UK Supreme Court Decision on Meaning of Sex & Gender in the 2010 Equalities Act
in Epiphanies
This discussion was created from comments split from: UK officially fucks Trans kids over.
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The Supreme Court ruling states that definition of woman in Equality Act refers to 'biological women' .
Scrolling further down the Guardian's coverage, I found that the ruling does not diminish transgender women’s protections against direct discrimination.
In their judgment, Lord Reed, Lord Hodge, Lady Rose and Lady Simler said:
A man who identifies as a woman who is treated less favourably because of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment will be able to claim on that basis.
A man who identifies as a woman who is treated less favourably not because of being trans (the protected characteristic of gender reassignment) but because of being perceived as being a woman will be able to claim for direct sex discrimination on that basis.
This does not entail any practical disadvantage and there is no discordance (as the Scottish ministers appear to suggest) between the individual’s position in society and the ability to claim on this basis.
A certificated sex reading of the EA 2010 is not necessary here, and the approach applies equally whether or not the claimant has a gender recognition certificate.
I'm not convinced by the statement that defining women differently in one piece of legislation doesn't undermine the protections given in another piece. OTH, it is going to make a lot of money for lawyers and creates another rod to beat trans women with.
They are also haven’t explained why they think we ever need single sex facilities that specifically exclude trans men, trans women or non-binary people.
Jolyon Maugham has some legal comment here on Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/jolyonmaugham.bsky.social/post/3lmw7wy3pa22l
Laura Pollock quotes Ellie Gomersall who is own voice in The National
Supreme Court ruling 'undermines vital human rights', says activist
I think we're seeing real institutional capture with people with bigoted views at the top of many of our key institutions and consequent dysfunction on human rights decisions and loss of rights for trans people.
https://bsky.app/profile/jessothomson.co.uk/post/3lmvx2eb4bs2e
Statement by Translucent
And intersex and non-binary people apparently don't exist.
🤬😭
On immediate practical issues she’s driving up to see us next weekend. She has a GRC and has completed surgical reassignment. She’s been using ladies loos for 5 years without a single adverse comment. Given the Supreme Court’s comments about single sex spaces is this something she can safely do? And what if someone complains? And what if there are new signs on the doors? She looks female now. I am not sure she would feel safe going into a gentleman’s loo. And when you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go. It’s a five hour drive for her.
*Albeit rather worried about politics
https://www.wearequeeraf.com/uk-supreme-court-rules-that-trans-women-arent-women-under-the-equality-act-2010/
As JaneR quotes, you can see it using bigoted language and this is ignorant bigoted stuff
'It now seems legal in the UK to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces under any circumstances'
It conflicts with the European Court of Human Rights' legal decisions and needs to be challenged. The Scottish government has been utterly craven and isn't going to challenge it and it's highly unlikely that the openly transphobic Labour government will do anything to change the law.
Because they studiously avoided speaking to any trans people it looks like you're right- nobody has standing to appeal it but the transphobes and the Scottish government and Swinney has already sold out on that - the socially conservative wee coward that he is - running scared of the Herald, Sunday Post and Daily Record.
He'd better not be let back to Pride.
My daughter has made this point, particularly so far as single sex spaces are concerned.
Currently I’m ploughing through the small print.
No, indeed. It seems like "I barely scraped a pass at GCSE Biology" levels of Trumpiness. Actual biology, as we know, is a bit more complicated than that.
With specific reference to intersex people, I see absolutely no valid reason why the choice ("this kid has ambiguous sex, but we're going to treat them as a boy/as a girl") made by parents in their infancy should be binding on the child as they grow older.
Modesty taboos are a bit complicated. At one level, we don't "need" single-sex facilities of any kind. Everyone getting naked in the same room works - it's just that a lot of people don't like it. Some of them will claim modesty requirements rooted in their religious faith and practice; others have some kind of internalized modesty taboo that is based on some combination of their upbringing and experience.
Trans people are also a bit complicated. A trans woman, for example, could be anywhere between a person with a body of standard male appearance who identifies as a woman, to a person with male genetics who has had extensive surgery to acquire a standard female appearance, or anywhere in between.
It is hard for me to understand how, for example, telling a trans man who wears a beard and has had top & bottom surgery that he needs to change in the women's room because when he was born, hospital staff said "oh look - a vulva!" actually supports anyone's modesty needs, but this seems to be the logical consequence of excluding trans men from the definition of "men".
TERFs are rarely this logically consistent - it's simply a bald assertion that they should be able to decide who gets into "women's" spaces. They don't really give a shit about what happens in "men's" spaces, up to and including
I think it's more than that; going from what their leading lights say, they prefer that trans people don't exist at all.
Further, this is one issue on which the Labour government have proved happy to be led to the right - with a minister this morning comparing their position favourably with the Tories.
"Not that common, and rarely sense" has been my go-to phrasing.
Yes, presumably they adopted the views of the man in the street, so how are they able to pronounce an authoritative decision? No wonder the Daily Mail acclaimed it.
I'm not going to mention names as they also tend to be highly litigious, but there's been a lot of rhetoric in the past about creating problematic populations etc.
I will point at this article though:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/national/25097138.equalities-boss-outlines-changes-toilets-changing-rooms-womens-sport/
"She suggested trans rights organisations “should be using their powers of advocacy to ask for those third spaces”."
That's the head of the EHRC (which on a sidenote we were encouraged to think was a very august and highly impartial body).
Supposedly they inferred what parliament meant by "woman" and "sex" when writing the Equality Act 2010, ignoring that parliament will have done so in the full knowledge of the provisions of the GRA 2004 and could have spelled out if they intended to exclude trans women.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84054nqnyo
@chrisstiles is this what you mean by "creating problematic populations"? Essentially if the NHS can't treat trans patients on wards which match their gender identity, they'll need to give them individual rooms, which will create resentment on grounds of cost and fairness.
The issue with that though is, IMO, he is an idiot.
I’m as bewildered about all this (yesterday’s decision) as the next person, but I struggle to care what he thinks. On pretty well any subject.
Sorry if it caused confusion, I was summarising the wording of some of the language I'd seen used without mentioning names - it was TERFs describing what they felt about the then exeunt situation - I don't think they were necessarily thinking about anything so prosaic as provision of third spaces.
"Currently the NHS guidance says trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns. Under the ruling this would be scrapped."
Is this the EHRC's interpretation or the BBC's ? Because I'm not sure the ruling would mean that this guidance should be scrapped.
The impression given is that it's a blank document to be interpreted however the anti-trans camp feels.
Meanwhile, I understand that Baroness Falkender has confirmed the position over single sex locations (e.g toilets and changing rooms) that trans women will not be entitled to use them. Some urgent guidelines are in preparation and will be issued shortly. Presumably as a Statutory Instrument or similar?
I haven’t seen a source yet (info from my daughter).
Labour are a transphobic party. They are now in charge and they not only do nothing about these attacks but they make attacks of their own (as well as not removing the Section 35 order against the Scottish Parliament on self ID, there's Wes Streeting on puberty blockers and gender markers etc).
They have continued Conservative policy on this which post- Brexit had joined with the international far right and their media in homing in on trans people as a group to be scapegoated and demonised along with immigrants, people on benefits/ disabled people etc.
And of course Labour does the latter ones as well.
Remember the last UK prime minister to support an improvement in trans people's human rights and at least stop things getting worse was Theresa May.
We are now in a political landscape that has shifted so far right since Brexit that the Labour party have themselves become a far right party who are a danger to minorities and who use scapegoating of minorities based on false premises to drive votes.
There's no such thing as a pro-Brexit party that isn't far right and dangerous because to explain why the sunlit uplands haven't appeared and everything's still getting worse you need scapegoats.
And if you can't deliver economic growth to pay for services because you deliberately crippled one of the main ways of driving it, you can deliver wins for hate instead. It's much easier and cheaper.
We're not at the Trump stage of chaotic evil yet, Starmer and Streeting & co are lawful evil so-to-speak on the alignment chart but it's still bad.
The media system which cheered on Brexit here and Trump in the US has published thousands and thousands of articles demonising trans people - who are only about 1% of the population.
It can demonise anyone and destroy their life or human rights. I belong to a group which only recently got demonised by the horseshoe of the far right and reactionaries claiming to be on the left but actually indistinguishable from the right in the effects of their privileged crankery.
That's part of why people should never treat those demonised as outliers or niche interests - that bell of dehumanisation tolls for everyone.
Currently it's tolling for trans people and we need to think about how we resist it and fight it most effectively.
There are demonstrations planned and I will be looking at what trans people and organisations have to say about what they want allies to do.
But will this actually take effect? Will bigots be patrolling toilets, and scrutinising genitals?
I think trying to shoehorn trans people into the two specific categories many insist on is wrong - they are their own people and we must accept that and make provision for them as that.
Baroness Falkner?
Baroness Falkender is a bit dead.
How is it more "adult" to force people into a third category who don't want to be there? Non-binary people exist, but not all trans people are non-binary and pretending they are doesn't solve anything.
No it was a genuine query - I hadn't actually heard of Baroness Falkner before 10 minutes ago, so had to google, but *had* heard of the late Marcia Williams. I briefly wondered if there was a new one with the same name.
Wasn't trying to minimise the situation at all.
Not just that one single appointment and relatedly there is a track record of people from the EHRC tweeting and making statements that are anti-Black or Islamaphobic going back many years.
That is exactly the way that many of these people think. In the US, you could start with the disgusting collection of Republicans who persist in addressing Rep. Sarah McBride as "Mr. McBride, the gentleman from Delaware" and the like.
They have chosen to believe that trans people do not exist, and do exactly view trans women as "men pretending to be women", and their solution is basically "you're not a woman - get over it". They are not interested in what trans people say, because they have decided that it's self-evident that trans people are wrong about who they are.
And there are millions like them, loudly cheering the Supreme Court decision.
Frankly, it's classic hatred of difference. Same mentality that flushes the school weirdo's head down the bog. Empathy failure.
And fear of difference. 😢