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Interesting times we live in. A coalescence of international trade is occurring before our very eyes - one which is going to include China and not include America.

The moron fodder in the US are being told to shout and scream that MAGA will MAGA (cf Brexit means Brexit). That the inferior foreigners are being brought into line and into their place - subjects of the Great America. That tariffs will bring not only manufacturing to the US but that US made goods will be global.

That the reality is so starkly opposite presents challenges. The US would need to remove Trump and publicly disown him for global former partners to trust them - and we all know that isn't about to happen.

And so we have countries seeking to understand exactly what Murica is doing. Trump then screams SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT because the Japanese are here to kiss the ring. But no ring is kissed and they depart.

A world with an isolationist America propagandising its population whilst the world gets on with business without it. Interesting times indeed.

It troubles me that the UK and US are apparently close to a trade deal. What's the point in doing any deal when we all know the US will pocket its gains and renege on its commitments?

I'd much prefer us not to make any commitments at all at this stage.

I genuinely doubt that we're anywhere close to a deal. Our government is not about to sign a "banned in the EU, allowed in the UK" deal which is what MAGA would insist on.

On Tuesday I met with a major American retailer who operates at scale in the UK. Despite their business being very US based in their outlook and philosophy, their UK buying managers are quite open that they cannot and will not look to just directly import foods from the US because "nobody buys them". They now want UKised versions made edible, something that even their "buy global" strategy has learned to accept.

There will be no trade deal where we get weevil-infested rice and Chlorinated chicken and ADHD-inducing additives rammed down our throats. Not only would that imperil any prospects we have of securing our trade with our major partner over the channel, British consumers simply won't buy that shit.

And this is what baffles and annoys America. The Greatest Country In The World. Period. So why don't people want to eat our food and buy our trucks? Why? Because they're shit, that's why.

Yet part of Lord Hodge's ruling states:

"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."

He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

An important caveat which seems to have been ignored by those setting a triumphalist tone

Because the substance of the ruling is to point out that a GRC doesn't change XY to XX, which seems like a statement of the bleeding obvious, but apparently it still needed clarification for idiot bureaucrats and politicians across the country. It's not a victory for a "side" it's a victory for basic common sense, which is why so many are celebrating.

Evening all.

The interesting thing about today's judgement is that it is being portrayed as the Supreme Court defining what a woman is, where as actually it is the Supreme Court defining what the Equality Act says a woman is. There's nothing to stop Parliament from amending the act, but will the parties support doing so?

Con and Ref - clear no
Lab - some of the activists will want it, but can't see Starmer touching with a bargepole
SNP - sounds like still yes
Green (Eng/Wal) and LD - ???

Labour will do whatever it thinks its phantom red wall voters want, just like it’s doing with Trump.

Amidst all the triumphalism I hope at least a handful of MPs from whichever party will find it in their hearts to remember that trans people are human beings too, and not join the ranks of those who would have 2+2 equal 5 and say transgender people are just deluded and mentally ill, or “pretending”.

Because that is the undercurrent. I seem to be in a minority of 1 here in having any qualms about this, probably because I’m a “Lib Dem twat”, but there you have it.

Is it not a valid position to think that (a) trans people are human beings and (b) trans people are mentally ill/deluded? What is the evidence that believing you are the wrong gender is NOT a mental illness? That French king who believed he was made of glass was regarded as having a mental illness.

Yet part of Lord Hodge's ruling states:

"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."

He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

An important caveat which seems to have been ignored by those setting a triumphalist tone

As I pointed out this morning, I don't think that's defensible. The court was asked to pick between two mutually exclusive positions - a man can/cannot become a woman and acquire the rights of a woman in the Equality Act via a GRC - and picked the latter. This accomplishes at least the following

* The concept of transsexuality in UK jurisdictions no longer exists. A man is a man until he dies, and any actions to the contrary have no legal effect
* A person after a GRC has the same rights as that same person before a GRC: it has no legally enforcable effect
* The rights of a trans person now devolve to the right not to be fired and the right not to be thumped. The former can be done sotto voce and the latter can only be enforced after the fact.

Your last point is incorrect. Trans people have all the same protections against direct and indirect discrimination that every other person with a protected characteristic has. And they have the right - unlike other groups - to change their birth certificate and legally change their gender...

If "certificated sex" has no legally enforcable meaning - and today's ruling says exactly that - then changing the birth certificate has no legally enforcable meaning. Ditto for legally changing their gender.

I asked a question earlier today which only @HYUFD tried to answer. After this ruling, what rights does a person have after a GRC that they did not have before a GRC? Care to have a go? Bear in mind that a right is not a right if it is not enforcable in a court.

I will answer that question when I have carefully considered the judgment.

I have just been told that my BP is 97 over 55. So if you don't hear from me that may be the reason. The nurse said that was rather low and I replied: " Well I am still alive." She laughed.

Good night.

Yet part of Lord Hodge's ruling states:

"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."

He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

An important caveat which seems to have been ignored by those setting a triumphalist tone

As I pointed out this morning, I don't think that's defensible. The court was asked to pick between two mutually exclusive positions - a man can/cannot become a woman and acquire the rights of a woman in the Equality Act via a GRC - and picked the latter. This accomplishes at least the following

* The concept of transsexuality in UK jurisdictions no longer exists. A man is a man until he dies, and any actions to the contrary have no legal effect
* A person after a GRC has the same rights as that same person before a GRC: it has no legally enforcable effect
* The rights of a trans person now devolve to the right not to be fired and the right not to be thumped. The former can be done sotto voce and the latter can only be enforced after the fact.

Your last point is incorrect. Trans people have all the same protections against direct and indirect discrimination that every other person with a protected characteristic has. And they have the right - unlike other groups - to change their birth certificate and legally change their gender.

The GRA was brought in to deal with pension discrimination and allow marriage after the ECHR Goodwin case. Pension discrimination based on sex has gone and same sex marriage is now lawful. The only benefit of a GRC is that it allows a man or woman to lawfully change gender so that they can marry as an opposite sex couple. And if that makes them happy so be it. It was meant to change a person's status vis a vis the state not make demands of other private citizens. It has been the determination of activists to force others to accept that gender means sex and that they should be able to deprive others of sex based rights or render them effectively meaningless or substitute sex with gender which has caused the conflict and it is this which has been resolved today.

It is worth reading the sections of the judgment dealing with lesbians to understand what was at stake. The written interventions by various lesbian groups seem to have made a real difference to the judges. As one of those interveners said today: "Lesbians finally felt seen." It was quite moving. They have felt the brunt of many attacks. There are lots of men who cannot cope with women who say no and women who have no interest in men. The demands that lesbians should be forced to consider men as sexual partners because of what men described themselves as was no more than this decade's version of men telling lesbians a good shag would "cure" them. It has been disgusting.

I have to say that this is the thing I have found so weird about this saga. The focus on the rights of men to call themselves women whatever women thought about it just seemed so incompatible with how the law has developed over my lifetime and so utterly indifferent to women's rights. I really never understood where the Scottish government in general and Sturgeon in particular were coming from.

Forget the law for a moment. Men demanding or wanting stuff and paying no attention to what women feel about it is not exactly new, is it? It is frankly pretty common behaviour amongst very many men and in a society which sees women and their interests and needs as what you do when all the more important stuff is done ie never.

This is a very old sour wine in a new bottle and because it was a bottle labelled "progressive" and "trans rights" lots of people bought it without ever asking who these "trans" people actually were (see the whole "he's a rapist" not a man or woman hoo ha - it is not woman which needs defining but "trans" because who exactly does that include?) nor what rights they were demanding nor what this meant for others. They just thought this was the latest trendy cause which would make them look good and get Sturgeon a cushy well paid number in some UN / international quango.

Hence the utter dishonesty and incoherence of Scot Gov arguing that the GRR Bill made no difference to the Equality Act and then 2 years later arguing the complete opposite.

They didn't know their arse from their elbow let alone what a woman is.

Yet part of Lord Hodge's ruling states:

"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."

He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

An important caveat which seems to have been ignored by those setting a triumphalist tone

It's not a caveat for this reason. Trans people have not lost a single legal right as a result of this judgment. The issue has always been about the GRA's effect on women's rights. It was women who risked losing rights and if the appeal had been dismissed do you really imagine those arguing for that would not have been triumphalist. Women have had to fight for the best part of a decade for this judgment and have been treated like shit by the Scottish political establishment and many in all the other main parties too. They have been insulted and smeared and attacked verbally and physically. They are entitled to feel triumphant. And if you listened to the words of those who brought this appeal you would know that they have said that it is right that transgender people should have the rights they do.

What this judgment does is to say that there is no hierarchy of rights and that trans people are not entitled to special privileges no other group has nor to the protections given to those other groups for good reason nor to deprive them of those protections.

It has restored the equality between all those groups as set out in the ... er ... Equality Act.

That so many activists are now throwing their toys out of their pram because they can't breach women's boundaries, because the SC has said that "No means No" should tell you what this fight has really been about.

Just popping in from Purgatory to say

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.

I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.

Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.

But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......

Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.

It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.

I hope that Fife Council reassess their treatment of nurse Sandie Peggie.
https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/5223082/nhs-fife-sandie-peggie-tribunal-supreme-court-ruling/

The Lib Dem’s are unhappy.

Perhaps the large donation the party received from one of the companies which manufactures puberty blockers might be relevant to their stance.

Just popping in from Purgatory to say

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Do not ever mess with angry women who know their stuff. And we do. We really do.

I see that Harriet Harman has already started misconstruing what the judgment says and means, just like people did with Forstater. Well, I and others will have something to say about that and we're not going to let her and others get away with yet more lies about what the law says.

Meanwhile I'm having blood tests for my heart. And some sort of heart scan will be needed. To find out if there is some sort of heart failure. Well, I'd bloody well like to know that too - and preferably before I die of boredom - or it - waiting to be told. Am on limited fluid intake so I have to pee in a blasted bedpan. Still waiting for the breast surgeons to see me and tell me that I have cancer or some other nastiness which seems to have shown up on the CT scan in my lymph nodes and which is what the doctors have been going on about since Sunday night and it is now Wednesday evening. Meanwhile I'm running out of knickers.

But apart from that it's all absolutely fucking peachy .......

Hope you get the all clear @Cyclefree, and yes completely agree with this sentiment. Congratulations to all the women who fought for this and won against all odds. A unanimous decision from the supreme court is an astonishing vindication for them and at some level this ruling changes my view of staying in the UK long term as the father of a daughter. The thought of boys invading girls facilities and sports in schools was playing on my mind a lot.

It's time for the government to get clear with all departments, sports and businesses to clear out all of the nonsense. Women's spaces should once again be reserved for actual women, not men who play dress up so they can perve on girls and women.

Yet part of Lord Hodge's ruling states:

"But we counsel against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not."

He added that the legislation gives transgender people "protection, not only against discrimination through the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, but also against direct discrimination, indirect discrimination and harassment in substance in their acquired gender".

An important caveat which seems to have been ignored by those setting a triumphalist tone

It's not a caveat for this reason. Trans people have not lost a single legal right as a result of this judgment. The issue has always been about the GRA's effect on women's rights. It was women who risked losing rights and if the appeal had been dismissed do you really imagine those arguing for that would not have been triumphalist. Women have had to fight for the best part of a decade for this judgment and have been treated like shit by the Scottish political establishment and many in all the other main parties too. They have been insulted and smeared and attacked verbally and physically. They are entitled to feel triumphant. And if you listened to the words of those who brought this appeal you would know that they have said that it is right that transgender people should have the rights they do.

What this judgment does is to say that there is no hierarchy of rights and that trans people are not entitled to special privileges no other group has nor to the protections given to those other groups for good reason nor to deprive them of those protections.

It has restored the equality between all those groups as set out in the ... er ... Equality Act.

That so many activists are now throwing their toys out of their pram because they can't breach women's boundaries, because the SC has said that "No means No" should tell you what this fight has really been about.

At the heart of the whole thing, and almost certainly at the risk of oversimplifying it all, but it seems to me if certain institutions hadn't tried to deliberately conflate sex with gender and accepted that they were always different, then a lot of this could have been avoided.

People should be allowed to do whatever the fuck they want with their own gender, and it only really becomes a problem when they, and/or others treat gender as a direct proxy for biological sex, which should and must be respected as being an entirely different kettle of fish.

.

Evening all.

The interesting thing about today's judgement is that it is being portrayed as the Supreme Court defining what a woman is, where as actually it is the Supreme Court defining what the Equality Act says a woman is. There's nothing to stop Parliament from amending the act, but will the parties support doing so?

Con and Ref - clear no
Lab - some of the activists will want it, but can't see Starmer touching with a bargepole
SNP - sounds like still yes
Green (Eng/Wal) and LD - ???

Labour will do whatever it thinks its phantom red wall voters want, just like it’s doing with Trump.

Amidst all the triumphalism I hope at least a handful of MPs from whichever party will find it in their hearts to remember that trans people are human beings too, and not join the ranks of those who would have 2+2 equal 5 and say transgender people are just deluded and mentally ill, or “pretending”.

Because that is the undercurrent. I seem to be in a minority of 1 here in having any qualms about this, probably because I’m a “Lib Dem twat”, but there you have it.

Not a minority of one.

No, there are a few of us.
But I don’t see much point on getting in an argument with the triumphalists - or those who appear happy to call my son mentally ill.

I have been busy all day so haven't had time to read the full judgement.

I don't have issues with restricting Trans-athletes if a sports governing body believes it appropriate, nor for certain spaces to be segregated by sex if that is proportional.

What I do want is for Trans-people to be socially accepted in their identity, and supported to live full lives. Most importantly I want them to be treated with compassion and respect.