If there was one place I would have thought could recognize the difference between a transgender woman and a man in a skirt, I thought it would have been Scotland; but I guess I gave them too much credit.
Glad I could give somebody a reason to smile just a little in the face of this grim reality trans people on both sides of the pond are facing. Things are pretty bad here in the US, especially in States like Florida and Texas. Ohio is quickly becoming an inhospitable place for transgender people.
"If a 'biological female' can be excluded for looking masculine, the ruling seems to also allow the exclusion of butch or masculine cisgender women from women's spaces, too — so long as they're making other women uncomfortable due to their 'masculinity'."
Lesbian Visibility Week begins Monday, and I'm betting (hoping) some cis lesbians will have some things to say about this part of the ruling.
This seems generally an accurate reading of the facts of the judgment. But. A few objections.
- Jolyon Maugham is a tax lawyer who really should be ignored. The SC did hear from "both sides": one of them was the Scottish government, which was arguing that sex should be defined by GRC and biology. FWS was arguing that it's just biology. That's the entirety of the legal point, and nobody needs special pleading from Stephen Whittle et al because it's completely irrelevant to the question being considered. (If you're going to hear from Whittle, are you going to hear from women who have been assaulted by trans women? Where does it end?) Amnesty wasn't ignored; but the SC decided that the Scottish government argument led to unsupportable contradictions, such as straight males claiming to be lesbian, and single-sex facilities being mixed-sex.
- it's really a bad idea to claim that courts and the EHRC are part of "ideological capture". This is like claiming the referee is biased because the other team is thrashing you. Sometimes you lose the argument. Find better arguments, not imagined excuses.
- Notice the collision between "many trans people have said they will continue to use single-sex spaces according to their gender" and "I bet this will lead to more gender policing of toilets". Well, is that surprising? I wonder if that could be avoided by some sort of concerted action?
- "Trans people can now effectively be excluded from all sports, too". No. This is rubbish. Male people, with or without a GRC, can participate in male sports, _as they have always been able to_. Female people, with or without a GRC (and to the extent that the sport allows/disallows doping with testosterone) can participate in female sports, or - if they want, as has always been the case - in male sports.
- "It’s hard not to see this ruling as a step closer to British fascism." At some point you have to rein back on the hyperbole. A ruling which points out that males aren't females is not the precursor to concentration camps.
- Sex isn't going away. Humans love it, and they love the outcome of it. Telling people the differences between the sexes are fluid or nonexistent or can be redefined with the stroke of a pen goes against solid reality; it's like trying to repeal gravity. It won't work. Nobody's denying that trans people exist. They're just pointing out that sex, like gravity, is immanent and ineluctable.
If there was one place I would have thought could recognize the difference between a transgender woman and a man in a skirt, I thought it would have been Scotland; but I guess I gave them too much credit.
I’m Scottish but I still lol’d at this 😂
Glad I could give somebody a reason to smile just a little in the face of this grim reality trans people on both sides of the pond are facing. Things are pretty bad here in the US, especially in States like Florida and Texas. Ohio is quickly becoming an inhospitable place for transgender people.
Solidarity from the other side of the Atlantic 💜
"If a 'biological female' can be excluded for looking masculine, the ruling seems to also allow the exclusion of butch or masculine cisgender women from women's spaces, too — so long as they're making other women uncomfortable due to their 'masculinity'."
Lesbian Visibility Week begins Monday, and I'm betting (hoping) some cis lesbians will have some things to say about this part of the ruling.
I was talking to my my sisters in law yesterday, a married lesbian couple one of whom is butch, and they are absolutely horrified at this.
"If there is such a thing as 'ideological capture', then this is it, and it's happened to the highest court in the land."
Devastating.
This seems generally an accurate reading of the facts of the judgment. But. A few objections.
- Jolyon Maugham is a tax lawyer who really should be ignored. The SC did hear from "both sides": one of them was the Scottish government, which was arguing that sex should be defined by GRC and biology. FWS was arguing that it's just biology. That's the entirety of the legal point, and nobody needs special pleading from Stephen Whittle et al because it's completely irrelevant to the question being considered. (If you're going to hear from Whittle, are you going to hear from women who have been assaulted by trans women? Where does it end?) Amnesty wasn't ignored; but the SC decided that the Scottish government argument led to unsupportable contradictions, such as straight males claiming to be lesbian, and single-sex facilities being mixed-sex.
- on the definition of sex: that has been determined in English law, in Corbett v Corbett (1971) - aka April Ashley's divorce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbett_v_Corbett
- it's really a bad idea to claim that courts and the EHRC are part of "ideological capture". This is like claiming the referee is biased because the other team is thrashing you. Sometimes you lose the argument. Find better arguments, not imagined excuses.
- Notice the collision between "many trans people have said they will continue to use single-sex spaces according to their gender" and "I bet this will lead to more gender policing of toilets". Well, is that surprising? I wonder if that could be avoided by some sort of concerted action?
- "Trans people can now effectively be excluded from all sports, too". No. This is rubbish. Male people, with or without a GRC, can participate in male sports, _as they have always been able to_. Female people, with or without a GRC (and to the extent that the sport allows/disallows doping with testosterone) can participate in female sports, or - if they want, as has always been the case - in male sports.
- "It’s hard not to see this ruling as a step closer to British fascism." At some point you have to rein back on the hyperbole. A ruling which points out that males aren't females is not the precursor to concentration camps.
- Sex isn't going away. Humans love it, and they love the outcome of it. Telling people the differences between the sexes are fluid or nonexistent or can be redefined with the stroke of a pen goes against solid reality; it's like trying to repeal gravity. It won't work. Nobody's denying that trans people exist. They're just pointing out that sex, like gravity, is immanent and ineluctable.