Ask a stupid question...

[WallaceinAnderland]

I can hardly believe what I have just read on another forum.

OP - Correct me if I've got this wrong, but isn't biological sex something different to the gender you were assigned at birth? Have I got this right? If I have, isn't it the case that a trans person could understand their gender identity as being their biological sex, and could therefore use the services that correspond to that whilst still being in-keeping with the wording of the EHRC guidance?

Responses:

• Yes, you're right - sex assigned at birth and biological sex are different things.

• The Supreme Court judgement, however, creates its own definition not based on any scientific classification. According to the ruling, "biological sex" simply means "sex of a person at birth." They make no further attempt to describe what sex at birth actually means.

• Applied to humans, the term "biological sex" is meaningless except as a generalisation. It excludes all sorts of human bodies.

• You've got this exactly right actually, biological sex is not as simple as what the doctors decided you were when you were born.

• It's a term with no definition or bounds.

• “Biological sex” isn’t a scientific term, it is a buzzword anti-trans groups like to use to describe birth sex. They also claim it’s binary and can’t change, which is reductive and just factually wrong.

• Sex is just as much of a construct as gender.

• What's on your birth certificate isn't evidence of your biological sex. It's a record of a doctor taking a look see at your genitals at birth and making a declaration.

That does seem to be the pattern, yes.

LOL!

Biologist here: we are a sexually dimorphic species (as in two sexes), because there are two types of gametes, sperm (male) and ovum (female). There is no third type of gamete. There is no gamete that is intermediate between sperm and ovum. There is no instance of an individual producing both sperm and ovum. A very small percentage of people are born with a DSD (0.018%), but these people still have a sex. No one is assigned a sex at birth, their sex was determined at conception, however some people with a DSD have had their sex incorrectly recorded at birth.
I am happy to provide further clarification.

No it’s a fair point. The dictionary refers to ‘a carnivorous mammal, long domesticated as a pet and for catching rats and mice.’ without clearly defining what it means by those words. Given some cats never work out how to catch rats and mice, then ‘rats and mice’ actually includes small frogs and falling leaves. The question is then which of the things that a cat is known ‘for catching’ still apply? Obviously a frog or leaf. But it could equally be worms, badgers and invisible dust motes. Figments of the cat's imagination, in fact. So until there’s another dictionary definition, ‘catching rats and mice’ could mean 'dragging home the local farmer's cow'.

And don’t get me started on the lack of definition of ‘cat’.

In other words, Titchy, you're arguing for the collapse of language itself on the basis that there's an exception to every rule we use to describe our world and organise our society.

It's a laughable argument.

Accommodating exceptions is important. Denying the existence of recognisable patterns to do so is absurd.