It's badly written, misrepresents the legal process, and shows a school-level understanding (I honestly wouldn't even go as high as undergraduate) of the nuances of sex and gender. To be generous, maybe they weren't more Butlerian/-esque to make it accessible to a wider audience... (although is this actually being generous? 😂)
I re-wrote it out of sheer frustration to explore what they could have said to respect both groups and represent the situation more accurately and, er... lawfully.
Of course, my GC-bias will still show through, but still, 1) my version is more in line with the law & 2) sympathetic to both affected groups.
It wasn't difficult.
What they appear to have said, as a TLDR: women don't need or deserve a word for themselves or sex-based rights.
What I wish they'd said, that I could get behind (VV long, so read at own risk...!):
...
This judgment, which states that ‘sex’ for the purposes of the Act refers to the ‘sex of a person at birth’, was handed down after a case in which women’s interests were represented by a grassroots group supporting sex-based rights, and trans women’s interests by the Scottish government and Amnesty International. National trans advocacy organisations were also offered the opportunity to contribute on behalf of individual trans people, in line with standard Supreme Court process.
We believe the judgement provides clarity on the meaning of sex in law, thereby mitigating ongoing misogynistic opportunism and harm to trans people in a fraught area. For example, we are reassured by responses by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and organisations such as the British Transport Police, as the judgement has placed much-needed pressure on these organisations to uphold the law by providing female-only facilities and services. Such responses will protect women’s safety, privacy and dignity, by enabling the full participation in society of vulnerable females including victims of male violence and members of religious minorities. However, the judgement also highlights trans people’s status and needs.
It is important to note the Supreme Court emphasises the ongoing protection of trans people from discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment, and asserts the importance of their access to appropriate facilities, too. However, it appears that long-term misrepresentation the law by multiple public institutions which have encouraged trans women to use female-only facilities and services has led to lost opportunities to promote and fund provision for these people. We are keen to support such organisations now as they redirect their efforts towards this.
As such, we recognise the complexity of balancing of the of rights of women and trans women. This is especially the case in relation to the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces. Female members of our society clearly require specific accommodations for their lived biological experiences, including but not limited to: menstruation, pregnancy, miscarriage, and menopause, and their statistically proven vulnerability to violence perpetrated by males including both “cis-“ men and “trans women”. As feminists, we see the weaponisation of women’s desire for these accommodations to vilify them as TERFS, bigots or fascists and silence their voices, as utterly shameful.
However, in addition to the importance of recognizing the female experience, we also recognize that womanhood may be seen as a complex, gendered construct which is, in contrast, not biologically given or legally bestowed, and is, rather, lived by a wider range of individuals, including both women and trans women. From this perspective, the rights of trans women and women may be seen to overlap.
As academic experts on sex and gender, we further acknowledge the existence of Differences of Sexual Development (so-called “intersex” individuals) and are concerned by the weaponization of such conditions to support arguments that biological sex is not ‘self-explanatory.’ It Is self-evident that every single human to existence is the product of a male and a female reproductive system, making biological sex one of the few true binaries in nature. However, it is also self-evident that there are natural variations and outliers within this which must be accommodated. We feel that this should be on the basis of these groups’ own unique needs.
We view this judgment and the damaging responses to it such as threats of violence levelled at feminists as part of a broader trend of backsliding on women’s equality, which is also harming marginalised groups and gender nonconforming people. Discrimination does not exist in isolation, and the stripping away of women’s legal protections (now re-established in law) has threatened us all. The reality of sex has been subsumed into and confused with a gendered construct of “lived womanhood”, leading to the loss of previously well-functioning single-sex facilities, services and associated social contracts, including the quiet accommodation of transwomen in female-only spaces. The assertion of this undefinable quality of “womanhood” has resulted in intensified regulation of the borders of gender expression, while denying a simple truth: that women require specific accommodations acknowledging their bodily reality, beyond which they are wholly autonomous individuals unlimited by reductive “gender identities”.
Our support for women’s rights, LGB rights, and trans rights, including safe and inclusive healthcare and sanitary facilities for all, is steadfast. As such, we are delighted by the Supreme Court’s confirmation that the 51% of the population known as “women” retain their legal rights and words; that trans men retain vital access to maternity protections; and that lesbian same-sex attraction, recently homophobically described as a form of “racism”, is recognised as real and also legally protected. We also recognize the challenges the judgment presents to trans women in particular, and are keen to do everything we can within UK law to protect this group, starting by adding our voices to calls for third spaces (alongside the male toilets a proportion already use, accessible toilets and evolving gender-neutral provision) to accommodate them fully alongside women.