Why do GC arguments focus on single-sex spaces rather than sex discrimination?

[ariel333]

From my understanding of the Supreme Court ruling, sex has to mean biological sex in the act because that’s the main reason why women are discriminated against, so that is the characteristic that has to be protected. If trans women are included as women then biological sex is no longer the protected characteristic but gender identity - and employers could go back to asking women if they intend to get pregnant in job interviews - as they used to before the Sex Discrimination Act.
This seems to me to be a pretty good argument for the necessity of sex meaning biological sex but it doesn’t seem to be used. The focus is much more on single sex spaces. Is there a reason for this?

I'm not sure you've picked a great example. Trans people are also entitled to parental leave for surrogate and adopted children.

I think you have a point, but toilets and changing rooms are such an easy concept to grasp that i think they will always be the go-to.

I'm trying to think of other examples that would pack a punch as big but I'm coming up short, sorry.

Because single sex spaces are safer to the point the design saves lives of men, women and children.

This seems to me to be a pretty good argument for the necessity of sex meaning biological sex but it doesn’t seem to be used. The focus is much more on single sex spaces. Is there a reason for this?

Interesting question.

First of all, the FWS argument to the Supreme Court was much more than just about single-sex spaces.

But I suspect that a trans-identified man (transwoman) is NEVER going to be asked about pregnancy because even the most TWAW person on an interview panel knows that a trans-identified man isn't actually a woman.

The Supreme Court ruling gave numerous exemplar cases in which the protected category of 'biological sex' was the meaningul factor - it wasn't just about toilet and changing facilities.......but it was toilet and changing faciities that became the main focus for trans activism - because these were supposed to constitute an area in which a transwoman ( a man) could show he was " living as the opposite sex".

But they have the same right to take time off after adoption as birth patent, so the question would still be relevant.

Another brain-bending example is that if "sex" includes "gender identity" for the purposes of the 2010 EA, a trans-identified woman (transman) would not be eligible for maternity leave, or any kind of time off for medical care that is specifically because of her biological sex.

Pretty shocking and completely demonstrates how stupid the "TERF" slur is: feminists do not exclude transmen - in fact the FWS case showed just how much trans-identified women /transmen need the protection of the biological sex characteristic!

even the most TWAW person on an interview panel knows that a trans-identified man isn't actually a woman.

I think it is foolish to say that no TW could ever pass. Granted I think 99% of them don't but i do think there may be a small number that do (for example the show there's something about miriam, the guys were kissing miriam thinking it was a woman)

It focuses on this because this is, as it were, the front line of how saying you can identify as a sex puts women in danger.

Of course it is sex discrimination.

The Supreme Court gave one of the reasons for supporting FWS was that the trans should be allowed to invade sex based rights as DISCRIMNATION against the protected characteristic of sex.

No way is it the only issue, but the one that highlights the discriminatory result of the trans narrative.

That was why it became necessary to go to the Supreme Court because the trans narrative is that sex is not just biological.

Now that the highest court has said it is, then in each instance that women's sex based rights are being impinged on, the Supreme Court ruling can be quoted.

Sadly thousands of years of lived experience of their being 2 sexes, let alone what biology etc., has taught us didn't stop and number of people falling for the trans narrative.

One reason being that as discrimination against women is based on their sex, if you can argue that sex isn't real, then you cant have sex discrimination.

The TRA arguement would never have advanced as fast as it did if it wasn't built on the anti woman agenda of MRAs.

After how more convenient for them to have sex said to not be a real thing, when men as a sex class are accused of discrimination against women because of their sex class.

Sadly this trans activism is just at this point on history they way in which the male sex class is discriminating against women.

I guess in practice nobody is discriminating against women in this sort of twisted way, whereas lots of places are letting transwomen into toilets and changing rooms. The focus is on the actual problem.

People are shortsighted and don’t want to focus on the main issues.

Body safety and privacy for everyone are actually pretty easy fixes with enough money and time. Identifying women as a distinct group to protect them from discrimination is a much bigger issue. So is identifying transgender people to protect them.

how can we track workplace discrimination against the part of the population that gestates our young if we can’t easily define that population?

how can we track discrimination against people who don’t conform to societal norms in gender presentation if we can’t identify them?

The thing is that a tranwoman doesn't just pass for a woman, those that do pass IRL have undergone extensive surgeries.
Those that pass online are often just filtered to the extreme.

@IwantToRetire

"The TRA arguement would never have advanced as fast as it did if it wasn't built on the anti woman agenda of MRAs."

I disagree with this as IMO, it advanced at the speed that it did as ut was hitched to LGB rights, which were already firmly planted and then gave rise to the #nodebate etc.

Pitching the trans aganda as MRA came later.

The thing is that a tranwoman doesn't just pass for a woman, those that do pass IRL have undergone extensive surgeries.

True, with extensive surgery, some transwomen can pass. That is my point, it is possible, so you can't say it can never happen

Pitching the trans aganda as MRA came later.

I feel like most MRAs (followers of Tate for example) are not pro-trans. TRAs seem quite left-wing leaning and MRAs tend to be more right-wing so I don't see them having much politcal overlap.

Not politically but they do share a lot of ideas. Both groups think women don’t deserve rights, that’s women’s needs and wants come below men’s and in the cases of some TIM like Mr Serrano, that women owe them sex.

Exactly this.

For many of us, protection from sex discrimination is a key priority. But others, esp TRAs with their piss protests, have focused the public debate on toilets and changing rooms.

I think some are not understanding what MRA stands for. MRA ie men's rights activists refers to the entrench representatives of the patriarchy for ever.

ie Men's rights first. For instance they instigated the back lash against Women's Liberation back in the 1980s, just as the moulded "Victorian" values etc., etc..

The reality is if the underlying misogynistic attitude towards women is what created, has allowed women to be dismissed in this way.

If this culture of women not being important wasn't there, there is no way TRAs would have been so sucessful because most people society would say this is disrespectful towards women, just as people said Rachel Dolezal was an insult to PoC.

The incel culture and manosphere of Tate etc., is just a current strand of the underlying partriarchy that exists to protect men's rights as being the most important.

Everyone knows that the TRAs used the gay rights movement as a vehicle, but just to say again it would NOT have been possible for it to be so widely accepted if there wasn't the underlying dismissal of women as second class members of society.

The movement to support people who are same sex attracted did not and does not impinge on any one's life or rights.

It is only because over decades, centuries, women have never been accepted as equal to men, that so many people have just not thought about the loss of women's rights in giving "rights" to TW.

Generations of women not being respected is what has allowed the TRAs to be influential.

Because what it also does is that by trying to say sex isn't real, it allows the MRAs who are accused of discriminating against the sex class of women to say, but there is no sex so we cant be accused of discriminating against the sex class of women and equally we cant be accused as a group because if sex isn't real that how can we be operating as an oppressive sex class.

Just to re-iterate, that was why the Supreme Court ruling was vital, because of the attempt to erase the reality of sex.

If there is no sex, then there is no sexism.

If there is no sex then there is no sex descrimination.

The MRA movement which is basically day to day life in a sexist society, welcomed this more recent attack on women being so uppity as to say women (the sex class) deserve to be treated with respect.

We won!!!

I suppose I had better say something else, just to be polire.

If trans women are included as women then biological sex is no longer the protected characteristic but gender identity - and employers could go back to asking women if they intend to get pregnant in job interviews - as they used to before the Sex Discrimination Act.

🤦‍♀️

Under the Equality Act 2010, asking about pregnancy plans because the applicant is a woman is sex discrimination. Asking about pregnancy plans because the applicant is incorrectly perceived to be a woman constitutes direct sex discrimination by perception. A man can claim this, with a comparator being someone not perceived to be a woman and not asked about pregnancy plans on that basis, ie. another man.

The same situation and protections can be replicated without calling it "sex discrimination" - words do not determine reality.

If "sex" were to be defined by "gender identity" it would still be only good old fashioned female women who could get pregnant. To protect them from discrimination on that basis it would only be necessary to distinguish between and adequately describe people with the gender identity of "woman" who are actually female and people with the gender identity of "woman" who are actually male, ie. in the current, sane sense of female and male.

Probably quite convoluted but thankfully not something we need to worry about because

WE WON!

All men have the same right to take adoption leave. Still, men don't get asked about their plans for children (at least, not with an underlying intent of trying to avoid employing someone who will take adoption leave).

Indeed - it's fascinating the way the trans lobby have made the it all about toilets, in fact they obsess about toilets so much that you'd be forgiven for thinking that the 'T' in LGBT stands for 'toilets'🙄

That's strange, because it's the women I see wanting to talk about toilets and changing rooms, quite understandably. We all use loos, few of us are on female only shortlists.

For me, sport was the really big one, but that's a battle that's largely been won, I think.

I am so fed up of having to talk about toilets.

I'm glad you do! We've learnt a lot.

But yes, having to do it over and over must be tedious. There should be no need.

Toilets are the everyday version of prisons, hospital wards, changing rooms, care and nursing homes and so on. It's relatable short hand for all these spaces.

I also think that a lot of focus has been on single sex facilities because this is where most women and girls would potentially be negatively impacted. We can all imagine what it is like to use pubic toilets and changing rooms. This also reaches into schools and affects girls at a time when they are feeling particularly vulnerable.

Going to the toilet, at work or when out in public is something we all do, everyday.