UK Supreme Court Decision on Gender

[rareboy]

I quite agree.
Treating minorities fairly is a two way street. The very vocal activism is self defeating as it alienates Joe Public who are the very people you want to treat you fairly.
I, too, feel absolutely nothing in common with the T in LGBT. They are, by their very extreme actions, poisoning the well of good will that LGB's have fought for over the years.

QED

 

[bankside]

We do? As a gay man, I find it a stretch to feel any significant degree of affinity with lesbians. Transgenderism isn't about sexual orientation and I find it even more difficult to identity with trans rights. If the argument is that members of one minority should club together to support the rights of other minorities, then why limit it to LGBT? What about the rights of amputees? Or Jehovah's Witnesses? I'm in favour of treating all minorities with respect and for enacting appropriate legislation to counter discrimination, but anyone who expects me to automatically defend trans rights specifically because G and T have been lumped together in LGBT is going to be sadly mistaken.

Lesbians make sense to me insofar as I can relate to the same-sex part. It seems less illogical to me than heterosexuality, which intellectually I quite appreciate but emotionally I will never get the hang of.

I can also easily relate to trans people wanting the rights not to be persecuted or assaulted or fired, I get all that.

However the basic premise of trans activism for the last ten years seems to have been that trans people are interchangeable with non-trans people in every and all circumstances, in effect, that "trans people are not trans." Not only has it been ineffective activism, it's just profoundly mistaken. That difference perpetually matters, in many topics. Like sexual orientation first and foremost. The sexual orientation of every person alive is based on their reaction to someone else's physicality. It is not something that someone else can just "identify as" and become a part of.

For a court to stand up and say "actually natal sex never loses its relevance for some situations" is not a breath of fresh air, more like a gust of very fresh, sane air, in a conversation that had become very stagnant. The Court made it clear that it isn't open season on trans people, and they are not now "designated victims". I'll gladly stand with trans people to hold the court to their word on that. But the idea that trans and non-trans people are different only in trivialities was false, corrosive to goodwill to the point it was undermining all our equality, and creating easily avoidable tension. I'm glad that's been called out for what it was - misguided and not applicable.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I hope that wherever we live, we will find ways to go an extra mile to help trans people in our communities. The online comments from those seeing the UK ruling as a rebuke to wokeness have been horrible.

We all know that it's literally impossible to stamp out evil in this world. But we also know that we can help counter it by being the light. Sometimes it is in small ways, sometimes great.

When the Trump administrattion began eviscerating DEI, I bought that idiot rainbow-sequined hippo-unicorn and sat it on my cubicle wall, so anyone coming to see me would have to see it first. I don't relate to rainbows or unicorns, but the symbol by a 64-year-old accountant's desk is unmistakable, especially in a defense company in Alabama.

My company doesn't allow political statements at work, so I made no explicit statement, but I did. My boss is a big homophobe, so I had to.

Now I have to figure out how to support local trans people.

 

[unloadonme]

The online comments from those seeing the UK ruling as a rebuke to wokeness have been horrible.

I've only seen the online comments here on JUB, but, to an extent, I do see the Supreme Court ruling as a rebuke to wokeness. There are those who would have us believe that if a person self-identifies as X, then he or she immediately and unquestionably becomes X and must be treated accordingly. The court has clearly said that legally that is simply not the case. Maybe rebuke isn't quite the right word, but the judgement has been widely reported in the press as a blow for common sense.

 

[luckynumbah7]

However the basic premise of trans activism for the last ten years seems to have been that trans people are interchangeable with non-trans people in every and all circumstances, in effect, that "trans people are not trans." Not only has it been ineffective activism, it's just profoundly mistaken. That difference perpetually matters, in many topics. Like sexual orientation first and foremost. The sexual orientation of every person alive is based on their reaction to someone else's physicality. It is not something that someone else can just "identify as" and become a part of.

Sexual orientation as the barometer for gender, huh. "I don't want to fuck you so you don't count gender-wise' is not the rebuttal you think it is.

And whoo-boy is there a lot wrong with this thread.

 

[NotHardUp1]

I've only seen the online comments here on JUB, but, to an extent, I do see the Supreme Court ruling as a rebuke to wokeness. There are those who would have us believe that if a person self-identifies as X, then he or she immediately and unquestionably becomes X and must be treated accordingly. The court has clearly said that legally that is simply not the case. Maybe rebuke isn't quite the right word, but the judgement has been widely reported in the press as a blow for common sense.

The comments I saw were hateful. They repeated the lie that trans people are monstrous predators, even pedophiles. Typically, they brought in a young girl as a frightened "victim" of being present in a bathroom with a trans M-T-F person.

To restore sanity in language and law is justice. To hate people who see society differently is hate, and I reserve hate for those who do evil intentionially, not misguidedly, not in desperate defense of what they see as just, even when unreasonable and unimplementable for society.

That is the greatest failing of our Trump administration above all others: it elevates vengeance, peeve, hatefulness and malice above the necessity of social comity, destroying society itself, and doing so with a faux righteousness.

 

[NotHardUp1]

And whoo-boy is there a lot wrong with this thread.

In my observation, this has been a core problem in discussions or debates of orientation, gender identity, and civil rights stemming from either. At worst, somone with a contradictory view is an enemy with almost diabolical motives. At best, it is a sorely mistaken fool who could not be enlightened, as if an intellect were below febrile or lacking compassion more than a sociopath.

The topics become sacrosanct, with identity, morality, ethics, or religion quickly trumping all so that the entire dialogue is made impossible before it really begins. Public protests are, in truth, but a pale shadow of the absolutes that overhadow the conflict.

 

[Taz]

An incredibly illogical move by the UK. Even ignoring transgender people, are they going to pretend that intersex people don’t exist?

 

[NotHardUp1]

An incredibly illogical move by the UK. Even ignoring transgender people, are they going to pretend that intersex people don’t exist?

More a questiton of practicality and numbers. The impacts to sports, public accommodations, and other practical and concrete dimensions made the ruling necessary.

Otherwise, society is left with a limitless number of identities and no realistic method of incorporattion.

My nation still has not yet complied with the mandated accommodation for physically handicapped individuals, and it has been ongoing for about six decades.

 

[Taz]

More a questiton of practicality and numbers. The impacts to sports, public accommodations, and other practtical and concrete dimensions made the ruling necessary.

Otherwise, society is left with a limitless number of identities and no realistic method of incorporattion.

My nation still has not yet complied with the mandated accommodation for physically handicapped individuals, and it has been ongoing for about six decades.

Convenient how it’s practical to define people out of existence.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Convenient how it’s practical to define people out of existence.

Not truly.

The court went to great pains to recognize the reality of trans people, but separated sex from gender, which has been the crux of of the conflict. Trans advocates insist they are interchangeable, no pun intended.

 

[Taz]

Not truly.

The court went to great pains to recognize the reality of trans people, but separated sex from gender, which has been the crux of of the conflict. Trans advocates insist they are interchangeable, no pun intended.

By enshrining the term “woman” into law as referring only to sex, they have done the exact opposite of what you are saying.

Woman is a gender term. And if you’re struggling with that ask yourself these questions and why you answer how you do.

Can a dog be a female?
Can a dog be a woman?

 

[unloadonme]

By enshrining the term “woman” into law as referring only to sex, they have done the exact opposite of what you are saying.

Woman is a gender term. And if you’re struggling with that ask yourself these questions and why you answer how you do.

Can a dog be a female?
Can a dog be a woman?

Female dogs are called bitches. I don't think that sort of argument is going to get us very far.

There was a time when sex and gender were interchangeable and meant more or less the same thing. As the trans issue has become more prominent there has been a tendency to redefine gender so it means something different and more fluid. The Supreme Court decision essentially says that sex (ie biological sex) can't be changed and that a trans woman is not a woman. The court also held that sex is binary, so someone who is not a woman is a man.

There is separate legislation in the UK which enables trans women (and trans men) to be given a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in certain circumstances. I posted a link to the legislation in an earlier post. A trans woman with a GRC is legally of the female gender for the purposes of the Gender Recognition Act but still a man for the purposes of the Equality Act. That's why I said that a GRC creates a form of legal fiction.

It seems to me there are three ways of approaching this. Firstly, there's the view that it's impossible to change the sex one was born into. A trans woman is simply a man who presents as a woman. Secondly, it is possible to change gender but not biological sex. That's the current legal position in the UK. Thirdly, a person is considered to have changed sex and gender for all purposes when they self-identify as having done so. I go to gay bars regularly and the third option appears to be generally accepted there. The "acts" use the mention of people who don't share that view (typically J K Rowling) to get pantomime boos.

It's not just J K Rowling who has difficulty with the third option. Germaine Greer said "I’ve asked my doctor to give me long ears and liver spots and I’m going to wear a brown coat but that won’t turn me into a fucking cocker spaniel". A crude analogy, but it indicates the difficulty I have with gender issues.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Society has never recognized man or woman to be descriptions of optional roles.

In the thousands of years of human history, a man was a male and a woman was a female. A man donning woman's clothing didn't become a woman, nor was he recognized in law as being one. A woman assuming a man's role in whatever was not considered a man, regardless of rights or privilege.

Only a few cultures had some space for anyone not accepting a binary role. To this day, the vast majority of the societies on the planet do not accept biological non-binary language outside true chromosonal aberration or hemaphroditism.

 

[Taz]

Society has never recognized man or woman to be descriptions of optional roles.

In the thousands of years of human history, a man was a male and a woman was a female. A man donning woman's clothing didn't become a woman, nor was he recognized in law as being one. A woman assuming a man's role in whatever was not considered a man, regardless of rights or privilege.

Only a few cultures had some space for anyone not accepting a binary role. To this day, the vast majority of the societies on the planet do not accept biological non-binary language outside true chromosonal aberration or hemaphroditism.

Not only is this not even true (your colonialist revisionism is showing) but even if it were, why should we accept that just because it always has been, it should still be?

 

[Taz]

Female dogs are called bitches. I don't think that sort of argument is going to get us very far.

The point is that is the term woman were purely a biological descriptor, then you would be able to call a dog a woman, or a lizard a woman.

The fact that you still refer to trans women as women when you talk about them proves that this law is illogical.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Not only is this not even true (your colonialist revisionism is showing) but even if it were, why should we accept that just because it always has been, it should still be?

I am open to supported claims to the contrary, of it being true outside a few outliers.

As far as why, because accepting trans people doesn't equate to accepting a refinition of male and female, man and woman. A trans person is outside the conventions of traditional gender, but their biology is not.

 

[unloadonme]

The point is that is the term woman were purely a biological descriptor, then you would be able to call a dog a woman, or a lizard a woman.

The term women is used to describe adult human females. Biologists use other terms to describe the females of other species. I really can't see where you're going with this.

The fact that you still refer to trans women as women when you talk about them proves that this law is illogical.

I don't think I have. I've been pretty clear in saying that the effect of the Supreme Court judgement is that trans women are still legally men.

 

[Taz]

I don't think I have. I've been pretty clear in saying that the effect of the Supreme Court judgement is that trans women are still legally men.

Trans what sorry?

 

[Taz]

I am open to supported claims to the contrary, of it being true outside a few outliers.

As far as why, because accepting trans people doesn't equate to accepting a refinition of male and female, man and woman. A trans person is outside the conventions of traditional gender, but their biology is not.

Like you supported your claims to the contrary?

I’m not here to educate you, just to tell you you’re incorrect.