Legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, UK supreme court rules

[Toni]

And if someone wearing a dress walks into the men’s room, uses a stall, washes their hands, and leaves, who are you, or I, or anyone else, to challenge them?

Why should that be a problem?

What a lot of posters won’t admit is that someone wearing a dress in a men’s bathroom would be more likely to be subjected to some form of harassment, if not violence than someone who had a male appearance and was wearing a typical male wardrobe. Regardless of what is under the clothing of the person in a skirt or the person in a pair of pants.

Sure, I wish that everybody felt free and comfortable with their bodies and other people’s bodies but the fact is that people have different needs for modesty and some of those needs are dependent upon developmental stage. Few women would be upset at a little boy in the women’s bathroom or shower room. They’d be more upset at a 16 year old boy in the same space. Even the most open woman would likely prefer more privacy if they were menstruating, recovering from childbirth, had had a mastectomy, for some examples.

Children are less likely to be upset at the sight of a naked adult ( unless this is forbidden in their home) compared with an adolescent.

 

[Toni]

I dare say anyone here who is a parent of a daughter would be unhappy if their daughters were expected to share showers with men or post pubescent boys. I would be outraged. Nor would I expect my sons to share showers with girls or women.

It really is a cultural thing to a huge extent. I have literally showered with a middle aged woman, her(studly) son, while also chatting with son's wife and prepubescent nephew. But it was a naturist resort and everyone knew everyone else. Apparently, a lot of people, especially Nordic European people, think that American people are bizarrely uptight on the subject of casual nudity. But the fact remains that we are. My mom would have been outraged if a person of penage appeared in a public shower with her, and she is by far the norm in this country.
Tom

Yes, a lot is societal norms.

 

[ZiprHead]

And if someone wearing a dress walks into the men’s room, uses a stall, washes their hands, and leaves, who are you, or I, or anyone else, to challenge them?

Why should that be a problem?

What a lot of posters won’t admit is that someone wearing a dress in a men’s bathroom would be more likely to be subjected to some form of harassment, if not violence than someone who had a male appearance and was wearing a typical male wardrobe. Regardless of what is under the clothing of the person in a skirt or the person in a pair of pants.

Sure, I wish that everybody felt free and comfortable with their bodies and other people’s bodies but the fact is that people have different needs for modesty and some of those needs are dependent upon developmental stage. Few women would be upset at a little boy in the women’s bathroom or shower room. They’d be more upset at a 16 year old boy in the same space. Even the most open woman would likely prefer more privacy if they were menstruating, recovering from childbirth, had had a mastectomy, for some examples.

Children are less likely to be upset at the sight of a naked adult ( unless this is forbidden in their home) compared with an adolescent.

Women use men's room at crowded sporting events and concerts all the time.

I have occasionally helped out at a nearby concert event park. Backstage security mostly. I have helped out cleaning the showers and bathrooms. Was going to enter the women's shower/restroom to clean. I announce "Housekeeping" before entry. A woman inside yelled out "C'mon in." She was sitting on a toilet in a stall doing her business. The door was closed and I could not see anything. She, apparently, had no issue with having a man in the restroom with her while she was doing her business.

 

[TomC]

Yes, a lot is societal norms.

You know what else, possibly the reason good folks like Bilby don't understand the American situation?

I see a self reinforcing cycle here. We tout the personal freedom thing, "Fuck you, I'll do as I please!". Carrying guns, irresponsible sex, bigotry, you name it. But when it comes to the human body we freak out. The sight of a boob, a guy's junk, a naked kid, and people freak out. Makes it forbidden fruit. That entices the dangerous sex, males, into pushing boundaries. Most guys learn better at an early age, but some never do.

I'm certain that the males on this forum would be great for the security of women in a restroom. But we are not all men. There's still plenty of dudes out there who are not so socialized. I could actually give you the name of one. A cis-het male who pretended to be MtF when it suited his purpose, bullying his way into women's spaces and hitting on women (usually lesbians) in really smarmy ways. He seemed to thrive on being despised and feeling persecuted.
Tom

 

[ZiprHead]

You're in the "anti-woke" ingroup. And you refuse to see your own tribalist behavior.

There is really no "anti-woke ingroup". "Woke", as used in earnest during the Michael Brown riots, is an extremist movement. As such, opposition to it from moderate liberals (such as myself and presumably Bomb) all the way to MAGA. Those people are very different from each other and are in each other's ingroups.

Woke is not a movement. It’s just a different way of saying an old thing, that we ought to respect and not oppress people different from ourselves. Duh.

Yeah, that was pretty stupid.

Here's the new pope's take on woke.

 

[seanie]

Really?

You think the Pope actually said that?

 

[TomC]

You're in the "anti-woke" ingroup. And you refuse to see your own tribalist behavior.

There is really no "anti-woke ingroup". "Woke", as used in earnest during the Michael Brown riots, is an extremist movement. As such, opposition to it from moderate liberals (such as myself and presumably Bomb) all the way to MAGA. Those people are very different from each other and are in each other's ingroups.

Woke is not a movement. It’s just a different way of saying an old thing, that we ought to respect and not oppress people different from ourselves. Duh.

Yeah, that was pretty stupid.

Here's the new pope's take on woke.

View attachment 50500

I'd love to know how credible that is. What's the source?
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

"If you define sex as strictly chromosomal". So who the bejesus is proposing to define sex that way? Your obsession with chromosomes is a "killer-amendment" you keep trying to graft into your opponents' position precisely to make it untenable. Neither British law nor any of the posters here define sex as XX vs. XY.

What rubric does British law propose?

"Every heire is either a male, a female, or an hermaphrodite, that is both male and female. And an hermaphrodite (which is also called Androgynus) shall be heire, either as male or female, according to that kind of sexe which doth prevaile." - Edward Coke, Institutes of the Lawes of England, 1628

And you don't see how that obviously contradicts this ruling?

I see how it obviously contradicts some non-lawyers' assertions about this ruling's implications. If you think it obviously contradicts the ruling, here's the ruling. Knock yourself out.

 

[bilby]

And institutions have to have policies that abide by the law and set social norms.

Single sex spaces does actually mean single sex.

Single sex spaces does actually mean the individual user decides for themselves whether they qualify.

Unless you want to start employing bathroom police to inspect everyone's genitals before they are allowed to pee.

Well no, single sex means single sex, not mixed sex: males go in the male space, females in the female space.

People just need to respect the rules and behave accordingly.

An unenforceable rule isn't worthy of respect, and people can, do, and should treat it with whatever contempt they think it deserves.

What are you going to do about it?

 

[seanie]

How is it unenforceable?

 

[bilby]

Everyone has a right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect.

But single sex spaces, particular for women, exist for their privacy, dignity, safety, or fairness.

They don’t exist as spaces to validate the feelings of men who identify as women.

They have to go elsewhere.

How do you intend to enforce that, without abridging the "right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect" of "men who identify as women"?

Or were you lying when you claimed to believe that "Everyone has a right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect"?

How would you identify and/or challenge a person who you think might be a man who identifies as a woman, while respecting and defending privacy, dignity, safety, or fairness?

What penalty should you be subject to if you violate a woman's privacy and dignity by challenging her, when it turns out that she does in fact conform your personal opinion of what defines a woman, but she had features or mannerisms that you misinterpreted?

 

[seanie]

Most trans women don’t pass. Nobody is under any illusion what sex they are.

And in managed spaces they will be asked to use third spaces, or those corresponding to their sex.

 

[Bomb#20]

The law has moved on a little since 1628.

To my knowledge, on this exact point, the only way the law has moved on since 1628 is that over the course of the 1700s and 1800s, in line with the general growth in use of expert witnesses, British judges came to rely less and less on their own observations and on testimony from people who knew the intersexed person before them, and more and more on the testimony of physicians who'd examined the person. A doctor was of course no more likely to testify about someone's Y chromosome or lack thereof in 1900 than was a nursemaid in 1628.

Oh, there's one other way it's moved on: in 1707 all this body of English case-law became applicable to Scotland.

 

[seanie]

Not entirely. Scotland has a separate legal system, so differs in some ways.

 

[bilby]

Public restrooms are a distraction. For the most part they’re not a managed space.

Where this ruling really kicks in is managed spaces: hospital wards, prisons, changing rooms in gyms and leisure centres, sports.

If providers have separate male and female provision in these areas, they are required by law to manage them on the basis of biological sex, not self-ID.

Because single sex does actually mean single sex, not go wherever you want to.

How can they do this, without abridging the "right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect", which you claim "Everybody has"?

Prisoners have significantly reduced rights, though it's unclear to me that they lose the right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect. But hospital patients, leisure centre patrons, and sports competitors retain that right, and a manager or member of staff in such a facility has no more right to treat them without dignity and respect than you or I do.

What measure of dignity or respect is there, in having a leisure centre manager say "I think your claim about your gender might be a lie, so you will need to show me your genitals"?

If someone said that to you, would you feel that you were being treated with dignity and respect?

 

[Toni]

And if someone wearing a dress walks into the men’s room, uses a stall, washes their hands, and leaves, who are you, or I, or anyone else, to challenge them?

Why should that be a problem?

What a lot of posters won’t admit is that someone wearing a dress in a men’s bathroom would be more likely to be subjected to some form of harassment, if not violence than someone who had a male appearance and was wearing a typical male wardrobe. Regardless of what is under the clothing of the person in a skirt or the person in a pair of pants.

Sure, I wish that everybody felt free and comfortable with their bodies and other people’s bodies but the fact is that people have different needs for modesty and some of those needs are dependent upon developmental stage. Few women would be upset at a little boy in the women’s bathroom or shower room. They’d be more upset at a 16 year old boy in the same space. Even the most open woman would likely prefer more privacy if they were menstruating, recovering from childbirth, had had a mastectomy, for some examples.

Children are less likely to be upset at the sight of a naked adult ( unless this is forbidden in their home) compared with an adolescent.

Women use men's room at crowded sporting events and concerts all the time.

I have occasionally helped out at a nearby concert event park. Backstage security mostly. I have helped out cleaning the showers and bathrooms. Was going to enter the women's shower/restroom to clean. I announce "Housekeeping" before entry. A woman inside yelled out "C'mon in." She was sitting on a toilet in a stall doing her business. The door was closed and I could not see anything. She, apparently, had no issue with having a man in the restroom with her while she was doing her business.

Yep. I had forgotten crowded venues. It’s been a while since I needed to make use of the men’s room and then, I’d have my boyfriend check to see if it was empty and he’d stand guard.

Some women would have yelled just a second if they didn’t want you in there while they were in the toilet. Most would have been startled to see you if they came out if a stall not expecting you. Some would have been more than startled if you didn’t look like maintenance.

Again: enclosed stalls with doors offer a lot more privacy/security compared with an open area.

Fewer men are going to be startled by a woman in the men’s restroom or shower than the other way around. But fewer women attack strange men than the other way around.

 

[bilby]

I wonder how many men posting here would have been happy to have a trans man early in their transition, with a female appearing body in their shower rooms when they were adolescents?

I was distinctly unhappy about being required to shower with other adolecent boys. In no way was my privacy, dignity, or safety respected or protected.

The addition of women, clothed or otherwise, might have had a moderating effect on the misbehaviour of my peers; Maybe it wouldn't, but it certaiy couldn't have made me feel that I had any less privacy, dignity, or safety.

If privacy is respected, there's no way for any person to know, or at least no reason for them to care, what genitalia another person has, unless that person chooses to deliberately and explicitly show them off. At which point, a case can be made for harrasment, regardless of the details of those genitalia.

 

[Bomb#20]

Really?

You think the Pope actually said that?

This is an important question to resolve. If there's one thing atheists should all be able to agree on it's that Papal pronouncements are a reliable guide to morality.

 

[bilby]

Most trans women don’t pass. Nobody is under any illusion what sex they are.

How can you possibly know that?

Your claim here directly contradicts the assertion that the sole defining criterion is in the form of the genitals.

Are you now saying that a woman who "doesn't pass" is a man, regardless of what he has in his pants?

And in managed spaces they will be asked to use third spaces, or those corresponding to their sex.

And when they turn out to be mannish looking woman, how exactly do you think they will react to your defence that you were defending their right to fairness, dignity and respect?

 

[seanie]

Everyone has a right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect.

But single sex spaces, particular for women, exist for their privacy, dignity, safety, or fairness.

They don’t exist as spaces to validate the feelings of men who identify as women.

They have to go elsewhere.

Certainly in Scotland, since that is current law.

But I thought restrooms are around for people to use for personal hygiene.

Public restrooms are a distraction. For the most part they’re not a managed space.

Where this ruling really kicks in is managed spaces: hospital wards, prisons, changing rooms in gyms and leisure centres, sports.

If providers have separate male and female provision in these areas, they are required by law to manage them on the basis of biological sex, not self-ID.

Because single sex does actually mean single sex, not go wherever you want to.

How can they do this, without abridging the "right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect", which you claim "Everybody has"?

Prisoners have significantly reduced rights, though it's unclear to me that they lose the right to be treated fairly, and with dignity and respect. But hospital patients, leisure centre patrons, and sports competitors retain that right, and a manager or member of staff in such a facility has no more right to treat them without dignity and respect than you or I do.

What measure of dignity or respect is there, in having a leisure centre manager say "I think your claim about your gender might be a lie, so you will need to show me your genitals"?

If someone said that to you, would you feel that you were being treated with dignity and respect?

Accurately ID should obviate the need for any genital checks.

People just observe the rules and everything is good.