RMW and the potential of legal challenges re the SC Ruling

[Bannedontherun]

I listened to RMW on radio four today. I thought the interviewer was quite good at representing Women's view on access to single sex spaces, whilst giving RMW space to proffer his legal opinion, which was erm interesting.

The nub of RMW argument seems to be that trans people (biological males who have been around for many years including RMW), are now being told they are not women and cannot use women’s spaces.

And that this is the biggest affront to them, as in trans people who have been around just living their lives for 20 years plus are now going to have to adjust their lives.

Make of that what you will, i cannot possibly comment.

RMW did go on about neutral spaces “outing trans people” and that is why they need to use female spaces.

Again i cannot possibly comment.

He did not say much about women who believe they are men.

It does sound like RMW is trying to distance themself from “new age” trans people.

They did state there is no obligation for employers to police facilities, and that they would continue as usual as thus far has not been challenged.

Finally RMW said there are quite a few cases in the pipeline (i await with a keen eye)

On another posted podcast i listened to the solicitor representing the interveners in the SC case, on an American GC site, in which he pretty much opined i hope they do issue legal challenge, bring it on, and that Moylan et al seem to have no realistic strategy, other than to whinge and whine about their feelings. Hence the no wins situation.

He further stated that the reason that that judge and Whittle were not allowed to intervene was because random individuals were never allowed to. Contrary to what RMW claimed on Women’s hour which was no reasons were given.

All in all a damn good cheery day for me and IMHO nothing that needs to be worried about, apart from cake, popcorn supplies and getting sod all done WFH.

Cheers WIMS!!!!!

I’ve just read that RMW Translucent piece.

RMW has considered the EA2010 sport exceptions (s195(2) fair competition and safety), and takes issue with the SC’s opinion:

But if, in addition, the providers of the boxing competition were concerned that fair competition or safety necessitates the exclusion of trans men (biological females living in the male gender, irrespective of GRC status) who have taken testosterone to give them more masculine attributes, their exclusion would amount to gender reassignment discrimination, not sex discrimination, but would be permitted by section 195(2).

RMW opines:

This is plainly wrong because the reason for exclusion would be the taking of a performance-enhancing drug, not trans status. I challenge anyone to find a use for s195(2) under the UKSC’s regime.

Oh dear, seems that RMW doesn’t know that trans men can apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption for testosterone to enable them to take part in men’s competitions.

So excluding a trans man from a men’s boxing competition would be on the grounds of fairness and/or safety, and not on the grounds of doping (assuming that the TUE was in place)..

I’m new to all this but when reading the GRA there are several exclusions. There’s the famous one about not being able to inherit peerages etc but there’s also mention of sport.

RMW fails to mention this part of the law instead referencing parts of a Hansard debate which weren’t specifically included. Other parts of Hansard strongly object to features which were passed. So while we can look at Hansard for context, it’s not “the law”.

Why is this sporting exception never mentioned?

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/19
and explanation:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/notes/division/4/19

1)A body responsible for regulating the participation of persons as competitors in an event or events involving a gender-affected sport may, if subsection (2) is satisfied, prohibit or restrict the participation as competitors in the event or events of persons whose gender has become the acquired gender under this Act.

If trans people had abided by this exception then I think they’d have a much stronger position now. Sport has been one of the issues that turned public opinion against full inclusivity.

Also RMW fails do deal with the context that in 2004 with the GRA the numbers were 1 in 13000 but now it’s 1 in 70 for under 25s.

And what rights were conferred on trans people in 1999? Mentioned but with no source reference?

I was hoping for a robust critique of the judgment. Somewhat disappointed - RMW is clutching at straws (or dogs) and doing it badly…

Thanks @eatfigs

I would guess that the 1999 reference is to these regulations that extended the SDA 1975.

The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/1102/contents/made

It’s pretty sloppy to not give a proper reference though.

Such utter tripe. He can argue the toss all he likes to his gullible audiences, i dont really care it is still all over bar the usual screeching and howling

RMW helpfully demonstrating that the new misogyny is just like the old misogyny.

Careful what you wish for Robin - if you removed women from public life, you'd have no one to try to dominate in the workplace or intimidate in the toilets.

Ah, on reading the relevant parts of the SC judgment, RMW missed out that the fact that the SC were considering a women’s boxing competition. In which case, a trans man taking T would be ineligible to take part.

"We could simplify society immensely by removing women from voting, property ownership, and working in the professions, but that would not be right."

Mmn. Someone's slip is showing there.

"We could simplify society immensely by removing women from voting, property ownership, and working in the professions, but that would not be right."

No, RMW, it would not be right to turn the UK into Afghanistan.

I just can't quite get my head round someone thinking that turning the clock back hundreds of years in terms of women's rights is 'simplifying society'. How much hatred must someone have for women to even think this?

It's fairly obvious reading that, that the author does not seem themselves as 'that' kind of a woman. And it's bizarre to reflect on how nice the world would be if you didn't have to give them voting rights and property rights but it wouldn't be 'right'.... but it's absolutely morally 'right' to require them to undress and suffer the presence and handling of someone they perceive to be a man, on the grounds that she should be respecting what the man tells her happens to be going on between his ears at the time, and his need to use her body is not something she should be entitled to be consulted about, never mind refuse consent to.

Odd, odd perspective. The inability to comprehend that women are human, and that their rights aren't a few crumbs of whatever misogynist men feel like indulging them with, with a bit of a head pat, is risking biting barristers in the bum here. Human Rights aren't a trans-only deal.

How would it simplify society?!

What does he mean?

"The [ECHR] concluded that the unsatisfactory situation in which post-operative transsexuals live in an intermediate zone which not quite one gender or the other."
It might be said that the effect of this UKSC judgment is to put those persons right back into that unsatisfactory intermediate zone.

Surely trans people, by choosing to pretend to be the opposite sex, have put themselves in that "intermediate zone".

Nobody forced Robin to take hormones or go to Thailand to have his genitalia rearranged. It was a choice, made freely. If that has put him in an "intermediate zone" which is "not quite one gender or the other" that's on him. Grow up, Robin, and accept that you have made choices which sometimes have a negative impact on your life.

trans people were a figment of parliament’s imagination in 1999 and 2010 (and a figment of the ECtHR)

Well. People for sure exist who call themselves 'trans', but the question of what this actually means really hasn't been pinned down, outwith of "people who call themselves trans'.

"We could simplify society immensely by removing women from voting, property ownership, and working in the professions, but that would not be right."

I really would like an explanation of how this would simplify anything. It would be advantageous to men, sure. But it what way 'simpler'?

Only if one sees women as a different subset of humanity, I assume? As 'other', or not fully human. It only makes sense if one sees man as the default and affording women rights as an inconvenient complication. An add-on.

My mental model assumes all humans have equal standing. Robin's seems to assume women's standing only arises by gracious, charitable assent of males.

It's a good question. Do some men really think that society was more 'simple' when women had no rights?

I'm reminded of what Germaine Greer said: "Women have no idea how much men hate them."

It could be argued that trans people are a figment of their own imagination. It is, after all, a condition which only exists in their own heads.

It's probably true that Robin has more professional clout, legal knowledge, educational attainment, and greater power and resources than me.

Doesn't mean I'm less of a human, or have fewer rights than you, Robin. Soz.

Particularly, it seems, the men who insist that they are women.

It does render all the threads blethering and unpicking about what sex means wholly redundant. Here is someone exactly that the legislation and protections had in mind when they were created, and there is no doubt at all that this is someone who does not see themselves as a woman. But as a man with the power to decide what women should and should not be permitted, and the entitlement to have them do as he says. I doubt he has any idea how much he gave away in that little nugget.

It's also a pretty good indication that he doesn't actually see himself as a woman.

Underlying it all is power.

Robin sees men as having all the power and women as having to appeal to men to win a measure of it.

I'm reminded of the study on how misogynist men who attack women in online gaming usually have in mind their place in the hierarchy in relation to other men.

Women are not included in the hierarchy, they are seen as beneath or outwith.

And power is granted graciously by men, to women, on the basis of those men perceiving sufficient merit.

In that model I suppose women having to be afforded rights or consideration is a complication. Because the real game is between the males, competing for status.

Women are operating on a different model of power. 'Might is right' is straightforward between men - the more powerful have the most rights. Women's power has different criteria.

Suddenly, rules have been introduced to afford rights and protections not on the basis of brute power but on the basis of an intrinsic human worth - inalienable human rights - and that messes with the simplicity of 'might is right' in the hierarchy.

The world as perceived through the male gaze, eh?