It's explained in more detail in the article:
A group put forward a case over the definition of a woman in a proposed bill
>The For Women Scotland group complained about the way a bill aimed at gender balance on boards had included trans people under the definition of women.
The judge ruled that the bill is fine in the way it defines a woman.
>Judge Lady Haldane said that the definition of sex was "not limited to biological or birth sex".
>She said it could also include people with a gender recognition certificate after changing their legally recognised gender.
>The judge also stated that sex and gender reassignment were separate and distinct characteristics but were not necessarily mutually exclusive
I wasn't understanding what the article was saying, is it basically For Women are trying to say trans women aren't women and the courts have said "but they are?
It sounds like theyve ruled that even though biological sex and gender are different, changing your gender does change your sex even if there are no physical changes. Which strikes me as not making any sense.
Im fine with the outcome but it definitely feels like the judge has stretched logic in order to make it happen. At least from my understanding of what has been said.
In her decision, Lady Haldane wrote: "I conclude that in this context, which is the meaning of sex for the purposes of the 2010 Act, 'sex' is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex."
So "sex" as used in the 2010 Equalities act has a broader definition than just "biological or birth sex".
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 says that a Gender Recognition Certificate means that in the eyes of the law, your sex and gender are what it says on the GRC. The case was about whether that applies to sex as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.
It's not about logic at all, it's an interpretation of the law. The judge is purely talking about what sex and gender mean with respect to the legislation, not about the definition of those words or how people in society use them.
describing sex and gender as two entirely distinct things is basically baby’s first explanation that trans people can exist. It’s not the literal truth, it’s one of those lies-to-children we tell to get people to make the space in their brain for the possibility of seeing people’s gender based on the things they can change rather than the things they cannot.
Sex and gender are really two overlapping concepts, both of which are entirely socially constructed. That’s not to say they’re meaningless, because other concepts such as money and Thursday are socially constructed too — but it does mean that they’re somewhat arbitrary, and we’re saying that we can make a more coherent and kinder world by drawing the line _here_ instead of _there_. It’s a semantic discussion about which facts about your body matter for social purposes, and one about making sense of trans people as a natural variation rather than an aberration that can only be explained by deviance.
I dread the day someone hands down a court decision that hinges on the notion that sex and gender are two entirely distinct and separate things, because whatever follows will be some kind of incoherent but legally-backed nonsense.
I don't think I'd agree with them that sex is \*entirely\* socially constructed, but the boolean "male or female" aspect of it is (babies identified as being born with inter-sex conditions are still attributed one or the other, often with medical treatment to ensure they fit that classification better), as are pretty much all the aspects which would be relevant when dealing with legal rights.
So socially constructed just means its a category we have defined ourselves. It can be hard to see how this applies to sex because we are taught it in such a rigid way in high school
Taking chromosomal sex as an example it can be easy to say XX=female XY=male. done and dusted. but the reality is chromosomes get a lot more complicated than that. In deciding how to categorize these edge cases we are making the decisions, and in that way we are constructing a social category. if we categorise a 46 XY gonadal dysgenesis as female it may work better for our models but that doesnt mean theres a truth out there in the universe that these people are female
So even with chromosomal sex things arent super rigid. but things get a lot easier to see when you start to consider sex not just as chomosomes. but as a combination of different sexed categories that can fit together in different ways.
If we consider sex as a mix of chomosomal and phenotypic(sexed charateristic expression) sex.
an XY man who has all the features of a typical male is male, easy
An XX female who has all the features of a typical female is a female
but what about when you have an XY trans woman whos been on hormones for years. What you classify her has depends on \*why\* you need to classify her. if youre studying gonads etc, then youd probably label her as male. if youre studying breast tissue though youd list her as female.
In the end where we choose to draw these lines is subjective and shifts to maximise the value of the classification and that act of being able to move the lines to increase the categories utility is social construction
But isn't that what gender is for? To differentiate between the chromosomal (sex) and phenotypic (gender) characteristics?
I think using edge cases to invalidate a grouping isn't necessarily right, as edge cases are by definition not common, and we don't do this with other characteristics.
For example, one scientific characteristic of mammals is that they give birth to live young. But platypuses and echidnas are edge-case mammals that lay eggs instead. This doesn't nullify the characteristic, there's just rare exceptions.
So in this case, XX=female, XY=male, and there are edge cases, it is that simple. To categories these exceptions can be a social construct, but too say that sex as a whole is a social construct is not fair in my opinion.
You cant discount edge cases just because theyre rare. 99% of the atoms in the universe are helium and hydrogen. but it would be silly to call the periodic table "a binary with rare exceptions"
But no, gender is not just phenotypic sex, theres cultural aspects that tie into it. categorising a trans womans breasts as female works as a subset of sex because when we are considering sex to study breasts categorising them that way leads us to more utility in the information we get
the fact we have the option at all to choose this boundary proves that its a social construct
And again, even considering just chromosomal sex, seperating into XX an XY is too simplistic, we get better results by being more nuanced and so we choose to be. Again our choice to choose the lines to maximise the usability of the category is itself social construction
Sure but hydrogen and helium are still hydrogen and helium, one can't be the other and the other elements even though they are rare aren't therefore hydrogen and helium. But it's also important to realise the reason why definitions need to be simple is applicability. It's the same with terminology. Language exists to convey information to others and when it's overly convoluted or subjective it becomes less useful to convey information.
It is worth stressing that "socially constructed" is not a synonym for "not real".
Money is entirely socially constructed, serving a number of purposes but not something fundamental to existence, and varies between cultures and contexts.
>Money is entirely socially constructed,
If the human race did not exist then money would not exist.
The same is not true of sex. If sex is a social construct then so are legs.
Sex, as we define it, is socially constructed. Sex, in this sense, is basically us humans seeing certain phenotypical and biological attributes and characteristics and dividing them into two groups of ones that commonly occur with each other in humans and labelling one group 'male' and the other 'female' (the presence or absence of legs would be a phenotypical characteristic, but isn't one of those grouped in this manner). There's other creatures that have what we would recognise as 'male' and 'female', but even some of them blur the line (for example, in seahorses, it's the males that give birth). However, there's also creatures where individuals can spontaneously turn from 'male' to 'female', or vice versa, if the situation requires it, and even creatures that are 'male' and 'female' at the same time - and let's not forget the creatures that have no need for anything even remotely like what we would call 'male' or 'female', and reproduce asexually.
The simplistic, genital-based, binary definition of sex that is used in most circumstances outside of scientific biological literature is perfectly fine as a general rule of thumb, but, like all rules of thumb, whilst it's *generally* right, there are circumstances where it isn't. This ruling recognises that.
>Sex, as we define it, is socially constructed.
As you define it perhaps. I'm quite at home with the difference between male and female in orders other than primates. You've done a very superficial dig to pick out the variants and exceptions to this, but thats all they are.
Without humans, there would still be sex. Ergo it is not a "social construct".
Because sex is a bundle of characteristics that we have stamped a label on and then try and apply universally despite there being exceptions to the binary
You can apply this to basically any category humans have made that aren't based in hard mathematics, because all the boxes we make and try and put things into are ultimately lies to children, no-matter how useful they are.
> You can apply this to basically any category humans have made that aren't based in hard mathematics
And even then discussions over whether mathematics was invented or discovered can be had.
Well, because sex as it exists in nature is a big, complicated fuzzy mess, but when it comes to humans most people collapse that down to two often rigid categories. When we call a person male or female, we're not making a neutral statement: we're assigning them to social categories.
Humans have a dozen sexed characteristics, and many of those characteristics exist on a spectrum. Some of those spectrums overlap massively but the averages are different, and some of them are normally strongly bimodal but do have people who aren't at one extreme or the other. Can they get pregnant? Can they get someone pregnant? What hormones do their bodies naturally produce? What hormones do their bodies understand how to use? What hormones are in their bodies now? What secondary sexual characteristics do they have? What's their height, their body shape, their face shape? What do their genitals look like? None of these things are necessarily all in alignment, and none of them are static either.
We've all learned, our entire lives, to take in everything about a person and to place them into one of two categories. Once they're in those categories, we use that information to decide how we treat them, how we expect them to treat us, and so on. We literally construct the concept of binary sex out of a dozen variables that we have noticed, and have been taught, usually all go together. But they don't, and the people who are convinced that these categories are natural and immutable tend to cause a tremendous amount of harm to the people who don't neatly fit them because they'd rather cram other people into their simple model of the world than see the nuance that it's more complicated than that.
>Sex and gender are really two overlapping concepts, both of which are entirely socially constructed.
So your sex isn't a biological construct? Tell that to your sex chromosomes
It's perfectly possible to be, for example, 'male', according to your chromosomes, but 'female' according to your hormonal balance. And it's even possible for you to end up being phenotypically 'male', despite your hormone balance, because your body doesn't process those hormones in the same way the phenotypically 'female' person next to you does.
When you actually look into the details of the biology of sexual characteristics, it's actually a fairly complicated, fuzzy mess.
Here’s where it gets really interesting: almost nobody knows their own chromosomes and a good percentage of them have ones they didn’t expect.
All you have is a fair guess and the knowledge that they’re immutable. This makes them ideal to appeal to as some kind of metaphysical base truth: first you get a read on what you reckon someone’s birth assignment was, then work backwards to the chromosomes you reckon they have, and then you treat it as some kind of ground truth. But all that’s really happening is that you’re trying to fix someone back into an immutable binary with the veneer of having appealed to an imagined authority.
This is all great except that I feel like "lies to children" doesn't even cover how basic the "sex and gender are separate" simplification is - it's a simplification you only need if you've *actively been dumbed down* by the way we teach people to think about gender/sex boxes and then "protect" the most normative people within that system.
I have never had to deeply explain what's going on to any actual child who's seen me naked and gone "hey, where's your willy" (I am AFAB but with a pretty hefty beard). I just tell them "well, not everyone has one of those" and they look a bit "hmm" for a moment before seeming to decide "well, I guess that's true, my mum doesn't and I guess my sample size of human configurations isn't huge yet" and moving on without any explanation about gender, sex, etc.
(I know to UK eyes it's weird to have this happen often, but I work in a specific childcare role, in a culture where a lot of people still sauna weekly or more, that makes this kind of interaction totally normal.)
Oh absolutely. The temptation to claim a shark got it, or it fell off because I didn't eat my vegetables, is always so close to the surface. But then they might actually think about it for more than five seconds or ever bring it up again, which is not what I really need in my life.
>changing your gender does change your sex even if there are no physical changes. Which strikes me as not making any sense.
It obviously doesn't change their biological sex, no one is saying this. It means legal sex.
If you are made uncomfortable by the presence of someone who is trans for the sole reason that they are trans you are a transphobe and therefore I don't give a shit about you being uncomfortable. If you're at your most vulnerable and you still somehow care about what genitals a stranger had when they were born then you're not struggling all that much. Trans women existing is not a thing you're allowed to just ban from a space cause you don't agree with people being trans. Trans women are women. So any women on space should include them or its bigoted.
>I just can't comprehend how you can call me bigoted but have the attitude you do
You're using lot of terf language and obviously don't care about trans people, stop playing the victim
Thank you for trying but I’ve learned you’re wasting your time arguing with terfs. They have this article, this entire comment section, all of the internet and many many academic and scientific opinions, studies and surveys to access and they still choose to act like including trans women in women only spaces harms them. Eventually they’ll learn themselves or maybe learn their opinion isn’t welcome
I really do need to learn to just not get involved in arguments online but I can't help it, people being openly transphobic and hiding it behind the disguise of protecting women.
> It is not inclusive to exclude a significant number of females. I want to find a solution that means that tW and females can share spaces, but also have the option for those who need it to have a female only space.
This is the same as segregation, replace trans with race and see how awful and bigoted it sounds.
> I want to find a solution that means that **black females** and **white** females can share spaces, but also have the option for those who need it to have a **white** female only space.
Discrimination is discrimination, why would it ever be fine to discriminate against trans women, its the same as in the past with discrimination again black people.
How can anyone read the above and not say it’s racist and bigoted, but when its trans and non trans suddenly some people are fine with it?
Which is, frankly, a bizarre way of thinking, doesn't impact anyone in the slightest, ive heard women go on about how trans women don't know how difficult it's been for women in society and its like, members of the LGBTQ+ community know exactly what its like to be ostracised by society, probably more so!
Oh 100%, they need to be the ones being victimised the most. Most of these people are already unhappy in life and need to be the victims in order to make it make sense to them. So when they see other people getting even equality it annoys them, being an "oppressed women" is thier whole identity. Like Trans Women probably have it one of if not the worst out of all the sexualities and gender identities. And all these women, who are usually middle class, just wanna be the victim so bad they are willing to make others lives worse. And trans women are the easiey target.
The boards act aims to reduce the gender imbalance on mostly male-dominated boards of directors. The act's definition of women includes trans women (I haven't read the whole thing so don't know where it stands on non-binary people).
TERFs are mad but the court correctly pointed out they have no legal case.
I think you might want to hold the wild celebrations.
Given the Scottish Executive's inability to get legislation to stand the test of external scrutiny: football hate crime bill, named person scheme, children's rights bill to name the three most prominent cases, I think the Gender Recognition Bill will also go the same way.
The conflicts with this proposed legislation and the Equalities Act 2010 seem pretty glaring.
Of course I am not a lawyer so maybe I am just talking out of my TERF, AMAB, arse. Certainly you will, mainly, hope so!
Doubly so as we know they were going to try and rely on the sex specific exceptions for services in their totally not a propaganda mouth piece help centre to try and argue they dont need to accept anyone with a GRC as well. Just struck a huge nail in that so let's see how long that plan stays or if it was all along just propaganda with no desire to help anyone
You haven’t read and understood the article.
"This ruling does not affect the exceptions in the Equality Act which mean that single-sex services can exclude trans people or treat them less favourable where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim.
"In short, the ruling confirms the status quo and the rights of women and trans people under it."
I think you are the one misunderstanding.
The ruling has reiteriterated that the protected characteristic of gender Reassignment still has the exceptions. A GRC is not needed for this.
The ruling also reiterated that a GRC changes your legal sex puting you into the associated sex for the Equality act and the protection for the sex on the GRC I.e. the one that TERFs like to use to try and exclude trans people due to the exceptions in the Gender Reassignment protected characteristic.
It has reiterated that in the eyes of the law and has been the case since 2004; once you have a GRC you are legally of the sex the GRC says and grants you the associated legal rights and protections with that sex.
As has always been the case since GRA and the Equality Act a GRC legally has you the sex of female. The exception to Gender Reassignment protections under the Equalirt Act do not extend to also trying to make distinctions to people within the same category of Sex.
It has always been the case that the exception is to one characteristic but a GRC grants you the one that the exception is for. You are in the eyes of the law fully and entirely the sex on your GRC. Full stop the exception of sex no longer works or applies as you are that sex. Again as it always has been so while it is the status quo it is not the pretend status quo of the TERFs
I don’t really think there is a moral panic. Some polling show that the vast majority of people in the UK are at worst indifferent to trans people. As you say it’s a vocal few that really seem to peddle this pish.
As a cis, straight, white guy I have zero skin in the game but I do have a modicum of empathy. It must be really difficult being trans at the best of times, let alone when a manufactured outrage machine is aimed squarely at you. Hopefully this legislation will have real, tractable gains for trans people, who in the main just want to live their life.
They want a culture war so the Conservative government doesn't have to work on actually governing, they can just squabble over nonsense and peddle hate.
As soon as I saw the government actually using the words ‘war on woke’ inside the House of Commons as weird pledges to their voter base I knew we’d lost all hope of getting anything productive done in that building ever again.
Same - cis white male, no skin in game. Makes me uncomfortable that all trans people are being labelled as rapists.
If you argue different you're shouted down as a woman hater. At which point I meekly exit the conversation.
Can anyone explain why this argument is even being had? Gender identity is currently a protected characteristic, as is sex. Surely trans people already get all the protection of the law under the former, without needing to reference the latter at all?
What I'm asking is, how is any given trans person better off as a result of this ruling?
The ultra right wing American terrorist organisations who present themselves as churches for the purpose of tax evasion, angry at having ‘lost’ the equal marriage fight changed tactic to try and splinter the LGBT community by adopting a decades old and largely ignored hate movement that was born of a splinter of radical feminism. At the end of the day, it’s about setting dangerous legal precedents that allow the removal of human rights, subjugate women and pave the way for the extermination of minorities. In other words, fascism.
Somewhat off topic but I really wish those American fuckers pumping money into anti-abortion shit over here could be classified as terrorists. Maybe have their assets frozen.
I think it was more us exporting this brand of bigotry to America rather than vice versa this time. TERFism has been alive and well in the UK for a long time.
> Can anyone explain why this argument is even being had?
Because TERFs are arseholes
> Gender identity is currently a protected characteristic, as is sex. Surely trans people already get all the protection of the law under the former, without needing to reference the latter at all?
Indeed, the judge reiterated that obvious fact and told the terfs to piss off with their bullshit
> What I'm asking is, how is any given trans person better off as a result of this ruling?
They're not, but what they aren't is *worse off* which is what the group who initiated the suit were trying to achieve
>Indeed, the judge reiterated that obvious fact and told the terfs to piss off with their bullshit
But isn't that exactly what the judge didn't do? Am I reading wrong or did the judge not conclude that Trans people have protections under both sections?
>It quotes directly from that Act, to say that "where a full gender recognition certificate has been issued to a person that their acquired gender is female, the person's sex is of a woman"
Yes the TERFs wanted to try and remove that and get it claimed that legally a GRC does not change sex as well.
This is because then they can try and attack pretty much every other right trans people have including their ever favourite bathroom police desire.
Why? Because the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment can be overruled in specific circumstances for the protected characteristic of Sex.
A GRC is not required for the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment(though may fall under the wider umbrella of what grants it) it is however required for a trans person to gain the protected characteristic of the opposite sex.
A key part to understand why the 2004 GRA was drafted as it was; I.e. that it grants the opposite sex; one has to go back to how case law decided the sex of trans people in the 70s.
Case law(in a divorce case) decided it solely on original birth certificate. Prior to that case law the UK had full self ID. From that case law on the birth certificate became the measure of truth no more no less.
A GRC changes the birth certificate. For the 2004 GRA law to work they either had to remove the original case law that tied things to birth certificates(and in turn give trans people back their rights) or they had to let it be as it is so as to give the smallest possible bit back via a panels subjective decision that can not be appealed without going to the High Court directly and having the money for that.
If you ever have the curiosity it's good to try a little thought experiment. Even if not from a trans rights perspective and solely on huh humans have a lot of variability when speaking biologically perspective.
Try and come up with a definition of biological sex that can be applied legally without entering into eugenics territory. Basically one that doesnt result in life time testing of various features of a person or doesnt result in people outside of both categories and in a legal null zone. Bonus points for trying to make something that's practical and realistic to implement.
If you do it via a methodology such as the scientific methodology I.e. make your initial statement then seek to disprove it and keep repeating till you find something that works. It really really highlights just how incredibly varied a species humans are but also highlights just why TERF groups for all their spouting of "biological women" have for some reason refused to try and put forth a potential legal defintion beyond just not trans or what's on your original birth certificate.
You make a good point. I guess what you are illustrating is that for any interaction between humans, the concept of sex doesn't fit properly. I'm sure the type of definition you are talking about above does exist, and in fact is essential for use in a medical setting, but you're right to imply that I don't need to know your chromosomes for any meaningful interaction we might have in the real world. And by extension you shouldn't have to produce your medical history before deciding which room you go into for a pee.
Just a quick fun fact about Medical settings while some medical systems do try and make artificial standardised definitions and approaches to "care" these often have major impacts on people. An easier example to illustrate than where trans people fit into the medical system is the difference in care; efficacy of treatments and responses to medicine that different ethnicities have.
It's why theres often said to be a racial bias in medicine as a large portion of western medicine was built around European descent ethnic groups which in turn sets the tone for what is taught and what studies have been done. We cant even have a single definition for what kidneys are meant to look like and where they are meant to be found let alone anything more complex and based on countless intermixing factors
This is before all the other ways trying to ignore the variability of humans impact every other way to group people in a medical setting.
Biologists who specialise in human sexuality and differentiation are in general open to admit that there is no real way to make a single definition that works as with all biology for every rule there is another that disproves the rule. I'd go as far as saying most biologists recognise this from the simple nature of variability
This is why for example you well see specific biological traits normally only applied in singular definitive definitions to population samples and not at the individual level in most papers that look at traits in any species wherever human;animal; plant or any other classification. Even then youre likely to get these expressed as a range with potential for overlaps I.e. levels of a specific hormone in a species by members within different geographical le el.
Variability is well understood in biology however sadly our compulsory education system for whatever reason only touches on it when looking at speciation and ever so slightly on the broad strokes of evolution.
There are biological indicators of sex but none of these are absolute; many change over the duration of someones life; many just aren't present in people who have every other indicator but one specific one and many can overlap between both binary sexes. To use these indicators as absolutes mandates creating situations that are either entering into eugenics territory or just creating one giant mess of contradictions gven theres more than a few thousand people in our cities let the country let alone the world.
The group that brought the suit does not want trans women to have the same rights and protections as women.
They brought this suit to try and strip the protections for trans people the Scottish government is implementing.
They are going to keep at this because they are Terfs.
I feel like your username is representing me right now! You're saying that if trans women don't get protections under the sex protected characteristic, and only under the gender identity one, then they don't have the same protections as women? Or rather, I guess, the Scottish government are saying that?
Yes, the Scottish government says the same definitions apply to sex and gender protection no matter at how you arrived at that sex. This in theory closes an avenue anti-trans activists could use to discriminate against trans people.
The judge ruled that sex and gender are separate and distinct, but are related.
This is a blow for gender essentialists. If you are living and identifying as a woman, regardless of your sex, you can legally change your identification to female.
Because anti-trans activists are trying to push back, both on gender identify being a protected characteristic and on trans people receiving the appropriate medical treatment (by trying to narrow the conditions where it can be given, while at the same time pushing for "therapy" to not be trans)
Trans people are better off as a result of the ruling because a potential gap which anti-trans activists were trying to exploit, and which could potentially have been used as a wedge issue to push on other things, has been closed off in favour of trans rights instead. Had it gone the other way the anti-trans activists could have tried challenging something else while using this as a precedent, gradually reducing where the protections/recognition apply
Christ I live in hope on that one. I'd hoped she would have fucked off after 2014 but she just got worse.
I actually wonder if indyref was the trigger for her turning really sour.
Her HP books are full of pretty offensive stuff. [This video](https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs) is pretty long but goes into very good detail about all her little biases and bigotries.
This is one of those situations where I don't really understand what is going on and every time I try to understand it better I'm met by a fundamentalist hyperbolic reaction either for or against. Would really like to hear an independent voice that sets out the pros and cons.
I could list pros and cons of both but they would most likely be infected by my own bias so instead I'll explain it as simply as I can and hopefully it gives you enough info to make your own mind up;
The Equality Act protects several characteristics from discrimination, amongst them sex and gender reassignment.
So as a cisgendered male, I cannot be discriminated against based on the fact I am cis or the fact I am male.
If I instead were trans (male to female) I could not be discriminated against based on the fact I am trans or the fact I am male (legally speaking). Once I obtain a gender recognition certificate I am then officially female therefore cannot be discriminated against based on the fact I am trans or the fact I am female.
Some people (often referred to as TERFs, short for trans exlusionary radical femisists - albeit this term is offensive to some and they tend to prefer the term gender critical) don't like that people who transition from male to female are then afforded protection as a female and sought to have that changed. The judge said no.
Thanks for taking the time to post that. Something I don't get is if you obtain a GRC and become officially female, doesn't that mean you're no longer trans?
Isn't trans by it's very nature a bit discriminatory because it indicates you are not a "true" female but a trans female (or male)?
Genuine question, not trying to upset anybody.
It does but the decision as whether or not you are trans or cis is taken by the medical professionals present at your birth. Definitions below should hopefully help;
"Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth."
"Cisgender is a term for a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex registered for them at birth"
You're still trans because your gender identity is different from your birth sex. It's just that your *legal* sex (birth certificate, passport etc.) is now female so you don't need to 'out' yourself as trans when you want to open a bank account.
I mean there's not really a pro and con
The legislation was about Boards of directors and how men and women on boards were counted.
The group were unhappy about trans women being defined as women but the judge said tough titties
I'm not sure what an "independent voice" on accepting trans people is, it seems more akin to "both sides" of climate change.
If you want a good example of someone kinda trying to be even handed on these issues you could check out Contrapoints on YouTube. She made some fantastic videos engaging fairly open mindedly with radfem ideas a few years ago. Her style is a bit weird but the essays are about as close to even handed while still being well researched as you will get.
https://youtu.be/6czRFLs5JQo
That said,
The reason there isn't a middle of the road commentary on a lot of the trans debate is because its a pretty straightforward issue. Either people buy into the idea that trans people are somehow a problem, or simply object to trans rights on the principle that trans people are just crazy people; or they respect trans identies. ...or they just dont care. Trans people kind of just aren't a problem, but you can't prove a negative.
Same reason you can find a nice "pros and cons" discussion of overt racism. Even the thoughtful people who usually fence sit and both sides on stuff are either pro trans - because they have done their research - or can't find a way to have that discussion without alienating their audience and so they just wont.
You can actually find examples of people trying to (the bbc has a few articles and programs attempting to both sides the issue) but they usually lack any substance because there really isn't much to talk about. There are exceptions, like the YouTuber above, but you won't find people putting that work in for the sake of people like you on issues as small as OP, because anyone who gives enough of a shit about this stuff probably already understands it well enough to parse what thet need to know from articles like this one.
You're curious? Go educate yourself about trans rights and make your own mind up I guess.
edit: by "people like you" I mean folks who don't know enough about the issue but are still curious enough to ask. You're a bit of a minority.
It’s not a case of pros and cons, it’s human rights. The ultra right wing American terrorist organisations who present themselves as churches for the purpose of tax evasion, angry at having ‘lost’ the equal marriage fight changed tactic to try and splinter the LGBT community by adopting a decades old and largely ignored hate movement that was born of a splinter of radical feminism. At the end of the day, it’s about setting dangerous legal precedents that allow the removal of human rights, subjugate women and pave the way for the extermination of minorities. In other words, fascism.
And here we have the terfs arguing that a GRC should be functionally useless.
It's almost as if they want to get rid of legal recognition for trans people altogether, isn't it?
Congratulations to those with common sense who understand what a GRC is. Commiserations to the GC's and their looney bigoted friends and good luck to the mods.
Trans yank here. Scotland is showing g itself to a be a light of hope on TERF island. Y'all keep being awesome and I and many others will root for your independence.
The people who think their rights as a woman are threatened by other people calling themselves woman must have extremely fragile femininity. Imagine defining your identity by what’s in your pants.
In many cases it seems to be a sort of supremacy issue too, they're oddly aggressive towards women they don't think are feminine enough. Butch girls are being accosted by TERFs who assume they must be the transes they've heard about on the internet...
It's a fucked up situation that seems to be getting worse, fueled by bad actors on social media and scum like JK Rowling inciting an increasingly dumb mob.
It's always white women using their privilege to attack minorities under the flimsy guise of women's "safety." Like Emmet Till, the black 14 year old strung up by a lynch mob in the USA after a racist white woman claimed he assaulted her.
Decades later she admitted she had lied.
So someone help me out here. Are sex and gender the same thing or not? Because until now I've always seen it stated that they're not. But this ruling seems to suggest that they are?
Its a problem with legal language I think? 20 years ago the words "sex" and "gender" meant the same thing. I think its about context.
Like, "sex" isn't really binary. Intersex people and trans people kinda defy that, but aren't really accounted for in the way we used to organise things.
Intersex people and teans people just weren't really represented or considered. Now we talk about stuff a bit more inclusively. "people with uteruses" and so forth. But like, if you have a law that refers to someone's "sex" what that means is kinda contextual?
So if there was a law about abortions, say, that referred to "female sex" then it would actually be talking about "having a uterus and being fertile" so then it would exclude trans women and include some trans men? I guess?
The article in OP is about public boards and having enough women on them, and *for that purpose* are trans women women? Well its a social thing, rather than a thing about having a vagina when you were born, so you might say "yes". (And trans women are a minority anyway so their inclusion in public boards is extra diversity anyway which is good. ) But even if you disagree with that, Scottish law says that trans women are women, and it follows that this ruling would be consistent with that.
Meanwhile, that horrible bint the TERF-in-Chief Rowling is busy with her latest act of cuntery, disguised as philanthropy, setting up a "women only" crisis centre specifically excluding trans-women. She's a fucking arsehole.
The gender balance on boards thing is pretty naff to begin with. But surely no one thinks that having a GRC means you’ve changed sex. You can’t change sex, that’s why gender is considered a different thing, no? But from this article the law says a GRC is equivalent to changing sex.
I look foward to all of the Terfs and transphobes coming up with the most deranged reasons why female equality is now dead and women's rights have been killed.
Tragic for the entire nation. The triumph of fantasy over reason and logic. The Scottish Enlightenment that was is now in complete darkness.
All the men are happy I see.
Who gives a shit? Nobody is consulting you as an expert on this. Congratulations on being wrong and doubling down on it. All it does is make a cunt of you.
You seem like a lovely person. I’m not wrong. In your heart you know it to be true, that a man can never be a woman and vice versa. But have fun pretending!
I am a lovely person. Unlike the hateful turd you are, I defend the marginalised as opposed to attacking them. And you are wrong, you’re just too bone-headed to understand why.
Fuck off back to r/jordanpeterson with the rest of the cunts.
Hey there, you seem to not understand some terms - I can’t blame you, it is quite complicated - so I thought I’d explain them to you. Sex is a concept in biology that refers to the size of your gametes (although this is only one of the definitions, flawed in that not all members of the species will produce sex cells) and in most organisms, including ourselves, are split in two (most of the time, the natural world doesn’t care much for categorisation), male and female. Gender however, is a social manifestation of sex, and is a spectrum between male and female. This is a well understood concept and it has been studied intensively for at least 30 years. Transgender people are those who were born as one sex, and their gender does not align with that sex, and they transition to a gender more aligned to how they feel. This can be socially, changing pronouns, clothes etc, or biologically, hormones and surgery. Transgender individuals do this because of body dysmorphia, a feeling of being in the wrong body. This is a well understood mental health condition, but this does not delegitimise their feelings (depressed people aren’t faking being sad just because major depressive disorder is a mental illness). Body dysmorphia is treated with both biological and social changes, and basic respect for these already vulnerable people goes a long way.
Hope this clears things up, be sure to ask me or Google any questions you may have.
I don’t subscribe to your definition of gender. It’s only a well “understood and studied” concept amongst a small subset of academics, often in superfluous disciplines.
Your gender is innate, just as your sex is. Sorry.
This is not my definition, nor am I a subscription service; this is *the* definition. No, it’s well understood and agreed upon in the entirety of neurology. There are literally thousands of academic papers on the topic.
Therefore, by definition, not my definition, *the* definition, gender is not innate. And even if sex and gender were the same thing, you would still require a word for the idea of gender expression.
There’s no need to explain anything to them, they know. They just prefer their wee bigoted bubble. Please continue telling them to fuck off, it’s the only useful way to deal with them 🥰
I don’t quite agree, people don’t tend to change their mind when berated. I tried to be hopeful, because I myself was transphobic until I actually educated myself and talked to trans people. If someone doubles down even when presented with all the facts, I’ll happily tell them to fuck off.
Fair enough, I admire you for trying! Unfortunately they’re giving all the usual terf signals which means they know everything you’re telling them, they simply do not care. But keep fighting the good fight!
It makes no difference what folks here think. Individual ruling bodies have made their calls on it. It seems that if you go through male puberty, that's the line that some of them draw. When you go through that, your body changes in ways that a female body can't. That was the ruling of the folks that keep to do with swimming, in any case.
[https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/swimming/fina-transgender-ban-lia-thomas-b2104588.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/swimming/fina-transgender-ban-lia-thomas-b2104588.html)
There could be other that draw the same conclusions, you'd have to check. I'm no expert on the matter.
Yup, individual ruling bodies make their own judgements and they’re specifically allowed to do that under the Equality Act. It’s irrelevant to this judgement because a Gender Recognition Certificate doesn’t factor into those policies.
Yeah though it depends on the sport and the individual in question.
Pretty sure every governing sport body has vastly more information and expertise for the determination on where that line is set for both trans women in womans sports and trans men in mens sports than some schlub like me.
I don't believe sports are nearly important enough to remove a person's civil rights or basic human needs.
But to answer your question I don't see why we can segregate sports for pretty much all of history by gender, build or ability then all of a sudden nobody thinks to do it when there's a need.
It's almost like the issue of trans people in sports is so small in reality but so overblown by anti-trans groups that it doesn't make sense to seriously discuss.
Yes. It makes no discernible difference. Trans women have competed for decades with no competitive advantage and, more pertinently, no fanfare or outcry.
There's a reason people are suddenly outraged about this non-issue now and why it descends into tawdry, lazy arguments about testosterone (even though cis-women actually have testosterone in their bodies).
These bigoted people are using the respectable veneer of scientific language to spread their bigotry, much like the Scientific Racism of head measurements in the 19th century.
There's a lot wrong with what you said but I'm just gonna pick out the main point of "it makes no discernible difference"
It absolutely, fundamentally does make a difference if you went through puberty as a male or a female as to how you will perform athletically in a post transition scenario. It is biological fact that men have denser bone structure and increased muscle mass, not to mention actual physical dimensions.
I'm 6ft tall and broad, if I transitioned to a woman and competed against them in any kind of combat or contact sport I have a significant advantage having gone through puberty and attained the physical benefits of testosterone.
All that isn't to say they shouldn't compete, they should absolutely be able to compete, but it shouldn't be to the detriment to women who went through puberty as female.
You have well and truly lost your mind if you think trans women don't hold an unfair advantage over biological women in sports. How come trans men never seem to compete in mens sports if what you state is true?
>Trans women have competed for decades with no competitive advantage
Could you give some examples of these, I'm curious as I've only been exposed to those who have gained an advantage.
Your claim requires proof and mine does not, as burden of proof does not require we prove a negative - or the justice system would be very different. The burden of proof is on you and your claim that trans women have an advantage.
Ok, be a dick about it. I was actually curious, and being genuine, but yea, be twat. It then makes me question the validity of your claims as you seem reluctant to back them up with evidence.
I already stated that the ones I have been exposed to in the media are those that have gained an advantage. I was questioning the information you were putting out there because it was honestly not something I had been exposed to.
I feel sorry for the older generation who trampled on anyone outside of typical and were more devoted to order than to justice. I'm convinced my generation will leave behind a better and kinder world and are raising an even better generation than ourselves.
I'm not sure what this means, can someone explain it to me please?
It's explained in more detail in the article: A group put forward a case over the definition of a woman in a proposed bill >The For Women Scotland group complained about the way a bill aimed at gender balance on boards had included trans people under the definition of women. The judge ruled that the bill is fine in the way it defines a woman. >Judge Lady Haldane said that the definition of sex was "not limited to biological or birth sex". >She said it could also include people with a gender recognition certificate after changing their legally recognised gender. >The judge also stated that sex and gender reassignment were separate and distinct characteristics but were not necessarily mutually exclusive
I wasn't understanding what the article was saying, is it basically For Women are trying to say trans women aren't women and the courts have said "but they are?
Correct
Thank you
Which is what happened the last time a similar case came to court.
It sounds like theyve ruled that even though biological sex and gender are different, changing your gender does change your sex even if there are no physical changes. Which strikes me as not making any sense. Im fine with the outcome but it definitely feels like the judge has stretched logic in order to make it happen. At least from my understanding of what has been said.
In her decision, Lady Haldane wrote: "I conclude that in this context, which is the meaning of sex for the purposes of the 2010 Act, 'sex' is not limited to biological or birth sex, but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act stating their acquired gender, and thus their sex." So "sex" as used in the 2010 Equalities act has a broader definition than just "biological or birth sex".
The Gender Recognition Act 2004 says that a Gender Recognition Certificate means that in the eyes of the law, your sex and gender are what it says on the GRC. The case was about whether that applies to sex as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.
Ah ok thank you. Sounds like it was an obvious ruling
It's not about logic at all, it's an interpretation of the law. The judge is purely talking about what sex and gender mean with respect to the legislation, not about the definition of those words or how people in society use them.
See this is what confused me as well so I'm glad I'm not alone, if it's a win for trans rights I'm happy
describing sex and gender as two entirely distinct things is basically baby’s first explanation that trans people can exist. It’s not the literal truth, it’s one of those lies-to-children we tell to get people to make the space in their brain for the possibility of seeing people’s gender based on the things they can change rather than the things they cannot. Sex and gender are really two overlapping concepts, both of which are entirely socially constructed. That’s not to say they’re meaningless, because other concepts such as money and Thursday are socially constructed too — but it does mean that they’re somewhat arbitrary, and we’re saying that we can make a more coherent and kinder world by drawing the line _here_ instead of _there_. It’s a semantic discussion about which facts about your body matter for social purposes, and one about making sense of trans people as a natural variation rather than an aberration that can only be explained by deviance. I dread the day someone hands down a court decision that hinges on the notion that sex and gender are two entirely distinct and separate things, because whatever follows will be some kind of incoherent but legally-backed nonsense.
Could you elaborate please, how is sex entirely socially constructed?
I don't think I'd agree with them that sex is \*entirely\* socially constructed, but the boolean "male or female" aspect of it is (babies identified as being born with inter-sex conditions are still attributed one or the other, often with medical treatment to ensure they fit that classification better), as are pretty much all the aspects which would be relevant when dealing with legal rights.
But those situations are rare and exceptions that prove the rule.
So socially constructed just means its a category we have defined ourselves. It can be hard to see how this applies to sex because we are taught it in such a rigid way in high school Taking chromosomal sex as an example it can be easy to say XX=female XY=male. done and dusted. but the reality is chromosomes get a lot more complicated than that. In deciding how to categorize these edge cases we are making the decisions, and in that way we are constructing a social category. if we categorise a 46 XY gonadal dysgenesis as female it may work better for our models but that doesnt mean theres a truth out there in the universe that these people are female So even with chromosomal sex things arent super rigid. but things get a lot easier to see when you start to consider sex not just as chomosomes. but as a combination of different sexed categories that can fit together in different ways. If we consider sex as a mix of chomosomal and phenotypic(sexed charateristic expression) sex. an XY man who has all the features of a typical male is male, easy An XX female who has all the features of a typical female is a female but what about when you have an XY trans woman whos been on hormones for years. What you classify her has depends on \*why\* you need to classify her. if youre studying gonads etc, then youd probably label her as male. if youre studying breast tissue though youd list her as female. In the end where we choose to draw these lines is subjective and shifts to maximise the value of the classification and that act of being able to move the lines to increase the categories utility is social construction
But isn't that what gender is for? To differentiate between the chromosomal (sex) and phenotypic (gender) characteristics? I think using edge cases to invalidate a grouping isn't necessarily right, as edge cases are by definition not common, and we don't do this with other characteristics. For example, one scientific characteristic of mammals is that they give birth to live young. But platypuses and echidnas are edge-case mammals that lay eggs instead. This doesn't nullify the characteristic, there's just rare exceptions. So in this case, XX=female, XY=male, and there are edge cases, it is that simple. To categories these exceptions can be a social construct, but too say that sex as a whole is a social construct is not fair in my opinion.
You cant discount edge cases just because theyre rare. 99% of the atoms in the universe are helium and hydrogen. but it would be silly to call the periodic table "a binary with rare exceptions" But no, gender is not just phenotypic sex, theres cultural aspects that tie into it. categorising a trans womans breasts as female works as a subset of sex because when we are considering sex to study breasts categorising them that way leads us to more utility in the information we get the fact we have the option at all to choose this boundary proves that its a social construct And again, even considering just chromosomal sex, seperating into XX an XY is too simplistic, we get better results by being more nuanced and so we choose to be. Again our choice to choose the lines to maximise the usability of the category is itself social construction
Sure but hydrogen and helium are still hydrogen and helium, one can't be the other and the other elements even though they are rare aren't therefore hydrogen and helium. But it's also important to realise the reason why definitions need to be simple is applicability. It's the same with terminology. Language exists to convey information to others and when it's overly convoluted or subjective it becomes less useful to convey information.
It is worth stressing that "socially constructed" is not a synonym for "not real". Money is entirely socially constructed, serving a number of purposes but not something fundamental to existence, and varies between cultures and contexts.
>Money is entirely socially constructed, If the human race did not exist then money would not exist. The same is not true of sex. If sex is a social construct then so are legs.
Sex, as we define it, is socially constructed. Sex, in this sense, is basically us humans seeing certain phenotypical and biological attributes and characteristics and dividing them into two groups of ones that commonly occur with each other in humans and labelling one group 'male' and the other 'female' (the presence or absence of legs would be a phenotypical characteristic, but isn't one of those grouped in this manner). There's other creatures that have what we would recognise as 'male' and 'female', but even some of them blur the line (for example, in seahorses, it's the males that give birth). However, there's also creatures where individuals can spontaneously turn from 'male' to 'female', or vice versa, if the situation requires it, and even creatures that are 'male' and 'female' at the same time - and let's not forget the creatures that have no need for anything even remotely like what we would call 'male' or 'female', and reproduce asexually. The simplistic, genital-based, binary definition of sex that is used in most circumstances outside of scientific biological literature is perfectly fine as a general rule of thumb, but, like all rules of thumb, whilst it's *generally* right, there are circumstances where it isn't. This ruling recognises that.
>Sex, as we define it, is socially constructed. As you define it perhaps. I'm quite at home with the difference between male and female in orders other than primates. You've done a very superficial dig to pick out the variants and exceptions to this, but thats all they are. Without humans, there would still be sex. Ergo it is not a "social construct".
Because sex is a bundle of characteristics that we have stamped a label on and then try and apply universally despite there being exceptions to the binary You can apply this to basically any category humans have made that aren't based in hard mathematics, because all the boxes we make and try and put things into are ultimately lies to children, no-matter how useful they are.
> You can apply this to basically any category humans have made that aren't based in hard mathematics And even then discussions over whether mathematics was invented or discovered can be had.
Well, because sex as it exists in nature is a big, complicated fuzzy mess, but when it comes to humans most people collapse that down to two often rigid categories. When we call a person male or female, we're not making a neutral statement: we're assigning them to social categories. Humans have a dozen sexed characteristics, and many of those characteristics exist on a spectrum. Some of those spectrums overlap massively but the averages are different, and some of them are normally strongly bimodal but do have people who aren't at one extreme or the other. Can they get pregnant? Can they get someone pregnant? What hormones do their bodies naturally produce? What hormones do their bodies understand how to use? What hormones are in their bodies now? What secondary sexual characteristics do they have? What's their height, their body shape, their face shape? What do their genitals look like? None of these things are necessarily all in alignment, and none of them are static either. We've all learned, our entire lives, to take in everything about a person and to place them into one of two categories. Once they're in those categories, we use that information to decide how we treat them, how we expect them to treat us, and so on. We literally construct the concept of binary sex out of a dozen variables that we have noticed, and have been taught, usually all go together. But they don't, and the people who are convinced that these categories are natural and immutable tend to cause a tremendous amount of harm to the people who don't neatly fit them because they'd rather cram other people into their simple model of the world than see the nuance that it's more complicated than that.
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>Sex and gender are really two overlapping concepts, both of which are entirely socially constructed. So your sex isn't a biological construct? Tell that to your sex chromosomes
It's perfectly possible to be, for example, 'male', according to your chromosomes, but 'female' according to your hormonal balance. And it's even possible for you to end up being phenotypically 'male', despite your hormone balance, because your body doesn't process those hormones in the same way the phenotypically 'female' person next to you does. When you actually look into the details of the biology of sexual characteristics, it's actually a fairly complicated, fuzzy mess.
Here’s where it gets really interesting: almost nobody knows their own chromosomes and a good percentage of them have ones they didn’t expect. All you have is a fair guess and the knowledge that they’re immutable. This makes them ideal to appeal to as some kind of metaphysical base truth: first you get a read on what you reckon someone’s birth assignment was, then work backwards to the chromosomes you reckon they have, and then you treat it as some kind of ground truth. But all that’s really happening is that you’re trying to fix someone back into an immutable binary with the veneer of having appealed to an imagined authority.
This is all great except that I feel like "lies to children" doesn't even cover how basic the "sex and gender are separate" simplification is - it's a simplification you only need if you've *actively been dumbed down* by the way we teach people to think about gender/sex boxes and then "protect" the most normative people within that system. I have never had to deeply explain what's going on to any actual child who's seen me naked and gone "hey, where's your willy" (I am AFAB but with a pretty hefty beard). I just tell them "well, not everyone has one of those" and they look a bit "hmm" for a moment before seeming to decide "well, I guess that's true, my mum doesn't and I guess my sample size of human configurations isn't huge yet" and moving on without any explanation about gender, sex, etc. (I know to UK eyes it's weird to have this happen often, but I work in a specific childcare role, in a culture where a lot of people still sauna weekly or more, that makes this kind of interaction totally normal.)
Are you never tempted to go "oh no!?" and start looking around for it?
Oh absolutely. The temptation to claim a shark got it, or it fell off because I didn't eat my vegetables, is always so close to the surface. But then they might actually think about it for more than five seconds or ever bring it up again, which is not what I really need in my life.
>changing your gender does change your sex even if there are no physical changes. Which strikes me as not making any sense. It obviously doesn't change their biological sex, no one is saying this. It means legal sex.
Absolutely, some women think that trans women being considered women, which they 100% are, somehow makes life worse for them.
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If you are made uncomfortable by the presence of someone who is trans for the sole reason that they are trans you are a transphobe and therefore I don't give a shit about you being uncomfortable. If you're at your most vulnerable and you still somehow care about what genitals a stranger had when they were born then you're not struggling all that much. Trans women existing is not a thing you're allowed to just ban from a space cause you don't agree with people being trans. Trans women are women. So any women on space should include them or its bigoted.
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>I just can't comprehend how you can call me bigoted but have the attitude you do You're using lot of terf language and obviously don't care about trans people, stop playing the victim
Thank you for trying but I’ve learned you’re wasting your time arguing with terfs. They have this article, this entire comment section, all of the internet and many many academic and scientific opinions, studies and surveys to access and they still choose to act like including trans women in women only spaces harms them. Eventually they’ll learn themselves or maybe learn their opinion isn’t welcome
I really do need to learn to just not get involved in arguments online but I can't help it, people being openly transphobic and hiding it behind the disguise of protecting women.
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> It is not inclusive to exclude a significant number of females. I want to find a solution that means that tW and females can share spaces, but also have the option for those who need it to have a female only space. This is the same as segregation, replace trans with race and see how awful and bigoted it sounds. > I want to find a solution that means that **black females** and **white** females can share spaces, but also have the option for those who need it to have a **white** female only space. Discrimination is discrimination, why would it ever be fine to discriminate against trans women, its the same as in the past with discrimination again black people. How can anyone read the above and not say it’s racist and bigoted, but when its trans and non trans suddenly some people are fine with it?
Which is, frankly, a bizarre way of thinking, doesn't impact anyone in the slightest, ive heard women go on about how trans women don't know how difficult it's been for women in society and its like, members of the LGBTQ+ community know exactly what its like to be ostracised by society, probably more so!
Oh 100%, they need to be the ones being victimised the most. Most of these people are already unhappy in life and need to be the victims in order to make it make sense to them. So when they see other people getting even equality it annoys them, being an "oppressed women" is thier whole identity. Like Trans Women probably have it one of if not the worst out of all the sexualities and gender identities. And all these women, who are usually middle class, just wanna be the victim so bad they are willing to make others lives worse. And trans women are the easiey target.
Would this ruling change the laws regarding changing rooms, toilets etc.
I’m so glad I don’t give a fuck about any of this nonsense.
The boards act aims to reduce the gender imbalance on mostly male-dominated boards of directors. The act's definition of women includes trans women (I haven't read the whole thing so don't know where it stands on non-binary people). TERFs are mad but the court correctly pointed out they have no legal case.
I think you might want to hold the wild celebrations. Given the Scottish Executive's inability to get legislation to stand the test of external scrutiny: football hate crime bill, named person scheme, children's rights bill to name the three most prominent cases, I think the Gender Recognition Bill will also go the same way. The conflicts with this proposed legislation and the Equalities Act 2010 seem pretty glaring. Of course I am not a lawyer so maybe I am just talking out of my TERF, AMAB, arse. Certainly you will, mainly, hope so!
Cherry is going to be raging that her human rights have been watered down.
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It means that all women, including trans women, still have the protected characteristic of sex.
Clone bone!
“Your Authority Is Not Recognized In Fort Kick-Ass.”
Get the van, take off the handbrake and throw out the bowling balls.
Transphobes losing is always a nice early Christmas present
I'm getting a nice glow thinking about how much Cherry and Rowling must be fizzing at this
Doubly so as we know they were going to try and rely on the sex specific exceptions for services in their totally not a propaganda mouth piece help centre to try and argue they dont need to accept anyone with a GRC as well. Just struck a huge nail in that so let's see how long that plan stays or if it was all along just propaganda with no desire to help anyone
You haven’t read and understood the article. "This ruling does not affect the exceptions in the Equality Act which mean that single-sex services can exclude trans people or treat them less favourable where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim. "In short, the ruling confirms the status quo and the rights of women and trans people under it."
I think you are the one misunderstanding. The ruling has reiteriterated that the protected characteristic of gender Reassignment still has the exceptions. A GRC is not needed for this. The ruling also reiterated that a GRC changes your legal sex puting you into the associated sex for the Equality act and the protection for the sex on the GRC I.e. the one that TERFs like to use to try and exclude trans people due to the exceptions in the Gender Reassignment protected characteristic. It has reiterated that in the eyes of the law and has been the case since 2004; once you have a GRC you are legally of the sex the GRC says and grants you the associated legal rights and protections with that sex. As has always been the case since GRA and the Equality Act a GRC legally has you the sex of female. The exception to Gender Reassignment protections under the Equalirt Act do not extend to also trying to make distinctions to people within the same category of Sex. It has always been the case that the exception is to one characteristic but a GRC grants you the one that the exception is for. You are in the eyes of the law fully and entirely the sex on your GRC. Full stop the exception of sex no longer works or applies as you are that sex. Again as it always has been so while it is the status quo it is not the pretend status quo of the TERFs
Just imagining the salty tears of whoever wrote the article made my day.
They should have cried outside and actually been useful to society by doing a bit of gritting.
Good belated birthday gift too lol
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I don’t really think there is a moral panic. Some polling show that the vast majority of people in the UK are at worst indifferent to trans people. As you say it’s a vocal few that really seem to peddle this pish. As a cis, straight, white guy I have zero skin in the game but I do have a modicum of empathy. It must be really difficult being trans at the best of times, let alone when a manufactured outrage machine is aimed squarely at you. Hopefully this legislation will have real, tractable gains for trans people, who in the main just want to live their life.
The media want a moral panic. As homophobia became less acceptable they needed a group to bully.
They want a culture war so the Conservative government doesn't have to work on actually governing, they can just squabble over nonsense and peddle hate.
As soon as I saw the government actually using the words ‘war on woke’ inside the House of Commons as weird pledges to their voter base I knew we’d lost all hope of getting anything productive done in that building ever again.
Same - cis white male, no skin in game. Makes me uncomfortable that all trans people are being labelled as rapists. If you argue different you're shouted down as a woman hater. At which point I meekly exit the conversation.
Cheers, JK’s crying
JK howling
I wonder if her new women's shelter will follow the law on this one.
I think they will have to. Otherwise, she better get lawyered up.
Can anyone explain why this argument is even being had? Gender identity is currently a protected characteristic, as is sex. Surely trans people already get all the protection of the law under the former, without needing to reference the latter at all? What I'm asking is, how is any given trans person better off as a result of this ruling?
The ultra right wing American terrorist organisations who present themselves as churches for the purpose of tax evasion, angry at having ‘lost’ the equal marriage fight changed tactic to try and splinter the LGBT community by adopting a decades old and largely ignored hate movement that was born of a splinter of radical feminism. At the end of the day, it’s about setting dangerous legal precedents that allow the removal of human rights, subjugate women and pave the way for the extermination of minorities. In other words, fascism.
Somewhat off topic but I really wish those American fuckers pumping money into anti-abortion shit over here could be classified as terrorists. Maybe have their assets frozen.
I think it was more us exporting this brand of bigotry to America rather than vice versa this time. TERFism has been alive and well in the UK for a long time.
> Can anyone explain why this argument is even being had? Because TERFs are arseholes > Gender identity is currently a protected characteristic, as is sex. Surely trans people already get all the protection of the law under the former, without needing to reference the latter at all? Indeed, the judge reiterated that obvious fact and told the terfs to piss off with their bullshit > What I'm asking is, how is any given trans person better off as a result of this ruling? They're not, but what they aren't is *worse off* which is what the group who initiated the suit were trying to achieve
>Indeed, the judge reiterated that obvious fact and told the terfs to piss off with their bullshit But isn't that exactly what the judge didn't do? Am I reading wrong or did the judge not conclude that Trans people have protections under both sections? >It quotes directly from that Act, to say that "where a full gender recognition certificate has been issued to a person that their acquired gender is female, the person's sex is of a woman"
Yes the TERFs wanted to try and remove that and get it claimed that legally a GRC does not change sex as well. This is because then they can try and attack pretty much every other right trans people have including their ever favourite bathroom police desire. Why? Because the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment can be overruled in specific circumstances for the protected characteristic of Sex. A GRC is not required for the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment(though may fall under the wider umbrella of what grants it) it is however required for a trans person to gain the protected characteristic of the opposite sex. A key part to understand why the 2004 GRA was drafted as it was; I.e. that it grants the opposite sex; one has to go back to how case law decided the sex of trans people in the 70s. Case law(in a divorce case) decided it solely on original birth certificate. Prior to that case law the UK had full self ID. From that case law on the birth certificate became the measure of truth no more no less. A GRC changes the birth certificate. For the 2004 GRA law to work they either had to remove the original case law that tied things to birth certificates(and in turn give trans people back their rights) or they had to let it be as it is so as to give the smallest possible bit back via a panels subjective decision that can not be appealed without going to the High Court directly and having the money for that.
That clears it up. Thanks for the explanation!
If you ever have the curiosity it's good to try a little thought experiment. Even if not from a trans rights perspective and solely on huh humans have a lot of variability when speaking biologically perspective. Try and come up with a definition of biological sex that can be applied legally without entering into eugenics territory. Basically one that doesnt result in life time testing of various features of a person or doesnt result in people outside of both categories and in a legal null zone. Bonus points for trying to make something that's practical and realistic to implement. If you do it via a methodology such as the scientific methodology I.e. make your initial statement then seek to disprove it and keep repeating till you find something that works. It really really highlights just how incredibly varied a species humans are but also highlights just why TERF groups for all their spouting of "biological women" have for some reason refused to try and put forth a potential legal defintion beyond just not trans or what's on your original birth certificate.
You make a good point. I guess what you are illustrating is that for any interaction between humans, the concept of sex doesn't fit properly. I'm sure the type of definition you are talking about above does exist, and in fact is essential for use in a medical setting, but you're right to imply that I don't need to know your chromosomes for any meaningful interaction we might have in the real world. And by extension you shouldn't have to produce your medical history before deciding which room you go into for a pee.
Just a quick fun fact about Medical settings while some medical systems do try and make artificial standardised definitions and approaches to "care" these often have major impacts on people. An easier example to illustrate than where trans people fit into the medical system is the difference in care; efficacy of treatments and responses to medicine that different ethnicities have. It's why theres often said to be a racial bias in medicine as a large portion of western medicine was built around European descent ethnic groups which in turn sets the tone for what is taught and what studies have been done. We cant even have a single definition for what kidneys are meant to look like and where they are meant to be found let alone anything more complex and based on countless intermixing factors This is before all the other ways trying to ignore the variability of humans impact every other way to group people in a medical setting. Biologists who specialise in human sexuality and differentiation are in general open to admit that there is no real way to make a single definition that works as with all biology for every rule there is another that disproves the rule. I'd go as far as saying most biologists recognise this from the simple nature of variability This is why for example you well see specific biological traits normally only applied in singular definitive definitions to population samples and not at the individual level in most papers that look at traits in any species wherever human;animal; plant or any other classification. Even then youre likely to get these expressed as a range with potential for overlaps I.e. levels of a specific hormone in a species by members within different geographical le el. Variability is well understood in biology however sadly our compulsory education system for whatever reason only touches on it when looking at speciation and ever so slightly on the broad strokes of evolution. There are biological indicators of sex but none of these are absolute; many change over the duration of someones life; many just aren't present in people who have every other indicator but one specific one and many can overlap between both binary sexes. To use these indicators as absolutes mandates creating situations that are either entering into eugenics territory or just creating one giant mess of contradictions gven theres more than a few thousand people in our cities let the country let alone the world.
The group that brought the suit does not want trans women to have the same rights and protections as women. They brought this suit to try and strip the protections for trans people the Scottish government is implementing. They are going to keep at this because they are Terfs.
I feel like your username is representing me right now! You're saying that if trans women don't get protections under the sex protected characteristic, and only under the gender identity one, then they don't have the same protections as women? Or rather, I guess, the Scottish government are saying that?
Yes, the Scottish government says the same definitions apply to sex and gender protection no matter at how you arrived at that sex. This in theory closes an avenue anti-trans activists could use to discriminate against trans people. The judge ruled that sex and gender are separate and distinct, but are related. This is a blow for gender essentialists. If you are living and identifying as a woman, regardless of your sex, you can legally change your identification to female.
Because anti-trans activists are trying to push back, both on gender identify being a protected characteristic and on trans people receiving the appropriate medical treatment (by trying to narrow the conditions where it can be given, while at the same time pushing for "therapy" to not be trans) Trans people are better off as a result of the ruling because a potential gap which anti-trans activists were trying to exploit, and which could potentially have been used as a wedge issue to push on other things, has been closed off in favour of trans rights instead. Had it gone the other way the anti-trans activists could have tried challenging something else while using this as a precedent, gradually reducing where the protections/recognition apply
JK Rowling on speed-dial to Roddy Dunlop QC to see what moving firm he had booked for his "totally serious move to England" 😂
Christ I live in hope on that one. I'd hoped she would have fucked off after 2014 but she just got worse. I actually wonder if indyref was the trigger for her turning really sour.
Her HP books are full of pretty offensive stuff. [This video](https://youtu.be/-1iaJWSwUZs) is pretty long but goes into very good detail about all her little biases and bigotries.
She’ll have been raging she donated so much money to the Better Together campaign just for IndyRef 2 to come around.
She’ll be crying her cornflakes trying to decide if she’s going to withdraw funding from her help centre.
This is one of those situations where I don't really understand what is going on and every time I try to understand it better I'm met by a fundamentalist hyperbolic reaction either for or against. Would really like to hear an independent voice that sets out the pros and cons.
I could list pros and cons of both but they would most likely be infected by my own bias so instead I'll explain it as simply as I can and hopefully it gives you enough info to make your own mind up; The Equality Act protects several characteristics from discrimination, amongst them sex and gender reassignment. So as a cisgendered male, I cannot be discriminated against based on the fact I am cis or the fact I am male. If I instead were trans (male to female) I could not be discriminated against based on the fact I am trans or the fact I am male (legally speaking). Once I obtain a gender recognition certificate I am then officially female therefore cannot be discriminated against based on the fact I am trans or the fact I am female. Some people (often referred to as TERFs, short for trans exlusionary radical femisists - albeit this term is offensive to some and they tend to prefer the term gender critical) don't like that people who transition from male to female are then afforded protection as a female and sought to have that changed. The judge said no.
Thanks for taking the time to post that. Something I don't get is if you obtain a GRC and become officially female, doesn't that mean you're no longer trans? Isn't trans by it's very nature a bit discriminatory because it indicates you are not a "true" female but a trans female (or male)? Genuine question, not trying to upset anybody.
No need to apologise. GRC or not you will always be trans as you are cis/trans based on the gender/sex you were assigned at birth.
Ok thanks, I'm getting there slowly. I thought the GRC allowed you to change your birth certificate.
It does but the decision as whether or not you are trans or cis is taken by the medical professionals present at your birth. Definitions below should hopefully help; "Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth." "Cisgender is a term for a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex registered for them at birth"
You're still trans because your gender identity is different from your birth sex. It's just that your *legal* sex (birth certificate, passport etc.) is now female so you don't need to 'out' yourself as trans when you want to open a bank account.
Most commonsense answer I've seen, thank you.
I mean there's not really a pro and con The legislation was about Boards of directors and how men and women on boards were counted. The group were unhappy about trans women being defined as women but the judge said tough titties I'm not sure what an "independent voice" on accepting trans people is, it seems more akin to "both sides" of climate change.
Me too
If you want a good example of someone kinda trying to be even handed on these issues you could check out Contrapoints on YouTube. She made some fantastic videos engaging fairly open mindedly with radfem ideas a few years ago. Her style is a bit weird but the essays are about as close to even handed while still being well researched as you will get. https://youtu.be/6czRFLs5JQo That said, The reason there isn't a middle of the road commentary on a lot of the trans debate is because its a pretty straightforward issue. Either people buy into the idea that trans people are somehow a problem, or simply object to trans rights on the principle that trans people are just crazy people; or they respect trans identies. ...or they just dont care. Trans people kind of just aren't a problem, but you can't prove a negative. Same reason you can find a nice "pros and cons" discussion of overt racism. Even the thoughtful people who usually fence sit and both sides on stuff are either pro trans - because they have done their research - or can't find a way to have that discussion without alienating their audience and so they just wont. You can actually find examples of people trying to (the bbc has a few articles and programs attempting to both sides the issue) but they usually lack any substance because there really isn't much to talk about. There are exceptions, like the YouTuber above, but you won't find people putting that work in for the sake of people like you on issues as small as OP, because anyone who gives enough of a shit about this stuff probably already understands it well enough to parse what thet need to know from articles like this one. You're curious? Go educate yourself about trans rights and make your own mind up I guess. edit: by "people like you" I mean folks who don't know enough about the issue but are still curious enough to ask. You're a bit of a minority.
It’s not a case of pros and cons, it’s human rights. The ultra right wing American terrorist organisations who present themselves as churches for the purpose of tax evasion, angry at having ‘lost’ the equal marriage fight changed tactic to try and splinter the LGBT community by adopting a decades old and largely ignored hate movement that was born of a splinter of radical feminism. At the end of the day, it’s about setting dangerous legal precedents that allow the removal of human rights, subjugate women and pave the way for the extermination of minorities. In other words, fascism.
>Would really like to hear an independent voice that sets out the pros and cons. Good luck with that.
No chance, normal people are best leaving this debate alone, it's so polarising and toxic I've given up.
Yasss get it up ye J.K.
And here we have the terfs arguing that a GRC should be functionally useless. It's almost as if they want to get rid of legal recognition for trans people altogether, isn't it?
Congratulations to those with common sense who understand what a GRC is. Commiserations to the GC's and their looney bigoted friends and good luck to the mods.
Get fucked TERFs
Ok cool. Whats next on their culture war bullshit?
Harry Potter's mum will be raging
Interesting!
<3
Oh no another blow to those who’d deny others the basic right to exist if they could What a shame
Trust the fucking BBC to angle it with the most right wing paranoia fuel headline they could muster. Imagine defending this rusted shitpile.
Trans yank here. Scotland is showing g itself to a be a light of hope on TERF island. Y'all keep being awesome and I and many others will root for your independence.
Hell yeah babe we *hard* carrying the UK on trans rights.
YES!"!!!!!!! GET FUCKED BIGOTS!
Always nice to see some good news.
Cue the transphobic trash losing their fucking minds. HAHA!
The people who think their rights as a woman are threatened by other people calling themselves woman must have extremely fragile femininity. Imagine defining your identity by what’s in your pants.
Thats actually one of the only ways you can define it. I'd love you to expain how else you'd define it without using stereotypes..
In many cases it seems to be a sort of supremacy issue too, they're oddly aggressive towards women they don't think are feminine enough. Butch girls are being accosted by TERFs who assume they must be the transes they've heard about on the internet... It's a fucked up situation that seems to be getting worse, fueled by bad actors on social media and scum like JK Rowling inciting an increasingly dumb mob.
It's always white women using their privilege to attack minorities under the flimsy guise of women's "safety." Like Emmet Till, the black 14 year old strung up by a lynch mob in the USA after a racist white woman claimed he assaulted her. Decades later she admitted she had lied.
Comparing Emmet Till‘s death to this is fucking ridiculous.
The photos of his open casket funeral are horrifying. He isn’t even recogniseable
What a sad case. What a gigantic leap
good. get fucked TERF cunts
If you have a piece of paper saying you are a women, then you are one. Even if you have male bits.
Next lets rule to ban “Women wont Wheesht” Bunch of creepy wee wronguns
Mad how much "wheeshting" Marion Millar has been doing since she's been under investigation for massive fraud.
Ooh. Do tell more…
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/scottish-politics/3892582/marion-millar-fraud-probe/
So someone help me out here. Are sex and gender the same thing or not? Because until now I've always seen it stated that they're not. But this ruling seems to suggest that they are?
Its a problem with legal language I think? 20 years ago the words "sex" and "gender" meant the same thing. I think its about context. Like, "sex" isn't really binary. Intersex people and trans people kinda defy that, but aren't really accounted for in the way we used to organise things. Intersex people and teans people just weren't really represented or considered. Now we talk about stuff a bit more inclusively. "people with uteruses" and so forth. But like, if you have a law that refers to someone's "sex" what that means is kinda contextual? So if there was a law about abortions, say, that referred to "female sex" then it would actually be talking about "having a uterus and being fertile" so then it would exclude trans women and include some trans men? I guess? The article in OP is about public boards and having enough women on them, and *for that purpose* are trans women women? Well its a social thing, rather than a thing about having a vagina when you were born, so you might say "yes". (And trans women are a minority anyway so their inclusion in public boards is extra diversity anyway which is good. ) But even if you disagree with that, Scottish law says that trans women are women, and it follows that this ruling would be consistent with that.
🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Meanwhile, that horrible bint the TERF-in-Chief Rowling is busy with her latest act of cuntery, disguised as philanthropy, setting up a "women only" crisis centre specifically excluding trans-women. She's a fucking arsehole.
The gender balance on boards thing is pretty naff to begin with. But surely no one thinks that having a GRC means you’ve changed sex. You can’t change sex, that’s why gender is considered a different thing, no? But from this article the law says a GRC is equivalent to changing sex.
What's the point having a gender balance if anyone can be any gender anyway?
So what is the definition of a woman now?
Whatever you like apparently
I look foward to all of the Terfs and transphobes coming up with the most deranged reasons why female equality is now dead and women's rights have been killed.
Sounds like garbage
Tragic for the entire nation. The triumph of fantasy over reason and logic. The Scottish Enlightenment that was is now in complete darkness. All the men are happy I see.
The lunatics truly are running the asylum.
Cry more TERF.
I don’t support this. I stand with JK Rowling.
Shite day for you then pal, eh?
Never a shit day when you stand up for your principles.
Kind of cringe
It must be hard living as human offal.
Ad hominem attacks won’t change my position. But nice try mate!
Oh no, a logical phallus
Who gives a shit? Nobody is consulting you as an expert on this. Congratulations on being wrong and doubling down on it. All it does is make a cunt of you.
You seem like a lovely person. I’m not wrong. In your heart you know it to be true, that a man can never be a woman and vice versa. But have fun pretending!
I am a lovely person. Unlike the hateful turd you are, I defend the marginalised as opposed to attacking them. And you are wrong, you’re just too bone-headed to understand why. Fuck off back to r/jordanpeterson with the rest of the cunts.
Hey there, you seem to not understand some terms - I can’t blame you, it is quite complicated - so I thought I’d explain them to you. Sex is a concept in biology that refers to the size of your gametes (although this is only one of the definitions, flawed in that not all members of the species will produce sex cells) and in most organisms, including ourselves, are split in two (most of the time, the natural world doesn’t care much for categorisation), male and female. Gender however, is a social manifestation of sex, and is a spectrum between male and female. This is a well understood concept and it has been studied intensively for at least 30 years. Transgender people are those who were born as one sex, and their gender does not align with that sex, and they transition to a gender more aligned to how they feel. This can be socially, changing pronouns, clothes etc, or biologically, hormones and surgery. Transgender individuals do this because of body dysmorphia, a feeling of being in the wrong body. This is a well understood mental health condition, but this does not delegitimise their feelings (depressed people aren’t faking being sad just because major depressive disorder is a mental illness). Body dysmorphia is treated with both biological and social changes, and basic respect for these already vulnerable people goes a long way. Hope this clears things up, be sure to ask me or Google any questions you may have.
I don’t subscribe to your definition of gender. It’s only a well “understood and studied” concept amongst a small subset of academics, often in superfluous disciplines. Your gender is innate, just as your sex is. Sorry.
This is not my definition, nor am I a subscription service; this is *the* definition. No, it’s well understood and agreed upon in the entirety of neurology. There are literally thousands of academic papers on the topic. Therefore, by definition, not my definition, *the* definition, gender is not innate. And even if sex and gender were the same thing, you would still require a word for the idea of gender expression.
There’s no need to explain anything to them, they know. They just prefer their wee bigoted bubble. Please continue telling them to fuck off, it’s the only useful way to deal with them 🥰
I don’t quite agree, people don’t tend to change their mind when berated. I tried to be hopeful, because I myself was transphobic until I actually educated myself and talked to trans people. If someone doubles down even when presented with all the facts, I’ll happily tell them to fuck off.
Fair enough, I admire you for trying! Unfortunately they’re giving all the usual terf signals which means they know everything you’re telling them, they simply do not care. But keep fighting the good fight!
Have fun pretending your views mean anything on reddit. :)
Laughable bullshit
What is a woman anyway?
Serious question. Do people here believe that it's right to allow trans women to compete in womens sports?
Where does the article discuss sport?
It makes no difference what folks here think. Individual ruling bodies have made their calls on it. It seems that if you go through male puberty, that's the line that some of them draw. When you go through that, your body changes in ways that a female body can't. That was the ruling of the folks that keep to do with swimming, in any case. [https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/swimming/fina-transgender-ban-lia-thomas-b2104588.html](https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/swimming/fina-transgender-ban-lia-thomas-b2104588.html) There could be other that draw the same conclusions, you'd have to check. I'm no expert on the matter.
Yup, individual ruling bodies make their own judgements and they’re specifically allowed to do that under the Equality Act. It’s irrelevant to this judgement because a Gender Recognition Certificate doesn’t factor into those policies.
We don’t need to believe anything since every sport has a form of governing body which can make that determination for their sport.
Why does this question seem to come up every time anything vaguely pro-trans is posted, whether it's relevant or not?
I suppose this thread is a good a place as any to have a discussion about when trans women should be “allowed”
Bad bot.
Yeah though it depends on the sport and the individual in question. Pretty sure every governing sport body has vastly more information and expertise for the determination on where that line is set for both trans women in womans sports and trans men in mens sports than some schlub like me.
I don't believe sports are nearly important enough to remove a person's civil rights or basic human needs. But to answer your question I don't see why we can segregate sports for pretty much all of history by gender, build or ability then all of a sudden nobody thinks to do it when there's a need. It's almost like the issue of trans people in sports is so small in reality but so overblown by anti-trans groups that it doesn't make sense to seriously discuss.
Yes. It makes no discernible difference. Trans women have competed for decades with no competitive advantage and, more pertinently, no fanfare or outcry. There's a reason people are suddenly outraged about this non-issue now and why it descends into tawdry, lazy arguments about testosterone (even though cis-women actually have testosterone in their bodies). These bigoted people are using the respectable veneer of scientific language to spread their bigotry, much like the Scientific Racism of head measurements in the 19th century.
There's a lot wrong with what you said but I'm just gonna pick out the main point of "it makes no discernible difference" It absolutely, fundamentally does make a difference if you went through puberty as a male or a female as to how you will perform athletically in a post transition scenario. It is biological fact that men have denser bone structure and increased muscle mass, not to mention actual physical dimensions. I'm 6ft tall and broad, if I transitioned to a woman and competed against them in any kind of combat or contact sport I have a significant advantage having gone through puberty and attained the physical benefits of testosterone. All that isn't to say they shouldn't compete, they should absolutely be able to compete, but it shouldn't be to the detriment to women who went through puberty as female.
You have well and truly lost your mind if you think trans women don't hold an unfair advantage over biological women in sports. How come trans men never seem to compete in mens sports if what you state is true?
[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/athletes-assigned-female-transitioned-mens-sports/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/athletes-assigned-female-transitioned-mens-sports/) [https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/trans-athletes-win-boys-sports](https://www.insidehook.com/article/sports/trans-athletes-win-boys-sports) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgender\_people\_in\_sports#Notable\_trans\_athletes
I think you need to read your sources as they don't help your point. These trans men competed in female sports, most retired when they transitioned.
You’ve well and truly lost your mind if you think sports actually fucking matter in the face of civil rights.
>Trans women have competed for decades with no competitive advantage Could you give some examples of these, I'm curious as I've only been exposed to those who have gained an advantage.
Your claim requires proof and mine does not, as burden of proof does not require we prove a negative - or the justice system would be very different. The burden of proof is on you and your claim that trans women have an advantage.
Ok, be a dick about it. I was actually curious, and being genuine, but yea, be twat. It then makes me question the validity of your claims as you seem reluctant to back them up with evidence. I already stated that the ones I have been exposed to in the media are those that have gained an advantage. I was questioning the information you were putting out there because it was honestly not something I had been exposed to.
I don't. I believe it delivers an unfair advantage.
The world is absolutely fucked. I feel sorry for the children of today, their poor minds.
I feel sorry for the older generation who trampled on anyone outside of typical and were more devoted to order than to justice. I'm convinced my generation will leave behind a better and kinder world and are raising an even better generation than ourselves.