Best Of

The points I make apply equally to gays and lesbians, particularly the latter, because the SC judgment clarified - to the extent this ever needed clarifying - that sexual orientation is based on sex not certificates. It said clearly in paragraph 206 that the concept of sexual orientation towards members of a particular sex would be rendered meaningless otherwise.

It is typical of TERF rhetoric to make expansive claims based on legal judgements that are, in reality, much more narrowly drawn.

The Supreme Court judgement is indeed very clear & they repeat the same point a number of times: their judgement applies to the interpretation of terms within the Equality Act for the purposes of the legal interpretation of that Act alone. Para 2 of the judgement states explicitly:

“It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman” other than when it is used in the provisions of the EA 2010.”

The SC has not, in fact, stated that sexual orientation is “based on sex, not certificates”: Cyclefree might very much wish that she could extend their judgement to the entirety of public life in this way, but the SC itself refutes her attempts to do so. The elision between these ideas in the work of someone who sets such pride in their precise legal judgement seems rather telling - Cyclefree writes about what she wants to be true rather than what is true. kyf_100’s comment that “she is a talented writer who has the ability to present *opinion* dressed up in the language of fact” seems to be to be (sadly) accurate.

You are being disingenuous. The SC ruling does indeed clarify that the Equalities Act 2010 reference to women refers only to biological women. Everything else that Cyclefree is writing about stems explicitely from that definition. She is being completely accurate in her claims and it is you who are trying to twist what she has said to make it seem as if she is misrepresenting the SC ruling. Not surprising given you start your fatuous post with an insult.

Cyclefree’s writing clearly extends the SC judgement outside it’s remit. If you can’t see that then I don’t know what to say: it seems clear enough to me. There is no caveat in the paragraph I quoted about “sexual orientation is based on sex not certificates” that points out that this only applies within the interpretation of the Equality Act 2010 is there?

I refer the honourable gentlemen, again, to the Supreme Court judgement: https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_judgment_updated_16f5d72e76.pdf

Para 2:

2. It is not the role of the court to adjudicate on the arguments in the public domain
on the meaning of gender or sex, nor is it to define the meaning of the word “woman”
other than when it is used in the provisions of the EA 2010. It has a more limited role
which does not involve making policy. The principal question which the court addresses
on this appeal is the meaning of the words which Parliament has used in the EA 2010 in
legislating to protect women and members of the trans community against discrimination.
Our task is to see if those words can bear a coherent and predictable meaning within the
EA 2010 consistently with the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (“the GRA 2004”).
Cyclefree may (and probably does, I imagine!) wish that the SC judgement defines these terms for the purposes of public debate & for the interpretation of UK law more generally. The SC disagrees with her however.

Indeed. If there is a point to be taken from my ramblings this afternoon, it is that the SC judgement *allows* discrimination on the basis of birth sex, but does not *mandate* it.

So for example, a women's refuge is *allowed* to exclude trans women. But not forced to. The EHCR guidance, which they hope to make law, would *mandate* it.

This is, as I have linked to in the 100 page FOI dump of correspondence between the EHCR and Sex Matters, demonstrates regulatory capture and ideological sectional interests attempting to wilfully misinterpret the supreme court judgement to push a much more exclusionary agenda that would in effect push trans people out of public spaces altogether.

And the reason why the government is trying to kick this into the long grass is because they will have taken legal advice that this is not compatible with human rights law (See Michael O'Flaherty's unequivocal letter to the UK government on this matter), and don't want a culture war imbroglio on their hands.

I am of the opinion that individual institutions should be allowed to choose. Permission to discriminate does not equal a legal mandate to do so.

In response to @gallowgate and @kyf_100

I don't need to speak for all women. The law is clear as is biology. Whatever people may choose to believe (see @kyf_100) no-one can change sex as a matter of fact. They can modify their body to what they would like to be & if that makes them (& those around them who care for them) happy, good luck to them. But it does not make them a member of the opposite sex - either in biology or in law.

Given that, the question to be addressed is how to deal with those people who are dysphoric. This is partly a matter of the appropriate care & how the law should deal with them. On the latter, the law has made gender reassignment a protected characteristic under the Equality Act, giving such people the same rights as other groups & allowed recognition of their position with the GRA. But neither the GRA nor the Equality Act ever gave - or were intended to give - such people the right to remove rights belonging to another group. And that is the point. Unisex facilities provide all the facilities necessary. Laws against discrimination do the same.

But what is being demanded is that women lose what they also need. What I find very odd & troubling is how so many men who claim - often loudly, aggressively & virulently - how they are women, demonstrate so little, zero, in fact, empathy for actual women & no understanding of why women might worry about having a large bloke watching them getting undressed. In fact the behaviour of so many of these is very very male - aggressively so.

I will leave you with this example. Hampstead & Highgate Ponds have 3 ponds: one for men only, one for women only & one for both men and women - unisex or, if you prefer, inclusive. Everyone - whatever sex or gender they were could get what they wanted. But no: the trans-identified men insisted on going into the women only pond so that there were now 3 ponds where men could swim but no pond where only women could go. Women lost out. Women were excluded. There was no need for this. It is hard to see this as anything other than a determination to take away what women want & need rather than a claim for something that trans people needed - because they already had that.

Trans people have not lost anything they were entitled to. They have lost what people told them wrongly they could have. They have all the rights that everyone else has. Losing something you are not entitled to is not oppression, no matter how much those who had a financial & other interest in lying about the law scream & shout about it.

All of this could have been avoided if (a) activists had concentrated on improving facilities & necessary care & (b) they had been much more rigorous & scrupulous in not inviting in all sorts of creeps, perverts & sexual offenders to shelter under the "trans" umbrella. It has done dysphoric people no good at all. I feel sorry for the latter group. But I have zero time for the former & those enabling them.

Morning all

I'll gladly join others and congratulate @Cyclefree on yet another excellent contribution.

There are many very serious and severe problems in this country - I quoted child poverty yesterday and this is another one - but we seem obsessed currently on small boats which, and I'll stand by for the flak, is essentially trivial in the grand scheme of things.

The small boats are a symbolic thing. They are symbolic of people breaking the rules and getting away with it. Impunity is becoming a theme of our times and, for that reason, it is important that the small boats are dealt with.

And, somehow, a government has to manage to address the more severe problems and the symbolic ones, at the same time. One of the weaknesses of British politics in this era of weak Cabinets and all-powerful Prime Ministers, is that it is harder for a government to effectively multi-task. The emasculation of local authorities in favour of Whitehall centralisation has a similar enervating effect.

The government of a country of nigh on 70 million is too big a job for one person.

It isn't illegal to seek asylum, nor to enter the country on a small boat to do so.

But "asylum" as a concept has been broken, courtesy of the organised boatloads of queue-bargers. Queue-barging is inimical to the British way of doing things. We have alway been a generous nation to those in genuine need. That has been tested - and quite possibly broken - by those who have no case other than they want to to make more money than they can at home..

It's a powerful image, for sure. British people don't like queue jumpers. But there isn't actually an asylum queue to jump, is there?

There are many places to apply for asylum in the trek across Africa/Asia --> Europe. Why pay snakeheads £10k to get to Britain? Because we all know they don't have a valid asylum claim.

99% of the worlds asylum seekers do go somewhere else.

Response, Part 2.

4. The above has been effectively covered here, in much more detail and much better written than I could manage, by Ian Dunt - https://iandunt.substack.com/p/the-trans-rights-stitch-up-2ca?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=7aibo&triedRedirect=true

5. Dunt has also published much more recently on the current mess at the EHRC, the TL;DR of which is that proper procedures (including risk assessments etc) were not followed by the EHRC, and the government's lawyers have likely taken one look at the guidance and said "this contravenes several human rights laws" - indeed, the European commissioner for human rights has read the interim guidance (notably, since rescinded, after numerous flaws and contradictions have been pointed out, and said, not on your nelly mate -https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/14/trans-people-risk-exclusion-many-uk-public-spaces-rights-expert-says - Dunt's full article on how the EHRC became "a culture war campaign group" is here and I would suggest is essential reading to anyone wishing to hear "the other side" of the debate - https://iandunt.substack.com/p/judgement-day-for-the-ehrc-c99

On a personal note, I respect Cyclefree a great deal and she provides a clear female voice on a forum generally dominated by men. That is to be cherished, and valued. However, she is a talented writer who has the ability to present *opinion* dressed up in the language of fact. As I say the links I have provided above will provide you with much more detailed takes on the EHRC which take the same source material, and present them in a very different way.

On the subject of trans people attacking gender critical conferences and the like, I will simply say that this is a tiny minority of very pissed off radicals, and does not reflect the views of any of trans people I know. It's akin to one Muslim being a jihadi and now every other Muslim has to put up with being called a terrorist. Cyclefree would like to paint a picture of all trans people being radical terrorists. My experience of them is that the vast majority don't care about politics - they just want to transition and "pass" so they can live their lives in peace without being hurled abuse at on the street.

I have said my piece, presented links that provide readers with further detail and alternative viewpoints, and will not be engaging further with this post.

Morning all

I'll gladly join others and congratulate @Cyclefree on yet another excellent contribution.

There are many very serious and severe problems in this country - I quoted child poverty yesterday and this is another one - but we seem obsessed currently on small boats which, and I'll stand by for the flak, is essentially trivial in the grand scheme of things.

The small boats are a symbolic thing. They are symbolic of people breaking the rules and getting away with it. Impunity is becoming a theme of our times and, for that reason, it is important that the small boats are dealt with.

And, somehow, a government has to manage to address the more severe problems and the symbolic ones, at the same time. One of the weaknesses of British politics in this era of weak Cabinets and all-powerful Prime Ministers, is that it is harder for a government to effectively multi-task. The emasculation of local authorities in favour of Whitehall centralisation has a similar enervating effect.

The government of a country of nigh on 70 million is too big a job for one person.

It isn't illegal to seek asylum, nor to enter the country on a small boat to do so.

But "asylum" as a concept has been broken, courtesy of the organised boatloads of queue-bargers. Queue-barging is inimical to the British way of doing things. We have alway been a generous nation to those in genuine need. That has been tested - and quite possibly broken - by those who have no case other than they want to to make more money than they can at home..

My Grandmother had some trouble escaping Vienna to make it to Britain after the Anschluss, and I do not think that the general experience of Jewish refugees seeking to make their way to Britain would accord with the judgement that Britain has, "always been a generous nation to those in genuine need," for all that we laud those individuals who made an effort in the face of hostility and official obstructionism to do so.

My wife has a script ready for filming about the KIndertransport in 1938/9. The programme was supported, publicised, and encouraged by the British government, which waived the visa immigration requirements that were not within the ability of the British Jewish community to fulfil. Certainly there was examples of official obstruction, often down to personal antisemitism. But as a people, we have been there to help out those in need.

My understanding is that we were quite even-handed with POWs over the ages, who we might have had cause to despise. But once they were no longer a threat, they were treated with respect by most folks.

Was having a conversation with a local whose parents had a farm. She was a baby during the war and the farm had Italian POW's helping out. One day she was put in a pram in the garden and when her mother returned she was nowhere to be seen. The mother's panic was short lived when she heard laughter nearby. The Italians, all missing their own children, had picked the baby up and were feeding spaghetti to her.

How is this related to the thread? Perhaps it's because we are all human and treating people decently is a natural trait.