender stereotype as far as possible is an option too. Opinions differ as to whether this is necessary. Most male-bodied "women" prefer to have their cake and eat it, and keep their wedding tackle.
3. Gender critical feminist: A woman is an adult han female. She can wear what she likes, and feminine stereotypes can get stuffed if she doesn't happen to like them. Having short hair, trousers and no makeup doesn't turn her into a man. A man can also wear what he likes but needs to understand that wearing a dress and makeup , and even cutting off his bits and taking hormones, doesn't turn him into a woman.

I think part of the confusion has occurred because trans activists quite deliberately try to pretend that position 3 is the same as position 1, so as to slur gender critical feminists with "being aligned with the Far Right".

Also helpful is the Denton document. It shows the sly, insidious way all this became embedded into our public institutions etc -

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists/

This is an archive link to the Guardian article

https://archive.ph/EZZRA

Sex is a fact. Whatever that fact is, the facts that make up that fact don't change.

Just because for some humans determining that fact might take a little bit longer (with scans, chromosome tests etc) does not mean that sex isn't a fact.

It doesn't mean it is complicated in all cases. In most cases it is very simple.

And it certainly doesn't mean that some people should be treated as a sex that they are not.

If in any particular case it needed to, the court could determine whether someone was male of female.

I disagree with the foreword in this case which appears to suggest that the same conclusion would not be reached today, but this is a very detailed court case of how it might be done.

http://www.pfc.org.uk/caselaw/Corbett%20v%20Corbett.pdf

Maybe Dr Upton's sex might need to be determined in the same way??

But I would try not to be side tracked. I doubt there has ever been an instance of a same sex couple visiting a doctor and explaining that they think they may have fertility issues as they have been having sex for 6 months and neither of them is pregnant. Humans know the sex of themselves and others when it matters. Pretending they don't as they haven't had a chromosome test is just silly.

Male women? Would that work? I’d rather go back to transsexuals!!

Maybe simply ask him why he thought the sports issue did need correcting?

Does that mean that transwomen are not always women? Why not?

It's not just about sports, it's about having a clear legal reference that a woman is an adult human female, and that wearing nail varnish, dresses or make up and having long hair are not "biological characteristics" that entitle you to access female-only settings/provison: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13001819/sex-offenders-commit-crimes-men-women-court-crooks-switched-gender-prison.html

As the mum of a young transwoman (who is not likely to chnage their mind anytime soon) I listened to the whole case online and was quite relieved by the final judgment for my child's sake.

There is a long detailed judgment (80 pages) which gives all the background and is actually quite readable to a lay reader - has he read it?

The judges aren't changing anything in the Act, only Parliament can do that. The judgment explains why UK law has to be "either/or" - certificated or bio sex, for everything that's covered by the Equality Act. The Equality Act covers a lot of different things (not everything) and under a single Act there is no mix'n'match of using different definitions like using certificated sex for some things and bio sex for something else like sport.

It's pretty balanced and really isn't as bad for trans people as the press make it out to be. It preserves the maternity rights of transmen, for example. When its necesary to separate by sex the Equality Act requires third (unisex) spaces and services rather than letting transwomen into women-only ones. In many situations those already exist (e.g. many buildings have some enclosed single-user unisex toilets; or Sussex Rape Survivors has a women's, a men's and a mixed-sex LGBT group which is legally fine - well it would have been fine if the silly suausages hadn't decided to let a transwoman join the women's group but that's a different story!) and in many places where they don't exist yet those additional mixed-sex spaces and services will have to be provided to comply with the law.

Oh and I hit send before I could say - It has nothing to do with the US, people get US law and politics mixed up with the UK a lot. If you read bits of a UK judgment through a US lens then yes you are going to get confused.

Ask him how he thinks all this works in Afghanistan and the DRC

The people most into gender stereotypes are trans people! Nowadays most women don't go for a hyper glam look unless they are on stage - it is primarily drag queens and trans women who try to wear as much stereotypical clothing and make-up all at once as they can. It is trans people who want to turn themselves into a walking stereotype.

My understanding is that the court went right back to the sex discrimination act of the 70s to see what the intention behind this and subsequent legislation was. It was always about biological sex.

Check out Sex Matters resources for chapter and verse on this.

The relevant protected characteristics in UK equality law are "gender reassignment" and "sex". The words "gender" and "sex" are used interchangeably in our legislation, including the Equality Act. "Gender identity" has never been a thing in UK law. Some countries like Australia have decided that gender identity matters in their laws but the UK Parliament has not.

In the UK some groups have tried to argue that our Equality Law really means "gender identity" wherever "gender" is used, or even where "sex" is used as well, but that leads to too many contradictions and weirdnesses in our existing legislation to make legal sense. As the Supreme Court has carefully spelled out.

One of the things your son might not know is that in UK Equality Law you're protected against dsicrimination if people think you belong to a particular group. So if you're a transwoman and you don't get promoted because your manager thinks you're a woman then you have a case for sex discrimination. If you don't get promoted because they know you're trans, it's gender reassignment discrimination. With a good barrister you might be able to hit them for both!

Lots of very good replies here.

But how did your son think it was possible to sort out sports but leave everything else up in the air? Lots of different definitions of sex? Or sex only important for sport?

FWS website is a good one to share - have used it for a couple of my family members
https://forwomen.scot/did-you-know/

Re definitions, there are 3 reasons the supreme court did not need to provide more detailed definitions in this judgement.

1. In British law, a word is always used with its 'ordinary meaning' unless the specific bit of legislation specifies otherwise. Until 5 minutes ago everyone knew what 'man' and 'woman' meant.

2. The Equality Act, which was the one in question in the judgement, does define men and women. It adds a definition rather than relying on (1) because ordinarily 'woman' would mean only an adult female, and to avoid a lot of repetition the Act uses 'woman' for a female of any age so they don't have to write out 'woman or girl' every time. Ditto for man and boy.

Because the definitions are in the Act, the court did not need to repeat them in the judgement.

3. The legal meaning of 'sex' in British law, and how it applies for trans people, had already been settled in the Corbett v Corbett case.