What is a woman?

[monkers]

And unworkable to achieve. @monkers has pointed this out. You can't usually tell what gender someone is just by looking at them. Sometimes you can be 99% sure. But it is possible that the lady who is 6 foot 2, who looks fabulous but has masculine looking features, is actually a woman, just as it is possible that they are a transwoman. So unless you are going to carry out DNA checks at the door, toilets will continue to be self policing. She also pointed out that the current arguments have not helped butch lesbians at all.

What the SC ruling has helped clarify is that it is not unreasonable to protect things like Women's sport and women's refuges. Although the chances of there being issues in the latter are very small. Same actually goes for prisons where the incarceration is based on the best way to keep a prisoner incarcerated and also safe rather than arbitrary gender decisions.

Where we differ is that I think some of the blame sits with Stonewall and their decision to champion trans at the expense of lesbian and gay. They are having to back down now.

The other point of difference is whether you believe trans to be something inherent like being gay, or whether you believe it to be a characteristic of a mental disorder. Again, @monkers and I have very different points of view on this topic.

What is useful however, is to talk and discuss. @monkers experience is based on the very real experience she has had with her niece. Everyone else, myself included, is not arguing from the position of actually knowing someone who has experienced the issue of wanting to change gender.

Thank you for this. It's appreciated. All the same forgive the nitpicking that follows.

Trans people do not change their gender identity no more than they change their reproductive sex. They change their gender expression, presentation, whatever terms you will. They preserve their fundamental rights, that what was private before remains private afterwards, and what was public before remains public afterwards. The only caveat to this is that trans people may choose to tell people they are trans, just as some gay people might choose to tell people that they are gay. When this is left to a matter of perception, it can at least cause embarrassment, or in some cases extreme harm.

One trans woman was violently attacked in the middle of April in the UK. This happened on the doorstep of her home in daylight. Days later she died in hospital from her injuries. When the attack was reported the police did nothing and were not even sympathetic. From witness accounts three men were involved shouting transphobic abuse.

Her name was Lucy. She was married to a cis woman, Katy Lee, who is a lesbian. In a separate incident on the same day in a different place Kay was also attacked by a man with a stanley knife. Katy survived the attack.

The media are silent. However Katy Lee has posted on her LinkedIn account. A crowdfunder has been started.

There is some commentary that claims that Lucy was attacked within minutes of the Supreme Court ruling, although I have been unable to verify that as a fact.

 

[AuroraSaab]

What the SC ruling has helped clarify is that it is not unreasonable to protect things like Women's sport and women's refuges. Although the chances of there being issues in the latter are very small. Same actually goes for prisons where the incarceration is based on the best way to keep a prisoner incarcerated and also safe rather than arbitrary gender decisions.

It has caused issues. Now it won't because men will hopefully be directed to services that meet their needs rather than women's services being expected to accommodate them.

Where we differ is that I think some of the blame sits with Stonewall and their decision to champion trans at the expense of lesbian and gay. They are having to back down now.

Stonewall have been a very large part of the problem. After gay marriage was legalised they were rather obsolete so they pivoted to promoting trans rights. This attracted large outside funding and with the Stonewall Champions index companies were in effect paying to be trained in a false interpretation of the law. This, plus the No Debate and no compromise stance lost them a lot of credibility.

Letter in The Guardian this week from a former Stonewall, CEO.

 

[CXRAndy]

I bet a lot of this came down to money. Easier and cheaper to allow trans into women's spaces than pay and build a third unisex .

The situation then ran away, with trans expecting to access women's sports, refuges, etc etc.

Only if people stood firm right at the start

 

[monkers]

People need to remember.

This is going back to the ECtHR. I say ''going back'' because they had previously ruled on this in the Goodwin case that led to the Blair government having to introduce the GRA.

You can place your bets if you like about how this is likely to go, but if you continue to say that the case is now proved that the Equality Act never meant to provide protection to trans people under the category of 'sex', it may not long before you will be left red-faced eating your words.

 

[CXRAndy]

What will it achieve on the ground. Trans with a certificate are recognised as women, but not female in sex.

If there is any backtracking now after the supreme court, there will be hell to pay

 

[monkers]

What will it achieve on the ground. Trans with a certificate are recognised as women, but not female in sex.

If there is any backtracking now after the supreme court, there will be hell to pay

Shakes head in disbelief. The SC has ruled that trans women with a GRC are female in law for all purposes except from discrimination as women when they are men.

So despite saying that sex is binary and immutable, that ruled that the sex of a trans women is female in law, but male for the purposes of the equality act. They also say that this changes nothing because trans people are still protected under their 'gender reassignment', a term made up in the Equality Act that appears nowhere else in law.

We already had a messy situation, they just made it worse.

Therefore telling trans people they can not use the women's toilet remains discrimination but now because of their gender reassignment rather than because of their sex.

If you doubt me, study the 88 page decision. Otherwise you can read another take on it from Ian Dunt ...

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/everything-you-need-to-know-about

 

[AuroraSaab]

I bet a lot of this came down to money. Easier and cheaper to allow trans into women's spaces than pay and build a third unisex .

The situation then ran away, with trans expecting to access women's sports, refuges, etc etc.

Only if people stood firm right at the start

I think more due to service providers being unsure of what the law was because Stonewall and others were muddying the waters and they were afraid of being sued. Sports was because orgs like the IOC gave in to activists and poor quality research rather than taking longer to look at the science.

 

[monkers]

The point about Stonewall is that they believed the for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 that a trans women with a GRC has the protected characteristic of the law.

Now that begs the question why they believed that to be so. The answer is given very easily - because the Equality and Human Rights Commission told them so from the outset, and continued to tell them right up until the point that political pressure caused them start changing the advice.

To blame Stonewall for the legal interpretation is an absurdity. To call Stonewall's position as ''Stonewall's Law'' is an absurdity.

Stonewall advocated self-ID to the all party select committee. That committee advocated self-ID and the then PM accepted those recommendations. Stonewall were not alone in that advocacy. You can criticize Stonewall for that opinion if you wish, but not for what they understood to be the law based on the then guidance of the commission.

 

[monkers]

I think more due to service providers being unsure of what the law was because Stonewall and others were muddying the waters and they were afraid of being sued. Sports was because orgs like the IOC gave in to activists and poor quality research rather than taking longer to look at the science.

Service providers were understandably confused by the mixed messaging coming from the commission which on occasions even to disagree with court findings and rulings.

 

[CXRAndy]

We already had a messy situation, they just made it worse

Yes it , but not caused by women.

It was caused by politicians creating stupid laws, that need to be either repealed or re written to safeguard women and their spaces.

Saying a male with a certificate is female is ludicrous.

"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

Orwell

 

[monkers]

Yes it , but not caused by women.

It was caused by politicians creating stupid laws, that need to be either repealed or re written to safeguard women and their spaces.

Saying a male with a certificate is female is ludicrous.

"One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool."

Orwell

Can you define ''women''? Nobody yet has been successful. The reason is that words sex and gender have been misused so that the meaning of the one becomes the other and vice versa. The evidence of this is everywhere. Birth certificates vary between authorities, some use the word sex, others gender.

Dictionaries give varied definitions. The GC favourite being Woman: adult human female. Which is convenient if you press the narrative that sex and societal gender role can only be aligned. If you follow the reasoning of that definition that if any person adopts the gender role of being a woman, then they must be female.

Your hitherto pleas of common sense, are not common sense at all. Common sense is when everybody agrees. However 50 000 doctors in the BMA disagree with you. That's a lot of doctors, especially compared with 5 Supreme Court judges without medical knowledge.

By the way, in that quote, Orwell was ridiculing certain intellectuals who were making some absurd claims about English nationalism.

You need to learn the difference between an academic and an intellectual.

An academic is someone formally engaged in scholarly study, often within a university or research institution. They specialize in a specific field, publish papers, and contribute to knowledge through structured research and teaching.

An intellectual, on the other hand, is a broader term. Intellectuals don’t necessarily work in academia, but they engage deeply with ideas, challenge conventional thinking, and contribute to discussions about culture, politics, philosophy, or society. While academics tend to focus on specialized knowledge, intellectuals often operate across disciplines, connecting ideas in creative and unconventional ways.

Orwell was an intellectual. He liked to engage with ideas, but had to remind himself that an academic would soon stop his flights of fancy by use of facts. Hence his remark was a criticism of himself.

I worked as an academic hence my being a stickler for facts, and not so much interested in flights of fancy other than for amusement.

Incidentally, Animal Farm is probably the best known allegory of its kind. It is a criticism of totalitarianism of the kind you are in thrall with in the US under Trump.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Stonewall knew that there were EA exemptions which could exclude men from women's spaces but instead deliberately trained companies and institutions that the law required them to be inclusive.

In fact they knew to the extent that they called for these to be abolished.

Employers have already found out the cost of following Stonewall advice and training in a few employment tribunals. Since the court decision Stonewall now has this on their website:

 

[bobzmyunkle]

However 50 000 doctors in the BMA disagree with you.

Disagree with @CXRAndy? Whilst it's plausible they might if polled, I don't believe they have been. What are they disagreeing on? And can we have the evidence to back up the claim of disagreement please.

 

[monkers]

Stonewall knew that there were EA exemptions which could exclude men from women's spaces but instead deliberately trained companies and institutions that the law required them to be inclusive.

In fact they knew to the extent that they called for these to be abolished.

View attachment 8184
Employers have already found out the cost of following Stonewall advice and training in a few employment tribunals. Since the court decision Stonewall now has this on their website:

View attachment 8185

Yes, it is true that Stonewall recommended a review to reconsider access to women's spaces. That is well known, but it offers no evidence of wrongdoing.

You don't seem to have adequately considered the point - Stonewall's advocacy was not at odds with the guidance coming from the commission.

I'm uncertain what relevance your last point has. Stonewall were never offering legal advice, unless you have evidence to the contrary.

 

[monkers]

Disagree with @CXRAndy? Whilst it's plausible they might if polled, I don't believe they have been. What are they disagreeing on? And can we have the evidence to back up the claim of disagreement please.

The BMA have given a statement - so the evidence of that is easy to find. Evidence of all doctors being polled for their medical opinions I don't have and never expressed it in those terms.

To save my time, here is a co -pilot reply ...

Yes, the British Medical Association (BMA) has strongly criticized the Supreme Court's ruling on trans rights, calling it "scientifically illiterate" and "biologically nonsensical"2. The ruling determined that under the Equality Act 2010, the term "woman" refers strictly to biological sex, meaning trans women—even those with a gender recognition certificate—can be excluded from single-sex spaces if deemed "proportionate".

The BMA’s resident doctors argued that this binary definition of sex and gender "has no basis in science or medicine" and could cause "real-world harm" to trans, non-binary, and intersex individuals2. Their motion condemned the ruling for failing to consult relevant experts and stakeholders, and they reaffirmed their commitment to affirming the rights of transgender and non-binary individuals.

The debate has sparked wider discussions about the implications for NHS policies and single-sex spaces, with concerns that the ruling could lead to segregation and forced disclosure of trans identities.

Here is a link to a report in the Indi ...

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/ukne...omen-as-scientifically-illiterate/ar-AA1DPciE