Legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, UK supreme court rules

[bilby]

A mate of mine worked security at Warringah Stadium in Sydney, home of the Manly Sea Eagles.

There was a place around the back of the main stand where the wall was climbable, and they often caught local lads trying their luck on match days, attempting to get over at half-time, when the box office had closed.

They rarely made much of a fuss about it, and would just send them back inside and make them watch the second half.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

JK Rowling says to photograph women in toilets just in case they're transgender - LGBTQ Nation

Her advice will result in cisgender women getting harassed and bullied while they're trying to pee in peace.

www.lgbtqnation.com

Transphobic billionaire author J.K. Rowling has encouraged random people in the United Kingdom to photograph people in women’s restrooms just in case they are transgender. Her advice is likely to result in the public harassment of cisgender women who don’t fit people’s preconceived notions of how a cis woman “should” look — such harassment has occurred many times in the past.

In a Saturday post on X, Rowling noted that someone asked her, “How are you planning to police public toilets” in light of the recent U.K. Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of men and women in the country’s anti-discrimination law is based on biological sex. After the ruling, the U.K.’s Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said trans women and men “should not be permitted to use” the public restroom facilities that align with their gender.

In response, Rowling said that policing trans people in public toilets can be handled, “Quite easily, really. Decent men will stay out, as they always have, so we can assume all who don’t are a threat, given their disregard for women’s and girls’ safety, privacy and dignity. Photographing, reporting and disseminating such men’s images online will be a piece of cake.”

Exactly. There is no way to make a functional as-your-birth system.

 

[Politesse]

And why do you think you're paying for that park? The baseball team pays for it. From ticket sales.

If it's a private park, it's even less relevant to a question of federal law.

 

[Bomb#20]

I am looking at that post, and still not seeing what the hell you're on about. No matter what way you explain it, Marxism simply does not naturally follow from policies of non-discrimination.

Nobody said it does. You appear to be reasoning as follows:

Bomb says there's a connection between !D and M.
Poli can't conceive of connections more complicated than !D implies M.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore Bomb claims !D implies M.​

But that's not what I said. I'm refuting an earlier argument against discrimination, not presenting a positive argument in favor of discrimination.

Toni appears to have been arguing that transwomen should justly get to use the women's room ("!D") because they need to, and discrimination is a barrier to satisfying that need, and justice requires the removal of barriers to satisfying needs. So I'm pointing out that property rights are also barriers to satisfying needs. If it were really the case that justice requires the removal of barriers to satisfying needs then justice would require the abolition not just of discrimination but also of property rights. Abolition of property rights is Marxism ("M"). So I'm pointing out that justice does not actually require Marxism. Quite the reverse. Therefore Toni's premise that justice requires the removal of barriers to satisfying needs is false, so her argument is unsound, so she has failed to show transwomen should justly get to use the women's room. QED. That is the connection between !D and M.

The best, or the most plausible? The latter seems like requiring that a single use facility is always available if needed for those who need it. The best would be a cultural shift.

But federal law is not the right instrument to effect either change, in any case. There is no solution that all states and cities would find acceptable as a top-down, firearm-enforced mandate.

You say that as though it's at all possible for federal law not to be the instrument of change. Do you think the ongoing proliferation of all-gender restrooms is happening because business owners as a class are expressing their inner allyship? Do you think they're catering to the preferences of their customer base? They're doing it because they think it minimizes their chances of getting sued.

By what federal law is anyone being sued?

What lawsuits are you referring to, in fact?

The one I know of is Wendy's was sued for allegedly violating Title VII.

But a court awarding a fat judgment to a plaintiff is every bit as much an act of government as imposing a steep fine. Texas Republicans play-acted at practicing live-and-let-live, pretending the abortion lawsuits they authorized didn't violate Roe-v-Wade because it was supposedly private parties interfering with women's reproductive rights, not the government. Do you really want to imitate Texas Republicans?

It's not clear to me how these situations are supposed to be equivalent,

They share the same fiction that the government can keep it's hands clean by outsourcing its dirty work to parties not under its direct control. It's the "extraordinary rendition" theory of rule-of-law.

but I certainly would not point to the abortion debate as an exemplar of the government handling a debate of social policy well. Did the ruling in Roe v Wade, and its subsequent enforcement as a quasi-law that never saw the halls of Congress, in fact resolve the issue to everyone's satisfaction?

"to everyone's satisfaction"? What's that got to do with anything? You can't satisfy everyone, except, maybe, by prosecuting dissidents to silence them, so they can't infect the next generation with blasphemous ideas, and then waiting for them all to die. The UK has tried that but it won't fly here.

That case waa not the culmination of a culture war, it sparked one.

Where'd you get that idea? The culture war was well underway long before RvW.

But I'm also not clear on what federal legal ruling, equivalent in weight to Roe, you think it could violate to either have or not have single-sex bathrooms.

I can easily see some federal judge ruling that the logic of Bostock implies single-sex bathrooms are illegal. Whether an appellate court and the SCOTUS would agree, I expect we'll find out in the next few years...

 

[Toni]

This is about to veer far off topic... but this notion that private property is somehow an affront to others, paired with the insinuation that all fences are somehow bad, is naive and unsophisticated. You're doing a really good job of not explicitly saying so, but the tacit thrust of your post is the complete elimination of property rights.

What's infantile is your reduction of my post to "all fences are bad", which of course I did not say and wouldn't say. I do however, deny the notion that helping someone get past a fence, if that fence is barring there access to a public space that they are forced to pay for, is an injustice. If I'm going to pay for the operation of a park just like any other citizen, then I should have equal access to that park just like any other citizen.

In truth, I'm not a huge fan of the Enclosure Acts, but I'm prctical-minded enough to understand that that ship has sailed. What I don't see is why private property rights would in any way apply to publically owned land, insititutions, or services, which seems to be what you're saying if you think that letting kids onto a public field requires a "complete elimination of property rights".

And why do you think you're paying for that park? The baseball team pays for it. From ticket sales.

What Bomb and I noted was an opaque fence. That's about ticket revenue.

There's a public soccer field near here with a very beefy, lockable fence. Still almost totally transparent, though. (The fence exists because the field sits several feet below terrain, it also serves as an emergency retention basin. It would make a mess if it was used, but much less of a mess than if that water were rampaging through the city.)

IMO, you and Bomb are looking very very hard to find an excuse to keep some people out because they do not ‘fit’ into your idea of worthy.

You seem unaware that a world exists outside your narrow life ( we all have narrow life experience) experience and anything out of your experience does not bear examining.

 

[Toni]

This is about to veer far off topic... but this notion that private property is somehow an affront to others, paired with the insinuation that all fences are somehow bad, is naive and unsophisticated. You're doing a really good job of not explicitly saying so, but the tacit thrust of your post is the complete elimination of property rights.

What's infantile is your reduction of my post to "all fences are bad", which of course I did not say and wouldn't say. I do however, deny the notion that helping someone get past a fence, if that fence is barring there access to a public space that they are forced to pay for, is an injustice. If I'm going to pay for the operation of a park just like any other citizen, then I should have equal access to that park just like any other citizen.

In truth, I'm not a huge fan of the Enclosure Acts, but I'm prctical-minded enough to understand that that ship has sailed. What I don't see is why private property rights would in any way apply to publically owned land, insititutions, or services, which seems to be what you're saying if you think that letting kids onto a public field requires a "complete elimination of property rights".

And why do you think you're paying for that park? The baseball team pays for it. From ticket sales.

What Bomb and I noted was an opaque fence. That's about ticket revenue.

There's a public soccer field near here with a very beefy, lockable fence. Still almost totally transparent, though. (The fence exists because the field sits several feet below terrain, it also serves as an emergency retention basin. It would make a mess if it was used, but much less of a mess than if that water were rampaging through the city.)

Where I live, most stadiums are built with plenty of public dimes, whether they be on high school or college campuses or stadiums for pro teams.

In that illustration, there IS NO stadium.

But of course who paid for the nonexistent stadium is not the point. The point is access. None of those kids are being shown with money. It’s not about monetary access—it’s about access for those who have limitations that many people do not have.

 

[Politesse]

The one I know of is Wendy's was sued for allegedly violating Title VII.

Because it did. Do you support workplace harassment?

 

[Politesse]

Where'd you get that idea? The culture war was well underway long before RvW.

That is simply not the case. Roe v Wade was the start of the public fight over abortion, and indeed it still took quite a few years for the religious right to catch on to the potential of the unstable situation the Court had unintentionally created by hanging such an important decision on the weight of such a fragile legal argument. Before that case, unless they were Catholic and thus themselves a discriminated class, the issue just was not on most American's radars.

 

[TomC]

But of course who paid for the nonexistent stadium is not the point. The point is access. None of those kids are being shown with money. It’s not about monetary access—it’s about access for those who have limitations that many people do not have.

Honestly, I thought your illustration was extremely simple and clear and correct.
How it got twisted into "The boys are thieves" is inexplicably dense.
Tom

 

[Toni]

But of course who paid for the nonexistent stadium is not the point. The point is access. None of those kids are being shown with money. It’s not about monetary access—it’s about access for those who have limitations that many people do not have.

Honestly, I thought your illustration was extremely simple and clear and correct.
How it got twisted into "The boys are thieves" is inexplicably dense.
Tom

Maybe a better analogy would be that society is fond of surrounding important resources and opportunities with semi-permeable membranes. Too often the pores are designed to admit only certain people, historically able bodied white men, and usually white men who already had conditions that are ideal to allow them to pass through the pores.

But I thought that would be confusing and I’d have to explain semipermeable membranes.

I did not expect to explain kids wanting to see a ball game surrounded by an unnecessary fence or that this was not an attack on capitalism and that I thought we outgrew feudalism several centuries ago.

I’ll end with this observation: Some insecure people do not deal well without strict controls. When dealing with stress, they want to clamp down control very hard.

For some people, change of any kind is stress. Lots of things break under stress and some people do not care what breaks, so long as they are on top.

 

[Bomb#20]

The one I know of is Wendy's was sued for allegedly violating Title VII.

Because it did. Do you support workplace harassment?

No. Focus. Wendy's did a bunch of nasty stuff to three trans employees and deserves to get nailed for that, duh; but the issue for here is specifically the suit's allegation that insisting the women use the women's room and the man use the men's room are among those Title VII violations and qualify as harassment. That's a legal point that has not yet been settled by the courts, but the fact that the suit was brought at all, and I'm guessing it's not the only one, serves to intimidate other employers into converting single-sex restrooms to all-gender.

That case waa not the culmination of a culture war, it sparked one.

Where'd you get that idea? The culture war was well underway long before RvW.

That is simply not the case. Roe v Wade was the start of the public fight over abortion, and indeed it still took quite a few years for the religious right to catch on to the potential of the unstable situation the Court had unintentionally created by hanging such an important decision on the weight of such a fragile legal argument. Before that case, unless they were Catholic and thus themselves a discriminated class, the issue just was not on most American's radars.

Your own link doesn't support your contention -- it says the culture war was sparked well after RvW, by "attempts on the part of the Internal Revenue Service to rescind the tax-exempt status of whites-only segregation academies (many of them church sponsored) and Bob Jones University because of its segregationist policies."

Personally, I regard the culture war over abortion as a continuation of the culture war over family planning, which goes back at least to Margaret Sanger. But if you want to define it narrowly, the National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1968 and the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation (aka The Janes) was founded in 1969. Those look pretty culture-war-like to me.

As far as "not on most American's radars" goes, wars are often well underway before they're on most Americans' radar. WWII began in 1937; it started showing up in a lot of Americans' radar only in 1939, and finally made it onto most Americans' radar when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

 

[Politesse]

No. Focus. Wendy's did a bunch of nasty stuff to three trans employees and deserves to get nailed for that, duh; but the issue for here is specifically the suit's allegation that insisting the women use the women's room and the man use the men's room are among those Title VII violations and qualify as harassment. That's a legal point that has not yet been settled by the courts, but the fact that the suit was brought at all, and I'm guessing it's not the only one, serves to intimidate other employers into converting single-sex restrooms to all-gender.

So if we ignore the facts of the case, it supports your wild claims of persecution, and corrolary insistence that businesses "only" serve their potential customers' needs for fear of lawsuit. I note that most Wendy's locations do not have third gender restroom options, were not ordered to by the court, and were only criticized for not having them in the wider context of their vicious abuse of trans employees.

 

[Politesse]

Personally, I regard the culture war over abortion as a continuation of the culture war over family planning, which goes back at least to Margaret Sanger. But if you want to define it narrowly, the National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1968 and the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation (aka The Janes) was founded in 1969. Those look pretty culture-war-like to me

So you feel that Roe v Wade was irrelevant to the brewing war over abortion? Or actually beneficial to resolving it somehow? I get thst its fun to pick nits, but even if you weren't wrong, I don't see how correcting the timeline helps make the case that guts n guns, top down federal solutions, that obviously favor one ideological faction over another, are a good way to resolve debates over culture and religion.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Bullshit. It’s about removing enough barriers so that everyone can participate to the best of their abilities. It does not mandate that pro basketball players must play on their knees so that I can have an equal chance to play. Nor are musicians required to wear gloves and render themselves tone deaf so that I can play as well as they can.

It means removing unnecessary barriers and providing appropriate accommodations so that everyone can access essential services regardless of sex, gender, race, country of origin, first language, religion.

It dues not require that no one wear a crucifix or yarmulke or burqa in order to avoid offending anyone.

It requires that public education make reasonable accommodations for all students, including adaptive physical education/equipment, interpreters, including ASL interpreters, etc.

The devil is hiding in two words here: "appropriate" and "reasonable" are both very subjective. The ADA law was atrocious for this reason.

It requires curbs thst allow people with wheelchairs ( or strollers) to utilize sidewalks. So do ramps, etc.

Sidewalks are easy.

Ramps--there are times ramps are not viable. Old construction well away from grade can be extremely difficult to ramp.

For starters. It does NOT require that no student is allowed to progress faster than the slowest student.

The problem is that this gets interpreted as failing to provide adequate help for the slowest.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We haven't established that anybody has been harmed by a penis on a female-presenting person in the women's room.

That’s absolutely not true. Upthread I linked articles about a supposedly trans student who raised two girls in the girls restroom—at two different schools. This student was ‘female presenting’ enough that the school allowed them into the girl’s restroom.

"Allowed" as if there was some sort of guard at the door judging who entered??

I have never seen a person controlling admission to a restroom other than collecting a fee for entry, and I've never seen that in the US.

And note that the news article said it didn't appear to be a trans case, thus there's no reason the school would have "allowed" it. He simply walked in.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I was talking about conditioned to fear as being a reason for a law protecting against that fear.

Conditioned to fear something that ACTUALLY CAUSES WOMEN HARM ON A REGULAR BASIS. Seriously, we're not talking about incredibly rare cases of men sexually harassing, sexually assaulting, or raping women. We're talking about 25% of women having been subjected to an attempted or completed rape at least once in their life, and over 80% of women having been sexually assaulted in their life.

It's an entirely reasonable concern based on what actually for realsies happens to us way, way more frequently than it should.

We haven't established that anybody has been harmed by a penis on a female-presenting person in the women's room.

Katie Dolatowski.

Something I have been completely unable to find: Had she transitioned when she committed her offenses?

The absence of this information makes me suspect the answer is no.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

None of what you describe is in any way captured by your image. Unless you think that fences around baseball fields are "unnecessary barriers" and that crates to stand on to see over the fence are "necessary services"

Look - I'm all for providing needs-based assistance when necessary, and for providing equal opportunity to all (especially children). But the image you posted isn't arguing for that - it's part and parcel of a marxist approach. And that image has been repeatedly used to denigrate capitalism in its entirety and to extol the premise of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It just takes the new tactic of starting with the heart-strings approach of need before trying to compel the ability.

I largely think fences which prevent the public from watching baseball games are unnecessary.

I also am getting a very good idea of who is and who is not able to engage in abstract thinking or looking beyond one specific example.

The problem here is that you are focusing on only one aspect of the image.

To each according to his need becomes extremely unfair to those who better themselves.

And there are always limits. The final frame dismisses that.

 

[Toni]

None of what you describe is in any way captured by your image. Unless you think that fences around baseball fields are "unnecessary barriers" and that crates to stand on to see over the fence are "necessary services"

Look - I'm all for providing needs-based assistance when necessary, and for providing equal opportunity to all (especially children). But the image you posted isn't arguing for that - it's part and parcel of a marxist approach. And that image has been repeatedly used to denigrate capitalism in its entirety and to extol the premise of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". It just takes the new tactic of starting with the heart-strings approach of need before trying to compel the ability.

I largely think fences which prevent the public from watching baseball games are unnecessary.

I also am getting a very good idea of who is and who is not able to engage in abstract thinking or looking beyond one specific example.

The problem here is that you are focusing on only one aspect of the image.

To each according to his need becomes extremely unfair to those who better themselves.

And there are always limits. The final frame dismisses that.

How can one 'better themselves' if all such avenues for betterment are blocked?

I agree that those who can go further should be allowed to go further/deeper. But so should artificial barriers that prevent people from moving forward should be removed. No one should be forbidden to play pro basketball because I'm short. No one should not be allowed to play in the orchestra because I am not musically inclined. But everyone who is musically inclined should have the opportunity to explore that talent and do with it what they are able to do. Music and art education should not be only for those who were born to well off families. College should not be off limits to those who were born in families that struggle economically. High paying careers should not be only for white men. Certainly nothing like race/skin color/religion/country of origin should prevent anyone from achieving whatever they are able to achieve.

 

[Bomb#20]

No. Focus. Wendy's did a bunch of nasty stuff to three trans employees and deserves to get nailed for that, duh; but the issue for here is specifically the suit's allegation that insisting the women use the women's room and the man use the men's room are among those Title VII violations and qualify as harassment. That's a legal point that has not yet been settled by the courts, but the fact that the suit was brought at all, and I'm guessing it's not the only one, serves to intimidate other employers into converting single-sex restrooms to all-gender.

So if we ignore the facts of the case, it supports your wild claims of persecution,

Sorry, I'm going to need you to remind me whom I'm making wild claims of persecution of; it's hard to keep track of all your fantasies about me. Pointing out that business owners try to avoid lawsuits isn't claiming persecution, just noting that it's pretty common for days to end with "y". Getting businesses to follow policy by making the threat realistic is pretty much the whole point of having an EEOC in the first place and not depending on aggrieved employees to have the means to mount a lawsuit by themselves.

and corrolary insistence that businesses "only" serve their potential customers' needs for fear of lawsuit.

Women who'll be put off by men using the women's room count as potential customers too. If it's left up to owners' choice then some owners will certainly serve their potential trans customers' needs preferences, yes; but we'll probably find most owners can do arithmetic.

Personally, I regard the culture war over abortion as a continuation of the culture war over family planning, which goes back at least to Margaret Sanger. But if you want to define it narrowly, the National Right to Life Committee was founded in 1968 and the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation (aka The Janes) was founded in 1969. Those look pretty culture-war-like to me

So you feel that Roe v Wade was irrelevant to the brewing war over abortion?

Where do you get this stuff? Are you pushing some goofy false dilemma fallacy, where for something to be relevant it has to either spark the war or settle it? If I say the Civil War was sparked by Fort Sumter and settled by Appomattox are you going to ask me "So you feel Gettysburg was irrelevant?"?

Or actually beneficial to resolving it somehow?

It was beneficial for fifty years' worth of women with unwanted pregnancies. That's more important to me then whether it was beneficial for resolving an issue that was unresolvable in the lifetime of anyone then living regardless of government policy. Controversies like this don't get resolved by events or decisions; they get resolved by the people on one side dying of old age while new generations grow up thinking differently.

... I don't see how correcting the timeline helps make the case that guts n guns, top down federal solutions, that obviously favor one ideological faction over another, are a good way to resolve debates over culture and religion.

What was the purpose of your "federal law is not the right instrument" argument, other than to recommend that the feds stay out of this fight? My point was never that top down federal solutions are a good way to resolve the debate, but rather that recommending the feds stay out of it is like recommending the feds not do anything rash over the sinking of the Lusitania -- you can recommend it to your heart's content but that ship has, as it were, sailed. It's physically impossible for the feds to stay out of this fight because they're already in it up to their necks. If Congress heeds your advice and declines to legislate, that will not leave the matter up to the states, or up to the public, or up to individual business owners, much though some might prefer one of those resolutions of the debate. If Congress declines to legislate it will leave the matter up to the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS are feds too, and they're apt to impose another top down federal solution, probably one that obviously favors one ideological faction over another.

 

[Politesse]

It was beneficial for fifty years' worth of women with unwanted pregnancies.

An actual law would have been better. Because we would then still have its protection.

The SCOTUS are feds too, and they're apt to impose another top down federal solution, probably one that obviously favors one ideological faction over another.

That much is certain. And you only think that's a good thing because you think they'll do something akin to this Scottish court.