Yes, the idea of personal preference is a traditional form of bigotry, which probably was used for gays as well. You've made your bed, so lie in it. So a transwoman has chosen that. FFS, this is going back to the 60s and 70s.
It’s certainly retrograde and it’s disappointing to hear that Sir Keir Starmer thinks it isn’t.
Is the Labour Party now, officially, transphobic? I hope there are many dissenting voices amongst Labour MPs.
Many of the voices I'd hope to be supportive are equivocal, no doubt a certain amount of cowardice in the face of a hostile press and whip-happy leadership. But yes, the PLP is now officially transphobic.
Whereas someone else imposing a gender identity on someone can be arbitrary.
Defining gender by which genitalia one has is the opposite of arbitrary, whether you agree with that definition or not.
If a man (for the sake of argument someone who has always identified themselves as a boy or man) has a nasty accident and his penis has to be removed, does that then mean he isn't a man? If someone has XY chromosomes but because certain chemical signals were not received during early development they failed to develop a penis, does that mean they're not male? If there is disagreement in the answer to those questions, and similar, then by definition decisions based on genitalia are arbitrary.
So is your argument that if something is not 100% certain in every single possible case then it is completely arbitrary in all cases?
Also, of course, many radical feminists really wanted to dismantle gender roles altogether, as opposed to modern gender-critical activists who seem only to be critical of gender roles when they don't match gender assigned at birth.
Gender roles and gender identity aren't the same thing. You can be a woman who likes to do "traditionally male" things whilst being completely certain that you are a woman.
If gender roles can’t be used to define gender, and neither can biology or morphology, then what the heck can? Is it just inherently arbitrary, and therefore meaningless?
Self-understanding is not arbitrary.
It is if it’s not based on any reason, rationale or definition other than personal preference.
I know my gender like I know I am right handed. I can't show you where my right-handedness is on my body but when I write with my right hand it works better. When I identify as NB it works better. When trans children get to identify as their correct gender, they are less likely to hurt or kill themselves. It works better.
Because personal preference implies that one has some choice in how one feels, and trans-people very much do not feel they have a choice.
OK, I accept that and admit that using the word “preference” may have been imprecise. I just struggle to understand how someone with a male body can assert that they are in fact female (or vice versa) without them also wanting to change their body to match that identification. Or to put it another way, I can’t understand how anyone could want to be female without actually wanting to be female. It feels to me like some kind of secular Gnosticism that says the physical body is utterly irrelevant to the true essence of an individual.
Perhaps not, but there’s a difference between not understanding the explanation and there not being an explanation at all. How can anyone be so completely sure they’re a man or a woman if there is no inherent meaning behind those terms or external verification on which to base that certainty? Are sex and gender really as ultimately meaningless as the names we happen to go by - important to the individual but of no greater or wider significance or relevance? That doesn’t feel right to me. For one thing, it would mean homosexuality or heterosexuality were nonexistent concepts as only being attracted to men or women would be as ridiculous an idea as only being attracted to people called Steve or Helen.
God, yet another thread showing why trans people are wrong.
Trying futilely. We're not wrong
@Marvin the Martian What do you think of my comparison to handedness? I think it somewhat addresses that there is an meaning, but not one others can easily see. Some things can have meaning but not be obvious on the outside.
Perhaps not, but there’s a difference between not understanding the explanation and there not being an explanation at all. How can anyone be so completely sure they’re a man or a woman if there is no inherent meaning behind those terms or external verification on which to base that certainty? Are sex and gender really as ultimately meaningless as the names we happen to go by - important to the individual but of no greater or wider significance or relevance? That doesn’t feel right to me. For one thing, it would mean homosexuality or heterosexuality were nonexistent concepts as only being attracted to men or women would be as ridiculous an idea as only being attracted to people called Steve or Helen.
We are hoping to host an AMA with a trans person in a few weeks time and they maybe better placed to answer that question.
It doesn’t change the fact that the evidence is that trans woman do not pose an increased risk to cisgender women. If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
Because personal preference implies that one has some choice in how one feels, and trans-people very much do not feel they have a choice.
OK, I accept that and admit that using the word “preference” may have been imprecise. I just struggle to understand how someone with a male body can assert that they are in fact female (or vice versa) without them also wanting to change their body to match that identification.
I'll accept that you find that difficult to understand - but can you agree that someone else's identity is not preconditioned on your ability to understand it?
There are a lot of reasons why people choose not to have as many medical interventions as they might be able to have, including:
1. Cost. Money doesn't grow on trees.
2. They want to preserve the ability to have their own biological children.
3. Risks of complications. Genital surgery is complicated, and the degree of success can vary. If someone is at least adequately comfortable with the bits they have, I think you could easily agree that they might prefer to avoid the risks.
4. It's just not that important to them.
It feels to me like some kind of secular Gnosticism that says the physical body is utterly irrelevant to the true essence of an individual.
We are talking about trans people here - they are, specifically, a small subset of humans who have told you explicitly that their physical body does not determine their true essence.
I can understand that you don't understand that. Personally, I don't feel a sense of gender that is separate from the fact that I have a body with all the usual male accoutrements. My personal sense of gender, whatever gender is, is rather defined by the fact that I have those accoutrements. Perhaps you feel the same. But neither you nor I are trans, so how we view our own sex and/or gender is unlikely to usefully illuminate how trans people see themselves. Listening to the way that the collective ensemble of trans people describe their experience, on the other hand, is at least a start. Yes, I understand that you can't map their experience on to an experience that you have had, and so it's hard for you to "understand" it. But you don't need to "understand" it to accept that they're giving you the best account of themselves they can.
It feels to me like some kind of secular Gnosticism that says the physical body is utterly irrelevant to the true essence of an individual.
Even aside from the somewhat problematic use of 'Gnosticism' (it's doesn't really easily map to either of the sects that are usually labelled that way). I'm not sure this is the case. If anything, dysphoria seems to be indicative of of people who are highly conscious of their body.
That doesn’t feel right to me. For one thing, it would mean homosexuality or heterosexuality were nonexistent concepts as only being attracted to men or women
I don't see why this is the case either - being heterosexual doesn't mean you automatically find all women attractive.
If one were going to draw theological parallels for trans experience surely the obvious one would be transubstantiation. Millions upon millions of faithful Catholics have been taught and have believed that the true substance of something can be one thing while all outward appearances are another. That's not gnosticism at all. Of course I'm not sure that it's in any way a helpful parallel to draw.
God, yet another thread showing why trans people are wrong.
Trying futilely. We're not wrong
I’m not trying to show that trans people are wrong. I mean, as recently as ten years or so ago my view that people should be free to change their sex if they want to would have been considered very progressive. It’s the more recent development whereby people can be considered to have changed sex even if they haven’t (as far as I can see) actually changed anything that I struggle with.
@Marvin the Martian What do you think of my comparison to handedness? I think it somewhat addresses that there is an meaning, but not one others can easily see. Some things can have meaning but not be obvious on the outside.
I can sort of see what you’re getting at with it in terms of there being no visible sign of it, but to me handedness can be evidenced by the fact that one can do things (especially writing) more easily and effectively (and legibly) with one hand than the other.
If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
No, but it’s widely accepted (and indeed legally enshrined) that segregation based on sex is perfectly acceptable - if not morally required - in certain circumstances. The question then becomes, what is it about the sexes that makes it legitimate for them to be kept apart in those circumstances?
@Marvin the Martian I wanted to respond to the first part of your post without giving an impression that I'm debating. I appreciate that you are engaging and while you are not persuaded, you do not seem to be deprecating people or disrespecting us. Thanks.
What do you think of my comparison to handedness? I think it somewhat addresses that there is an meaning, but not one others can easily see. Some things can have meaning but not be obvious on the outside.
I can sort of see what you’re getting at with it in terms of there being no visible sign of it, but to me handedness can be evidenced by the fact that one can do things (especially writing) more easily and effectively (and legibly) with one hand than the other.
I would say that I can definitely pretend to be a woman. I've done it before. But I got bullied when I pretended to be a girl because I didn't do a very good job. Kids are pretty good at seeing a fake and they noticed that I disliked all the appurtenances of girlhood before I did. I can write legibly with my left hand also. But in both cases the results are significantly better when I stop faking it.
There are big and important issues being discussed on this thread, but it seems to me that the general debate around the Supreme Court decision goes way beyond what the Supreme Court actually decided.
The question which the Supreme Court sought to answer was what was meant by “man“ and “woman“ in the Equality Act (“EA”) 2010. The court found that.
The EA 2010 was enacted as an amending and consolidating statute. It enacted group-based protections against discrimination based on a range of characteristics, including sex and gender reassignment [113]-[116], [142]-[149]. There is no indication that the EA 2010 modified the meaning of “man” and “woman” or “sex” from the meaning in the S[ex] D[iscrimination] A[ct] 1975
The court noted that nowhere does the EA 2010 expressly address the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It concluded, therefore, that the EA 2010 needed to be analysed purely on its own terms.
In examining the EA, it found that interpreting “man“ and “woman“ as referring to anything other than a simple view of biological sex would lead to internal incoherence within the Act. The legal presumption is that Parliament does not pass Acts which are internally incoherent, and therefore the conclusion was that the EA intended “man“ and “woman“ to refer to biological sex.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, as a result, the EA simply does not engage at all with the complexities of sex, sexual differentiation, and gender - its view is binary. Nor does it appear that the drafters of the EA paid sufficient, if any, attention to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
The outcome is certainly a mess, and clearly frightening and/or worrying for a significant number of people, not only trans people but also intersex people. But resolving that problem by a judgement which makes an Act of Parliament internally inconsistent with itself does seem to me to amount to judicial law-making.
This seems to me to be something which should have been dealt with by more careful Parliamentary law-making, and which requires legislation to resolve.
The whole area, though, is such a political hot potato, and one where divisions cross party lines, that it is unlikely that this government will find a good way through the mess.
(Incidentally, I found this graphic on the complexities of biological sex something of an eye opener.)
If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
No, but it’s widely accepted (and indeed legally enshrined) that segregation based on sex is perfectly acceptable - if not morally required - in certain circumstances. The question then becomes, what is it about the sexes that makes it legitimate for them to be kept apart in those circumstances?
It is generally to do with being naked in front of others (which raises a deal of other issues about presumed sexual orientation etc) - but in the modern world you are not required to be naked in front of others in a toilet or a changing room. In a hospital, you may be required to be naked in front of health professionals and in that situation you are not guaranteed a same sex practitioner.
A great deal of the obvious bullshit involved - boils down to ignoring the fact cubicles exist.
Supporting the victims of gendered violence is the other situation, and I’d argue possibly the only situation, where it make sense to provide segregated spaces. And even then I would argue the issue there is not transwomen, it would be mixed gender groups.
If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
No, but it’s widely accepted (and indeed legally enshrined) that segregation based on sex is perfectly acceptable - if not morally required - in certain circumstances. The question then becomes, what is it about the sexes that makes it legitimate for them to be kept apart in those circumstances?
It is primarily a concern about being naked in front of others, provision of intimate care, and provision of services to people who have experienced gendered violence. (And religious prohibitions in some circumstances.). Single sex schools appear to be predicated on the idea that children are totally distracted by the opposite gender and that gay people don’t exist, rather concerns about safety.
Most of this can be dealt with by not having to get naked in communal areas and the provision of chaperones (which is what you usually see in healthcare). In changing rooms and toilets - the use of cubicles - in women’s toilets in particular you don’t expose your genitalia in front of others.
In mental health wards, the provision of en-suite rooms rather than dormitories and bays also assists with managing this issue.
There are big and important issues being discussed on this thread, but it seems to me that the general debate around the Supreme Court decision goes way beyond what the Supreme Court actually decided.
The question which the Supreme Court sought to answer was what was meant by “man“ and “woman“ in the Equality Act (“EA”) 2010. The court found that.
The EA 2010 was enacted as an amending and consolidating statute. It enacted group-based protections against discrimination based on a range of characteristics, including sex and gender reassignment [113]-[116], [142]-[149]. There is no indication that the EA 2010 modified the meaning of “man” and “woman” or “sex” from the meaning in the S[ex] D[iscrimination] A[ct] 1975
The court noted that nowhere does the EA 2010 expressly address the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It concluded, therefore, that the EA 2010 needed to be analysed purely on its own terms.
In examining the EA, it found that interpreting “man“ and “woman“ as referring to anything other than a simple view of biological sex would lead to internal incoherence within the Act. The legal presumption is that Parliament does not pass Acts which are internally incoherent, and therefore the conclusion was that the EA intended “man“ and “woman“ to refer to biological sex.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, as a result, the EA simply does not engage at all with the complexities of sex, sexual differentiation, and gender - its view is binary. Nor does it appear that the drafters of the EA paid sufficient, if any, attention to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
The outcome is certainly a mess, and clearly frightening and/or worrying for a significant number of people, not only trans people but also intersex people. But resolving that problem by a judgement which makes an Act of Parliament internally inconsistent with itself does seem to me to amount to judicial law-making.
This seems to me to be something which should have been dealt with by more careful Parliamentary law-making, and which requires legislation to resolve.
The whole area, though, is such a political hot potato, and one where divisions cross party lines, that it is unlikely that this government will find a good way through the mess.
Thanks for this. IANAL - just an interested amateur - and I was expecting something like this to be the case. The criticism of the Supreme Court, whilst understandable, seems to me to be misplaced. The court followed legal principles to arrive at a legal position. The problem is with the legislation.
Undoubtedly, for those affected, this is deeply frightening and I agree that morally there is a sound argument that the court has erred here but legally and constitutionally, it would be hugely problematic for the Supreme Court to make an Act of Parliament internally inconsistent.
The bit that is less clear to me, is whether those who are celebrating this, those who are drafting guidelines for public and non-public bodies and those who are appalled by it, are all over-interpreting the judgment and its effects?
I also agree that Parliament needs to fix this but has zero appetite for doing so.
I’m seeing people on all sides of the debate who are discussing the decision on the basis that the Supreme Court has made a general legal ruling on the meaning of “man“ and “woman“ and “sex“. They have not. They have merely made a legal ruling on what the EA intended in using those terms.
A great deal will depend on what those who draft guidelines decide should be done. I am not familiar enough with the EA to know where all that might go.
I think it is very significant that the Supreme Court have expressly said that trans people are entitled not to be discriminated against, and this is something that drafters of guidelines and policies will need to be very careful about.
For example, I could see a claim being made that a purely “biological sex“ policy would have the effect of discriminating against a transgender person by exposing them to a situation where they are forced to reveal their transgender identity, and possibly exposing them to shame and humiliation as a result.
I’m seeing people on all sides of the debate who are discussing the decision on the basis that the Supreme Court has made a general legal ruling on the meaning of “man“ and “woman“ and “sex“. They have not. They have merely made a legal ruling on what the EA intended in using those terms.
A great deal will depend on what those who draft guidelines decide should be done. I am not familiar enough with the EA to know where all that might go.
For what it's worth, my daughter (in their late teens) hates having to share a locker room or intimate space with anyone else, regardless of whether those other people are presenting as female or male. I always found them awkward. I can see the problem around sexualization, but then again...gay people exist. Once you allow that same-sex attraction exists, then any nudity is suspicious. Maybe just let people have privacy curtains, if you must have public changing rooms (which are exceedingly rare things in my adult experience.
If I recall from some reading, gender-segregated bathrooms are a relatively modern invention, maybe going back a century or so.
The court noted that nowhere does the EA 2010 expressly address the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It concluded, therefore, that the EA 2010 needed to be analysed purely on its own terms.
In examining the EA, it found that interpreting “man“ and “woman“ as referring to anything other than a simple view of biological sex would lead to internal incoherence within the Act. The legal presumption is that Parliament does not pass Acts which are internally incoherent, and therefore the conclusion was that the EA intended “man“ and “woman“ to refer to biological sex.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, as a result, the EA simply does not engage at all with the complexities of sex, sexual differentiation, and gender - its view is binary. Nor does it appear that the drafters of the EA paid sufficient, if any, attention to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
According to Melanie Field, who led the Equality Act 2010 drafting team in 2009-2010, the drafters of the Equality Act 2010 paid quite a lot of attention to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
Having led the development and passage of the Equality Act 2010 (EA), I know that the policy and legal instructions underlying its drafting were based on the clear premise that, for a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), their “sex” for the purposes of the EA is that recorded on their GRC. This position, as it relates to sex discrimination law, was set out clearly in the explanatory notes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) - the Equality Act did not seek or purport to change that approach.
... Therefore there are likely to be unintended consequences of this very significant change of interpretation from the basis on which the legislation was drafted and considered by Parliament.
...
The inclusion of the word “woman” in the pregnancy and maternity provisions was contentious – we were well aware of the possibility of a trans man with a GRC becoming pregnant. The drafting was eventually determined for political reasons, and reluctantly implemented by officials on the basis that the purposive approach to statutory interpretation, together with the explicit provision in the GRA that a GRC does not affect parenthood, would give the right result should a case ever be brought by a trans man in this situation. However, it is true that this undermines the coherence of the drafting and I fear that this anomaly played a significant role in the approach taken by the Court. This highlights the danger of allowing politics to influence legislative drafting...
NB I first posted the above quote on this thread three days ago.
I was remembering statistics. There’s a stats thing called a “mode,” which means the thing that happens the most. And when there’s two things that happen the most, it’s called “bimode.”
So biological sex is like that. There are two main ones women and men. They are the most common. But there are also some people who are not in those two groups exactly. They are less common, but they still exist and matter a lot, and some people are very awful about them because they want everyone to be what they think they should be, even when they aren't.
I think those people, I mean trans people and others not in the big two groups of men and women deserve a lot of support and kindness and protection. I just really believe that. That’s what I always thought being Christian was supposed to mean, helping and caring for people who need it. At the very least not being cruel. I don't go in for a lot of Christianity but kindness for me is the key thing. Or love if you want to call it that. I like to use the word kindness because it means you have to do things not just feel love.
It makes me really upset when people who have a lot of power say things like they know everything, but then they don’t show decency or kindness to people who are different or not powerful. That just feels really wrong to me. So I think these judges didn't think enough about being kind and supportive to the minority who are trans people.
I think, responding to pease, with the benefit of hindsight, the “clear premise” should have been made express in the Equality Act. Certainly the judgment focuses on the fact that the EA does not address the issues raised for it by s9.1 and s9.3 of the GRA.
I think it would be a stretch for the court to interpret the EA in the light of explanatory notes to a different statute to which it doesn’t refer, and which had been passed six years previously.
And to be honest, having read the explanatory notes in the GRA relating to discrimination it is not clear that “their “sex” for the purposes of the EA is that recorded on their GRC” just that they should be treated as if their sex is as recorded on their GRC. (Though there may be other parts of the explanatory notes which make it clearer. But even so courts are cautious about using explanatory notes to discern the meaning of a statute. They are regarded as a secondary source only and will not “displace the meanings conveyed by the words of a statute that, after consideration of that context, are clear and unambiguous and which do not produce absurdity.”)
The last two quoted sentences from Melanie Field are very germane.
If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
No, but it’s widely accepted (and indeed legally enshrined) that segregation based on sex is perfectly acceptable - if not morally required - in certain circumstances. The question then becomes, what is it about the sexes that makes it legitimate for them to be kept apart in those circumstances?
It is generally to do with being naked in front of others (which raises a deal of other issues about presumed sexual orientation etc) - but in the modern world you are not required to be naked in front of others in a toilet or a changing room. In a hospital, you may be required to be naked in front of health professionals and in that situation you are not guaranteed a same sex practitioner.
A great deal of the obvious bullshit involved - boils down to ignoring the fact cubicles exist.
Supporting the victims of gendered violence is the other situation, and I’d argue possibly the only situation, where it make sense to provide segregated spaces. And even then I would argue the issue there is not transwomen, it would be mixed gender groups.
As an aside, what then would we do about high schools (11-18 in the UK)? I can’t think of many that don’t - once you’ve got past division into boy or girl - then have communal changing rooms and showers (as in, everyone changing in one room, and then standing under multiple showerheads in the same unpartitioned shower space).
I recognise it’s tangential but it struck me that ‘ignoring the fact cubicles exist’ might miss the fact that for U18s they very largely - as a matter of school plant and buildings - don’t.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
Apologies, this is a tangent that’s probably better somewhere else (though I did raise it initially in good faith as relevant)
FWIW, I went for a swim today, and the female changing room was basically "no cubicles." There are six cubicles, but the changing room is designed to accomodate far more women than that; there are 80 lockers, which occupy three of the four walls.
I've changed there often enough that I didn't give it a second thought. I've seen women striding confidently naked from the showers, but I think most women are like me, changing facing your locker, whilst more or less swathed in towel.
I don't think they could change it to add cubicles, without removing the lockers. Given a straight choice I'd rather have a locker for my stuff (which included my ID card) than a cubicle.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
Clearly you weren’t playing rugby on a wet Tuesday in December before lunch
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
Clearly you weren’t playing rugby on a wet Tuesday in December before lunch
Rugby was after school for us, but coming in cold, wet and muddy from PE was still fairly common. We still wouldn't have dreamed of using the showers. I certainly remember a football lesson in the sleet with aching fingers and everyone screaming at the PE teacher stood there in a thick coat.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
Clearly you weren’t playing rugby on a wet Tuesday in December before lunch
Still scarred by the memory but wild horses couldn't have dragged me into those showers.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
Clearly you weren’t playing rugby on a wet Tuesday in December before lunch
No - our double hockey lessons, were scheduled in the afternoon periods which meant, a) you had to change during your lunch break and also walk over to the pitches which weren't on the main school site and b) you went home afterwards.
We did also have single period PE lessons, and it was much like @Arethosemyfeet said, there wasn't the time to shower at the end of the lesson. I can still remember my maths teacher's irritation at people being late to one of her lessons as it followed swimming, and we were taking too long to get changed... (or perhaps the PE teacher wasn't leaving us enough time to get dry/changed)
I was at a single sex independent school in the 80s. My sister was at the local comprehensive (mixed, though I think PE was segregated) at the same time, and they did have to shower. I seem to remember her saying not only that they ran through as fast as possible, but that the PE teacher was also observing to ensure that everyone did in fact shower...
but that the PE teacher was also observing to ensure that everyone did in fact shower...
that's what it was like for us in the 90s. To be fair, in my memory they were obviously as thrilled by that as we were and the 'observation' was cursory at best. Maybe because it was a boy's school, but I don't remember many people dodging showering, and a certain amount of abuse from other pupils for those that did. We just got on and did it.
Forgive me if this point has already been made, however it seems to me that a critical point is absent from the media reporting. Well two (possibly more) point really.
First as I understand it, the case went to the SC because of someone getting offended that trans people could apply for female-only spaces on quangos and public bodies in Scotland. Where there are exactly zero trans people currently serving on those bodies.
Second, when it got to the SC the legal discussion became mutated into one about the safety of women in refuges, hospital wards, sports and toilets. As far as I can work out, this wasn't the original complaint.
Third the judgement as it stands appears to be very difficult to apply in most situations. Nobody is going to police toilets, nor could they. And the SC appears to now be interpreted by the UK government to mean that people can only be their birth gender. Ignoring the complexities. For example intersex people might have had confused characteristics at birth. A trans-man who presents as a bearded guy (which happens sometimes) might now be mistaken for a trans-woman by ignorant people, meaning that they couldn't use either of the single-sex provisions. And whilst the SC has said something about protecting trans people, the statements released suggest that there should be trans only facilities. But even that would appear to be discriminatory and against the judgement they've just made.
It's a mess. The idea that this mean the discussion and debate is over is nonsensical.
The EHRC has posted their guidance following the ruling, and it seems very broad ranging given the limits of the SC ruling, and in many parts unworkable and/or cruel:
In workplaces and services that are open to the public:
trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men (biological women) should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex
in some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological woman) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities
Membership of an association of 25 or more people can be limited to men only or women only and can be limited to people who each have two protected characteristics. It can be, for example, for gay men only or lesbian women only. A women-only or lesbian-only association should not admit trans women (biological men), and a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women).
What are they planning on doing? Policing every lesbian association?
Fortunately there's a "can be" in there - so, an organisation can describe itself as being for all women, including anyone who uses "woman" as part of their identity, without problem because there's no prescription against them doing so. But, it does mean that an organisation described as being "for women only" can discriminate against some women by banning them from being a member or participating.
Fortunately there's a "can be" in there - so, an organisation can describe itself as being for all women, including anyone who uses "woman" as part of their identity, without problem because there's no prescription against them doing so. But, it does mean that an organisation described as being "for women only" can discriminate against some women by banning them from being a member or participating.
Right, but a straightforward reading suggests if they wish to operate as 'women only' or 'men only' (or 'lesbian only or 'gay only') they *have* to exclude trans women and trans men respectively:
"A women-only or lesbian-only association should not admit trans women (biological men), and a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women)."
One appalling result of this is that we are now repeating these vilely offensive misgenderings of trans folk becauses judges and politicians are using these terms. It's pure 'intelligent design' style conservative ideological nonsense dressed up to sound like it has a factual scientific basis - which it hasn't. But it's also grossly offensive and we shouldn't forget that.
Fortunately there's a "can be" in there - so, an organisation can describe itself as being for all women, including anyone who uses "woman" as part of their identity, without problem because there's no prescription against them doing so. But, it does mean that an organisation described as being "for women only" can discriminate against some women by banning them from being a member or participating.
Right, but a straightforward reading suggests if they wish to operate as 'women only' or 'men only' (or 'lesbian only or 'gay only') they *have* to exclude trans women and trans men respectively:
"A women-only or lesbian-only association should not admit trans women (biological men), and a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women)."
That was my understanding of the guidance, and it's horrific.
I hope it will be possible for women's groups to refine their language to ensure all women, trans or cis, are included. Right now this seems directly aimed at the likes of Refuge who have declared that their services will remain trans-inclusive. Which reminds me, I should probably increase my direct debit to them.
Fortunately there's a "can be" in there - so, an organisation can describe itself as being for all women, including anyone who uses "woman" as part of their identity, without problem because there's no prescription against them doing so. But, it does mean that an organisation described as being "for women only" can discriminate against some women by banning them from being a member or participating.
I hope it will be possible for women's groups to refine their language to ensure all women, trans or cis, are included. Right now this seems directly aimed at the likes of Refuge who have declared that their services will remain trans-inclusive. Which reminds me, I should probably increase my direct debit to them.
My reading is that, if the EHRC's current view prevails, the word "woman" (when used to indicate who may or may not use publicly-accessible services, etc) does not and cannot be used refer to trans woman. This means that any service provider who wishes to continue to provide a service to *all* woman would have to use the wording "women and trans women" (or similar) *and* would no longer be able to say that such a service was single-sex. (This would mean that the service itself might be able to remain inclusive, but that the language used to describe it wouldn't.)
I imagine this view will get tested in the courts before too long. Lord Sumption's view may yet prevail.
Based on the radio reports, the EHRC guidance is ridiculous.
It is incredibly harmful and totally unworkable in reality.
Moreover, it seems to bear no resemblance to the actual court finding.
It's really as abject stupidity to me. But it it deliberately stupid?
AFZ
A museum near me has the best and cleanest toilets around. I was very pleased when they made them all unisex - they are two lines of cubicles perpendicular to the main corridor with shared sinks.
Then inexplicably they were turned back, the one row is now male and the other female.
Which to me is madness, even if there is some kind of logic to saying that women are at risk of attack inside a museum, I don't see how the risk is negated with the men and women have to share the same sinks.
As far as I can understand the EHRC guidance, it appears that this nonsense will expand.
Which to me looks to be a license for busybody middle aged women to shout at other people about their privates in public.
Comments
Is the Labour Party now, officially, transphobic? I hope there are many dissenting voices amongst Labour MPs.
Many of the voices I'd hope to be supportive are equivocal, no doubt a certain amount of cowardice in the face of a hostile press and whip-happy leadership. But yes, the PLP is now officially transphobic.
So is your argument that if something is not 100% certain in every single possible case then it is completely arbitrary in all cases?
I know my gender like I know I am right handed. I can't show you where my right-handedness is on my body but when I write with my right hand it works better. When I identify as NB it works better. When trans children get to identify as their correct gender, they are less likely to hurt or kill themselves. It works better.
OK, I accept that and admit that using the word “preference” may have been imprecise. I just struggle to understand how someone with a male body can assert that they are in fact female (or vice versa) without them also wanting to change their body to match that identification. Or to put it another way, I can’t understand how anyone could want to be female without actually wanting to be female. It feels to me like some kind of secular Gnosticism that says the physical body is utterly irrelevant to the true essence of an individual.
@Marvin the Martian What do you think of my comparison to handedness? I think it somewhat addresses that there is an meaning, but not one others can easily see. Some things can have meaning but not be obvious on the outside.
We are hoping to host an AMA with a trans person in a few weeks time and they maybe better placed to answer that question.
It doesn’t change the fact that the evidence is that trans woman do not pose an increased risk to cisgender women. If white women said they were scared of black men - as they have frequently done in the past - it would not make racial segregation ok.
I'll accept that you find that difficult to understand - but can you agree that someone else's identity is not preconditioned on your ability to understand it?
There are a lot of reasons why people choose not to have as many medical interventions as they might be able to have, including:
1. Cost. Money doesn't grow on trees.
2. They want to preserve the ability to have their own biological children.
3. Risks of complications. Genital surgery is complicated, and the degree of success can vary. If someone is at least adequately comfortable with the bits they have, I think you could easily agree that they might prefer to avoid the risks.
4. It's just not that important to them.
We are talking about trans people here - they are, specifically, a small subset of humans who have told you explicitly that their physical body does not determine their true essence.
I can understand that you don't understand that. Personally, I don't feel a sense of gender that is separate from the fact that I have a body with all the usual male accoutrements. My personal sense of gender, whatever gender is, is rather defined by the fact that I have those accoutrements. Perhaps you feel the same. But neither you nor I are trans, so how we view our own sex and/or gender is unlikely to usefully illuminate how trans people see themselves. Listening to the way that the collective ensemble of trans people describe their experience, on the other hand, is at least a start. Yes, I understand that you can't map their experience on to an experience that you have had, and so it's hard for you to "understand" it. But you don't need to "understand" it to accept that they're giving you the best account of themselves they can.
Even aside from the somewhat problematic use of 'Gnosticism' (it's doesn't really easily map to either of the sects that are usually labelled that way). I'm not sure this is the case. If anything, dysphoria seems to be indicative of of people who are highly conscious of their body.
I don't see why this is the case either - being heterosexual doesn't mean you automatically find all women attractive.
I’m not trying to show that trans people are wrong. I mean, as recently as ten years or so ago my view that people should be free to change their sex if they want to would have been considered very progressive. It’s the more recent development whereby people can be considered to have changed sex even if they haven’t (as far as I can see) actually changed anything that I struggle with.
I can sort of see what you’re getting at with it in terms of there being no visible sign of it, but to me handedness can be evidenced by the fact that one can do things (especially writing) more easily and effectively (and legibly) with one hand than the other.
No, but it’s widely accepted (and indeed legally enshrined) that segregation based on sex is perfectly acceptable - if not morally required - in certain circumstances. The question then becomes, what is it about the sexes that makes it legitimate for them to be kept apart in those circumstances?
I would say that I can definitely pretend to be a woman. I've done it before. But I got bullied when I pretended to be a girl because I didn't do a very good job. Kids are pretty good at seeing a fake and they noticed that I disliked all the appurtenances of girlhood before I did. I can write legibly with my left hand also. But in both cases the results are significantly better when I stop faking it.
The question which the Supreme Court sought to answer was what was meant by “man“ and “woman“ in the Equality Act (“EA”) 2010. The court found that. The court noted that nowhere does the EA 2010 expressly address the Gender Recognition Act 2004. It concluded, therefore, that the EA 2010 needed to be analysed purely on its own terms.
In examining the EA, it found that interpreting “man“ and “woman“ as referring to anything other than a simple view of biological sex would lead to internal incoherence within the Act. The legal presumption is that Parliament does not pass Acts which are internally incoherent, and therefore the conclusion was that the EA intended “man“ and “woman“ to refer to biological sex.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and, as a result, the EA simply does not engage at all with the complexities of sex, sexual differentiation, and gender - its view is binary. Nor does it appear that the drafters of the EA paid sufficient, if any, attention to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
The outcome is certainly a mess, and clearly frightening and/or worrying for a significant number of people, not only trans people but also intersex people. But resolving that problem by a judgement which makes an Act of Parliament internally inconsistent with itself does seem to me to amount to judicial law-making.
This seems to me to be something which should have been dealt with by more careful Parliamentary law-making, and which requires legislation to resolve.
The whole area, though, is such a political hot potato, and one where divisions cross party lines, that it is unlikely that this government will find a good way through the mess.
(Incidentally, I found this graphic on the complexities of biological sex something of an eye opener.)
It is generally to do with being naked in front of others (which raises a deal of other issues about presumed sexual orientation etc) - but in the modern world you are not required to be naked in front of others in a toilet or a changing room. In a hospital, you may be required to be naked in front of health professionals and in that situation you are not guaranteed a same sex practitioner.
A great deal of the obvious bullshit involved - boils down to ignoring the fact cubicles exist.
Supporting the victims of gendered violence is the other situation, and I’d argue possibly the only situation, where it make sense to provide segregated spaces. And even then I would argue the issue there is not transwomen, it would be mixed gender groups.
It is primarily a concern about being naked in front of others, provision of intimate care, and provision of services to people who have experienced gendered violence. (And religious prohibitions in some circumstances.). Single sex schools appear to be predicated on the idea that children are totally distracted by the opposite gender and that gay people don’t exist, rather concerns about safety.
Most of this can be dealt with by not having to get naked in communal areas and the provision of chaperones (which is what you usually see in healthcare). In changing rooms and toilets - the use of cubicles - in women’s toilets in particular you don’t expose your genitalia in front of others.
In mental health wards, the provision of en-suite rooms rather than dormitories and bays also assists with managing this issue.
Thanks for this. IANAL - just an interested amateur - and I was expecting something like this to be the case. The criticism of the Supreme Court, whilst understandable, seems to me to be misplaced. The court followed legal principles to arrive at a legal position. The problem is with the legislation.
Undoubtedly, for those affected, this is deeply frightening and I agree that morally there is a sound argument that the court has erred here but legally and constitutionally, it would be hugely problematic for the Supreme Court to make an Act of Parliament internally inconsistent.
The bit that is less clear to me, is whether those who are celebrating this, those who are drafting guidelines for public and non-public bodies and those who are appalled by it, are all over-interpreting the judgment and its effects?
I also agree that Parliament needs to fix this but has zero appetite for doing so.
AFZ
A great deal will depend on what those who draft guidelines decide should be done. I am not familiar enough with the EA to know where all that might go.
I think it is very significant that the Supreme Court have expressly said that trans people are entitled not to be discriminated against, and this is something that drafters of guidelines and policies will need to be very careful about.
For example, I could see a claim being made that a purely “biological sex“ policy would have the effect of discriminating against a transgender person by exposing them to a situation where they are forced to reveal their transgender identity, and possibly exposing them to shame and humiliation as a result.
This point was alluded to previously:
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/comment/728543/#Comment_728543
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/comment/728575/#Comment_728575
But the GC is using the ruling primarily as an excuse, and the trans-rights side are forced into fighting on that terrain.
If I recall from some reading, gender-segregated bathrooms are a relatively modern invention, maybe going back a century or so.
NB I first posted the above quote on this thread three days ago.
I was remembering statistics. There’s a stats thing called a “mode,” which means the thing that happens the most. And when there’s two things that happen the most, it’s called “bimode.”
So biological sex is like that. There are two main ones women and men. They are the most common. But there are also some people who are not in those two groups exactly. They are less common, but they still exist and matter a lot, and some people are very awful about them because they want everyone to be what they think they should be, even when they aren't.
I think those people, I mean trans people and others not in the big two groups of men and women deserve a lot of support and kindness and protection. I just really believe that. That’s what I always thought being Christian was supposed to mean, helping and caring for people who need it. At the very least not being cruel. I don't go in for a lot of Christianity but kindness for me is the key thing. Or love if you want to call it that. I like to use the word kindness because it means you have to do things not just feel love.
It makes me really upset when people who have a lot of power say things like they know everything, but then they don’t show decency or kindness to people who are different or not powerful. That just feels really wrong to me. So I think these judges didn't think enough about being kind and supportive to the minority who are trans people.
I think it would be a stretch for the court to interpret the EA in the light of explanatory notes to a different statute to which it doesn’t refer, and which had been passed six years previously.
And to be honest, having read the explanatory notes in the GRA relating to discrimination it is not clear that “their “sex” for the purposes of the EA is that recorded on their GRC” just that they should be treated as if their sex is as recorded on their GRC. (Though there may be other parts of the explanatory notes which make it clearer. But even so courts are cautious about using explanatory notes to discern the meaning of a statute. They are regarded as a secondary source only and will not “displace the meanings conveyed by the words of a statute that, after consideration of that context, are clear and unambiguous and which do not produce absurdity.”)
The last two quoted sentences from Melanie Field are very germane.
As an aside, what then would we do about high schools (11-18 in the UK)? I can’t think of many that don’t - once you’ve got past division into boy or girl - then have communal changing rooms and showers (as in, everyone changing in one room, and then standing under multiple showerheads in the same unpartitioned shower space).
I recognise it’s tangential but it struck me that ‘ignoring the fact cubicles exist’ might miss the fact that for U18s they very largely - as a matter of school plant and buildings - don’t.
I’m not remotely saying it isn’t - just that there is a large part of the public sector built environment that is problematic insofar as that’s not how things are physically laid out currently.
Although in many cases I believe they have fallen out of use.
School showers? How are pupils getting clean after sport?
Apologies, this is a tangent that’s probably better somewhere else (though I did raise it initially in good faith as relevant)
I've changed there often enough that I didn't give it a second thought. I've seen women striding confidently naked from the showers, but I think most women are like me, changing facing your locker, whilst more or less swathed in towel.
I don't think they could change it to add cubicles, without removing the lockers. Given a straight choice I'd rather have a locker for my stuff (which included my ID card) than a cubicle.
They aren't, and don't. Nobody ever used the communal showers when I was at school, nor when I was a teacher. You wash when you get home. It's not great, but no 13 year old is getting naked in front of their peers if they can possibly avoid it, and even if that wasn't the case the time to change at the end of a P.E. lesson is in the range of 0 to 3 minutes. There's no time to shower.
Clearly you weren’t playing rugby on a wet Tuesday in December before lunch
Rugby was after school for us, but coming in cold, wet and muddy from PE was still fairly common. We still wouldn't have dreamed of using the showers. I certainly remember a football lesson in the sleet with aching fingers and everyone screaming at the PE teacher stood there in a thick coat.
Still scarred by the memory but wild horses couldn't have dragged me into those showers.
No - our double hockey lessons, were scheduled in the afternoon periods which meant, a) you had to change during your lunch break and also walk over to the pitches which weren't on the main school site and b) you went home afterwards.
We did also have single period PE lessons, and it was much like @Arethosemyfeet said, there wasn't the time to shower at the end of the lesson. I can still remember my maths teacher's irritation at people being late to one of her lessons as it followed swimming, and we were taking too long to get changed... (or perhaps the PE teacher wasn't leaving us enough time to get dry/changed)
I was at a single sex independent school in the 80s. My sister was at the local comprehensive (mixed, though I think PE was segregated) at the same time, and they did have to shower. I seem to remember her saying not only that they ran through as fast as possible, but that the PE teacher was also observing to ensure that everyone did in fact shower...
that's what it was like for us in the 90s. To be fair, in my memory they were obviously as thrilled by that as we were and the 'observation' was cursory at best. Maybe because it was a boy's school, but I don't remember many people dodging showering, and a certain amount of abuse from other pupils for those that did. We just got on and did it.
First as I understand it, the case went to the SC because of someone getting offended that trans people could apply for female-only spaces on quangos and public bodies in Scotland. Where there are exactly zero trans people currently serving on those bodies.
Second, when it got to the SC the legal discussion became mutated into one about the safety of women in refuges, hospital wards, sports and toilets. As far as I can work out, this wasn't the original complaint.
Third the judgement as it stands appears to be very difficult to apply in most situations. Nobody is going to police toilets, nor could they. And the SC appears to now be interpreted by the UK government to mean that people can only be their birth gender. Ignoring the complexities. For example intersex people might have had confused characteristics at birth. A trans-man who presents as a bearded guy (which happens sometimes) might now be mistaken for a trans-woman by ignorant people, meaning that they couldn't use either of the single-sex provisions. And whilst the SC has said something about protecting trans people, the statements released suggest that there should be trans only facilities. But even that would appear to be discriminatory and against the judgement they've just made.
It's a mess. The idea that this mean the discussion and debate is over is nonsensical.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/interim-update-practical-implications-uk-supreme-court-judgment
What are they planning on doing? Policing every lesbian association?
Right, but a straightforward reading suggests if they wish to operate as 'women only' or 'men only' (or 'lesbian only or 'gay only') they *have* to exclude trans women and trans men respectively:
"A women-only or lesbian-only association should not admit trans women (biological men), and a men-only or gay men-only association should not admit trans men (biological women)."
That was my understanding of the guidance, and it's horrific.
I hope it will be possible for women's groups to refine their language to ensure all women, trans or cis, are included. Right now this seems directly aimed at the likes of Refuge who have declared that their services will remain trans-inclusive. Which reminds me, I should probably increase my direct debit to them.
My reading is that, if the EHRC's current view prevails, the word "woman" (when used to indicate who may or may not use publicly-accessible services, etc) does not and cannot be used refer to trans woman. This means that any service provider who wishes to continue to provide a service to *all* woman would have to use the wording "women and trans women" (or similar) *and* would no longer be able to say that such a service was single-sex. (This would mean that the service itself might be able to remain inclusive, but that the language used to describe it wouldn't.)
I imagine this view will get tested in the courts before too long. Lord Sumption's view may yet prevail.
It is incredibly harmful and totally unworkable in reality.
Moreover, it seems to bear no resemblance to the actual court finding.
It's really as abject stupidity to me. But it it deliberately stupid?
AFZ
A museum near me has the best and cleanest toilets around. I was very pleased when they made them all unisex - they are two lines of cubicles perpendicular to the main corridor with shared sinks.
Then inexplicably they were turned back, the one row is now male and the other female.
Which to me is madness, even if there is some kind of logic to saying that women are at risk of attack inside a museum, I don't see how the risk is negated with the men and women have to share the same sinks.
As far as I can understand the EHRC guidance, it appears that this nonsense will expand.
Which to me looks to be a license for busybody middle aged women to shout at other people about their privates in public.
Nobody took any notice, as nobody should in the toilet, everyone just did what they came in for and got on with their day.