Good Law Project to report Sex Matters over 'deviant' remark

[IwantToRetire]

In its assessment of the EHRC guidance, Sex Matters took issue with the following phrase: "It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service.”

The sex-based rights group responded in a publication entitled <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/lLjDq/sex-matters.org/posts/updates/sex-is-not-special-category-data/?ref=ed_latest" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Sex is not a 'special category' data", saying: "There is no legal basis for this instruction, which in effect licenses men to enter women’s facilities and claim that it is inappropriate, possibly unlawful and a breach of their human rights to challenge them."

The group further stated: "Telling staff supervising single-sex spaces that they must second-guess themselves when they become aware of a man engaging in the deviant behaviour of accessing a female-only space, or risk breaching data-protection law, will lead to unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristic of sex that is likely to meet the definition of harassment in the Equality Act. It 'violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment'."

From article at https://www.thenational.scot/news/26143769.good-law-project-report-sex-matters-deviant-remark/
and at https://archive.is/lLjDq

Its so odd that Jolyon & the other non-biological fundamentalist on here heard men with deviant behaviours and automatically linked it to transwomen / trans identified man.

That’s assumption is their assumption. Challenging behaviour that deviates from the norm / deviant behaviour is actually what most of us do - in work, in social settings, in our children.

On the plain reading there are many men - excluding trans men - who are deviant in their behaviours.

• Deviate from the norm — To behave or think differently from what is standard or expected.
• Don’t deviate — A direct instruction to stay on track (e.g., “Stick to the agenda and don’t deviate.”).
• Deviate significantly — Often used in technical, scientific, or regulatory contexts
• Deviant art — Unconventional or provocative artwork (also the name of the popular website DeviantArt).
• Moral deviant — Someone who breaks moral or ethical conventions.
• Deviation from the mean/standard (statistics).
• Statistical deviation.
• Deviant from the group or group deviant.

Any reading of “deviant” tends to label people or behaviors as non-conforming.

I think the reorganisation of resources resulted in complaints originally, but the complainants were dismissed as transphobic and lost their jobs. I know I wanted to complain but was intimidated by a corporate culture of persecution and unfortunately I needed to work and earn money. Protesting and complaining was not an option for most women. I’m very surprised you aren’t aware of that, it’s well documented and widely known. You probably aren’t interested in the viewpoints of people who are different to you, or what their experiences might be, but it can be valuable to understand all the issues.

An example of a non trans man using women’s clothing in an extreme example of deviation from societal standards.

(Trigger warning CSA)

https://share.google/s5MX1MK6b50g5eCQM

I'm so glad you wrote this post, Heggettypeg. I was just trying to construct a similar reply in my head, but you have put it so well. Yes it is, as @Baileyonice says, plausible to argue that "human rights, dignity and legal protections are matters of social negotiation and value—not objective deductions from the natural world". But that does not remotely entail that they are free-floating constructions with no anchorage in reality.
Bailey tries to make the "objective deduction" look implausible by locating it in the fundamental origin of rights. In fact, if rights are, as Bailey pictures them, a matter of 'social negotiation and value', the 'objective deductions' will be made in that arena of 'social negotiation' but will relate to material realities - such as needs, the material realities that shape those needs, and the material barriers to the realisation of needs.

The is/ought distinction just means that is and ought are categorically different. It doesn't mean that the latter doesn't supervene on the former (in a manner in which it is the business of moral philosophy to articulate). If it did, it would be hard to articulate the actual significance of rights for material beings.

If you are going to massively misrepresent the is/ought distinction in such an undergraduate manner, it is probably better not to preface your remarks with "may I suggest a rudimentary course in philosophy 101".

I'm guessing that courses in "transgender and queer theory" routinely abuse philosophy in this way, preferring to show the fly the way into the fly bottle, rather than out of it.

I’m a gravity existentialist.

Well we’d expect to see your type on the FWR boards. So fixated on reality and science. 🧬

I know. And guess what…. Im not even a scientist! The audacity 🤣🤣🤣

If its material evidence that justifies how society should be organised then you kind of need it that often irrelevant oversimplifications don't necessarily qualify as.

To use your toilet example, your problem is that because, unlike sex, 'trans' is now a completely subjective concept (largely a consequence of campaigning by organisations like Stonewall after 2010) you can only make a practical argument for single sex or mixed sex toilets.

You talk about material evidence but if anyone can use any toilet, then we can only consider whether men are a danger to women and we do have evidence that mixed sex facilities are more dangerous for women.

As women know, you can't defend the rights of people you can't define.

@nicepotoftea well the problem with your rational thinking is that you are committing a literal violence hate crime & thought deviant behaviour.

My inner feelings and badly applied make up are material evidence of my transition from someone without badly applied evidence. You see total facts.

You’re another one of those biological fundamentalist freaks. 🤯😂

Trans scientist - oh no your type are fine. You feel your science 🧬 so that’s ok.

You really are quite focused on toilets.

Again, there is no way to judge somebody else's gender identity. If you think toilets should be mixed sex, you should certainly campaign for that.

Does it occur to you that women need rights for reasons that extend beyond toilets? That they lose those rights if 'woman' is not clearly defined in law?

The basic point being made that you're spectacularly missing (already clarified) was according to materialist logic an 'ought' (social reorganisation) requires a relevant 'is' (evidence) that a generalised vague assertions like 'male violence' doesn't necessarily apply in every context. To wit, you have no 'is' in every setting which is an example of the ought is problem with gender critical ideology.

We know that councils and other authorities steadfastly refuse to entertain complaints let alone write them down in a book when it comes to men in womens spaces. So using 'there have been no complaints' as a measure of how big the issue is, is utterly nonsensical.

The TAs are losing. Long term the situation is bleak.

Every time GLP does something daft like this and lose another case the biology knowers make gains.

They are an utter train wreck. As much I am loving Sarah Phillimore taking on Joylon the loss of his incompetence for our side will be tragic.

What about a transwoman is a man. A man is a person who represents the predator class. What about trans women do threaten women?

There are more women on this very board who have complained about men in women's spaces than translucent is claiming. They are a propaganda machine for transactivism.

edited to add that you've got it arse about face. The social reorganisation came from Stonewall.. What was their 'evidence' that men should be given access to vulnerable women??

honestly, transactivism is so stupid

that a generalised vague assertions like 'male violence' doesn't necessarily apply in every context.

Very few feminists would argue that all men are a risk to women, and in the vast majority of situations sex discrimination is unlawful.

When it is lawful it has to meet specific criteria, but if you allow some men to use a facility or service, then you are accepting that the criteria don't apply and the faculty should be mixed sex.

Did that make sense in your head? Can you clarify? Why are you so determined to allow men into female spaces?

To use your toilet example, your problem is that because, unlike sex, 'trans' is now a completely subjective concept (largely a consequence of campaigning by organisations like Stonewall after 2010) you can only make a practical argument for single sex or mixed sex toilets.

I have a concern that people who think along the lines of Baileyoince see the word "subjective" (as used - perfectly reasonably - in the above-quoted para) and interpret it positively as a validation of their arguments against what they think of as "biological essentialism", or, more generally (given what Bailey wrote about "is and "ought") against a "material essentialism".

They think of it as radical, disruptive, nuanced and sharp to emphasise that a focus on 'the material' loses sight of the degree to which the shared reality in which we operate is in fact a construct, and therefore 'subjective' in the sense that it arises within human meaning-making rather than 'in the world'.

So I think it is important to unpack the word 'subjective' a bit, to see how/whether it fits in with the emphasis on the gender-theorist's take on the idea that reality is a social construct.

Specifically, gender theorists seem to rely heavily on the idea that the subjective self-perception of gender identity is something inner and unfalsifiable. But any concept of reality as a social construct (subjective, in the sense of being something other than, or more than, a material reality lying outside of our human meaning-making) has to be able to make sense of subjectivity as something essentially social -- something that forms the basis for a shared reality: it can't identify the subjective realm with the inner realm. Meaning breaks down if we try to tether it in wholly private experiences.

I can't articulate this well, but google Wittgenstein's private language argument. I think the conclusion to be drawn from that argument is that gender theorists' account of the self-perception of gender is at odds with the social constructivist views that they seem to endorse.

99% of sexual crimes are committed by males. 85% of the victims are female. That is why men, as a sex class, are excluded from spaces where women are vulnerable. Please show proof that transwomen are a sacred cast and only commit sex crimes at the female rate. Given that the only objective criteria for being a transwoman is to be male and declare yourself one, that might be a tall order. But this is on you to prove it, not us to disprove it (although we can). Good luck.

So the philosophy was just a huge detour and all you are saying is that policy making requires evidence? Shall we talk about the evidence then?

Is/ought seems to be a new deflection point (we seem to be getting new "arguments " popping up every day now, as the edifice of transactivism crumbles like sugar paste). Just like trans+. And gender is different from sex. And transmen.

Bailey has been trying the is/ought thing on at least one other thread.

It's obfuscation, because they can't stop the whole thing unravelling.

I don't think Bailey is aware of the figures provided by the UK Prison Service which show the prevalence of 3 times the number of men who say they are women who are there for sexual crimes than the men who do not say they are women. Because that would completely undermine their word salad I mean argument.

As mentioned the 'male violence' defence doesn't apply in every setting. The evidence regarding unisex facilities was referring to public sports centres & swimming pools changing facilities not public toilets with different designs influencing offending.

They think that women not complaining is a win.

BIG BIG mistake. They don't understand the sexual difference in complaint culture. Upset a man and he might kick off right there and then. Then they will forget about it.

Many women do not like direct confrontation. Instead they will take notes and do something about it later when they have gathered support. There are biological and social reasons for this.

All these men in dresses going around thinking they are kings and treating women like dirt are finding out building up resentment amongst women is a bad idea. It isn't even a good idea in a full on sexist society let alone in the UK where there are a LOT of women with careers and power.

Women are not going to confront a massive guy in a dress head on. We know how that ends. Luckily we don't need to.

For every one open terf there are 5 or 10 in the shadows. They are winning now, we are going to win even more in a few more years.

@Baileyonice

Why do you think female only spaces exist in the first place?