TailWindHome
Active Member
The Minnesota shooter wasn't trans
Gender again. Sorry!
- Thread starter theclaud
- Start date
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The Minnesota shooter wasn't trans
CXRAndy
Epic Member
Catholic church two people died from the gunfire: an 8-year-old boy named Fletcher Merkel and a 10-year-old girl named Harper Moyski
The shooter, 23-year-old Robin Westman (originally named Robert Westman), legally changed their name in 2020 as a minor, with court documents stating that they "identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification." Multiple sources, including Wikipedia, CNN, ABC News, and official statements, describe Westman as having identified as transgender (assigned male at birth but identifying as female). Westman's driver's license listed them as female.
TailWindHome
Active Member
Weird to think of 'the' Minnesota shooter and have only one in mind.
Bromptonaut
Rohan Man
- Location
- Bugbrooke, Northants
Only they were not.
mickle
Regular
‘Lawyers, academics and activists have turned on the Good Law Project, accusing it of “selling hope” through fundraising to fight for transgender rights, despite being repeatedly defeated in court.
In a letter to Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, more than 30 barristers and legal academics accused the project, a non-profit campaign organisation, of publishing “egregiously false” claims about a High Court ruling on single-sex spaces last week.
Mr Justice Swift on Friday dismissed a legal challenge brought by the project against Britain’s rights watchdog over a now-removed update on its website, which said that trans women “should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities” in workplaces or public-facing services such as shops and hospitals. The same applied for trans men using men’s lavatories.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the update in April last year, just over a week after the UK’s highest court ruled in April that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a biological woman and biological sex.
The judge said the decision to publish the update “promptly” contained “no error of law”.
Jolyon Maugham, the founder and executive director of the Good Law Project, said after the judgment that “the judiciary can’t be trusted always” in a reaction that critics have dubbed “Trumpian”.
The project claimed the ruling meant that Phillipson must reject guidance submitted by the EHRC on single-sex spaces, and started a fundraiser that has brought in tens of thousands of pounds to appeal. Separately, it has crowdfunded more than £150,000 for its “fighting fund for trans rights”.
In their letter to Phillipson, the lawyers and academics said GLP had made inaccurate conclusions about the ruling, specifically in claiming “the High Court makes clear that service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services”.
The lawyers said: “Nowhere in his judgment did Swift J conclude that ‘service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services’. The phrase ‘gendered spaces’ is absent from the judgment and has no legal meaning.”
The project also claimed the court had said it was “not true” that allowing a woman-only space to be accessed by biological women and transgender women was “very likely to amount to unlawful sex discrimination”. The lawyers’ letter said: “The Good Law Project’s assertion to the contrary is straightforwardly false.”
The letter said any “uncertainty or complexity” around the Supreme Court judgment last year was “compounded (if not directly caused) by the dissemination of false information, such as that now promulgated by the Good Law Project”.
It added: “We are aware of no other organisation that has ever published such egregiously false material about the judgment in a case that it has lost.”
Some of those supportive of the project’s aims have also started to question it.
Posting on a popular pro-transgender forum, one user said: “Maugham always pretends he’s had some sort of win even when he has unambiguously and comprehensively lost. He did the same with his Brexit cases. I’m fed up of this turd polisher claiming he does so much for us.”
In response to a comment saying “GLP seem to be lording this as a win”, another poster said: “They do that a lot, normally for incredibly minor things that don’t actually affect much.” Other comments included accusing the organisation of being “manipulative”. Another said: “Their fundraising makes me really uneasy.”
Another added: “They take an awful lot of money from our community and allies by selling hope, and then make things worse by poking in the wrong places with weak legal arguments.”
However, others defended the organisation and said: “I do not see a single other organisation actually challenging any of this at court. They’re taking on the claims, and they’re staking their reputation on it.”
Some blamed “the systems of state that maintain the status quo”, while one commenter said: “They have great conviction and I don’t doubt their support of trans people, but I’m not sure they’re very good lawyers.”
A government spokesman said: “We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex and expect everyone to uphold the law and follow the clarity that the Supreme Court ruling provides. We note the judgment on the withdrawn and interim update provided by the EHRC. The EHRC has submitted a separate draft code of practice for services, public functions and associations to ministers, and we are working as quickly as we can to review it with the care it deserves.”
The Good Law Project was contacted for comment.’
In a letter to Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, more than 30 barristers and legal academics accused the project, a non-profit campaign organisation, of publishing “egregiously false” claims about a High Court ruling on single-sex spaces last week.
Mr Justice Swift on Friday dismissed a legal challenge brought by the project against Britain’s rights watchdog over a now-removed update on its website, which said that trans women “should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities” in workplaces or public-facing services such as shops and hospitals. The same applied for trans men using men’s lavatories.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the update in April last year, just over a week after the UK’s highest court ruled in April that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a biological woman and biological sex.
The judge said the decision to publish the update “promptly” contained “no error of law”.
Jolyon Maugham, the founder and executive director of the Good Law Project, said after the judgment that “the judiciary can’t be trusted always” in a reaction that critics have dubbed “Trumpian”.
The project claimed the ruling meant that Phillipson must reject guidance submitted by the EHRC on single-sex spaces, and started a fundraiser that has brought in tens of thousands of pounds to appeal. Separately, it has crowdfunded more than £150,000 for its “fighting fund for trans rights”.
In their letter to Phillipson, the lawyers and academics said GLP had made inaccurate conclusions about the ruling, specifically in claiming “the High Court makes clear that service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services”.
The lawyers said: “Nowhere in his judgment did Swift J conclude that ‘service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services’. The phrase ‘gendered spaces’ is absent from the judgment and has no legal meaning.”
The project also claimed the court had said it was “not true” that allowing a woman-only space to be accessed by biological women and transgender women was “very likely to amount to unlawful sex discrimination”. The lawyers’ letter said: “The Good Law Project’s assertion to the contrary is straightforwardly false.”
The letter said any “uncertainty or complexity” around the Supreme Court judgment last year was “compounded (if not directly caused) by the dissemination of false information, such as that now promulgated by the Good Law Project”.
It added: “We are aware of no other organisation that has ever published such egregiously false material about the judgment in a case that it has lost.”
Some of those supportive of the project’s aims have also started to question it.
Posting on a popular pro-transgender forum, one user said: “Maugham always pretends he’s had some sort of win even when he has unambiguously and comprehensively lost. He did the same with his Brexit cases. I’m fed up of this turd polisher claiming he does so much for us.”
In response to a comment saying “GLP seem to be lording this as a win”, another poster said: “They do that a lot, normally for incredibly minor things that don’t actually affect much.” Other comments included accusing the organisation of being “manipulative”. Another said: “Their fundraising makes me really uneasy.”
Another added: “They take an awful lot of money from our community and allies by selling hope, and then make things worse by poking in the wrong places with weak legal arguments.”
However, others defended the organisation and said: “I do not see a single other organisation actually challenging any of this at court. They’re taking on the claims, and they’re staking their reputation on it.”
Some blamed “the systems of state that maintain the status quo”, while one commenter said: “They have great conviction and I don’t doubt their support of trans people, but I’m not sure they’re very good lawyers.”
A government spokesman said: “We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex and expect everyone to uphold the law and follow the clarity that the Supreme Court ruling provides. We note the judgment on the withdrawn and interim update provided by the EHRC. The EHRC has submitted a separate draft code of practice for services, public functions and associations to ministers, and we are working as quickly as we can to review it with the care it deserves.”
The Good Law Project was contacted for comment.’
Bromptonaut
Rohan Man
- Location
- Bugbrooke, Northants
Good Law Project is a pressure group.
It's literally that simple.
It's literally that simple.
monkers
Shaman
True.
But as an opinion, I will say that the major campaigning groups on both sides are making serious errors in interpretation.
At the moment there is a group of lawyers, and legal academics who are criticizing GLP. I'm sure I won't have seen all the criticism on both sides, but I can make some prediction of the cause of the squabble based on what has become typical.
In the UK I see plenty of confusion and conflation of civil and criminal law, with the terms 'unlawful' and 'illegal' bandied about.
As the GLP challenge was principally about toilets, I will loosely comment around that.
If employers ignore workplace regulations, that can result in criminal prosecution. If on the other hand they introduce lawful policies around toilet provision, they are not required to police access under criminal law. Therefore if people (not just trans people) use the toilet not of their biological sex, the employer has no criminal liability - and this is the critical part - neither has the toilet user. The principle here being that access by that user is neither illegal or unlawful. Presence alone is not harassment. Other conduct may be any form of harassment and criminal charges may result.
Judge Swift has rejected GLP's arguments as legal basis - para 38. However the rejection of those arguments has not resulted in a blanket ban on trans people using the toilet facility in the gender with which they identify. This is the point of contention.
Judge Swift has said that employers much continue to provide infrastructure as per Workplace Regulations Section 20. He does not say that trans people can not access the toilet congruent with the gender identity of users.
To quote him below (Para 42), he reminds employers of their duties under the EqA.
The point here is that Judge Swift is compliant with the SC ruling - trans people no longer have their rights protected under the ground of sex, but their rights are retained under the ground of gender reassignment.
Where I will disagree with Judge Swift is that with a wave of the hand he can disregard Article 8 (privacy) of ECHR as to do so may result in a reduction of privacy recognition for all users.
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AuroraSaab
Pharaoh
You know best, obvs.
Nowhere in the ruling does it say that trans people can use the toilets of the opposite sex.
Basically, it says service providers must make appropriate provision - which would likely be single sex plus a mixed sex option, or completely self enclosed cubicles.
An actual law professor:
https://knowingius.org/p/disinformation-and-the-good-law-project
TailWindHome
Active Member
Which one?
monkers
Shaman
I've quoted para 42 in full in explanation of my opinion. You are perfectly welcome to challenge that opinion - I have no objection.
You quite often say that I appeal to higher authority, or that I pretend to be that higher authority. My point is that legal and other opinions quite often vary, and we should expect that.
If I am appealing to a higher authority here it is Judge Swift - that author of the very judgment under discussion.
If Para 42 does say that trans people are blanket banned, I'll be grateful for your help.
Addendum. Oh wait. I see your difficulty. I posted in relation to workplace toilets. You are quoting another opinion on something else.
On a quick skim of that opinion I'm not sure it means what you might think it does.
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spen666
Über Member
Not something you have a track record of doing is it?
The opinion of the experts you quote and other may quote are irrelevant.
The only opinion that matters is that of the Supreme Court ( and possibly ECtHR if it goes there)
