Need guidance on how to reply to a newsletter please

[Needausernameasap]

I've name changed for this as my workplace is very much still captured.

My union have published a newsletter today that is right out of a TRA handbook. Stating they stand with the challenges to the SC ruling. That the SC ruling isn't law, and that the EHRC has confused matters and it's not true it has to be followed and that we should all write to our MPs to support transrights etc.

I'm fuming and reached out to someone I trust in the union and they were very much on the back foot thinking what had been published was fact, and they want me to give them a more factual view so they can counteract what has been said so far.

I follow these pages all the time, I'm just nervous I'll blunder my one shot at replying and getting some information out there.

Can anyone advise on how to structure and reply and key parts to quote please.

I'll be back this evening to respond, but obviously can't name my union or employer as I really am nervous about doing that.

Thanks so much.

OP, I would just send them the Sex Matters SC briefing and be done with it.

Honestly, I think this is one of those potential can-of-worm situations whereby any helpful words you provide might end up getting escalated up the chain of command and could come back to bite you, so I would just send the impartial briefing note and not say too much else yourself, as the people running the show are obviously captured and will likely see your intervention as highly bigoted once your contact relays your concerns to whoever drafted the email.

However, if you do decide to produce your own guidance or to set out your reasoning for them, it’s worth considering whether you want to just reply to the person you spoke to in order to be helpful, or whether it might be better for you to lodge an official complaint at this point instead. IANA(employment)L, so hopefully someone else can advise you, but it’s worth at least doing a little decision tree and working out the possible consequences of going down each route (e.g. make an informal request/official complaint and they ignore it/stab you in the back/take it on board, etc) to ensure you’ve adequately protected yourself if this goes sideways.

I wonder if I work in the same place as you...
I had this exact situation with the latest internal newsletter yesterday. Pretty much as you've described, and similarly it's just the local branch not the general union view. I complained about it through a local rep who I trust, mostly just saying it was full of inaccuracies and I strongly disagreed. It honestly made me so angry!
Luckily in my area there are two unions so I've jumped to the other one after questioning their views on the ruling and getting a reasonable answer.

The TRA tactic of causing confusion is working - they keep saying that the SC ruling was wrong/transphobic/made them really really sad/is only an opinion/has only added to the confusion/we need clarity etc etc...

As WallaceinAnderland said, the SC's ruling is a clarification of existing laws, not a new law. If 88 pages of thorough but understandable legal arguments aren't enough 'clarity', well maybe that's because TRAs don't like what has been clarified.

It's a tactic - Sow confusion. Exaggerate the seriousness. Appeal to the emotions. Use hyperbolic language. Threaten, or infer, aggression or violence.
Avoid facts.

Does international human rights law trump the ECtHR? Because there’s also the UN CEDAW, Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, which the UK is signed up to and goes back to 1979. It is built upon and references sex and the biological differences between men and women.

Some history and analysis by FWS from their (amazing!) legal challenges

https://forwomen.scot/09/02/2024/cedaw-the-meaning-of-sex-and-self-identification/#:~:text=CEDAW%20and%20UK%20law&text=Sex%20is%20defined%20as%20a,a%20female%20of%20any%20age

The union wouldn’t want us to be in breach of international law would it? (As we were with self id and ‘legal women’) Not a good look surely.

I suspect a lot of us work at the same place. I'm not risking making any comment on our intranet. I so want to add a party and streamers emoji in reaction to the article they've written about the ruling as opposed to all their sad wee faces and broken hearts.
But I know I'd be disciplined if I did and I'm only just hanging on to my career as it is.

The main Union statement is your key.

It sounds like you would like to give your union contact some info, but also don't want to out yourself more generally.

How about this:

• show them how different the two communications are. the branch says the ruling is not the law. the national body says the ruling will have to be followed.
• just ask them why & leave it there, or

--give them an explainer about how our system works, what a supreme court ruling does, what the European ct of Humam rights can and can't do. General, rather than about this case. If you can find neutral info from a good source then do that, otherwise write it yourself. Eg:

• if there is disagreement on a point of law it might end up in front of the SC.

-in effect the SC reads the law and tells us what it means -their word is final. There is no one to appeal to. -This means their interpretation of the law is always correct

• if the ECtHR later say 'this law is not compatible with the convention' that doesnt mean the SC were wrong about the law, or that the ECtHR can overturn rhe ruling. Only parliament can change our laws.
• parliament might pass a new law, but a SC interpretation of an existing Act is the law.

Further to my post, this might be useful.

https://supremecourt.uk/about-the-court
Section called "the supreme court and europe"

The UK Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the UK, has made a ruling. This is now the law unless or until Parliament re-writes the Equality Act, or on the long shot that the European Court HR over turns and the UK Parliament chooses to abide by that.

The EHRC which is established by the UK Parliament to ensure equality laws are upheld has published guidelines for how employers, service providers, etc., should put the ruling into practice.

Worth noting that if employers, service providers dont put them into practice, they could be sued by those who are aware of the court ruling and want their sex based rights put into practice.

So not sure what a union thinks it can do. If their place of employment goes along with the new guidelines, are they telling union members not to cooperate with toilets being made single sex, or what?

This just seems insane virture signalling.

The only group of people immediately impacted in terms of the law are the 9,000 or so people with a GRC. And I doubt anyone in your union is worried about them.

The recent social convention, not THE LAW (or only Stonewall's law) of gender neutral toilets etc., is just that a social movement.

Not sure this will help you, as you are dealing with people who want to believe that what they believe is the truth.

Sorry.

Is your union asking you to act in a way that would go against the Supreme Court ruling or is them just talking a lot of hot air, and virtue signaling.

Or is it because you are concerned for the reputation of the union?

This is exactly what's happened. Everyone is now very sad for trans people and we must help fix this wrong.

I'm sat there going what the heck.

It has nothing to do with the EHRC. If someone feels they have been discriminated against, they can make a case to the EHRC. But they will have to prove how they have been discriminated against, not just that they wanted to ignore the Equality Act.

You mean the ECtHR, not the EHRC.

I agree it really shouldn't be your job to explain this in detail to them.

I'd give them the headlines.

- The case was only about people with a GRC. Both sides already agreed that the law was that people without a GRC should be treated according to biological sex even if they come under the gender reassignment characteristic.
- The supreme court interprets what the law is. This is not a new law, it doesn't need 'sign off' by Parliament, the EHRC, or anyone else. The law has not changed, a misconception has been clarified - any organisations operating according to the misconception, or following Stonewall advice about 'getting ahead of the law' are breaking the law. And have been breaking it since 2010.
- It will not be appealed to the ECtHR. The only party that had possible standing to do so was the Scottish government, and they have said they accept the judgement. McCloud and the Good Law Project would have to bring an entirely new case through the lower courts, lose at every level, be given leave to appeal at every level, and then be accepted for appeal to the ECtHR. This simply won't happen (and if it did would take years - and organisations waiting for a result will be in breech of the law until then).

• The judge was careful to explain that trans people retain protections from discrimination under the gender reassignment characteristic.

Baroness Falkner is the head of the EHRC. Akua Reindorff KC is an expert in human rights law and advisor to the EHRC. Michael Foran is an academic expert this area of law whose evidence was part of the material considered by the supreme court when making their decision. Their explanations are clear and detailed (send them the links above) and there is also a press briefing directly from the supreme court https://supremecourt.uk/cases/press-summary/uksc-2024-0042 but you suggest they read the whole thing https://supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042
which explains in detail why this clarification is necessary to protect women, including particularly lesbians and transmen who would lose important rights under the Scottish government's proposed alliterative reading.

I understand your fear. You could send a copy of the SC judgement. You could also explain (not quote) why it is law (and is retroactive) - the SC is the UK's highest court and its pronouncements are law is the explanation in its most child-friendly form. The judgement stated that biological sex has always been meant in the EA2010 as this re-enacted the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (and other acts), which defines sex as biological, and this definition has not been repealed by any subsequent legislation (e.g. the GRA). So the EA2010 has always meant biological sex passim.
It covers all trans identifying men (and women) not just those with a GRC, since before the judgement was given it was clear that transpeople without a GRC have always been the sex observed at birth since self-ID is not the law in the UK. So, to say it only affects people with a GRC is bending the law passed breaking point.
Your union's insurers may be interested in the decision to ignore the law, btw.
NB Judge McCloud has no case to take to the ECtHR - no-one is being discriminated against and there are no cases going through the courts on this question.