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

[TomC]

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?

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

 

[seanie]

Sexual Orientation is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act, and is defined as same sex, opposite sex, or both sex attracted. The Scottish Government's position was that sex meant legal sex, so either the sex recorded at birth or legal sex amended by a Gender Recognition Certificate.

If so, as argued in court, it would be unlawful for a lesbian group to restrict membership to biological females attracted to females.

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

The Supreme Court was not keen on this line of argument.

 

[TomC]

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

 

[seanie]

Well, Australia is worse.

 

[TomC]

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

 

[Bomb#20]

When I think about "what it means to be a man" or "what it means to be a woman", the first thing I think is not that I should ask the British government for his opinion. Or the last thing I think. Or a thing I think at all.

That's autobiography, not argument -- after all, when others think about "what it means to be a man" or "what it means to be a woman", they have no reason to ask you for your opinion. The British government's opinion is more deserving of being relied on than your opinion, because the British government bases its opinion on what the words "man" and "woman" mean in common usage among the general public, whereas you have a long history of basing yours on the Humpty Dumpty language of a narrow ideological subculture.

 

[Bomb#20]

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

Have you ever met a koala? Grumpy, unfriendly misanthropes. Wallabies, though -- they wrote the book on totally adorable!

 

[TomC]

Have you ever met a koala? Grumpy, unfriendly misanthropes.

That's why I like them. They remind me of


Me

Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

That theory ignores the reality of an awful lot of Muslim women's lives -- many are not free to make their own choices, but live under the authority of male relatives. If the government abolishes women's rooms but takes no effective action to free those women from the men who won't tolerate "their" women using de facto men's rooms, then it will be complicit in reimposing the "urinary leash".

 

[Bomb#20]

"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?

 

[seanie]

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.

 

[seanie]

The Equality Act in the Britain has 9 protected characteristics, including Sex, Gender Reassignment, and Religion. Sometimes the rights of these groups clash, so the Equality Act attempts to balance competing rights.

 

[thebeave]

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

Have you ever met a koala? Grumpy, unfriendly misanthropes. Wallabies, though -- they wrote the book on totally adorable!

Koalas are like that? Are you sure you're not confusing them with a bilby?

 

[Politesse]

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.

 

[Politesse]

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.

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?

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

 

[seanie]

Chromosomes determine sex, but do not define it. Rare chromosomal combinations do not alter the fact that everyone is either male or female.

It's also a massive red herring to focus on DSD conditions when there's no questions about the biological sex of the overwhelming majority of trans people.

 

[TomC]

forced by law to use bathrooms, showers, sporting facilities,

Who is ever forced by law to use any of those facilities?
I never heard of such a law.
Tom

 

[seanie]

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.

 

[Bomb#20]

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.

"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.

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.

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?

Well, he didn't assert the rights of men to have single sex spaces for reasons of privacy, dignity, safety, or fairness.