Good Law Practice launch a EHCR/Supreme Court challenge over toilets

[fromorbit]

After raising over 418K it turns out the GLP's amazing legal case is all about toilets. Details:

https://archive.is/TWRTl

No doubt it will fail like most of their previous legal cases.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5336208-good-law-project-suing-the-ehrc-and-bridget-phillipson-letter-before-action?page=1

Colour of skin, eye shape, face shape, height, body build are also obvious to a casual observer. So I am not sure what your point is? That people can’t identify exactly which of a thousand difference races or ethnicities, most of which they have never heard of, someone belongs to? Though it becomes painfully obvious that local people can when instability breaks out in regions.

Well that wouldn't be remotely relevant, would it?

My point is we have moved well away from a society where other people get to identify your race.

If you want a demonstration, why don't you turn up at some event with a form with some checkboxes ("White", "Black", "Other") and you tick off people as they go past and you submit that as your monitoring survey and see how quickly your feet leave the ground.

And my point from 1982 still stands. If you insist on creating categories for discrimination, but haven't the faith of your convictions, then "self identification" (yes, I heard that in 1982) is going to be a bit of a dogs breakfast.

"So I could put Indian, if I like, as my Dad was born in India ?"
"Er, well, we do record what people identify as ...."
"So no one is checking ?"
"Well, no"
"So what's the point ? Is there a paper surplus ?"

as I remember the conversation. I never did get onto the Student Union committee.

But we're in a society where it's normal and necessary for things to be separated on a sexed basis.

I don’t think you should have to pretend if you don’t want to. Truth is in short enough supply as it is.
I generally do pretend, but I’m used to working with people with dementia, and you go along with whatever world they are in and it makes the job at hand much easier. I think most people have the same mindset with trans people. Just go along with the delusion they are in, get whatever job it is done, feel sorry for them and move on. But it probably leaves trans people thinking everyone accepts them as their chosen gender, or can’t tell, where as in reality it’s a gesture of pity.

When no one makes it clear, trans people think they are widely accepted and can swap sex and join in, enter other sexes spaces, and it comes as a shock when opinion polls show what people actually think.
You can censor what people say, but not what they think.

Some societies have cross gender people, and they have a niche in society, it’s like a job description, but I don’t think the society agrees they have actually become the other sex. Im sure I read a newspaper article about women somewhere in the Mediterranean who lived as men after the war when they had no men in the family left to work, and there were photos of them working and smoking and drinking with the men, but they could never get married, or go back to being women. It was a big sacrifice.

If you want a demonstration, why don't you turn up at some event with a form with some checkboxes ("White", "Black", "Other") and you tick off people as they go past and you submit that as your monitoring survey and see how quickly your feet leave the ground.

If you DON’T include race in equalities monitoring your feet won’t leave the ground.

Personally I wouldn't notice 😀

I have read in some forums many TWs saying they do not inform men about their true sex prior to sex. To me, if your community has a history of violence, you would want to avoid the potential of violence by being truthful about your sex. Many repeatedly said it was the straight guys “hang up” (about being with a TW) and they don’t give a shit about lying to guys. These crazy people truly think they are women and therefore do not believe they are lying. It’s scary. Can you imagine being straight male and then being put in a situation where you now have been with another man? Or vice versa. These people don’t care. They believe it’s the “cis” people who should ask them if they are trans, and that if they don’t oh well. They don’t care that since 98% of the pop are normal, that 98% of people would assume the person they just met are normal too. A truly scary world.

Why should it matter that a TW or TM truly thinks they are the sex they are pretending to be? Their feelings then should trump the truth? A straight man is not a homosexual. And to wake up and find out they just had sex with a man is a terrible and horrific thing to experience. They never would have had sex with a man because they aren’t homosexual. It would literally turn their world upside down. That TW took that man’s choice and dignity from him. And considering how much they say they are attacked one would think they wouldn’t want to put themselves in a position to experience a violent attack.

This is pretty much where I am.

'Respecting pronouns' is an act of self harm and doesn't respect myself.

I deserve better than accepting the shit show of rampant sexism that underpins the idea that a man can become a woman and vice versa.

People do all sorts of things they know to be wrong because it's part of the buzz.

These are males who think they are women, fine. But they still retain the ability to understand the concept of consent - and the mere point here:

Many repeatedly said it was the straight guys “hang up” (about being with a TW) and they don’t give a shit about lying to guys.

Shows that they understand that if the man knew the truth he would not consent and would take a different course of action.

Of course the argument here is that 'well these transwomen pass enough to fool men, so you can't always tell'. But the reality is a little more complex. Firstly womens recognition of sex is better - because it is a survival instinct. And secondly the men concerned are often very drunk in these scenarios - and this is part of the dynamic of the deception.

If this got to court and the evidence put forward was that they truly truly believed they were female it wouldn't hold up if it was known they had a posting history words to the effect of the quote above, because they are demonstrating they DO understand and have that mental capacity and have a complete disregard for consent. The use of the word 'stealth' yesterday was really quite an interesting one.

They know. They always know.

And we should really stop this nonsense of saying that some really really think they are the opposite sex, because the ultra defensive behaviour at being called 'the wrong pronouns' isn't consistent with that either. That's not how a woman would behave if someone accidentally called them a man. They KNOW. The point is they demonstrate abusive behaviour - the gaslight, blame others and lash out when people don't go along with it and they lose their control and power.

It's never about a sense of identity. I keep saying this: watch behaviour. The behaviour is the tell. It's always about behaviour.

Behaving in a way that would not be acceptable in other scenarios or by other groups gives the game away for the sacred caste. Stop giving the benefit of the doubt when you wouldn't do it for any other group. You've been conditioned to accept unacceptable behaviour - you've been groomed.

Everyone should respect everyone else equally. Everyone should understand consent has to be in a situation where someone has full capacity, full relevant information and isn't under duress to be valid. Only ticking two out of the three boxes means someone hasn't fully consented if they would take a different course of action if the three box was ticked.

Excellent post.

It's hard to miss the double blade that goes:

'ha ha, I fooled you into doing something you wouldn't have consented to and got away with it. You're a bigot for not having just taken down your boundaries and been a co operative victim in the first place.'

and 'ha ha, you caught me, but you can't protect yourself or resist or have justice for my attempt at wholly intentional fraudulent manipulation of you for my own ends (which may well have been to gain sexual access to you) because the only thing that matters is my privacy. And not having any consequences. And you're a bigot for not being a co operative and enabling victim.'

Other people just don't - can't - figure into things with someone stuck in this kind of dysfunctional thinking. They're things to be used without conscience or consideration. But take the word 'trans' out of it, and the behaviour would not be tolerated in any other circumstances.

Im sure I read a newspaper article about women somewhere in the Mediterranean who lived as men after the war when they had no men in the family left to work, and there were photos of them working and smoking and drinking with the men, but they could never get married, or go back to being women. It was a big sacrifice.

Women used to dress in trousers in coal mining areas and worked at the pits above ground during Victorian times. They choose this attire purely because it was practical for the work they were doing which was often very cold and very hard labour in difficult conditions. They had no choice. They were destitute and it was the only work available to maintain the family.

The middle classes thought it was an incredible thing. To the point that these women were viewed as a curiosity and photographers started getting these women to pose for photos, which were turned into postcards for the middle classes to gawk at.

There were also many middle class people who viewed these women as indecent and an afront to moral sensibilities and wanted action taken against these women for abandoning feminity. They thought it debauched and on a part with prostitution on many levels.

Morality lesson and purity spirals based on gender stereotypes and sexism, are nothing new.

We shouldn't aspire to them or hold them up as a historic value where we say "oh well it's got cultural precedence, therefore we should tolerate it".

Sexism has got a long history. I thought feminism was about getting past that?

Also note the economic and social class dynamics of the above examples.

Power and control with the moralistic middle classes at the expense of working class women.

There's a theme along these lines whenever you look at the subject btw.

@RedToothBrush i think the poster you are quoting was referring to Albania where the blood feuds wiped out a lot of men so women became household heads, but were not allowed to marry.

*I'm simply not prepared to do it. Not even a courtesy "she" any more.

I'm not prepared to do it because condoning these lies, even just to be polite, signals that I accept as legitimate or at least worthy of respect a construction of "woman" that belittles me and undermines my own voice and my own rights.*

It is for the same reason that I refuse to use the term 'transwoman' any longer, now that it is no longer forced upon me, and definitely not 'trans woman'. A trans woman is a woman who is trans, ie identifies as a man. Language matters. If I refer to a man as any type of woman, I collude in the erosion of our boundaries, in our erasure as a clearly defined sex. It belittles me and undermines my own voice and my own rights.

Yes, the “Sworn Virgins”. It’s fascinating

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63904744.amp

Youve Made me think of a good example.

My brother in law is a very vocal racial and sexist. I rarely seem him but at rare family gatherings I have to tolerate what he says to avoid making a scene. It’s a politeness I suppose as I’ll have no effect on changing his mind and it’s not for me to do that. I can avoid his unpalatable views because we live far away. But - you’re spot on - I get the same feeling of being dishonest with myself relating to preferred pronouns and TWAW. I really don’t like the dishonesty I’m forced to participate in for social harmony.

Some, not all, transwomen feel dehumanised and disrespected when they are denied the status of being a women. This shouldn’t be minimised or denied.

Some, not all, women feel dehumanised and disrespected when transwomen are granted the status of being a women. This shouldn’t be minimised or denied.

Whether or not ‘status as a woman’ is being conferred through permission to access female only provision is being granted or denied or preferred pronouns are or aren’t being used, it boils down to the above.

It is possible to be empathic to both scenarios and to be a strong advocated for sex based rights of trans rights. GLP fails on this.

Men aren’t women though.

Some, not all, transwomen feel dehumanised and disrespected when they are denied the status of being a women. This shouldn’t be minimised or denied.

Well no. But there are plenty of periods of history where it would have been seen as a mental disease or defect whereby the sufferers delusions (however real to the sufferer) are not the chisel with which to try and sculpt society.

I mean my great great grandfather was convinced they were Napoleon. Nobody was raising French armies for them to command.

Now we've hopefully moved on from labelling every tiny movement from social norms to be a disease. However (with as much irony as I can convey) it is very much a spectrum. And at some point an individuals beliefs go beyond what is possible or desirable in a pluralistic society.

Some, not all, transwomen feel dehumanised and disrespected when they are denied the status of being a women. This shouldn’t be minimised or denied.

No one is minimising the impossible. They certainly aren't denying it.

Sex is not gender and you can't change sex.

No matter how much any of us might be sympathetic to the concept. In an ideal world, I'd wave a magic wand and it would be possible.

But it's not, and we can't.

So it's something that people in this situation need to deal with instead of expecting the world to dance around pretending to the contrary. That's where the harm is - in a failure to address reality and the repeated denial of there being an issue.

We don't say "oh well we should tolerate drug or alcohol abuse", because x is in denial they have a problem. They still have to take responsibility for that. They might have lots of other problems that have caused that to occur which we can be sympathetic with due to circumstances. But we shouldnt be sympathetic about the unacceptable behaviour.

Likewise we shouldnt affirm an anorexic in denial.

Nor someone in denial over being pregnant. Or any other issue.

We are sympathetic to the circumstances of people but not to the disordered behaviour and unreasonable demands that go against reality.

People don’t live forever but that doesn’t stop us grieving when someone dies.

Lots of people with trans identities know their sex, they aren’t delusional, they are dysphoric and experience gender related distress.

I don’t think it is in anyway contradictory to understand how and why people with trans identities find exclusion from single sex provision, or sexed based pronouns, distressing and to also argue for single sex provision and for using sex based pronouns.

Similarly, I don’t think it would be contrary if JM advocated for trans inclusion in single sex spaces whilst being sympathetic to the arguments women make in opposition to this.

Whilst the issues are pretty binary - e.g trans inclusion v single sex - there is room to have empathy across both sides.

It's not a good comparison.

We can all morn for lives we didn't have.

We still have to get on with it, and not expect the world to revolve around us and make it everyone else problem.

It's the massive narcissism that the problematic bit.

No I don’t need to have empathy for men looking to destroy single sex spaces, ignore women’s boundaries, steal our sports and steal our language.