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

[seanie]

It is. Everyone is male or female.

Why the distraction into rare DSD conditions where it’s more difficult to determine sex, when the vast, overwhelming, majority of trans people do not have a DSD condition?

There’s no ambiguity about the biological sex of just about every trans person, is there?

Otherwise, what makes them trans?

 

[Politesse]

Ah, birth certificates. Finally something concrete.
So when you are talking about a "biological sex" (a property somehow known definitively only to the government), what you and the courts actually mean is what actual scientists refer to as one's "sex assigned at birth"?

Are you really claiming that "sex assigned at birth" is a scientific, rather than political-activist language? "Biological sex" is scientific, "sex assigned at birth" is a phrase purposely constructed to imply that there is something arbitrary about that assignment and that it lacks biological reality.

Both are real terms daily employed by scientists.

You'll forgive me if I don't quite follow your argument? We don't check CNN or Fox to tell us what we're allowed to call things today, terminology exists to facilitate conversation about a given area of study, not serve the needs of any particular party in any particular country. Certainly, your implied definition of sex assigned at birth is not correct. The sex assigned at birth is... the sex assigned to a child around the time of their birth. It is an extremely straightforward concept. Biological sex is not simple, and requires a bit more of a discussion to explain in full. Right-wing morons liek to claim that it is simple, and corresponds to their Bible somehow, but they usually get angry and start spluttering and contradicting themselves when specifics are asked for.

Sex is determined at fertilisation.

By what?

It’s commonly observed at the 12 week scan.

How so?

At birth it is recorded.

On what grounds?

With an accuracy of around 99.98%.

A. Bullshit made up number.
B. This is no less vague about how the determination is made, anyway.
C. And the legal question remains, if SDAB is incorrect in .02% of cases, how it would be just to use that determination as the sole guiding rubric for how formal legal discriminations should be executed. Even if it really were only .02% of cases, that's still 11,500 British citizens denied the rights they ought to have, on the sole basis of incorrect documentation at the time of their birth. How is that justice for them, or healthy and safe for anyone else?

What has this to do with trans people?

You're asking me what your stupid argument has to do with the issues at hand, now? I've been wondering that for a while, and only you can answer it. If you ask me, this ruling does not and never did only affect "trans people", though I certainly take this statement of yours as confirmation that you know the purpose of these laws and the controversy is an anti-trans ideological movemnt, not any sort of science.

 

[Politesse]

You switched terms from sex to gender.

Why?

Because I was talking about gender.

Do you seriously need the 101 on the distinction between sex and gender again? I know we've been over it in the thread a few times.

 

[Emily Lake]

In the same way that allowing blacks to use public facilities excludes racists from using them.

I hate this stupid trope. It's nothing like racism.

Refusing to provide a race specific restroom doesn't keep racists from using the restroom. It just means that they don't have special rights.
Tom

Just like giving men legal rights to use a woman's rest room does not exclude any woman from using the room.

Hooray for legalizing voyeurism and exhibitionism! It's the best thing ever, why on earth didn't we do this sooner, it will make so many men so happy!

 

[Emily Lake]

As soon as you stop making 'gender' about biological features, sure. Gender, is a spectrum - always has been and cannot be placed in strictly two categories based on a persons' genitalia.

I give a sum total of zero fucks about anybody's gender. In some cases, I care quite a lot about people's sex.

 

[Emily Lake]

transgendered women are not men, so that's really not an issue, is it?

Males with a transgender identity are males. They do not magically transform into females. As males of the human species, the common term for these people is "men".

 

[Emily Lake]

No they aren't still male, in any real sense.

They're still male in every real sense. They're female in absolutely no sense at all.

 

[seanie]

Sex is determined at fertilisation by which chromosome the sperm contributes: an x or y.

Sex is usually first observed at the 12 week scan, because by that stage it’s obvious which developmental pathway an embryo has gone down: male or female.

And at birth sex is recorded, because 99.98%of the time it’s absolutely obvious.

None of this is hard.

 

[Emily Lake]

If something cannot reproduce, it is not in either sex class.

This is the stupidest way to try to define sex I've ever seen.

According to your definition... children are sexless. Menopausal women are sexless. Men who just never get around to fathering children are sexless. Subordinate meerkat in a mob are all sexless. For fuck's sake... by your definition, a woman using birth control is sexless.

It's an idiotic notion that ignores the entirety of evolution in favor of a fantasy that you've latched on to.

 

[seanie]

Ah, birth certificates. Finally something concrete.
So when you are talking about a "biological sex" (a property somehow known definitively only to the government), what you and the courts actually mean is what actual scientists refer to as one's "sex assigned at birth"?

Are you really claiming that "sex assigned at birth" is a scientific, rather than political-activist language? "Biological sex" is scientific, "sex assigned at birth" is a phrase purposely constructed to imply that there is something arbitrary about that assignment and that it lacks biological reality.

Both are real terms daily employed by scientists.

You'll forgive me if I don't quite follow your argument? We don't check CNN or Fox to tell us what we're allowed to call things today, terminology exists to facilitate conversation about a given area of study, not serve the needs of any particular party in any particular country. Certainly, your implied definition of sex assigned at birth is not correct. The sex assigned at birth is... the sex assigned to a child around the time of their birth. It is an extremely straightforward concept. Biological sex is not simple, and requires a bit more of a discussion to explain in full. Right-wing morons liek to claim that it is simple, and corresponds to their Bible somehow, but they usually get angry and start spluttering and contradicting themselves when specifics are asked for.

Sex is determined at fertilisation.

By what?

It’s commonly observed at the 12 week scan.

How so?

At birth it is recorded.

On what grounds?

With an accuracy of around 99.98%.

A. Bullshit made up number.
B. This is no less vague about how the determination is made, anyway.
C. And the legal question remains, if SDAB is incorrect in .02% of cases, how it would be just to use that determination as the sole guiding rubric for how formal legal discriminations should be executed. Even if it really were only .02% of cases, that's still 11,500 British citizens denied the rights they ought to have, on the sole basis of incorrect documentation at the time of their birth. How is that justice for them, or healthy and safe for anyone else?

What has this to do with trans people?

You're asking me what your stupid argument has to do with the issues at hand, now? I've been wondering that for a while, and only you can answer it. If you ask me, this ruling does not and never did only affect "trans people", though I certainly take this statement of yours as confirmation that you know the purpose of these laws and the controversy is an anti-trans ideological movemnt, not any sort of science.

You switched terms from sex to gender.

Why?

Because I was talking about gender.

Do you seriously need the 101 on the distinction between sex and gender again? I know we've been over it in the thread a few times.

You switched terms from sex to gender.

What do you mean by changing gender, and how does that relate to sex?

 

[Emily Lake]

Castration on the other hand, yes, absolutely 100% of the time that person ceases to be "male" according to reproductive class theory.

So 99% of the pet dogs and cats in the Us are sexless. That's an inane approach. That's not a theory, it's not even a hypothesis, it's a fantasy.

 

[seanie]

And the ruling from the Supreme Court has absolutely zero effect on people with a DSD.

It was not a matter before the Court.

 

[Emily Lake]

Also, if the ruling had gone the other way it would have negatively affected freedom of association for gay and lesbian people, as it would have rendered same sex orientation a meaningless category.

I'm curious. In what way would a different ruling negatively affect gay people?

One of the things that are allowed to be sex-separated are social and dating venues set up on the basis of orientation. Thus, lesbians can have a lesbian-only event that excludes males.

Full Disclosure: I know next to nothing about the socio-political landscape in distant places like Scotland.
I'm a gay Irish papist and I hate those Orange people. Or are the Scottish protestant invaders the Green ones? Dang, I should Google the Troubles. Maybe sometime I'll care enough.
Tom

You know a whole lot of Scots were papists, right?

 

[seanie]

 

[Emily Lake]

They would, by law, have to admit a male attracted to females in possession of a Gender Recognition Certificate saying they were legally female.

Like I said, I'm not familiar with Scotland.
I had no idea that Scotsmen were such weinies.

Around here, in the good Ole USA, if a dude tried to force his way into a lesbian group he'd be in for a world of hurt. You think that those chicks won't take you out back and beat the fuck out of you? And if you don't give up and go away, you might drown while one pees down your throat?
Apparently, we live in different worlds. You Scotsmen better learn to mind your manners,

Or else...
Tom

I wouldn't take that bet right now. I mean, I would generally consider Aussie sheila's to be pretty brawny on the whole... but Sall Grover set up a female-only app for lesbians that used facial recognition to exclude males... and got taken to court by a dude who named himself "Tickle" because her app wouldn't let him join. He won that suit, and now Sall's app has to let men in if they want to use it.

 

[Emily Lake]

Well, Australia is worse.

Well, I think Australians are totally adorable. Don't you dare say anything disrespectful.

So what if they can't tell up from down, or summer from winter. They're Australian!
They've got koalas.
Tom

Koalas have chlamydia, and the males are almost all rapists.

 

[Emily Lake]

"Treated under the law without regard to skin color, race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin" is something it's possible for everyone to get.

It might be a good ideal, but I actually don't think it's possible.

Quite specifically, it is impossible for everyone to be treated under the law without regard to sex, gender, and religion. Take out the gender bit, and we can make it work almost all the time... but you categorically cannot have reasonably equal treatment when the law allows some males to access female-specific spaces in a way that precludes those female spaces being used by anyone who is muslim or orthodox jewish.

Giving males the legal right to use women's public showers necessarily excludes muslim women from being able to use them.

Hmm. When does catering to a religion in the law amount to treatment "without regard to religion", and when is it treatment "with regard to religion"? Suppose there's a cruelty-to-animals law that conflicts with Halal butchering practices. The SPCA would presumably call changing the law to accommodate the Muslims "special treatment"; CAIR would presumably call not changing the law to accommodate the Muslims "Islamophobia". Who's right?

It's a mess. I'm fairly anti-islam across the board... but my biases fall with the women who often have no choice in the matter.

 

[Emily Lake]

The legal position isn't that sex is "assigned at birth" . It's that sex is a material fact that can be established. For the vast majority of people that will simply be their sex recorded at birth, but even if that isn't the case, and a person has a DSD, their sex can still be established, because sex is binary and immutable.

And since the law has long recognised there are situations where single sex spaces or services are required, for reasons of privacy, safety, dignity, or fairness, then sex in the Equality Act 2010 has to be understood as biological sex.

Otherwise the Act would be produce unworkable and perverse results.

If you define sex as strictly chromosomal and binary and require all law to follow that definition, many men and women will be forced by law to use bathrooms, showers, sporting facilities, etc, that correspond to the opposite of either their expressed or perceived gender. Emily's "horror scenario" of seeing a penis in a locker room is now what the law requires of many individuals.

Why are you so invested in forcing women to be subjected to male exhibitionism without consent?

 

[Emily Lake]

Giving males the right to access female spaces, removes the rights of women to have single sex spaces for reasons of privacy, dignity, safety, or fairness.

There are legitimate reasons to segregate some spaces on the basis of sex,” particularly for females.

Yes, but there are also legitimate reasons not to. One side has legitimate reasons for wanting women-only spaces; the other side has legitimate reasons for wanting spaces restricted to women and female-identifying men. There really needs to be federal legislation to settle the question of which sides' reasons take priority in public policy, because leaving the dispute in the realm of competing rights claims will only lead to the general adoption of so-called "gender-neutral" spaces -- a solution that will satisfy neither side's legitimate concerns, but only the concerns of business-owners who don't give a rat's ass about either sides' rights and are just looking to avoid being held monetarily liable for upsetting someone.

When it comes to the conflict between females and men with gender identity issues, one of them is objectively verifiable and the other is an article of faith. Sex can be verified - even if it can be difficult in extremely rare situations. The feelings inside someone's head cannot be verified, and there's no way to determine who is genuine about how they feel versus who is exploiting a gigantic loophole the size of the great wall.

 

[Emily Lake]

There are legitimate reasons to segregate some spaces on the basis of sex,” particularly for females.

What reasons are those, and how are they helped by forcing women to share sex-segregated spaces with "biological females" who look, speak, and act like men?

Privacy, dignity, safety, and fairness.

If you disagree, you should be arguing for the eradication of separate spaces entirely.

Unisex sports, changing rooms, toilets, prisons, hostels, rape crisis centres etc.

You know what is kinda weird about this discussion?
I'm a naturist. I'd be fine with with everyone, young or old, male or female, black or white, whatever. All using such facilities together. But that's me personally.

Not everyone is okay with that. I do understand why real women aren't so comfortable with persons of penage, in situations where they feel vulnerable. I believe that they have a right to a place that they feel secure in, and if male women feel entitled to bully their way in, then tough shit for them. There's a restroom or a sports league right next door that males are entitled to use at will!
Tom

I don't have a principled objection to mixed-sex spaces. I have an objection to false advertising. Label it as mixed sex, so everyone knows what they're walking into.

I'm also a bit pragmatic, and I realize that if mixed-sex spaces were to overtake separate-sex facilities... a whole lot of women (actual females) would end up self-excluding from those spaces. Because no matter how much I think it would be awesome if everyone just got along, it turns out that males are more aggressive and more prone to sexual misbehavior than females are. Given the opportunity, a lot of them will peep, a lot of them will expose themselves, and a lot of them won't care that doing so makes women feel threatened or uncomfortable.