SNP states references to woman or women in legislation ‘are references to a biological woman or women’.

[IwantToRetire]

For the first time, the Scottish Government has set out its new position in formal guidance published in the wake of its Supreme Court defeat on the issue.

In an update about laws around gender quotas on public sector boards, it states references to woman or women in the legislation ‘are references to a biological woman or women’.

It issued the new approach after being threatened with legal action unless it implemented the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of a woman. Now ministers have been urged to ensure that all relevant guidance and legislation is updated.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14855015/At-long-SNP-forced-accept-word-woman-refers-biological-sex.html

Yay! I'll bet that stuck in their craw though. (Or is it craws? Hmm.)

Watching with interest. Considering I work for a Scot govt affiliated organisation. We get all our guidance from them and so far it's been shockingly bad and misinformed. I'll be glad to be able to push back against this and say it's legal etc.

That's interesting although I'd be keeping a beady eye on their nonsense.

I'm not completely sure I trust them on that topic.

Note that I'm overly fond of any of the alternatives.

they finally caught up.

That's gotta sting

What, in all legislation??
If this spreads south of the Border, there goes the 'OK so the SC said that 'woman' only means biological woman in the Equality Act, but it can mean women and men-who-ID-as-women in other legislation' argument!

In an update about laws around gender quotas on public sector boards, it states references to woman or women in the legislation ‘are references to a biological woman or women’.

I am not sure that it isn't saying just this. ie in relation of quotas on public sector laws a woman means a biological female. (in which case they should stop saying "gender quotas")

And not sure that this will translate to other areas of the law unless the EA 2010

Same.

What is so stupid about this is that the original court case was about quotas, and so they couldn't with it having been finally settled in the Supreme Court then say that the representation of boards legislation hadn't been settled.

But this is the problem with the ruling.

It relates only to the EA, and I am sure many people will find areas where they will say the EA doesn't apply.

Have they defined what they mean by "biological woman"?
I mean, I can't believe I'm asking that question, but apparently it's a tricky one in some quarters.

Biological sex was defined legally decades ago is the Corbett vs Corbett case. A transexual male married another man - they split and transsexual male wanted a divorce (and financial settlement), other party wanted an annulment as the marriage was never legal (same sex marriage not being legal at the time). The court found that biological sex is defined by chromosomes, gonads and genitals and is not modified by drugs, surgery or social factors. The marriage was annulled.

That is quite the read.

www.pfc.org.uk/caselaw/Corbett%20v%20Corbett.pdf

I agree that the wording ScotGov have used means that woman means woman in the context of representation on boards.

However, although the SC ruling applies to the Equality Act, the SC also set out how to judge whether or not s9(1) of the GRA applies to any other Act. They confirmed first Choudhury's ruling that "for all purposes" in Forstater meant "for some legal purposes" ie people don't have to pretend they can't see what sex someone else is, for example. But more importantly, the judges said that s9(3) meant that if the application of s9(1) to a piece of legislation would defeat the purpose of it, or rendered it incoherent or unworkable, the GRA is disapplied. Anywhere sex matters, sex means sex, not certificated sex. Their lord- and ladyships must have been aware that this curtails what was claimed to be the scope of the application of the GRA because they emphasised that it was still an important act because (to paraphrase) a GRC allowed transsexuals to live in dignity and gave them the rights in the GRA eg to get married as the opposite sex. So the test for whether the GRA applies which the Supreme Court set out in their judgement is what effectively disapplies the GRA from any legislation which deals with the two sexes.

Edited for clarity

the judges said that that if the application of a piece of legislation would defeat the purpose of it, or rendered it incoherent or unworkable, the GRA is disapplied.

This is the core. And why prior to the Supreme Court ruling the EHRC had already written to the UK Government to say the GRA should be disapplied in the EA.

The inclusion of it was always an attempt at social engineering by the then Labour Government.

But it has been made harded to talk about in a rational way, because in the meantime thanks to Stonewall etc., all those identifies and more have blossomed under the Stonewall umbrella, who think they are covered by the GRA.

Someone needs to write a plain English explanation.

If you're going to quote my post, please do it accurately.
That rewritten "quote" is almost the opposite of what I said.

Not sure how. What I have written is what as I understood what you have written.

Am happy to be told which bits are wrong.

Particularly as this is what many have said the Supreme Court ruling came down to.

That you can not have one protected characteristic impinge on another protected characteristic, which is why the ruling is only applicable to the EA.

WandaSiri stated “that judges said that s9(3) meant that if the application of s9(1) to a piece of legislation would defeat the purpose of it, or rendered it incoherent or unworkable, the GRA is disapplied.”

Your implied quote stated “the judges said that that if the application of a piece of legislation would defeat the purpose of it, or rendered it incoherent or unworkable, the GRA is disapplied.*

you are being disingenuous as you clearly didn’t miss out references to sections of the GRA by accident. Your omissions reverse the judgement by saying if other legislation defeat the purpose of the GRA, rather than what the judges said which was s9(1) of the GRA defeats the purpose of the other legislation the s9(3) of the GRA is applied. The judgement is clear that s9(3) of the GRA does not apply just to the Equality Act but any legislation where sex means sex.

That you can not have one protected characteristic impinge on another protected characteristic

This shows a complete misunderstanding of the case. For a start, protected characteristics constantly impinge on one another. That is why there are single sex exemptions laid out in the equality act.

More importantly, this case wasn’t about whether one protected characteristics constantly impinge impinged on another, but the definition of sex as a protected characteristic and more specifically, whether the GRA meant the sex ‘woman’ included men with a GRC and excluded women with a GRC. The SC ruled that s9(3) of the GRA meant the GRA did not apply to legislation where sex meant sex.

Just in case you were confused by the protected characteristic of gender reassignment - it has been repeated confirmed that PC of gender reassignment does not mean you must be treated as the opposite sex. It means a man with the PC of gender reassignment (a man who identifies as a woman) must not be treated differently from other men.