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

[Loren Pechtel]

For myself, being in a bathroom or dressing room with a trans woman would not be much of a big deal but I won’t lie and say that I would not be startled to see an unexpected exposed penis or testicles. I’d be more concerned if I felt that I or someone else might be the target of a predatory person, whatever genitalia was present. So yeah, a cis male or female attacking a trans person would definitely be concerning to me. I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to defend myself and occasionally another person against physical and sexual assault. Not that those experiences don’t leave some trauma/PTSD. But not one of those individuals who attacked me or other girls or women was in a women’s locker room or dressing room or rest room. None of them were trans. I’d put good money down betting that they most likely be dangerous to trans individuals as well as to women. More so, in fact.

Startled, yes. The law shouldn't be expected to protect you from being startled, though. Harmed? The number of such rapes is zero. But if you get your way there will be some very male looking individuals legally in the women's room. Now how do you detect rapists simply walking into the women's room? You can't. You have actually created risk, not removed it.

In a perfect world, absolutely. We aren't in that world. We are in a world where something like 1 in 3 or 1 in 2 women have experienced some form of sexual violation.

I'm not talking a perfect world. The number of documented rapes by transwomen in women's restrooms is zero.

I want transgender women to be able to enter all of these spaces, freely and without judgement. But the women that inhabitant these spaces are raising their hands. This isn't like desegregation. Men carry a lot of baggage when it comes to sexual assault. A LOT more than we want to accept or are willing to recognize.

Is this fair for transgender women? No. But are we really going to tell women to shut up, this is how things are going to be? We aren't there yet with transgenderism. Heck, we've got people at this board who think it isn't even real.

We need to accommodate as best we can. And that takes a bunch of people acting like adults to manage. And we don't have that at the moment.

It was working until the Republicans needed a bogeyman. They are trying to solve a non-problem.

 

[Politesse]

It seems like even though you understand that people will lie in order to do bad things, you just don't give a fuck as long as it's just women who get hurt by it.

The victims you target are all women...

 

[Politesse]

It doesn't make you a Nazi, but within our current political system, it necessarily puts you in bed with them. If not for the rise of neo-fascism, we would not be having this conversation to begin with. This and immigration are the wedge issues they have chosen to use to break the spine of the centrist left, and you've fallen for the gambit hook, line, and sinker.

"Shut up and accept our dogma, and let males who say magic words share showers with non-consenting women or else you're a nazi!"

Totally the best and most convincing argument ever made.

Your supposed summary of my post has nothing to do with the argument made in my post. Good ol' Emily Lake, taking the high ground on "honesty".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For myself, being in a bathroom or dressing room with a trans woman would not be much of a big deal but I won’t lie and say that I would not be startled to see an unexpected exposed penis or testicles. I’d be more concerned if I felt that I or someone else might be the target of a predatory person, whatever genitalia was present. So yeah, a cis male or female attacking a trans person would definitely be concerning to me. I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to defend myself and occasionally another person against physical and sexual assault. Not that those experiences don’t leave some trauma/PTSD. But not one of those individuals who attacked me or other girls or women was in a women’s locker room or dressing room or rest room. None of them were trans. I’d put good money down betting that they most likely be dangerous to trans individuals as well as to women. More so, in fact.

Startled, yes. The law shouldn't be expected to protect you from being startled, though. Harmed? The number of such rapes is zero. But if you get your way there will be some very male looking individuals legally in the women's room. Now how do you detect rapists simply walking into the women's room? You can't. You have actually created risk, not removed it.

I don’t understand what makes some people feel the need to or the entitlement to assault others, sexually or otherwise. I do get that some might employ various types of assault in the commission of a robbery or if intoxicated, I suppose. I understand self defense and have engaged in such myself. But otherwise? I honestly do not get it. Particularly with regards to sex.

I've never understood it, either. Sex that my partner isn't enjoying is a big turn-off to me.

My way? What are you on about?

My way is empathy all around, something you seem to think is beyond you. Not my fault, your short comings.

Startled men, now they do things like e beat the shit out of someone. Easier to inflict pain than deal with an emotion.

Just f all the way off Loren until you learn to give a fuck about anyone who has t had your exact same experiences.

What is a transwoman supposed to do in your world?

 

[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.

How is it different? This was far more about getting clean than about recreation. To stay out was not a realistic option, the only question was how much to wear.

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.

Since both of them had PhDs in psychology (not the coincidence it seems--they met in grad school) I think they were a lot more competent than average at judging what's acceptable. It's only because our society is so stuck up about nudity that it's even an issue.

What is acceptable to you or your paren ts(!) 40 years ago has zero bearing on anything whatsoever. Really? Citing mommy and daddy’s academic qualifications for you refusing to understand someone else’s POV? What makes it especially rich is that you say they earned PhDs in psychology. Too bad the only benefit you seem to have gained is an unearned smugness and a total lack of empathy or social reasoning. What would mommy and daddy have to say about that?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

And what do you do when faced with a guevedoce? While it can be detected at birth that is by no means guaranteed to happen.

5-ard is a male disorder of sexual development; only males can have the condition. At birth, they can sometimes appear with ambiguous genitalia - but in developed nations, it's something that doctors are aware of, and it can be accurately diagnosed in infants. For those in undeveloped countries they're often FORCED to be treated as females in childhood, because they're viewed as "failed males" or "not completely male" and they're relegated to a second class status along with all the women. Which sucks when puberty rolls around and they develop along a pretty normal male body form, even if they have a smaller than normal penis.

You're not establishing that they are forced to be raised as females. If it's not diagnosed what else would they do??

So you are saying there are people who were considered female at birth but which are truly males. There goes the notion of gender being known at birth.

 

[Toni]

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.

And what do you do when faced with a guevedoce? While it can be detected at birth that is by no means guaranteed to happen.

5-ard is a male disorder of sexual development; only males can have the condition. At birth, they can sometimes appear with ambiguous genitalia - but in developed nations, it's something that doctors are aware of, and it can be accurately diagnosed in infants. For those in undeveloped countries they're often FORCED to be treated as females in childhood, because they're viewed as "failed males" or "not completely male" and they're relegated to a second class status along with all the women. Which sucks when puberty rolls around and they develop along a pretty normal male body form, even if they have a smaller than normal penis.

You're not establishing that they are forced to be raised as females. If it's not diagnosed what else would they do??

So you are saying there are people who were considered female at birth but which are truly males. There goes the notion of gender being known at birth.

Yes, she DID establish that they are raised female. Babies don’t get choices, Loren.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The whole thing reminds me of people attacking a person for parking in a disabled spot with a "fake" permit, just because at a casual glance they don't seem to be disabled.

Who are you to judge?

Good comparison.

And let's look a little farther down that road. There is a scenario in which an able bodied person alone in the car can legally park in a disabled space. I've done it a few times. I can walk fine, my mother in law couldn't. Picking her up was a legal use of the permit. There is absolutely no means by which an observer who simply sees me park and enter can know what I'm doing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Think about the implications. This cuts both ways--you're going to get some very male-looking individuals in the women's room. Is that what you really want?

It's not primarily about looks.

It's about a person's sex.

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

With about 98% accuracy, based on clustering a whole host of sex-correlated characteristics:

98% is useless in this case. I've seen restrooms where that would cause an error every minute.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Retrofit third spaces how?

Depends on the context. Not every space is segregated by sex. There are single occupancy spaces, such as disabled toilets and single rooms in hospitals instead of wards.

We’re told this is a tiny minority being persecuted.

Well if the numbers are that small, it doesn’t seem a huge problem to accommodate them.

Just as long as female only spaces are genuinely restricted to females, we’re all good.

That's a non-answer.

I walked the entire terminal, every point I could reach without crossing the security boundary. No family restrooms, no way to add one without ripping out something else (I was paying attention to the geometry, it helps in not overlooking something that's not well marked.) Airports want to sell to customers, every bit of space not used for infrastructure is leased at exorbitant rates to some overpriced food or travel goods place.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I walked the entire terminal in case there were just a few. I had to wheel her into the men's room.

And that’s fine.

I don’t see any issue with one-off situations like that.

The point is it should be addressed.

I was at the Taylor Swift concert in Edinburgh last year. 75,000 in attendance, about 70,000 female.

The females used the male cubicles in the gents, and the males kept their heads down at the urinals.

That’s fine. People make accommodations. Same as a mother taking a young boy into the ladies. That’s not the same as some 6’ bloke, who knows he doesn’t pass, going into the Ladies because he believes himself to be a woman. The sincerity or otherwise of his belief is irrelevant.

Given that there is a need for sex segregated spaces in some instances, and we already segregate on that basis and have done for some considerable time, you cannot have a policy where that’s just self-ID.

Your approach will mean some 6' "bloke" will be entering the ladies because that's what anatomy they have.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Rapes by trans people in women's restrooms: zero.

Yeah, we’ll ignore the sexual assault of a child.

View attachment 50571

I've already said what I think of text as images.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, just keep males out of female only spaces, and provide third spaces if necessary.

It’s a manageable issue.

Retrofit third spaces how?

Let's go back several years. My wife got hurt while we were visiting her family. While she could walk it was only with considerable pain. She was taking absolutely as few steps as she could and only with assistance. Time to fly home. PVG is a modern airport, built this century when there was a recognition of the need for family restrooms. No problem. Connection, LAX. That airport has been there quite a while, no family restrooms, no place to put family restrooms--I walked the entire terminal in case there were just a few. I had to wheel her into the men's room.

I asked you this previously, and you declined to answer. So I'll ask it again:

WHY did you wheel her into the men's room? Why did you NOT wheel her into the women's room?

Because our fucked up society would object. And because I knew she wouldn't have a problem with the situation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Who make the rules that the rest of us ( but not you) must follow. Someone acknowledged that a person with a female appearing body would likely not fare well in a men’s locker room. I’m guessing lot of gay guys don’t feel comfortable—with good reason! in a lot of male restrooms or locker rooms/showers.

Rapes by trans people in women's restrooms: zero.

Probably not zero.

Zero. I did a lot of looking for frequency comparisons, always coming up empty. Until I found out none exist because there was nothing to compare.

But what does that have to do with how welcoming and accepting trans people in male restrooms?

For example: How many trans people do you suppose are raped, beaten in men’s restrooms? How many gay people? How many bisexuals? Just not sufficiently masculine appearing men? How many women? How murdered by men?

You're trying to cause more of them.

You have fucking got a lot of damn nerve trying to tell women what we must accept from someone with an XY chromosome.

Lines inherently must be drawn. The data shows no harm from transwomen in the women's room. The data does show harm from the transwomen in the men's room.

 

[Toni]

Who make the rules that the rest of us ( but not you) must follow. Someone acknowledged that a person with a female appearing body would likely not fare well in a men’s locker room. I’m guessing lot of gay guys don’t feel comfortable—with good reason! in a lot of male restrooms or locker rooms/showers.

Rapes by trans people in women's restrooms: zero.

Probably not zero.

Zero. I did a lot of looking for frequency comparisons, always coming up empty. Until I found out none exist because there was nothing to compare.

But what does that have to do with how welcoming and accepting trans people in male restrooms?

For example: How many trans people do you suppose are raped, beaten in men’s restrooms? How many gay people? How many bisexuals? Just not sufficiently masculine appearing men? How many women? How murdered by men?

You're trying to cause more of them.

You have fucking got a lot of damn nerve trying to tell women what we must accept from someone with an XY chromosome.

Lines inherently must be drawn. The data shows no harm from transwomen in the women's room. The data does show harm from the transwomen in the men's room.

Took me under 30 seconds:

Virginia family sues school system for $30 million over student's sexual assault in bathroom

A teenager and her parents have filed a $30 million lawsuit against a Virginia school system after she was sexually assaulted in a women’s restroom by a male student.

apnews.com

The details of the 2021 assault — the attacker was wearing a skirt in a women’s bathroom — made it a flashpoint in the national debate over allowing transgender students to use bathrooms, play sports and go by names and gender pronouns that reflect their gender identity.

Still, the assaults appear to have little to do with the attacker’s gender identity, according to documents filed with the family’s lawsuit. Teachers say he preferred and requested male pronouns, according to a report by a law firm that investigated the assault.

The sexual assault in May was one of two committed by the same student in the school system. The second occurred at another high school in October 2021. The attacker, who was 15 at the time, has been convicted as a juvenile for both crimes.

The individual who is accused of rape may/may not be transgender--they may be only wearing a skirt to pass as transgender or just because they like it but it seems they are definitely using the rules to access victims in the girl's restroom.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And yeah, sometimes there were men in the women’s restroom, usually showering with their girlfriend. Generally not a problem but I can think of one or two guys who lived in my dorm whose presence in the women’s restroom would definitely have been very very threatening. Not trans at all. Just wears af in a very rapey way. As in these were guys I went way out of my way to try to keep them from knowing which was my room, to the extent that I sometimes walked the whole way up the stairs to the 11th floor to avoid being in the elevator with them

In other words, male looking males that appear to be a threat. I don't think anyone is denying they exist and I think you would have had every right to have them thrown out and banned.

But given that we are talking about an instant reaction—not everyone will immediately think: trans woman. Many if not most might immediately see threat, even if there is no actual threat. And will have to, in the moment, suppress that reaction and be concerned more about making the other person feel comfortable than about their own feelings.

And I've spooked more than one woman by simply walking quickly down the same route they were on. It's simply not something the law should protect you from.

Yep, sounds like exactly what is always expected of women.

I don’t mean to be glib. I genuinely think that everybody should be able to feel safe and accepted and to be safe and accepted.

The problem is you are focusing on a non-threat. It has not been established that there is any overlap between the creeps you talk about and the ones trying to pass. There are zero reported rapes by the ones trying to pass. Just because they share a bit of anatomy with the actual problems doesn't make them a problem. Discrimination.

No, I’m focusing on what YOU assume to be a non-threat basically because it is not a threat to YOU.

Non-threat to anyone. Zero documented cases.

You are expecting women to in an instant evaluate a male appearing body in their locker room as a non-threat even though women all know —mostly from experience—that it is impossible to tell by looking which male is a threat what which is not.

You are expecting this to work. What do people like my SIL do? She's one of those that doesn't pass--except she really is female. What do the transmen do? You're going to have them in the women's room, you just made your problem much worse.

It may be the case that you use a public street as a urinal but likely that’s frowned upon if not actually illegal. Just like walking around without your pants on may be totally fine in your own home but generally not in public.

Who said anything about urinal?? I was simply saying that I have spooked women by walking quickly on the same path they are on. Clearly a legal activity, therefore spooking a woman isn't sufficient to make something illegal. And all you're actually complaining about is being spooked.

Also if women frequently cross the street when they see you, you need to do some serious self-evaluation and maybe enlist the help of a mental health professional.

Complete strangers, mental health is utterly irrelevant. They were simply spooking about a male moving quickly in their general direction. Always in environments with many other people around, no possible threat.

 

[Emily Lake]

Extremely rare DSD conditions have no relevance at all as to whether obvious biological men should be allowed into to women’s spaces if they “seriously and truthfully” believe they should be.

No. Just because it's rare doesn't mean the law gets to ignore it. If compliance with a law is impossible then it's a bad law. Period. Doesn't matter that it's only a tiny subset of the population.

Your position seems to be that because some very few non-transgender people have medical conditions that affect their sexual development... males with gendery feels should be given right-of-access to female single-sex spaces.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It seems to be vanishingly rare but in other thread(s), emily has posted examples of people who claim to be trans women ( I’m not judging whether or not they claims are valid) and gain access to women’s prisons when this person has raped women in the past and seems intent on doing so again. Again, vanishingly rare but not non-zero.

Claimed to be. Not living as a female, though. And not involving going into a women's room while female-presenting.

I am very much less concerned that someone will falsely claim to be trans in order to gain access to women’s dressing rooms than I am that women will be traumatized or even just frightened enough to report to or provoke physical violence by the apparent intrusion of a nefarious man in the women’s dressing room/shower. No one deserves to be so traumatized and yes, I am including the trans individuals.

In other words, because women might panic transwomen must be excluded. So women aren't expected to be adults?

It’s like being told that the box of rattlers has been let loose in your bathroom but it’s ok because they’ve all been defanged. Most of us would still be somewhere between very wary and scared shitless. Some of us might throw stones and hurt the snakes. And it is possible that one of the snakes has not been defanged.

So, rattler. Saw one last month, right in the path, virtually certainly not defanged. Not the first time I've seen one, unlikely to be the last. I leave it alone, it leaves me alone. As with most wild animals, you simply don't put it in a position where it feels it must defend itself.

 

[Emily Lake]

A persons' sex is not remotely complicated 99.98% of the time, and everyone, regardless of DSDs, is either male or female.

And it's irrelevant to the issue of trans gender identity, because the entire point of being trans is not identifying as your actual sex. You have to be aware of you sex to identify otherwise.

Which is fine.

Mostly.

But sometime a person's actual sex does matter.

99.98% isn't good enough. What are the several hundred thousand people who don't fit supposed to do?

And what of the guevedoces?

Everyone with a DSD is still male or female.

The question was which bin to put them in. It's often not detected at birth, they are raised as females until they change. What are they??

They're males. 5-ard is a condition that ONLY males can have. Even if they're forced into subordinate roles within their society, and treated as second-class citizens because they're errantly believed to be females... they are entirely 100% male.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why exactly is it the male person’s problem and not your?

Misogyny and male entitlement perfectly captured.

A perfectly captured deeply reasoned impaired response.

No, she has a point.

Women have been conditioned for millennia to fear or at least avoid unclothed men/exposed penises except under very strict circumstances.

It is not reasonable to expect women to set all that aside on some men’s say so. It does absolutely reek of entitlement for men to refuse to recognize this, particularly when men are the reason women are afraid.

Women in some cultures. Why do you believe your fears deserve legal protection?