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

[seanie]

The people objecting to gay rights were not arguing that there weren’t gay people.

They were arguing they shouldn’t have rights.

Trans people have a right to be protected in law from unfair discrimination.

But excluding trans women from female only spaces, that are desirable in some circumstances, is not at all unreasonable.

 

[ZiprHead]

Explain the difference.

The scientific basis for same sex attection is also tied to gender dysphoria. But you deny that.

I just did.

Most of those who objected to gay rights did so because they considered it immoral, unnatural, offensive etc. it wasn’t a dispute about whether people were gay or were simply mistaken about being gay.

Yeah, I know. You said that already. Fine, you're proven your naivety.

I don’t find people identifying as or considering themselves to be the sex they’re not immoral, unnatural or offensive. People should live in a way that best suits themselves, for the most part. But other people have rights too, and sometimes a person’s sex legitimately matters. Certainly not in al areas of everyday life, but still quite often.

Whether there is a biological basis for a trans identity is neither here nor there (are you suggesting g medical screening to establish the “true trans”?).

Trans women’s sex is male.

As such, they should be excluded along with other males, when females require a single sex space.

I never said differant.

 

[ZiprHead]

I recall homosexuality being regarded as a sin, a transgression, immoral, an offence to nature and god, and public decency.

I don’t recall anyone suggesting it was a simple misunderstanding: people who thought they were same sex attracted were not.

Your recollections are not the gold standard. Pretty haughty of you to think so.

 

[ZiprHead]

And what do you mean by “sex” when you say “same sex attraction”?

Define your terms.

That's the problem. You want everything wrapped up in a nice little box with either a pretty pink or blue ribbon on top.

 

[Politesse]

I recall homosexuality being regarded as a sin, a transgression, immoral, an offence to nature and god, and public decency.

I don’t recall anyone suggesting it was a simple misunderstanding: people who thought they were same sex attracted were not.

Then you are (a) young, and (b) have never looked into the matter, even in idle curiosity. That homosexuality was a type of delusional mental disorder caused by either autogynephilia/autophalliphilia or the sociopsychological consequrnces of an absent father and overbearing mother as the effective scientific consensus from the Freudian era until 1973.

 

[Politesse]

What do you mean by “transgendered” persons?

And do you think sexing trees is controversial?

Or every mammal apart from humans?

Why are you responding to imaginary claims and questions instead of the ones that have been put to you in plain English?

 

[laughing dog]

There's nothing like an argument from authority to establish one's commitment to the scientific method.

There's nothing like dismissing any and all arguments made by actual scientists, to make it plain that you are hawking pseudoscience.

You are fractally wrong.

1. What I dismissed contained no arguments, just an ideological slogan. How many times does it need to be pointed out that an argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition? "Biological sex is a label assigned by a medical professional at birth based on physical characteristics (genitalia) and other biological determinants." does not, by any stretch of the imagination, qualify. And as ideological slogans go, it is more imbecilic than average, for reasons I pointed out.

Your example of dinosaurs sets the gold standard for imbecilic arguments. Until you can provide actual scientific evidence that dinosaurs actually thought in terms of different sexes, you are simply spouting nonsense.

Why the bejesus would dinosaurs need to think in terms of different sexes in order to have biological sexes? Good lord, man, jellyfish have biological sexes, and they don't think at all, lacking central nervous systems. You appear to be making the same sort of map-territory mistake the ASRM made.

ASRM is not denying the existence of biological sexes, so what is the point of your ravings?

And?

I'm an engineer. Engineers apply science. You think Politesse is going to call my posts "arguments made by actual scientists"?

Sigh. Both doctors snd engineers apply and practice science, and understand the scientific method. Some are scientists .

All of which is mind-numbing pedantic pointlessness with regards to the actual discussion about the possible human sexes.

The pedantic point -- obviously -- was that if Politesse intends to go on parading himself as the voice of "Science"^TM with regards to the actual discussion about the possible human sexes, then he really ought to post substantive scientific evidence instead of arguments from authority, especially arguments from authorities who make claims that are transparently inane and demonstrably counterfactual.

None of that occurred.

 

[seanie]

Yeah, I know. You said that already. Fine, you're proven your naivety.

Not an argument.

 

[seanie]

Your recollections are not the gold standard. Pretty haughty of you to think so.

Not an argument.

 

[seanie]

And what do you mean by “sex” when you say “same sex attraction”?

Define your terms.

That's the problem. You want everything wrapped up in a nice little box with either a pretty pink or blue ribbon on top.

No, I want people to be clear about what they mean by what terms.

This is not unreasonable.

 

[seanie]

Then you are (a) young, and (b) have never looked into the matter, even in idle curiosity. That homosexuality was a type of delusional mental disorder caused by either autogynephilia/autophalliphilia or the sociopsychological consequrnces of an absent father and overbearing mother as the effective scientific consensus from the Freudian era until 1973.

I’m not suggesting there’s anything inherently wrong with males identifying as females. Just that considering yourself female doesn’t actually make you female, and sometimes a person’s sex does matter.

 

[seanie]

Why are you responding to imaginary claims and questions instead of the ones that have been put to you in plain English?

Why do you avoid answering straightforward questions?

 

[Bomb#20]

It is binary.

This is sort of true, but seanie clearly either don't understand what binary means in a complex system, or doesn't want you to. Nearly all people who know something about genetics and reproductive biology would rate this one as "misleading, despite having a grain of truth". Sex is normally binary (another completely uncontroversial claim), but that doesn't mean that either the sex of any given individual or the expression of that sex is always straightforward, let alone that it should be so in some moral, religious, or legal sense. Evolution is not a god. Anatomy is not a god. There is no "should" or "must", only the trends and clines that typify nearly all natural systems.

And the yes-it-is-no-it-isn't non-argument cracks right along...

People are either male or female, and it is not remotely difficult to recognise that in all but rarest situations.

This is pure ideology, and does not reflect the real sciences of human biology or sociology in any way. Seanie knows full well that this statement contradicts the perspective of the vast majority of scientists, or at least has been told this many times and refuses to believe it no matter how much evidence is presented to them.

And Politesse goes right on claiming to speak for Science. Another argument from authority, an assertion of evidence without a delivery of it, and this time not even a hint as to which scientists have this perspective or how he knows it's theirs. Forget about a link to a paper showing sex actually is a cline; there isn't even a link to a poll showing "the vast majority of scientists" believe it is. Nothing to go on but Politesse's word. So typical. Which brings us right back to this...

That is not an answer. That is a promise of an answer that neither you nor this ruling is capable of providing, because your confidence is based on ignorance of rather than knowledge about reproductive science.

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?

We're trying to understand seanie's claim here. Why would such an exercise be relevant? The most striaghtforward answer we've gotten from seanie so far is that their legal sex ought to be their biological sex, and that their biological sex is that which is on someone's birth certificate regardless of whether the government later acknowleged a change in their gender. I don't see how a "medical case-study" of a person who transitioned later in life would affect their birth certificate, so why would it matter one way or the other to the discussion at hand?

But that is not seanie's claim here. seanie's claim here was:

"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?

The established legal position is that biological sex is a material fact that can be established.

It comes down to reproductive pathways, male or female, the binary of sex.

Nothing about birth certificates there. You're just snipping random fragments of things seanie's said at different times in different contexts and sticking them in a blender and calling what comes out "seanie's claim". He proposes that biological sex is a binary and the established legal position is that biological sex is a material fact that can be established. Well, British courts have been hearing cases of disputed sex and establishing that material fact for at least eight hundred years, much of that time before birth certificates were a thing; and the courts never held what was on a birth or baptismal record trumped the court's own judgment or the testimony of the witnesses it called. What's written on some paper sitting in a drawer for decades could be in error, obviously. Maybe the priest was drunk, or did five baptisms that morning and got mixed up when he went back later and jotted down parish records.

So to answer your question, the reason such an exercise is relevant is because you have burden of proof, because you're the one making the positive claim -- you claim there exists something with property P; seanie claims no such thing has property P. You can prove your claim by exhibiting something; if seanie has the burden, he's supposed to prove his claim by exhibiting what, nothing? There are dozens of DSDs in the literature that have been called "intersex"; is he supposed to dig up clinical descriptions of every single one and show it lacks property P? Burden of proof conventions are what they are for a reason. If you give us your best example and he can't refute it, we're done and you've won. If you give us your best example and he can refute it, we may not be done because you can always claim some other DSD has property P, but you'll be the guy who said the other examples aren't as good as the one you led with, and you'll be the guy whose confidence was allegedly based on knowledge of rather than ignorance about reproductive science. So that will be pretty close to having lost. Either way it comes out, we can put Monty Python to bed and move on. Which would be peachy, because one thing both of you appear to have agreed on is that intersex issues are a great big digression from trans issues.

Or, if you prefer, you can keep saying yes-it-is-no-it-isn't at each other for another twelve hundred posts.

 

[TSwizzle]

lol



Why should women have to put up with these lunatics in their midst?

 

[TomC]

lol



Why should women have to put up with these lunatics in their midst?

For those unaware, I don't often agree with Swiz.
Much less like his posts.

But there you have it.
Tom

ETA ~I'm a big hulking dude. I sure as hell don't want those people in the restroom with me, although I am not afraid of them. If I were a female, and they were demanding entrance to the women's restroom with me, I'd go ballistic. ~

 

[Politesse]

ETA ~I'm a big hulking dude. I sure as hell don't want those people in the restroom with me, although I am not afraid of them.

But you support this Scottish ruling? Which requires most of them to use the "men's restroom"?

 

[Politesse]

Nothing about birth certificates there.

You're the one not reading the whole thread, then. Can't help you, really. If you can't read the other posts thus far contributed, why would you read this one?

Yes, seanie insisted it was an "obvious biological reality", bit when I asked how such a law could be enforced, they insisted that everyone's sex is written on the person's birth certificate, and that this is their legal sex. If we reject that metric, that just takes us back to the question of how the government determines who has what sex, and what legal proofs we must all carry around now, or medical tests we must submit to if arrested, in order to escape legal harassment if accused of using the "wrong" bathroom? As is likely to happen more often now that it is illegal for trans and intersex people to make that decision for themselves, and we'll thus see many more dresses in men's rooms and beards in women's rooms than we ever did before this ruling was made.

 

[TomC]

ETA ~I'm a big hulking dude. I sure as hell don't want those people in the restroom with me, although I am not afraid of them.

But you support this Scottish ruling? Which requires most of them to use the "men's restroom"?

Honestly, I don't pretend that I understand what is going on over the pond.

Here's the thing though, as humans they are entitled to a place to pee. As males, they are entitled to use the room labeled Men. I don't want them around me (prolly anywhere). But they are entitled to use the men's room, like any other male human. Regardless of my opinion about them.

That's very different from your opinion that they are entitled to use whatever restroom they prefer, regardless of how it effects the people who are entitled to use it. People who are women AND NOT "HYPOTHETICAL WOMEN".
Tom

 

[Politesse]

That's very different from your opinion that they are entitled to use whatever restroom they prefer, regardless of how it effects the people who are entitled to use it.

I do not, to repeat myself for the third time, think that anyone is "entitled" to the use any sort of public bathroom nor do I think they should be. We were managing these issues just fine before our governments got involved, snd now yhat they are involved they are bungling it and letting it turn into a massive, unnecessary "culture war" that is causing massive civil unrest for no sensible reason. 895 new laws in the US alone, all if them controversial, nearly all of them under legal challenge, all of them expensive and impossible to enforce, all of them causing more civil discontent than resolving anything or preventing any crimes. Scotland is about to have the same problem, an explosion of social unrest and legally challenged arrests that will drain their treasury and accomplish nothing. If these laws change nothing, if we already had legal title to use this room but not that one, why are thousands of new laws in hundreds of countries necessary to create that supposed title?

 

[Politesse]

People who are women AND NOT "HYPOTHETICAL WOMEN".

Please stop taking that quote out of context. I don't think all women are hypothetical, only the ones whose stories and perspectives you, TomC, a self-described "man", are the sole spokesperson. Those women are hypothetical. Not all women. EmilyC and J.K. Rowling, for instance, are not hypothetical women, they are real women who can speak for tjemselves and do not require you or any other man to interpret what they probably want.