The UK Supreme Court rules that trans women are in fact, not women

binau said: "So called 'progressives'and trans activists, many of whom are gay men, should be absolutely ashamed at what they have done to trans rights and trans people. Your arrogance and inflexibility in your thinking, overreach and unreasonable demands that people have been warning you about for years is continuing to put the lives of trans people at risk. Shame on you. You've put trans people in the firing line because you lacked common sense - trans people deserve to live discreet lives in peace. You've used trans people to make yourself feel good to give you a moral cause and have refused to listen and compromise without realising the counterproductive damage you have done."

Thanks to the work of activists, trans people have broad protections against discrimination in my state of Maryland and many other states. At the workplace, they're protected nationwide by existing laws against employment discrimination based on sex, thanks to a court ruling brought about by these same activists. So don't expect any apologies to be forthcoming from me or any other activists I know. (Full disclosure - I don't know if I'd consider myself an activist at this point, because I'm not quite "active" enough anymore, but I was an energetic volunteer and then professional activist for about ten years earlier this century.)

It's also - obviously - not my place as an ally to tell any trans man or woman that they've gone too far in demanding to be treated as the person they are.

binau said: "https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g27n80lnjo.amp

So called 'progressives'and trans activists, many of whom are gay men, should be absolutely ashamed at what they have done to trans rights and trans people. Your arrogance and inflexibility in your thinking, overreach and unreasonable demands that people have been warning you about for years is continuing to put the lives of trans people at risk. Shame on you. You've put trans people in the firing line because you lacked common sense - trans people deserve to live discreet lives in peace. You've used trans people to make yourself feel good to give you a moral cause and have refused to listen and compromise without realising the counterproductive damage you have done."

What is there to compromise with over the right to existence of Trans people? Are you Trans? Like it's very presumptious to point out "Gay Men" as a contributing factor to this when the UK (and US) Government has been actively hostile to Trans people for decades. Your "Shame Shame" speech just makes you look like an ass.

binau said: "we need to compromise in the areas of biological men in women's sports (i.e. stop doing this)"

This is what I had in mind when I said allies are in no position to tell trans people when they can and cannot assert their identity. It's just not our call. I have some more complex thoughts about ways to approach this issue that respect gender identity and the safety of athletes, and I've shared them before, but I don't have enough time to type it out this morning.

"have limits to gender affirming care"

I assume you mean for minors. Families should be able to make decisions, along with their doctors, without government interference. Frankly, that should also be the conservative position as well, if they're true to their stated principles.

"have some more common sense around shared sex spaces (e.g. I think trans people should share these spaces if they are likely to be accepted in them and not share these spaces if they are not rather than blanket expectations)"

How can trans people know ahead of time which spaces will accept them?

This is my libertarianism talking, but I think private businesses (including those open to the public) should be able to make their own decisions about this, including having unisex bathrooms all around (which is the decision I would make). Government-run facilities should, by law, allow trans people to use the facilities that correspond to their gender identity.

"If we don't, we will continue to turn the general public against trans people andmake trans rights worse, not better (which is exactly what is happening now across both the US & UK now)."

I really think there was no way we were going to avoid some kind of backlash. As I argued in my previous response, things are still better for trans people in very concrete ways, thanks to trans and ally activists.

It turns out that the premise of this thread isn't really true: the court's ruling was aimed narrowly at one specific piece of legislation, and expressly not intended to make any broader statement. From a BBC article:

The Supreme Court was asked to decide on the proper interpretation of the 2010 Equality Act, which applies across Britain.

Lord Hodge said the central question was how the words "woman" and "sex" are defined in the legislation.

He told the court: "The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

"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".

binau said: "Regardless of the technicalities, and even if was not meant to be taken as so - it does feel like this is a cultural turning point for the worst and one only needs to look at the Transgender UK community on reddit to see the hurt that it is causing - as well as footage from recent protests."

If this is the case, which I doubt, why aren't you primarily blaming the actual bigots for all of this rather than the activists who you seem to acknowledge have done so much good in the past?

"It is now officially the case, as far as I understand, that the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia alldo not define the term Woman to include trans woman."

Could you provide a list of world leaders who have actually stated that trans women are women? Did Biden or Obama say it? (Honestly, I don't know the answer, but my guess is no.)

On the other hand, two of the leaders you mention vocally support legal protections for trans people (and so did Obama and Biden). Did any major world leader publicly support these protections 25 years ago? Despite some recent setbacks, are we really going in the wrong direction overall?

"Make no mistake, this is a major major step backwards in terms of trans attitudes and trans right. It's the only minority group in recent history I've observed with what looks likeclear regression in rights and attitudes in a world that for the most part has been moving forward for years."

It's only by the technicality that women are a historically oppressed non-minority group that you can ignore major setbacks for women in the United States in recent years.

In the context of sports participation I don't accept this and neither does almost the entire population of the US or UK (and I assume every other country on earth really). [...] And this is exactly my point- we have lost this battle. It's time to move on now.Continuing to fight for this will do more damage than good."

It was not very long ago at all that "moderates" were saying the same thing about the push for marriage equality.

Itisour callbecause fairness in sports affects all participants not just trans participants"

The other day I alluded to the fact that I can foresee a way to protect safety and fairness in sports without challenging the dignity of transgender people. I was in a hurry then, but tonight I'll try to let you know what I have in mind.

Famously, the Olympics have some rules around who can safely and fairly compete in women's events based on objective biological traits, such as hormone levels. Even universally acknowledged ciswomen who fall outside these standards can't compete, for reasons that are, in principle, reasonable and defensible.

This principle could be applied to competition at lower levels as well. Perhaps we wouldn't need to draw blood from everyone trying out for a middle school softball team, but it might be appropriate to say that any athlete who can, say, bench press above a certain weight is too strong to safely compete in a particular league. I'm just spitballing the details, but a system along these lines should (again, in principle) be able to assuage any reasonable fears without singling out transgender athletes.

Bwaygurl2 said: "
That aside, I do think that, in this instance, well meaning Libs / The Left have done harm to the trans movement. Because they have raised the saliency of the issue. Cisgender people using pronouns in bios is irritating to many because it feels like performative virtue signalling. That turns people off who otherwise would not be worrying about trans people.

"

People got over seeing "Equality" as everyone's middle name on Social Media back in 2009, they can get over this. If seeing pronouns in someone's bio is "turning people off" then that's their own ****ing problem and I'm glad that their lives have so little complication that they are actually taking time out of their day to be irritated by it. You wanna talk about performative? That's performative.

Bwaygurl2 said: "But it's not their own problem because they are making it trans people's problem. I wish anti trans messaging wasn't successful but it apparently was in the 2024 election."

You think Cis people with pronouns in their bio are what's causing problems for Trans people? Please for the love of God, go touch some grass. Anti Trans rhetoric works because they hate Trans people, not because there were Cis people standing by them. Get real.