Our organisation has just published its response to the Supreme Court ruling

[PoisonCrystal]

It’s an Arms Length Body and it’s the usual carefully worded sitting-on-the-fence waffle, including needing to wait for the statutory guidance from the EHRC. I do wonder about my colleagues, though. In the comments was the following gem:

“Do we know how the court is defining ‘biological sex’? Genetically? Chromosomally? Hormonally? Aesthetically?”

Does someone now need to get a court ruling on the definition of sex? Then what? A definition of “human”?

Exactly. I knew we'd been slithering about in that swamp, I just hadn't really reckoned with the idea that we might be in a place where a final judicial decision could be treated as just another inconvenient fact for sophists to elide away.

(re whether Reform is inevitable, that line is the last one in Judges fwiw: the next thing that happens is that a king does appear)

Just to add a little bit extra to that, Arthur Corbett was the eldest son of Lord Rowallan who, at that time, was the Governor-General of Tasmania and had also been Chief Scout up until a year before Arthur met April.

When his father died in 1977 Arthur became the 3rd Baron Rowallan until his own death in 1993.

‘Biological sex’ was used by the Scottish government, and the SC just used their wording.

In this instance it just means ‘not acquired sex conferred by a gender recognition certificate’.

Yes, “vibes” is definitely what laws should be based on - there are far too many laws based on objective facts and evidence already.

Legal certainty is sooo boring when we could instead keep people and organisations constantly guessing whether they’re acting lawfully or not.

Common sense, commonly understood definitions is what the equalities act was predicated on.All of this nonsense about how "complex" the issue is, when it really isn't complex at all.

They could always try reading the ruling themselves. Nobody seems to want to go to source anymore...they jut want someone else to provide a precis, and these precises are themselves often just based on another ill informed or incomplete precis.

Funny how those claiming not to know what a woman is always know where to aim their: unerring knowledge of which class of humans are required to function as support robots, expectations of silence and compliance on pain of punishment (usually being the process), accusations of bigotry, signs on lavatory doors demanding 'respect' of fellow service users, admonitions on toilet walls to protect others from harm by acting as human shields, doxing, tomato-soup missiles, rape threats, death threats ...

Please let it be an ALB in areas other than health and social care.

Fucks sake.

Tell them: “It’s set out paragraph 7 of the judgment here as the sex of a person at birth. Screenshot attached. If you’re not sure of yours check your original birth certificate (ie the first birth certificate ever issued to you). Hope that helps ☺️”

Sorry no time to read all posts but in this and other cases can everyone on FWR remember that the EHRC has published the interim guidelines on what the ruling means.

And it states it is about SEX.

Please can everyone use the web link, or download it as a pdf any just share it at work or whatever. Or post in response to nonsense on the internet.

Which I would suggest the OP does to their employer.

There is no discussion.

Unless as some TRAs are trying to do which is to say Baroness Falkner is the enemy and should be ignored and sacked.

But in the meantime like it or not (or her) these are now the current legal guidelines that everyone should be following.

Quote:

The Supreme Court ruled that in the Equality Act 2010 (the Act), ‘sex’ means biological sex.
This means that, under the Act:

• A ‘woman’ is a biological woman or girl (a person born female)
• A ‘man’ is a biological man or boy (a person born male)

If somebody identifies as trans, they do not change sex for the purposes of the Act, even if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

• A trans woman is a biological man
• A trans man is a biological woman

and more at https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/interim-update-practical-implications-uk-supreme-court-judgment

Gah, you could play this silly game with all the protected characteristics.

Race - what if someone is almost entirely white but their great great great great great grandmother was black, can they apply for a black person's grant?

Age - what if they were born at exactly midnight on a leap year or in a different time zone?

Sexual orientation - what if someone identifies as gay but has never been in a same sex relationship but lots of opposite sex ones?

Marital status - what if someone got married but it was immediately annulled?

etc etc

Sex is actually one of the easiest to define!