Thank you, Alessandra. I had been waiting to see what you would say. They could have done it even better, true, and more clearly, but it is a great victory none-the-less. I liked this new (?) expression, "certificated sex". It seems to suggest (more clearly than "acquired gender" or other misleading expressions such as "legal sex") sex according to paperwork, and not the real sex. I think you were suggesting a while ago that "gender identity" could be subsumed under "belief", and thus be protected under "philosophical and religious belief", rather than being a distinct protected characteristic (gender reassignment). Then one would be free to believe that the earth is flat, that men can become women, that 2 + 2 is sometimes 5, and any number of strange ideas, as long as they did not impose them on everyone else. I thought this was a great idea. Though when, I wonder, will we see the belief that sex is binary and immutable protected in some other way rather than as a "philosophical belief", apparently on a par with these above? Still a long way to go...
I do not. We all have a certificated sex. Legal sex is also wrong. Acquired gender is the language used in the GRA, and courts should stick to statutory language, not invent new terms to describe the same thing. It is intellectually dishonest.
Knowledge of sex does not need protection. No other scientific knowledge is protected in equality law.
Thank you, Alessandra. Can you please explain a bit more, as I need to understand this. So knowledge of sex should not need protection, as you say, but then what was the Maya Forstater judgment about (on appeal only, finally)? That "gender-critical" beliefs are protected in law, just as other beliefs, eg religious beliefs, are. So the belief that sex is real, binary and immutable is protected under the Equality Act. I agree it is absurd to make it a protected belief (both, I think, because it makes it analogous to metaphysical beliefs, and because it suggests you are free to hold it as long a syou do not force others to do the same). Facts should not need protection in law. Then why are gender-critical/ sex-realist beliefs protected under the law, since Maya's case?
Unfortunately that is the consequence of the Forstater EAT case. I have written a lot on why I disagree with this approach and also with the concession that gender identity belief is also protected, something that Maya's legal team did not need to concede at all in order to win the case. And I have never gotten an answer on why they did that. You can draw your own conclusions.
Yes. It seems the Forstater case just went along with the idea that reality is whatever we believe it is rather than that sex is a scientific immutable fact. This just reinforced the trans activist narrative. I never understood this argument and thought it set us back rather than forward.
Alessandra, I am considering the opening statement of our repeal of the GRA to be "We are seeking the repeal of the GRA to re-establish the primacy of Sex: binary (male or female) and immutable over a perceived Gender Identity that differs from one's sex observed in utero and/or at birth and recorded".
P100 of the SC ruling suggests that the GRA grants more than the falsification of sex on documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, civil partnership certificate and death certificate (and those only applicable to those who have been issued a GRC by the Gender Recognition Panel).
If the GRA is repealed and the PC of Gender Reassignment subsumed into the PCs of Religion or Belief (that one has a Gender Identity at variance with ones's sex) and Disability (suffering from the contested symptom, not diagnosis, of Gender Dysphoria and the delusion they are not the sex they were born) what rights do you think the SC were thinking of that TW/TIM would be deprived of?
Ah sorry just saw this. I do not think they really thought it over to be honest. I mean quoting Lady Hale on this is an admission of dereliction of duty to consider the legal issues, not the be nice crap we have been fed. The GRA is not about dignity and autonomy.
Thank you, Alessandra. I had been waiting to see what you would say. They could have done it even better, true, and more clearly, but it is a great victory none-the-less. I liked this new (?) expression, "certificated sex". It seems to suggest (more clearly than "acquired gender" or other misleading expressions such as "legal sex") sex according to paperwork, and not the real sex. I think you were suggesting a while ago that "gender identity" could be subsumed under "belief", and thus be protected under "philosophical and religious belief", rather than being a distinct protected characteristic (gender reassignment). Then one would be free to believe that the earth is flat, that men can become women, that 2 + 2 is sometimes 5, and any number of strange ideas, as long as they did not impose them on everyone else. I thought this was a great idea. Though when, I wonder, will we see the belief that sex is binary and immutable protected in some other way rather than as a "philosophical belief", apparently on a par with these above? Still a long way to go...
I do not. We all have a certificated sex. Legal sex is also wrong. Acquired gender is the language used in the GRA, and courts should stick to statutory language, not invent new terms to describe the same thing. It is intellectually dishonest.
Knowledge of sex does not need protection. No other scientific knowledge is protected in equality law.
Thank you, Alessandra. Can you please explain a bit more, as I need to understand this. So knowledge of sex should not need protection, as you say, but then what was the Maya Forstater judgment about (on appeal only, finally)? That "gender-critical" beliefs are protected in law, just as other beliefs, eg religious beliefs, are. So the belief that sex is real, binary and immutable is protected under the Equality Act. I agree it is absurd to make it a protected belief (both, I think, because it makes it analogous to metaphysical beliefs, and because it suggests you are free to hold it as long a syou do not force others to do the same). Facts should not need protection in law. Then why are gender-critical/ sex-realist beliefs protected under the law, since Maya's case?
Unfortunately that is the consequence of the Forstater EAT case. I have written a lot on why I disagree with this approach and also with the concession that gender identity belief is also protected, something that Maya's legal team did not need to concede at all in order to win the case. And I have never gotten an answer on why they did that. You can draw your own conclusions.
Yes. It seems the Forstater case just went along with the idea that reality is whatever we believe it is rather than that sex is a scientific immutable fact. This just reinforced the trans activist narrative. I never understood this argument and thought it set us back rather than forward.
Thank you, yes, you have written quite clearly about this, in "Truth of Belief", in March 2024. Have just reread it.
Alessandra, I am considering the opening statement of our repeal of the GRA to be "We are seeking the repeal of the GRA to re-establish the primacy of Sex: binary (male or female) and immutable over a perceived Gender Identity that differs from one's sex observed in utero and/or at birth and recorded".
P100 of the SC ruling suggests that the GRA grants more than the falsification of sex on documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, civil partnership certificate and death certificate (and those only applicable to those who have been issued a GRC by the Gender Recognition Panel).
If the GRA is repealed and the PC of Gender Reassignment subsumed into the PCs of Religion or Belief (that one has a Gender Identity at variance with ones's sex) and Disability (suffering from the contested symptom, not diagnosis, of Gender Dysphoria and the delusion they are not the sex they were born) what rights do you think the SC were thinking of that TW/TIM would be deprived of?
Ah sorry just saw this. I do not think they really thought it over to be honest. I mean quoting Lady Hale on this is an admission of dereliction of duty to consider the legal issues, not the be nice crap we have been fed. The GRA is not about dignity and autonomy.