Good Law Project's latest claim - fact check?

[teawamutu]

I'm sure there must be some arrant bollocks in here somewhere, because Jolyon.

But is there anything worrying in this?

goodlawproject.org/ehrc-backs-down-on-single-sex-toilets/

You're not going to bore us into submission, Tandora. Many men have come on here to very patiently go on, and on, and on. It didn't work for them, and it won't work for you.

ANYWAY!! I got that Jolyon link to work

Trans people ‘fed false hope’ that gender ruling can be axed
Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project has raised over £400,000 for ‘useless’ legal challenges, says the lawyer who helped win For Women Scotland’s case

https://archive.is/n2PpM

Thanks for this summary.

Did you explain in detail why a group of male people should get additional privileges based on their philosophical belief about their identity, one that doesn't reflect material reality?

Particularly since no one seems to be able to tell me a comparative group in society that gets such additional privileges that over ride the single sex provisions that are legitimate under our laws, that question seems to always get ignored.

In the comments under that article someone says Michael Foran is newly appointed professor at Oxford. That's great news (and Glasgow's loss). Congratulations.
Just seen it's also mentioned in the article, excellent.

Not only are LGB people not demanding medical interventions, they also aren't equivalent to trans people because the fact that they are having sexual relationships with and marrying people or the same sex doesn't affect anyone else in any way. They're not demanding that other people compromise their own rights or safety to accommodate them.

Maybe that’s why he bought the windmill in the first place.

The better to tilt against them?

If there was only one, and entirely obvious way, to interpret and elaborate the law, we wouldn't need guidance now would we?

I understand that accepting other people are different to you or hold different opinions to you may not be a strong suit, but surely you can at least understand the above basic point?

Exactly, perhaps it’s his hobby.

It’s absolutely a violation of their right to privacy for a start.

A transwoman using the female toilets/changing rooms can't be worried about privacy unless they honestly think we can't tell they are men.

He'd need to dress up as an early 17th century Spanish knight for that rather than in his wife's kimono dressing gown.

Not only are LGB people not demanding medical interventions

I'm surprised that you think that LGB people don't need tailored and specific healthcare - there are huge areas of medicine directed to this.
One very obvious aspect where they may need healthcare that is a direct consequence of sexuality is with regard to fertility and reproduction -e.g. IVF for lesbians.

they also aren't equivalent to trans people because the fact that they are having sexual relationships with and marrying people or the same sex doesn't affect anyone else in any way. They're not demanding that other people compromise their own rights or safety to accommodate them.

Trans people are not doing this either. This is entirely your own constructed fear/ fantasy.

Speaking of 'strong suits', I believe you have told us in the past just how well qualified you are to answer this question:

Why should a group of male people should get additional privileges based on their philosophical belief about their identity, one that doesn't reflect material reality? Particularly since no one seems to be able to tell me a comparative group in society that gets such additional privileges that over ride the single sex provisions that are legitimate under our laws.

I am looking forward to why a group of male people have their beliefs prioritised above the needs of female people in female people's need for single sex provisions.

I totally forgot that the fox killer has a windmill 😆 Well at least he can tilt at that one without scamming people.

Here's a good bit from that article:

Michael Foran, a lecturer in public law at Glasgow University, said some lawyers were either “purposefully or recklessly” misrepresenting the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment and what the implications of it were in a bid to “advance their preferred interpretation”.

Foran, whose work was cited in the judgment and from September will become associate professor of law at the University of Oxford, added: “This is an extremely specialised area of law. There are an awful lot of lawyers who should be more cautious about opining publicly on the judgment when they’re not familiar with case law that informs the context in which it was introduced.

“I think there’s been a real failure, in that it’s caused a lot of misinformation about what the precise consequences are.”

I wonder who he could be talking about? 🤔

Tandora’s claim that the SC ruling will result in females losing female only provision due providers converting them to unisex doesn’t horrify me. If they are doing this because they are unwilling to exclude transwomen from female only facilities, this means that what had been labelled female only was already mixed sex. By calling it mixed sex, they will have to take measures to protect my privacy and dignity that they failed to do when calling the facilities ‘female only’. This is a win!

I doubt many providers will opt to make all provision unisex. This is the most expensive option. They are more likely to add a few additional facilities, or convert some existing ones to make them mixed sex compliant.

Where this is the case, trans allies can support their trans sisters by also using the unisex option. This will ensure using the unisex option will not be outing.

The remaining issue for transwomen relate to validation and feelings of exclusion. I understand that this is significant and impacts on their quality of life. Support should be accessible to build resilience and help them to be less reliant on affirmation of others. This will support their quality of life more generally.

Single sex faciliies are as much about the privacy and dignity of one's sex, as they are about overt violence and aggression. As women we know well what it is to have men use us to satiate their desires.

Male people are far more prone to fetishes than women; are far more visual and object oriented. Women don't really have a cross dressing equivalent to the AGP; nor do they tend to fetishise body parts or objects associated with men, in the way that male people do with women. We've all come across, seen and/or heard of men with trans identities that fetishise breast feeding for example; or who fetishise menstruation products; men who like to dress in female underwear and pose for photos; who associate women with highly sexualised and inappropriate clothing and so on

Women do not tend to be flashers, or to make sexualised heavy breathing phone calls; are not the majority consumers of pornograhy etc The internet and social media are full of men ( including those who claim trans identities who do all of the above)

i see cross dressing men quite frequently where I live and it is clear that there is usually an erotic compulsion behind their desire to cross dress. It is overt and makes women feel uncomfortable.

Indeed. Those seeking equal rights to be married, or have their relationships legally acknowledged or even just not criminalised, were seeking 'equal opportunity'. They were not seeking additional privileges.

People who are same sex attracted or both are not making demands for being given access to protections they should have been entitled but were not due to except for illegitimate discrimination.

Female single sex provisions are a legitimate discrimination and are based on biological sex due to the effects of having a body formed around the production of large gametes (regardless of whether that production happens or not). They are not in place for people of the opposite sex.

Tandora, you are completely misunderstanding the role of the Supreme Court here.

It was not their job to consider the meaning of things like gender and "transness" or even to consider what might be at stake for trans people.

Their job was merely to apply the law. And as you say, they are "respected legal minds", and there is absolutely no indication that they interpreted the law incorrectly.

The law in question is the Equality Act. If you actually read the Equality Act, its purpose is clear. And the clue is in the title. It is designed to ensure equality between different groups of people. Equality. Not special privileges for trans people at the expense of women.

Now I know that trans activists like to play the oppression Olympics, creating a hierarchy of oppressed people with trans people at the top, and telling women that they need to "be kind" to these heterosexual white male "women" because they're so much more vulnerable and marginalised than we are. (Even the ones who happen to be convicted sex offenders.)

But the law does not actually work like that.

The law does not establish a pecking order in which trans people are more important than women.

The law establishes principles designed to ensure that everyone is treated with equity and fairness, and that where having a protected characteristic gives rise to a certain need, efforts should be made to meet that need. (For example, female people need rights relating to pregnancy and maternity, whereas male people do not.)

You are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that this is a bad legal decision because the Supreme Court judges failed to consider the impact on trans people of upholding the law and saying they shouldn't be in single sex spaces for members of the opposite sex.

Speaking as a lawyer, it's quite extraordinary to see a non lawyer effectively claiming that the Supreme Court reached the wrong decision because they did not consider the effect of the law on trans people and decide to override it. Even if a law is bad, it is not the role of judges to override it. The most they can do is deliver a judgment which says, "This is the law, it has a negative impact on trans people, if this is not parliament's intention then perhaps they should consider amending it."

The other thing which is quite extraordinary about your point of view is that you appear to think that the impact on women of allowing trans people to use single sex spaces for members of the opposite sex is irrelevant.

You are literally complaining that the Supreme Court did not give sufficient consideration to the impact of its judgment for trans people, and that instead it gave consideration to women.

When looking at the protected characteristic of "sex", the Supreme Court judges asked themselves the following questions.

What is the normal meaning of these words?

Which group of people was parliament intending to protect when it created this protected characteristic, and why?

What would be the impact on that group of people if we take an expansive approach to the meaning of these words, so that members of the opposite biological sex can be included?

The Supreme Court judges came to the conclusion that parliament could not possibly have intended "female" to include members of the male sex, because the impact of that would be to undermine the very protection for female people that they were attempting to enshrine in law.

As the judgment so eloquently says in relation to single sex spaces, if it is reasonable for a woman to object to the presence of the opposite sex, the reasonableness of that objection cannot possibly be based on whether a member of the opposite sex has a gender recognition certificate or not. In other words, the presence of someone like Karen White or Beth Upton in a women only space is going to have the same detrimental impact on women whether they have a piece of paper saying they are a woman or not.

It absolutely beggars belief that in one breath you describe yourself as a feminist, and in the next breath you are complaining that the Supreme Court did not consider the impact on male people of denying them access to female only spaces, and only considered the impact on female people of allowing male people into female only spaces.

It is not the job of the Supreme Court, or even parliament, to enforce feminist principles.

But it is the job of feminists to consider how things impact the female sex, and to fight for things which have a positive impact for the female sex, and against things which have a negative impact for the female sex.

If you have read the Supreme Court judgment and you disagree with it, you are not a feminist.

And if you have not read it, your opinion on it is worthless.

The problem with any discussion with tandora is that tandora is very much in the fantasy land that twaw where as the law of the land and reality is team. I refused to call myself a woman because by tandoras definition I am not a woman. I don't want tandoras idea of woman only spaces i want biological female spaces. When tandora says spaces for women will be reduced it only applies to the actual mixed sex woman gender spaces that tandora prefers.

There is usually a sub-conscious reason we choose certain things:

"Tilting at windmills" is an idiom that means fighting imaginary enemies, engaging in a futile or pointless battle, or pursuing an impossible goal."

That was beautiful. Thank you.

Thank you!

"I disagree entirely that they were able to do so effectively, when they had precisely zero insight into the context in which the law was created and is being applied."

Please evidence this claim. Because I believe that you are incorrect here.

I believe that they went back to the original discussions about the creation of the parts of the law that they clarified. I think you are confusing rejecting two individuals who wanted to intervene with the judges not having the insight into the context in which the law was created.

It was also the role of the Scottish Government to provide any and all supporting statements and claims that the law should be interpreted in a way that the original law makers did not intend. And despite all their funding and access to the most learned minds, they couldn't produce that convincing testimony.

The context in which the law was created is that parliament was attempting to create protections for multiple groups of people based on need.

Trans people were already taken into account in the Equality Act. They have their own protected characteristic.

What you are effectively arguing is that parliament intended trans people to be able to benefit from (at least) two protected characteristics, and that female people should have none.

What you are arguing is that parliament thought it was worth creating a protected characteristic called "sex", but that it intended each sex to be a mixed sex group based on identity, and that it did not intend for the law to actually recognise biological sex as a relevant factor at all.

What are you basing that on? Can you point us to the relevant place in Hansard where parliament were discussing this and said, "But obviously sex doesn't really mean sex in this context, it means identity"? What evidence to this effect do you think the Supreme Court judges missed?

There IS only one type of feminism. The kind that fights for the rights of female people.

You are not a feminist, you are a men's rights activist. I actually think your brand of men's rights activism is more toxic than the regular kind. At least they aren't pretending to be feminists.

Most of us here followed the case closely, and saw the judgment being delivered live as it happened. Did you?

The five judges displayed nuanced and contextual understanding of the multitude of interactions within the Equalities Act and gave all great consideration.

We're seriously back to 'Fascism' now? That didn't work at the beginning, and it doesn't work now. It just comes across as narcissitic abuse by the emotionally incontinent.