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

[laughing dog]

You advocate placing them in a position where they could be raped, and have mocked any concerns about their safety as feelings.

Meanwhile, you persist in the lie that people here
advocate prioritizing rapist’s feelings over women’s safety.

By putting them in a segregated wing for trans women?

There are no such wings.

You're the one advocating for male rapists to be sent to women's prisons if they "seriously and truthfully" consider themselves to be women.

With added precautions. I wonder why you omitted it. Perhaps you forgot. Probably nit.

You're shilling for actual rapists, pal.

Own it.

Nice try. Keep on flailing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Doesn't change the problem, though. I have a mannish-looking SIL. When the harassment happens there's no ID check involved.

 

[laughing dog]

And how does someone make an accurate inference about someone’s sex without some invasion of their privacy?

Looking is a good first step.

As LP pointed out, that doesn’t solve the problem, and creates more problems.

Imperfect, but a damn sight more reliable than trying to determine whether someone "seriously and truthfully" believes they're the sex they aren't.

How the fuck do you propose to apply that metric?

In the case of incarceration, intense psychological questioning. Otherwise, after the fact if there is a problem.

 

[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.

Purely cultural upbringing. Let's go back a bit over 40 years ago. Nothing so formal as a shower, just water we could bathe in. And just about everybody stripped off in front of me. I was not expecting that, but neither did it do a bit of harm. Nor was I in any way harmed by deciding to strip off also. My parents saw the whole thing, they were not in the least outraged.

Cool. Skinny dipping is not the same thing as having a male in the shower with a bunch of middle school or high school girls.

Unless I am very much mistaken, you are not female and were never female and your parents were present. The fact that your parents did not object does not mean that this is universally an OK situation. Shit my parents didn't object to all kinds of things I would not find acceptable for my own or anyone else's children.

 

[Bomb#20]

Rather than endlessly extend this Monty-Pythonesque "Yes it is. No it isn't." sequence, let me propose an alternate approach. How about if Politesse consults his knowledge about reproductive science and posts a link to a medical case-study of the intersexed person he thinks provides the single clearest example he can find to demonstrate that H. sapiens is not strictly gonochoric? Then seanie can read the case-study, decide whether the person's development went down the male or female reproductive pathway, and post an explanation for why that person does not qualify as "neither" or "both". You guys up for that?

Google works pretty well for this sort of thing. Wikipedia has a nice discussion.

Google and Wikipedia can't tell us which case Politesse thinks is the clearest example, or why seanie thinks it doesn't qualify, so Google and Wikipedia are liable to not come to grips with one or the other disputant's underlying premises.

Fine.

What’s it go to do with being trans though?

Well, you should really ask the people who bring intersex conditions up; I probably won't do their reasons justice. But the arguments for why it's relevant I've seen appear to pretty much amount to one or the other of these.

1) Transphobes say sex is objectively binary. But even one intersexed person proves it isn't binary, so they're wrong, so it's not objective, so it's subjective, so it must be whatever the subject feels it is. Therefore transmen are men and transwomen are women.

2) Intersex conditions are real -- some people have anatomy normally found in the other sex, and that makes them partly male and partly female. People with gender dysphoria are the way they are because of anomalous brain anatomy. A transman feels he's male for the same reason a cisman feels he's male -- because they both have male brains. Therefore transgenderism is a bona fide intersex condition -- when a person is intersexed going by brain anatomy but not going by reproductive anatomy, well, don't we all care more about our brains than our genitals? Arguing a transman is in fact a woman is therefore wrong for the same reason arguing a person with intersexed reproductive anatomy is in fact a woman -- because intersexed people are really in fact neither men nor women, but something in between, hence the name "inter"sexed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That still isn't an answer to the question. If we are relying on the state to tell us what gender we are permitted to express, what company we are allowed to keep, what rooms we are allowed to occupy and so forth, it is not unreasonable to ask about the criteria they will use to make that determination. Specifics, not vague ideological insistences. How the feck are we supposed to comply with a law so unclearly stated that no individual can be certain how or whether it applies to them?

Yeah. I have long said that in the case of legitimate ambiguity (no nitpicking obvious intent) in the law it shall be resolved as the defense wishes it to be. Even if that's contradictory in separate arguments. (You can argue point A with interpretation 1 and point B with interpretation 2, but you can't argue A with both 1 and 2.) And any law convoluted enough to not be intelligible to the typical person to which it applies is also unconstitutional. (Thus a law specifying how a lawyer must act may be written such that it takes a lawyer to understand it, but a law defining trespassing must be written for the average person.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It’s nothing to do with what “gender we are permitted to express”.

Don't be confused by my name, I am a guy. Should I be permitted to dress in a skirt? What if we instead call it a kilt? At what bit of female attire does it become illegal? I hike. While there are men's packs and women's packs it's really more about body shape, cross-gender use is common. I was trying to figure out the pack of the guy in front of me, same series as mine but a 34 instead of a 36 (capacity, not fit--steps are in the ballpark of +50% per step) and not the same. Huh??? It finally dawned on me he had the women's version. Women's versions are slightly shorter than men's, small differences in capacity are to be expected.

If anyone is in doubt as to their biological sex, then they’re a danger to themselves.

Guevedoces. Are they male or female? Note that it often goes undetected until puberty.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Knows a person’s biological sex?

We have this thing called birth certificates, and legally, as citizens, our sex is recorded.

Nitpick: My wife does not have a birth certificate. When she needed something for immigration it was a matter of going to the proper office and getting a document attesting to the contents of certain data items in the government database. Waddles and quacks as a birth certificate, but it had her adult picture on it.

 

[ZiprHead]

I would say coal MINING is much cleaner than fracking.

Dig a hole. Dig out the coal. Put it in a truck and haul it away. Leave an ugly looking hole.

Fracking is drill numerous holes. Pump dangerous toxic chemicals into those holes. Pump out the gas, haul it away. Leave the dangerous chemicals to contaminate the ground and water for decades.

Coal: Leave the stuff you dug out all over the place, turning the area into pretty much wasteland.

But not a toxic wasteland.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If anyone thinks a double rapist, both biologically male and legally male, should be sent to a female prison to preserve their dignity, privacy and safety, then you have revealed yourself.

As someone with no regard at all for the dignity, privacy, and safety of women.

Shame on you.

If anyone thinks a woman who looks or acts in a slightly mannish way, should be required to submit to interrogation by the manager of a public facility, to preserve their dignity, privacy and safety, then you have revealed yourself.

As someone with no regard at all for the dignity, privacy, and safety of women.

Shame on you.

Who said anything about a woman who looks or acts in a “slightly mannish way”?

The issue is not behaviour or presentation, it is sex.

Males are excluded from female spaces regardless of how they behave or present.

We are talking about the practical reality of enforcement.

In reality it's going to be mannish-looking women being harassed.

And it's going to be very male-looking people required to use the women's.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sex is binary by its very nature.

That’s just evolution.

But "sex" has many manifestations. Things can and do go wrong in encoding the genes. Swyar Syndrome--they are XY, but the Y lost a critical gene. Guevedoces--a different gene doesn't work, the result sounds like it's from the tabloids. Those are simply the ones that come to mind, I know there are other copy errors. And that's just what we know about, we know that we do not remotely know the whole picture so it's very unlikely that we have found them all. Both of the ones I'm naming here are ones with a simple trigger to a major, unmistakable effect so they're the low hanging fruit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You’re advocating for people lying about their biological sex. That we should let them do it.

That we can’t possibly stop males entering female only spaces without invading their privacy, so we mustn’t try.

Are you insane?

We aren't talking about lying. We are talking about not requiring disclosure.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sex is binary by its very nature.

That’s just evolution.

That is not evolution. In nature there are many species that do not have two sexes. Some have none or one or many. In some species individuals can switch between male and female. Do you deny their right to exist?

What species has many?

 

[seanie]

But "sex" has many manifestations. Things can and do go wrong in encoding the genes. Swyar Syndrome--they are XY, but the Y lost a critical gene. Guevedoces--a different gene doesn't work, the result sounds like it's from the tabloids. Those are simply the ones that come to mind, I know there are other copy errors. And that's just what we know about, we know that we do not remotely know the whole picture so it's very unlikely that we have found them all. Both of the ones I'm naming here are ones with a simple trigger to a major, unmistakable effect so they're the low hanging fruit.

People with DSDs are still male or female. There is no third sex.

And the issue of DSDs has absolutely zero to do with allowing males without DSDs, into women only spaces.

 

[seanie]

We aren't talking about lying. We are talking about not requiring disclosure.

So you’re against single sex spaces, services, and sports in principle?

Or are you OK with them in principe, but think that we shouldn’t make any effort to ensure they are single sex?

 

[seanie]

Nitpick: My wife does not have a birth certificate. When she needed something for immigration it was a matter of going to the proper office and getting a document attesting to the contents of certain data items in the government database. Waddles and quacks as a birth certificate, but it had her adult picture on it.

She still has a sex though, amirite?

 

[seanie]

“Sir, we’ve got someone without a birth certificate.”

“No birth certificate? Are you sure?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“My god, we’ll have to convert every single space and service to unisex provision! Alert the UN immediately!

You better tell the Olympics whilst you’re at it.”

 

[seanie]

A non-exhaustive list of DSDs. Can you spot anything binary about them?

 

[bilby]

Sex is binary by its very nature.

That’s just evolution.

That is not evolution. In nature there are many species that do not have two sexes. Some have none or one or many. In some species individuals can switch between male and female. Do you deny their right to exist?

What species has many?

Bees and ants. The workers are usually described as "female", but they are far more different morphologically from queens than they are from males, and differ from both in their reproductive roles, so it would certainly be reasonable to classify them as a third (and perhaps fourth, fifth...) sex.

To reach maturity, an ant requires a female (queen), a male (aner), and many workers (in some species, of more than one physiological type, sometimes differentiated simply by age). The workers are chromosomally female, but look and act nothing like queens, and all three types are necessary for the offspring to survive.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I view all posters here as intelligent t human beings capable of reading and reasoning and observation and of understanding points of view other than their own.

Quite so. The problem is not capability but willingness. Several of the pro-AA posters here appear to be quite determinedly unwilling to exercise their capability to understand the points of view of anti-AA posters. Either that, or they do understand those points of view, which is worse, because that would mean they are deliberately strawmanning them.

I believe this comes back to my point about faith. I have repeatedly seen many individuals who appear to simply not be able to comprehend arguments that go against their fundamental faith. I do not believe it is malicious, but rather an inability to process them adequately. We see it to a lesser degree simply between languages. Every language leaves things hanging somewhere, we rarely have a problem with the hanging things we learned as children. Consider: "It is in the box on the back right of the second shelf of the refrigerator." This builds up from the item to the location, while you are parsing it you have no idea of how it fits into the world--but I doubt anyone on here has a problem understanding that because it's normal for us. But my wife will have a hard time of it because she's from a language that would say it's in the refrigerator, on the second shelf, in the back, on the right, in a box. Note how much more awkward this is for us, but understandable because nothing is left hanging. I'm sure there are examples that go the other way but it is not something I have done any careful study of, just been smacked in the face by it enough that I saw the pattern (and have since learned it is a standard problem between languages.)

Since the AA position is based on faith there's no base to attach to and your whole argument inherently is hanging. Too many hanging things that you aren't used to, comprehension becomes difficult. It comes down to we are arguing for something that is more favorable to white males than what they consider fair, thus we must be for discrimination.

There is also a second problem here: we are arguing that there is no good answer. An awful lot of people on both sides have a hard time with this, a solution must exist! Whether it's controlled by a deity or not, the world is good, thus there are answers. The left consistently decrees the failure to find the answer is the fault of the side with the power, the right consistently decrees that the failure is with the weak who don't try hard enough.

If you don’t agree with me, then please do feel free to disagree with me all you like. I refuse to accept or tolerate the weak sauce ‘argument’ or insult you like to hurl at me when your reasoning cannot find actual words.

Which of my accusations do you feel I have not supplied actual words for? That your treatment of others is religion-based?

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion." - Steven Weinberg​

I will stop slurring you as religious when you stop reciting the same shrink-wrapped bigoted slurs progressivism typically uses on infidels, or else when I hear a better explanation for why you behave the way you do. If it isn't because of religion, why do you keep trumping up baseless racism accusations? Are you a bad person?

Disagree on "religion". It's faith in how the world operates, it's not religion dictated by a deity.

I respect Loren enough to believe he can defend himself and argue effectively to back up his POV. I wonder why you don’t?

I too believe Loren can argue effectively to back up his POV. He has repeatedly done so in this thread; I haven't presumed to do it for him. And I too believe Loren can defend himself -- that he has not taken you to task for your vicious misrepresentations of him appears to be because he is a jaw-droppingly forgiving person. Perhaps he was raised Christian and took to heart Jesus' directive to forgive those who hurt us four hundred and ninety times; or perhaps that level of generosity just comes naturally to him.

Raised atheist.