Was the UK Supreme Court right? Were women's rights endangered by substituting transgender women for biological women? — frank

Are these supposed to be related questions? Because the Supreme Court didn't rule on whether or not anyone's rights were endangered. They only ruled that:

A person with a GRC in the female gender does not come within the definition of “woman” for the purposes of sex discrimination in section 11 of the EA 2010. That in turn means that the definition of “woman” in section 2 of the 2018 Act, which Scottish Ministers accept must bear the same meaning as the term “woman” in section 11 and section 212 of the EA 2010, is limited to biological women and does not include trans women with a GRC.

In other words, the Scottish parliament passed a law with these two provisions:

1. Women ought make up at least 50% of the board
2. The term "woman" in (1) includes anyone with a female GRC

Section (2) conflicts with the EA 2010 which defines the term "woman" to only include biological women. Given that the EA 2010 as UK law takes precedence over Scots law, section (2) is overruled, and the legal meaning of the term "woman" in Section (1) only includes biological women.

The ruling explicitly says in its second paragraph:

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.

It doesn't explain what they mean when using the terms man and woman, which is why you cant point to it in the links you provided. — Harry Hindu

The very first line of the very first link:

"Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender."

So, we have a fuzzy collection of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral stuff that we group together and label "man" and another fuzzy collection of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral stuff that we group together and label "woman", and sometimes a third fuzzy collection of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral stuff that we group together and give a different label.

Included in this fuzzy collection is basically anything where we have a separate "men's X" or "women's X" and where "X" is not a description of genitals or chromosomes or the like.

The group that one "belongs" to is almost determined by one's biology, and in particular one's phenotype, and is the reason why the same word is used to refer both to gender and to sex. This has, unfortunately, caused many to conflate the two.

Define essentialism then. — Harry Hindu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism

It seems that we would need to define these things to even hope to answer these other questions. — Harry Hindu

No, we don't.

I only suggested that we not use the words "man" and "woman" because you are having so much trouble understanding what they mean when discussing gender. Presumably we both have a clear understanding of what "bathroom" and "penis" and "vagina" mean.

What prevents us from talking past each other when using these terms? — Harry Hindu

That's precisely the problem, and is what I brought up on page 8:

I think that many of these discussions tend to get caught up in pointless arguments about what the “real” meaning of a word is.

If you choose to use the words "man" and "woman" to refer to the general biological dichotomy found in humans, then fine. If you choose to the use the words to refer to some general psychological or social dichotomy, then fine. It simply doesn't matter.

The pertinent question is: should bathrooms, sports teams, prisons, etc. be divided by biological sex, by gender identity, by something else, or by nothing at all?

So let's not use the words "man", "woman", "male", or "female" at all, and ask a single question:

Should bathrooms be divided by biological sex, by something else, or by nothing at all?

where in these wiki links does it explain what one means when they claim to be a woman or man? — Harry Hindu

Start on line 1, finish on whatever line is last.

What properties are we referring to — Harry Hindu

Essentialism is a dead-end philosophy. Whether we're discussing biology or psychology, there is no unambiguous set of necessary and sufficient conditions. You might as well ask "what is a game?"

If you don't understand gender then fine. You don't need to. You just need to accept that trained psychologists and sociologists understand that they exist, understand what they are, and understand that transgender people ought be respected for who they are – not as merely biological machines but as conscious individuals with all the mental faculties and fuzzy categories that this entails.

I'm talking about the actual perverts, whether they be trans or not, entering women's bathrooms. — Harry Hindu

So trans women ought not be allowed to use women's bathrooms because perverts exist? That's terrible reasoning.

And, again, the studies show that trans-inclusive bathroom policies do not put cisgender women at a greater risk of sexual assault and rape. Someone who's willing to rape someone is also willing to walk into a bathroom that they're not supposed to.

You're still avoiding the question as to what anyone means when using these terms. Just because something has been done for thousands of years doesn't mean it has any basis in reality. — Harry Hindu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_identity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology

Male is a sex. — Harry Hindu

And a gender. Words can have more than one meaning.

Women are uncomfortable with men in their bathroom and the threat they face is rape — Harry Hindu

I've already addressed this. Trans-inclusive bathroom policies do not put cisgender women at a greater risk of rape. Trans women are not just perverts and rapists pretending to be women so that they can more easily sexually assault biological women.

And why would you be co-opting terms originally used to refer to sex if gender and sex and seperate? — Harry Hindu

It's not co-opting terms. Transgender (and third gender) people have existed and have been talked about for thousands of years.

The ruling was about seats on public boards. Should seats that were guaranteed to women be given to trans women? The women in Scotland said no. — frank

That's not how the law works.

I'll quote from the ruling:

1. The Scottish Parliament passed the 2018 Act to provide for positive action measures to be taken in relation to the appointment of women to non-executive posts on boards of certain Scottish public authorities. The 2018 Act sets out a gender representation objective for a public board which is that “it has 50% of non-executive members who are women”.

2. The act the provides a definition of "woman" that includes "a person who has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (within the meaning of section 7 of the Equality Act 2010)".

3. It was challenged and affirmed that "the definition of 'woman' in section 2 of the 2018 Act was outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament".

Which is just to say that the Scottish Parliament does not have the authority to define the legal term "woman". Only the UK Parliament has the authority to define the legal term "woman", and the meaning of this term is established by section 11 of the Equality Act 2010, and refers only to biological women.

do you think they felt that way? — frank

I don't know, I'm not a mind reader.

What about women's rights? Nobody even wants to mention the issue that brought on the recent UK ruling. — frank

Everyone mentions that. In fact, “women’s rights” is usually the very thing that is used to argue against “trans rights”.

Aren't women's rights enough of a concern to even talk about it? — frank

Everyone’s rights matter. Men’s, women’s, cis, trans, black, white, straight, gay.

But when it comes to something like bathrooms, it’s hard to see how person A using a bathroom affects person B’s rights. One person using a private cubicle to take a piss has no impact on anyone else.

Even if that were true, it’s not always obvious.

Do you think it’s acceptable for a trans man with a penis, and who is indistinguishable from the typical cisgender man, to get naked in the women’s changing rooms?

Do you think it’s acceptable for a trans woman with a vagina, and who is indistinguishable from the typical cisgender woman, to get naked in the men’s changing rooms?

The reasonable answer to both questions is “no”. The trans man with a penis should use the men’s changing rooms and the trans woman with a vagina should use the women’s changing rooms.

So you think a penis or lack of penis is important criteria in changing rooms? Is that correct?

I would prefer women to decide and if they were all happy to include everyone, so be it. But they aren’t and I’m aligned with women who want women’s spaces exclusively for women. — Malcolm Parry

How is a cisgender woman to know if the person naked next to them is a trans man with an artificial penis and not a cisgender man with a natural penis?

How is a cisgender woman to know if the person naked next to them is a cisgender woman with a natural vagina and not a transgender woman with an artificial vagina?

But wait, I thought trans-people aren't talking about their biology. :roll: contradiction after contradiction after contradiction. It's contradictions all the way down. — Harry Hindu

What contradiction?

Is a trans man with a penis biologically male or biologically female?

If bathrooms are unisex then "cis-people" can use any bathrooms they want as well as any gender which would place trans-people in the same spaces with the same people that you claim they would be in danger. — Harry Hindu

Most of the abuse they receive is “Get out! You’re not allowed to use this bathroom you pervert!” (even though they’re not perverts and are allowed to use that bathroom), so unisex bathrooms would solve the problem entirely.

Then what are they actually saying? — Harry Hindu

That their gender is male.

What does it feel like to be a man or a woman? We all have feelings. Which ones are the woman and man feelings? It appears you are conflating certain feelings that have nothing to do with sex with sex, which would be sexist. — Harry Hindu

These are four different things:

1. Male sex
2. Male gender
3. Female sex
4. Female gender

Most people who have (1) also have (2), and is the reason that it’s called the “male” gender, and most people who have (3) also have (4), and is the reason that it’s called the “female” gender.

But some people have (1) and (4) and some people have (2) and (3).

So you would exclude most trans women from changing rooms where there is nudity?

It's a start, I suppose. — Malcolm Parry

And you would include some trans women (i.e. those who have had bottom surgery) and exclude some trans men (i.e. those who have had bottom surgery) from women's changing rooms where this is nudity?

Changing rooms? — Malcolm Parry

If there's full frontal public nudity then I don't think it matters whether your genitals are natural or artificial, and so a trans man with a penis should use the men's changing room and a trans woman with breasts and a vagina should use the women's changing room.

So it would be unreasonable for you to say that the UK, in general, focuses on gender to the exclusion of biology. It does not. — frank

I didn’t say that.

I said that I don’t know of any UK law that dictates which bathrooms people can use.

The recent UK Supreme Court ruling is only that the words “sex”, “man”, and “woman” as used in section 11 of the Equality Act 2010 are referring to biological sex, biological men, and biological women. The implications of that ruling are not entirely clear, and the interim guidance issued by the EHRC that you referenced is just that - interim guidance - and not statute.

So you would immediately take the male and female signs down and anyone can use them? — Malcolm Parry

Yes, much like a nightclub I used to frequent.

You're not making any sense.

I don't think anyone should be excluded from any bathrooms. I think bathrooms should be unisex.

But, if we do have bathrooms that we name "men's bathrooms" and bathrooms that we name "women's bathrooms", and if only certain types of people are allowed to use the bathrooms named "men's bathrooms" and only certain types of people are allowed to use the bathrooms named "women's bathrooms", it makes more sense for the division to be based on gender rather than sex.

We do and you excluded cisgender men. On what basis? — Malcolm Parry

On the basis that we have separate men’s and women’s bathrooms. If cis and trans men are allowed to use the women’s bathrooms and cis and trans women are allowed to use the women’s bathrooms then we don’t actually have separate men’s and women’s bathrooms. We have unisex bathrooms.

That was premised on the fact that we do have separate men's and women's bathrooms.

So, my position is:

1) bathrooms ought be unisex
2) but, if we have separate men's and women's bathrooms then they should be separated by gender, not sex

It's not quite clear. The closest thing in the ruling is:

There are other provisions whose proper functioning requires a biological interpretation of “sex”. These include separate spaces and single-sex services (including changing rooms, hostels and medical services), communal accommodation and others (paras 210-228).

Whether or not this includes bathrooms isn't obvious, given that cubicles are private and biology doesn't seem at all relevant when washing your hands in a public sink.

You tell me. You are excluding them. — Malcolm Parry

I'm not excluding anyone. I've said many times before that I think bathrooms should be unisex. You're the one who is saying that bathroom usage should be divided by biology. Why is that? If bathrooms are to be divided at all, why not instead by gender?

Personally, I think it's bizarre to argue that there should be separate men's and women's toilets and that any transgender man who has medically transitioned and had both top and bottom surgery should continue to use the women's toilets.

That just seems to be some minister's interpretation of the ruling. As far as I'm aware there's no law on bathroom usage at all.

The ruling is just that it is not illegal for a transgender man to be excluded from a space that is marketed as being for biological men. That's not the same as saying either a) that it is illegal for a transgender man to use a space marketed as being for biological men or b) that men's bathrooms are only for biological men.

The same reason that you yourself happily exclude cisgender males. All those reasons. — Malcolm Parry

Which are?

It's the law in the UK, isn't it? — frank

No. There's a nightclub that I sometimes go to where all the toilets are unisex. There's no law that dictates who can use which bathrooms.

The only issue I have is why people insist men have a right to access women's exclusive places. — Malcolm Parry

The argument is that some of these spaces shouldn't be exclusively for those who are biologically female or for those who are biologically female; that they should be exclusively for those whose gender identity is female or for those whose gender identity is male.

So what good reasons are there for saying that Bathroom A should only be for biological males and that Bathroom B should only be for biological females?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_role

Michael being from the UK is a better person to engage you on that specific point. — Baden

I addressed that issue earlier, maybe to someone else.

The specific court case was regarding the Equality Act 2010, and in particular this section:

Sex
In relation to the protected characteristic of sex—
(a) a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a man or to a woman;

(b) a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same sex.

The court ruled that for the purposes of this section of this Act, the words "sex", "man", and "woman" are referring to biology, not gender. The reasoning being that there's a separate section addressing gender, and so it would be redundant for this section to also be referring to gender.

Some people, like Malcolm Parry, clearly misunderstood both what laws are and how courts work. As if this ruling has any bearing on anything else.

Words can mean more than one thing but what man is female? — Malcolm Parry

Yes, words can mean more than one thing. So when you ask "what man is female?" what do you mean by the words "man" and "female"? Do you mean "what biological man is biologically female"? Because the answer to that question is "none", and everyone will agree.

But when someone else says "transgender men are men" they are not saying "transgender men are biologically male" because they mean something else by the word "men".

Your apparent inability to understand this is precisely why you are getting nowhere.

What is your point? — Malcolm Parry

That words can mean more than one thing and that the English word “man” doesn’t just mean “a biological male”.

The phrase “goodwill to all men” from the Bible does not mean “goodwill to all biological males”. It means “goodwill to all people”.

Some words mean more than one thing. The word “bat” can refer to a flying mammal or it can refer to a type of club used in baseball or cricket. The word “man” can refer to a biological male or it can refer to any human.

I'm still not sure what you are trying too prove. — Malcolm Parry

That the English word “man” has more than one meaning.

The fact that I have to keep repeating this clearly shows that you have reading or comprehension problems. I can’t help you any further.

“One giant leap for biological male kind.”

But a man is a biological male. — Malcolm Parry

Not everyone uses the word “man” to only refer to a biological male, and the meaning of a word is determined by how language users use words. See Wittgenstein.

And unlike a language like French, there’s no “official” English vocabulary. Even dictionaries are just an attempt to best describe how people use words; they don’t prescribe.

I’m still not sure what you are trying to prove. — Malcolm Parry

That the word “man” doesn’t just mean “a biological male”. How many times do I need to repeat this?

Many English words have more than one meaning. The word “man” is such a word. I can’t be any clearer. It’s a very simple thing.

Transgender man is a transgender man. Not a man. — Malcolm Parry

The word "man" in the phrase "transgender man" does not mean "biologically male".

A human is a human. He or she can be a man or woman. — Malcolm Parry

Yes, and the word "man" can mean "human". If you type "define: man" into Google then the second definition is "a human being of either sex; a person" and offers the saying "goodwill to all men" which isn't meant to exclude women.

I’m not sure what you are trying to prove. — Malcolm Parry

That the word "man" doesn't just mean "biologically male". I've been very clear on this.

1) English noun “man” does mean biologically male in the dictionary I use. — Malcolm Parry

It doesn't only mean that, hence the phrase "transgender man" being a meaningful phrase in the English language. And sometimes "man" means "human".

Words don't always have just one meaning.

I’m not saying anything about what words should mean.

I’m saying that:

1) the English noun “man” doesn’t just mean “biologically male”, and
2) transgender men ought be allowed to use men’s bathrooms

Do you understand that these are two completely independent claims and that (1) is simply a descriptive fact about how English speakers speak?

That is exactly what is being discussed because that is the only thing that matters — Malcolm Parry

We’re not discussing what is allowed. We’re discussing what ought be allowed.

One country might allow transgender men to use the men’s bathroom and one country might not. So referring to any individual country’s laws is a red herring.

Some think that bathrooms ought be divided by biological sex, some think by gender identity, and some think they shouldn’t be divided at all.

Your argument appears to be:

P1. The English noun “man” only means “biological man” and the English noun “woman” only means “biological woman”
C1. Therefore bathrooms ought be divided by biological sex

This conclusion is a non sequitur and P1 is false.

Neither UK law nor sporting organisations dictate what English language words mean.

They can dictate who is allowed to do what, but that’s not what’s being discussed.

You can repeat this mantra as much as you like. — Malcolm Parry

It’s not a mantra. It’s an accurate description of the English language. The nouns “man” and “woman” are not each just used in a single way.

I think no man is a woman. — Malcolm Parry

And by this you just mean that no biological man is a biological woman, which everyone accepts.

But as I mentioned before, the terms “man” and “woman” are not only used to refer to biological sex; they are also used to refer to gender identity.

Even if sex and gender identity are usually congruent, for some it isn’t: for some their sex is male and their gender is female and for some their sex is female and their gender is male.

But most should? — Malcolm Parry

Cisgender men, sure.