Women only Cambridge college Newnham welcome men who ID as trans

[YouCantProveIt]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15249729/All-female-Cambridge-college-defies-Supreme-Court-ruling.html

The Equality Act doesn't have any provisions about discrimination based on marital status, other than those relating to employment.

That's not fair: it does have provisions about discrimination based on marital status in other sections: it says explicitly that PC doesn't count. For example, in the provision of services and public fuctions, section 28(1)(b). But - you have persuaded me that single people aren't protected against discrimination, by pointing me towards those exclusions. The words of the act are persuasive and there is no debate. However, that means that married people aren't protected from discrimination in the provision of goods and services either - that PC only applies to discrimination at work, and nowhere else, it seems. So marriage and civil partnership is a very unusual PC, and not a good comparator for GR.

When we talk about pro-'cis' and ant-'cis' discrimination, it's true that 'cis' and 'trans' aren't protected characteristics. But gender reassignment is. I'm content that there is a sufficient nexus between GR as a PC and 'cis' vs. 'trans' that accepting 'trans' students into a college engages the PC of GR. I agree that's a debatable point, but to the extent it needs to be argued one would have to reach a common understanding of what 'cis' is, or in this example a clear understanding of what the actual criteria used to reject a non-GR man from membership was. That would be down to the policy of the college, how it was described, and more importantly, how it was applied in practice.

If we stick with the question of legality of anti-non-GR discrimination, to put it that way, the debate about anti-single discrimination strengthens my argument that it's not legal. Although I was clearly wrong about it - you can discriminate against the person not holding the PC in that case - the reason you can is because in relevant passages the act makes it explicit that you can.

That's not the case for GR. You point to explanatory note 59 which says:

Direct discrimination occurs where the reason for a person being treated less favourably than another is a protected characteristic listed in section 4. This definition is broad enough to cover cases where the less favourable treatment is because of the victim’s association with someone who has that characteristic (for example, is disabled), or because the victim is wrongly thought to have it (for example, a particular religious belief).

I don't know how that helps you. Courts don't use explanatory notes over and above the text of the Act. Treating an otherwise equal GR person more favourably means to treat someone - less favourably - because of - a protected characteristic. How does that fail to meet the straightforward terms of the definition of direct discrimination?

Why else would it need to be explicitly permitted to treat disabled people more favourably than others, if it's not more generally forbidden to treat (for example) GR people more favourably than others?

A precedent from an appellate court would certainly be helpful.

@theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw

The other avenue to explore is whether accepting trans-identifying men into a women's college can be considered positive action under section 158. (I think the Women's Institute is advertising it will use this defence in its defence to a challege to its admission policy.) That is, that trans-identifying men are sufficiently disadvantaged that admitting them is a proportionate means etc. which absolves the inherent otherwise-unlawful discrimination. To argue that case seems to me accept that there is an underlying unlawful discrimination at play that needs to be excused. I obviously think there is.

I literally held a fellowship at Newnham; but you’re talking shit to me about “dorm rooms” knowing nothing at all about it. The rationale of Newnham being a women’s college is NOT for women’s safety. It’s for women’s education. It’s a college for women, for the promotion of women’s education and for the benefit of women. It’s not a retreat or a padded cell or a refuge. It’s somewhere which was founded for women, just for the benefit of women, to have something of their own in a wider world where still even now men get the vast majority of all the best things: the jobs and the money and everything else, and in which women are still fighting to access these on the same terms as men. And are not treated as equal yet.

It isn’t some kind of American sorority that men with emotional issues need access to in order to protect their delicate sensibilities.

IMO I think the college ought to tread carefully on this issue, because alumnae overwhelmingly feel extremely strongly about this, and the college really doesn’t want to be opening this up as a wider conversation with its alumnae members. But there have always been fellows who are secretly quite keen on going mixed, even though experience from other women’s colleges which have done so suggests that men immediately end up colonising the fellowship and student body, reducing the opportunities available to women in academia even further.

Oh, and just to clarify a point upthread; neither is the college there to provide a space for girls who need “to adjust to mixed-sex education” (how offensive!)

Newnham was founded in the 1800s when there was no mixed-education at Cambridge: the women’s colleges were the only way a woman could study there — and the university still did not grant degrees to women until 1947, even when women were placing higher in the exam results than men. The rest of the colleges did not admit women until the sixties and seventies, and some as late as the eighties: and even now many colleges remain heavily male-dominated, especially at the level of the Fellowship. When other women’s colleges in Oxford and Cambridge have gone mixed, they very quickly become dominated by men as well. (And these are independent private bodies with their own statutes, so they have to decide to go mixed, knowing the likely effects.)

A long tradition of women’s education is not to be given up lightly. We are still not equal, and we have our own educational history and struggles. These explicitly aren’t there for bad faith internet warriors crusading in from the US on behalf of men in frocks to decide to dismantle.

In the early 1900s young men at the university used to hang effigies of women students in the town and once battered in Newnham’s gates with a battering ram shouting “down with women”. Now people like @Howseitgoin are demanding again that women should move over for men. What better example of men’s desire than women should never, ever, be allowed to have anything of their own without men getting to appropriate it too.

That was my point upthread, and I'll hold to it. Many decades ago I went direct from a single-sex grammar school to a college that had recently become mixed. I floundered, subjected to a campaign of narcissistic abuse from a male fellow student, who subsequently went on to become a serial offender. My tutor and my college did nothing to help, because they valued that male student more than me. After three years I could appreciate that my friends at Newnham had benefited from a kinder environment. So if there are still students at Newnham who need that little bit of extra space when being educated alongside men, then the college is doing its job. Don't you dare dismiss it.

But that isn’t remotely the purpose of Newnham. It might be a reason why some (in my experience not many) students choose it: but students choose colleges for all sorts of reasons, big/small/friendly/old/new whatever. Newnham is there for the education of women. It isn’t and never was designed to be a “be-kind” space.

@MyAmpleSheep

...marriage and civil partnership is a very unusual PC, and not a good comparator for GR.

It's notable here mainly because of our differing interpretations of S13(4). I interpret it as excluding, from marital status protection, victims of perceptive and associative discrimination, but you think it additionally excludes single people (who I don't think were ever protected in the first place). The net effect is the same, nor do I think we will get any forwarder on this aspect, so it's a moot point.

When we talk about pro-'cis' and anti-'cis' discrimination......how it was applied in practice.

(This was all about definitions and scope. In my posts, I'm using trans to = eligible candidates = men with the PC of GR = men living in the acquired gender 'female' (though only mature students could have a GRC). And I'm using cis to = ineligible candidates = men without the PC of GR = men living in their birth sex. I think that's enough to base a discussion on.)

If we stick with the question of legality of anti-non-GR discrimination, to put it that way, the debate about anti-single discrimination strengthens my argument that it's not legal. Although I was clearly wrong about it - you can discriminate against the person not holding the PC in that case - the reason you can is because in relevant passages the act makes it explicit that you can. That's not the case for GR.

The 'relevant passage' being S13(4), whose interpretation we disagree on (see above). I think anti-cis discrimination is legal because 'cis' is not a PC, whilst you think it's illegal because it's not been removed from the protection of the Act by a 'passage' like S13(4).

Treating an otherwise equal GR person more favourably means to treat someone - less favourably - because of - a protected characteristic. How does that fail to meet the straightforward terms of the definition of direct discrimination?

I understand this perfectly: I just don't see how it can work in practice, particularly in relation to Schedule 9. EHRC and CAB advice is very much written in terms of the victim either having the PC or being mistaken for/associated with someone with the PC.

Why else would it need to be explicitly permitted to treat disabled people more favourably than others, if it's not more generally forbidden to treat (for example) GR people more favourably than others?

Because disabled people must always be treated at least as favourably as others, with no exceptions. Whilst GR people must be treated at least as favourably as others as the default, but there are exceptions.

Schedule 9 allows cis people - but not trans people - to be treated more favourably in the service of an occupational requirement. I read this as a simple exception from the above default treatment of trans people, but you read it as a total ban on more favourable treatment of trans people, even if needed in the service of an occupational requirement.

So, whom can we preferentially employ?

Married people (no protection for single people anyway)
Cis people and single people (Schedule 9 exemptions)
Disabled people (expressly provided)

Whom are we forbidden to preferentially employ (according to your interpretation)?

Able-bodied people (anti-disability discrimination, no exemptions)
Trans people (no Schedule 9 exemption).

How am I going to find a trans director for my trans charity or service provider for trans clients?

Thank you - it’s true and may their alumni understand they can fight & advocate to keep the college single sex for the benefit of women.

Given the founding principles of the College it’s an horror to allow men to erode these long fought for rights.

S 13(4) is only about marriage and civil partnership, so not relevant to consideration of pro-trans vs anti-trans discrimination - did you mean another section?

I think anti-cis discrimination is legal because 'cis' is not a PC, whilst you think it's illegal because it's not been removed from the protection of the Act by a 'passage' like S13(4).

To be clearer, I think anti-cis discrimination is illegal because it's still "about" someone (else) being GR. Accepting we disagree on that, without a decent precedent, we're both guessing what the Court of Appeal would say.

Whilst GR people must be treated at least as favourably as others as the default, but there are exceptions.

As discussed, I don't agree. That formulation also falls into the trap of thinking of the "group of GR people." In terms of direct discrimination, it's the mental act of using the yardstick of GR as part of your decision-making to treat anyone detrimentally that is the unlawful discrimination.

How am I going to find a trans director for my trans charity or service provider for trans clients?

I will have to follow the contents of Schedule 9 more carefully to see if that's where I think it takes us. But, if it does, bluntly, your difficulty in finding a trans director for your charity is not my (the Act's) problem. Lots of people think the EA2010 is inadequate in various ways - I don't need to list them. If you are quite sure that being 'trans' is a genuine occupational requirement for directing a 'trans' charity (it doesn't seem to me prima facie to be so) or any other role (which?) you may add yourself to the list of people who wish to campaign for a change in the law. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that if the law should allow something, that it therefore does. That's what took FWS to the Supreme Court.

Do you have an opinion as to whether it is (and as a separate question, should be) legal to discriminate in favour of GR people in the provision of services and public functions? GR is mentioned several times in Schedule 3, so however the law is to be interpreted it must be compatible and interpreted harmoniously with those explicit exemptions.

I am on tenterhooks waiting for Howse's coherent, structured and rational response to both this and your subsequent post.

...ending with the emoji with its tongue out for that extra dash of gravitas

"Thank you. You have just expressed a gender critical position, that some spaces should not be based on gender identity, but on sex. "

Motte bailey. That is not in the least the gender critical position which is one to openly dehumanise & demonise trans people as dangerous mentally ill predatory fetishists in order to delegitimise their existence.

"Perhaps there is a further question, of how we provide specifically for the needs of trans people who have been, or are at significant risk of being, "materially" harmed. Is this why you suggest that all spaces where there is not a need to reflect sex need to reflect gender? I don't think most spaces need to reflect sex or gender; they can be open to everyone regardless of whether they are men or women, and regardless of their personality. Genuinely single sex spaces where there is [a risk of] "material harm" (which needs definition). So called "third spaces" where trans people successfully advocate for them; these will usually be open to all though. Everywhere else open to all."

The question was put to me as gendered & non gendered so I answered it in that way.

Women's bathrooms is an example of where its harmless to include trans women but not cis men. So I don't necessarily agree all other spaces should be open to all. As I have stated it depends on harm that can be measured in terms of criminal reporting, surveying offending rates & research on jurisdictions where laws have changed which have indicated that trans inclusion hasn't increased crime.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-018-0335-z

That is not in the least the gender critical position which is one to openly dehumanise & demonise trans people as dangerous mentally ill predatory fetishists

Absolute made up nonsense.

Have you considered that multiple court cases in the U.K. and Ireland have ensured that dangerous mentally ill fetishists are doing that job perfectly well all by themselves? (Please see: Barbie Kardashian, Isla Bryson, Sarah Jane Baker, Katie Dolatowski et al.)

Not according to Newnham as you appear to be conveniently ignoring.

"It is important to note, therefore, that colleges such as Newnham have a particular responsibility to transgender students, whose oppression within and without the University is inextricably tied to their gender. Any space advocating for the rights of women, or offering a space as respite from patriarchy, must acknowledge that trans women are more vulnerable to sexist violence & discrimination, due to which in the ways transphobia & misogyny intersect. This is known as transmisogyny."

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/16843/pdf/

By their own admission they do provide a 'safe space' from patriarchy.

BTW, the relevance of trans people being included in Newnham college life was brought up firstly by others questioning their eligibility to 'special circumstances', I simply surmised correctly & then helped provide the official Newnham position.

Do keep up dear. I suggest you read before you post.

You’re a prize ham, aren’t you? You do know that’s by the JCR — a group of students — not the college itself?

JCR = “junior common room” — student society. They do say this in the actual paper you link to. They might aspire to be the “voice of the college”, but in reality a statement by the JCR is just a few students’ personal opinions, and has nothing to do with the Fellowship or governance of the college or the college’s “official position”. The JCR is basically the student social society. It’s like assuming that the opinions of the student socials committee or Phi Beta Kappa are the same as the Harvard Corporation.

Just a reminder that it is not dehumanising anyone to segregate provisions by sex when it is needed.

And also:

Safety is but one aspect of the safeguarding needs for female people.

There doesn’t need to be any ‘large’ data collection done to prove there are issues either. Because the ‘harm’ is not only about reportable physical harm. There will be a large amount of harm that will never be reported and only partly because women and girls don’t bother reporting crimes where they are the victim to any authority.

However, safety is but one aspect of the safeguarding needs for female people. There are numerous harms.

Harms include:

-Rape and sexual assault.

-Violence.

-Sexual abuse that is not rape or sexual assault.

-Sexual abuse that also includes solo sexual acts or using the experience in future sexual acts.

-Any other abuse that may include verbal abuse, intimidation in any way etc.

-A male person's presence where female people need privacy and dignity.

-A male person's presence where female people need to feel safe from any male person's presence (over the age of about 8 years old).

-Female people self-excluding knowing that there may be a male person accessing that provision.

-Any female person who is displaced because a male person has been included in that provision designed to directly address sexist oppression of female people, and only female people.

Narrowing the discussion to sex and violence offences does not remove these other harms from consideration for single sex provisions.

And trying to focus only on violence is an attempt to distract from the other harms which are important and remain focused on a person's female body which is unchangeable.

No person declaring there is no harm in including male people in provisions designated as female only is making a carefully considered point. Because any inclusion of a male person in any provision in the UK designated as being female sex only will harm some female people. Any claims to the contrary are using falsity to support that claim.

Err, not all men are patriarchal 'supporters'.
Patriarchal systems require society's complicity to survive. Therefore it's imperative advocacy for structural change, education of harm & root causes is addressed. Whilst its important to highlight the ways in which patriarchy is damaging & advocate for solutions, the root cause: Gendered expectations needs to be equally addressed which gender critical ideology obscures by focusing all their attentions on single sex spaces & delegitimising trans people.

It seems a spectacular missed opportunity to delegitimise trans people when the point should be the interchangeabilty of gender that they represent. It's not as if championing self determination (the essence of gender equality/feminism) & managing competing priorities are mutually exclusive.

Not my area of law so am not an expert on this issue, but my reading of it is that I don’t think what they are doing is unlawful. I do, however, think it’s depressing.

"I literally held a fellowship at Newnham; but you’re talking shit to me about “dorm rooms” knowing nothing at all about it. The rationale of Newnham being a women’s college is NOT for women’s safety. It’s for women’s education. It’s a college for women, for the promotion of women’s education and for the benefit of women. It’s not a retreat or a padded cell or a refuge. It’s somewhere which was founded for women, just for the benefit of women, to have something of their own in a wider world where still even now men get the vast majority of all the best things: the jobs and the money and everything else, and in which women are still fighting to access these on the same terms as men. And are not treated as equal yet."

I never said Newnham's sole purpose was safety rather other commenters queried the necessity of trans women's inclusion which Newnham stated was as a "sanctuary from patriarchy."

Don't shoot the messenger…

Patriarchal systems require society's complicity to survive. Therefore it's imperative advocacy for structural change, education of harm & root causes is addressed. Whilst its important to highlight the ways in which patriarchy is damaging & advocate for solutions, the root cause: Gendered expectations needs to be equally addressed

Congrats, @Howseitgoin, it seems that you’re actually a gender critical radical feminist! Welcome to the club. This above is EXACTLY what gender critical radical feminists believe. We all knew you’d get there in the end. 👏

There's this thing called 'nut picking'. I could also mention Rose West but that would be bad faith not to mention irrelevant .

No, you cited a document of student opinions as “official policy”, and went on about how men can’t possibly be allowed in the “dorm rooms” (Newnham does not have “dorm rooms”, FYI).

You clearly know nothing about any of it. By the way, “ham” in British slang is a terrible stage actor who exaggerates his lines to get attention. You’re really making a fool of yourself on this thread, you know.

Hate to tell you, the British public ain’t too fond of Rose West, either. Don’t shoot the messenger, and all that…

@MyAmpleSheep

Do you have an opinion as to whether it is (and as a separate question, should be) legal to discriminate in favour of GR people in the provision of services and public functions? GR is mentioned several times in Schedule 3, so however the law is to be interpreted it must be compatible and interpreted harmoniously with those explicit exemptions.

It's my view that discrimination in favour of trans people is legal, so I would have no trouble appointing my trans employee if I felt being trans was a justifiable occupational requirement, nor does the Act need amendment of Schedule 9 or any other part. (Schedule 3 works pretty smoothly in eg exceptionally allowing trans exclusion from same-sex single-sex services, as a derogation from the ban on perceptive discrimination.)

I doubt that any 'cis' men will ever sue Newnham for admission, so we won't be getting an answer any time soon. Each of us will just have to continue to think that we are right about this 😉. Thank you for an interesting debate.