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November 28, 2024 - 11:15am
Westminster
Yesterday, I made my way to court to witness a case that will hopefully establish in law an important question: what is a woman? If we lose the case, we lose our rights as women, in law and in policy. The work of decades could be undone all too quickly.
The case began in 2018, when the Scottish Government passed a law which took as its definition of “woman” anyone who identifies as one. An advocacy group, For Women Scotland, challenged this in court and won. But then the Scottish National Party replaced this with guidance suggesting the definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 is not just a person born female, but is also changed “for all purposes” by the Gender Recognition Act. Last year, For Women Scotland went to court once again to challenge that definition — but lost. The group’s appeal will now be decided by the Supreme Court.
Inside the packed courtroom were a range of women’s rights groups and associated activists, all of whom have been attacked and labelled “terfs” for their beliefs in the past. Sex Matters, Scottish Lesbians, the Lesbian Project — which I co-direct with Kathleen Stock — and the LGB Alliance were all present. Meanwhile, Amnesty International and the EHRC (Equality and Human Rights Commission) have lent their support to the Scottish Government.
Much of the build-up to the case has focused on a particular detail in the Scottish Government’s submission, which claims that maternity provisions can be extended to “pregnant men”. Aidan O’Neill KC, representing For Women Scotland, said in court this week that those two words are a “legal fiction”. And yesterday, far away from the Supreme Court in London, O’Neill received support from an unexpected source. During a press conference in Edinburgh, Scottish First Minister John Swinney stated, in response to a journalist’s question, that males cannot become pregnant. Seated next to me in Courtroom 1 yesterday was former SNP MP Joanna Cherry, who noted online: “I am pleased that John recognises this biological reality, but I’m presently sitting in the UK Supreme Court watching his Government’s lawyers argue the opposite.”
Yet there is another important aspect to this case: namely, the right of lesbian clubs to legally exclude trans-identified males. A lawyer representing the Scottish Government, Ruth Crawford KC, denied that obstructing this right would create a “chilling effect”. On top of this, she claimed that the “inevitable conclusion” of a For Women Scotland victory would be that male-born holders of a GRC — who, she argued, are seen as having changed sex in the eyes of the law — would “remain men until death for the purposes of the Equality Act”.
High comedy was on offer amid arguments about heterosexual men with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) becoming lesbians, while those without a GRC remain heterosexual men. The utter absurdity, sexism and homophobia of the gender identity argument is being clearly exposed in Britain’s premier court. Regardless of the result inside the courtroom, more people will surely be convinced that the Scottish Government’s case is a ludicrous — and dangerous — fiction.
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SubscribeWoman = Adult Human Female. The term ‘terf’ is used in ‘captured’ and irrational people’s vocabularies to attack those who assert and affirm biological reality. Trans people have the right to live without persecution in their preferred gender identity, but wishful thinking to make their assumed identities ‘real’ in every way to fulfil their fantasy does not supersede the rights of actual women. This case is important.
So would that include using the public toilets allocated to their chosen gender? Or would they have to use the gents, even though presenting in all ways as a woman? Wouldn’t that put them at risk? Or would we all go gender neutral?
And if they can’t use the ladies, would we challenge them in public if they tried to? What about masculine presenting women who do not identify as trans? Or just women who look a bit masculine? Might we not end up challenging them too?
Strange how these problems didn’t seem to occur before the last decade of gender ideology. If we saw a masculine-looking person in the ladies we assumed it was a woman.
However, it’s not the toilets that matter because, in the ladies, we all have the privacy of a cubicle. It’s all the other places where women are vulnerable, at a disadvantage and/or undressed: changing rooms without cubicles, refuges, women’s hospital wards, prisons, and sports.
Sometimes I wonder if the people who focus on toilets are deliberate trying to trivialise the problem trans women’s extra rights pose for biological women.
True – but over the last few decades all sorts of new issues have arisen because our societies have been in flux, and many of the old certainties of social behaviour and classification have gone out of the window.
For good or ill, this is just what it is like to live in a rapidly changing society. And comedic as it may seem, areas of conflict have to be resolved.
In my experience it is the gender critical side which seems to obsess about toilets.
Some things, like cubicles in changing rooms, could easily be changed, and people expected to show a reasonable amount of discretion.
But activists (of all kinds) love a fight, and hate compromise. So here we are.
The answer to men-who-identify-as-women not being safe in the men’s toilets is for men to be more accepting of different types of men. Not forcing women to act as if men-who-identify-as-women are a type of woman.
At work we have men’s, women’s and gender neutral toilets. I have no objection to this but the only people I have ever observed using the gender neutral toilet are men. Turns out women just aren’t that keen on sharing such facilities with us.
Interestingly the building we work in is a tech hub with a younger demographic than I have encountered in any other workplace (other than university).
Truly a test of the sobriety of British judges. Can they keep a straight face?
I really do hope this challenge in the Supreme Court succeeds, but i fear it may require a change in the Gender Recognition Act (and possibly the Equality Act) before the case that JB outlines becomes possible.
The Supreme Court can only interpret the law as it stands, not create legislation.
This is bunk. Trans men, some of whom insist they are gay, are not being recognized as being literal men, gay or not. Gay men are allowed to reject them, and keep trans men out of their clubs and bathhouses. The difference? Trans men are actually women, and gay men are within their rights to reject women. (I think they should be able to reject women.) Trans women, who are men, are behind these court battles. They insist they are literally women. And lesbians, for God’s sake? Most of these men are autogynophiles., aka heterosexual men. They are the militant ones. For the record, I am not bashing all men in general. I rather like men.
Scrap Gender Recognition Certificates. If men want to wear dresses and call themselves Susan (or vice versa) that’s up to them. Nobody else should be forced to accommodate their delusions.
Once you say in law that a man can become a woman, then women cannot have separate rights, services, space etc. Because men will always be able to define themselves in such a way as to claim entitlement to access.
That this ludicrous situation has been allowed to proceed to the point where the Supreme Court is involved is appalling. I can only wish Julie Bindel and her fellow campaigners the best of luck in their fight.
Nothing is more amusing than watching the Left choke on its own indigestible Critical Theories. Bon appétit!
It was a bizarre spectacle. The first thing to note is that not a single person in the court challenged that a person can change gender. The counsel for Women for Scotland gave the example of a trans woman (a biological man) who will face discrimination for being a woman! Their own counsel gave this example, thereby agreeing with all the dogma of Gender Ideology.
Then a few minutes after that one of the Supreme Court judges asked the counsel what gender would that man/woman be asking “Does she have a third gender?” No. Answered the counsel.
I will repeat myself.
No one has a clue what ‘gender’ is. This is because no one will explain it. This is because Gender Ideology is the creation of Feminism. And Feminism is untouchable.
Another article in Unherd repeating and validating the same devalued, politically loaded concept, and no one can refute it because no one knows what it is. Who benefits from this? Only those who support and promote the ideology.
Wasn’t Gender Id Theory cooked up primarily by men like Robert Stoller and John Money in the 1950 and 60s? Freud and Jung also touched on gender in their work in the early 20th century.
And, incidentally, you’re right when you say no-one can define what gender means. It’s because it’s whatever the beholder wants it to be.
Just because you hear the phrase ‘gender identity’ does not mean that it has one meaning or that you are referring to one theory.
Money proposed his own definition of ‘gender identity’ in the 1950s. He said gender identity is imposed by society in the first two years of a child’s life. He then disgracefully castrated a boy, persuaded the parents to bring him up as a girl, all in order to confirm his theory. The boy grew up and then killed himself, not accepting he was a girl. Money is infamous not just for the castration but because he hid the data and the results of the case, and published in articles that his theory had been proved.
Money is now discredited, along with his gender identity theory.
Feminists developed their own gender theory, quite apart from this.
“First they came for the women” to paraphrase an old story. Next we’ll be told there is no such thing as lesbians, because this crew is as anti gay as anti-female.
If any one wants to know what ‘gender’ is, a good starting place would be a Gender Studies, i.e. History of Feminism ,reading list.
Gender is not rocket science. But it is Feminism.
Why won’t any woman writer explain what ‘gender’ is?
Because that would involve repeating the arguments feminists made in its creation. And surprise, surprise they would not survive the light of day.
As was the fiction ancestral to this one: that a woman was a woman (gender) because that was what was assigned to her at birth (based on cursory physical examination) and her parents and society then colluded in turning her into one.
Cursory physical examination is indeed all that is needed
David is alluding to De Beauvoir
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
The basis of so-called second wave feminism.
Amusing that its two men who seem to both know and understand feminist history and the history of feminist ideas.
I made no such claim, but what if I had? Is such knowledge and understanding beyond male comprehension?
Most of the comedy is linguistic.
What trans activists are asking for is that the social category “women” be expanded to cover both cis and trans women. They are not claiming to be biological women. It’s only funny if you flip flop between a biological and social usage.
I’m not sure even this should be granted, but it’s important to be clear on what is being asked for.
If they are not biological women, then they are not women.
And just how many boxes of bicycles, cars and bridges must I check?
Eddie Izzard claimed to have “more girl DNA than boy DNA” which is a biological claim, albeit a nonsensical one.
Lots of men-who-identify-as-women lay claim to female biological functions (or attempt to anyway). Insisting that their “periods” are starting, or that they can breastfeed infants.
For many trans people and their activist fellow travellers, the line between inclusion and biology is much more fuzzy than you admit.