An impassable terrain
The issue of access
to women’s intimate spaces and the participation of natal males who have
identified as female by gender reassignment in sport has been a controversial
and sometimes impossible issue to discuss.
There are activists
in what had become gender wars who had taken such implacably entrenched positions
on either side of the debate, making those who even had the simplest, most
innocent, or possibly naive questions feel silenced, for fear of being
labelled phobic, exclusionary, bigoted or even worse.
Any opinion that
appeared to go against the grain of the most liberal view of inclusion was an
invitation to censure, ostracism, punishment, loss of status or livelihood, persecution,
prosecution, and even death threats. I dare say, to the silent and quite likely
reasonable majority, it was like the world had gone mad.
What is sex?
I awaited with
anticipation and trepidation the judgement of The Supreme Court in the UK, framed
in the context of what the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010
explicitly referred to, was it biological sex alone or did it include
certificated sex?
The section, as per what the Act refers to as sex, is Chapter 1, Section 11 shown below:
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 Supreme Court in
its 88-page judgement with 268 paragraphs exhaustively reviewed historical and
superseded acts and laws that fed into the Equality Act 2010 and concluded that the definition of man and woman given in the Sex Discrimination
Act 1975 had not been changed in either the Gender Recognition
Act 2004 or the succeeding Equality Act 2010. [The
Supreme Court – Judgement - For Women Scotland Ltd (Appellant) v The Scottish Ministers
(Respondent)] PDF
In Part 1, Section 5,
Subsection 2, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 declares.
(2) In this Act—
" woman " includes a female of any age, and" man " includes a male of any age.
There should be no doubt
in anyone’s mind that in 1975, woman and man referred to biological sex. Every
assertion and consequent interpretation derives full context from here.
An appeal to predictability
The Supreme Court was
at pains to stress a particular point in Paragraph 12:
Lord Nicholls’ important constitutional
insight in Spath
Holme, that citizens with the help of their advisers should be able to
understand statutes, points towards an interpretation that is clear and
predictable.
In other words, there
is a need for consistent, clear, and predictable interpretation of words,
contexts, meanings, and intention, when citizens read statutes as promulgated
by parliament.
That means, if a woman
or a man had not been explicitly redefined in a subsequent Act, the precedent
definition remains.
Another crucial point
made is that the protected characteristic of Gender
Reassignment remains valid by force of law in the Equality Act 2010, none of
the rights of those persons who have undergone, are undergoing, or are in the
process to undergo gender reassignment are impugned, they are protected against
discrimination, victimisation, or harassment, as a matter of course.
The difficult
question
However, the
practical consequences of this situation and judgement will definitely leave
people with certain protected characteristics who have had access to spaces of
their acquired gender identity in a kind of limbo, possibly requiring a third
space.
I would think, this
is a matter for The Equality and
Human Rights Commission to address, in terms of the changes to rules,
regulations, notices, texts, and policies, along with the kinds of
accommodations and exceptions that will continue to safeguard the protected
characteristics of those whose biological sex has by gender reassignment
acquired a certificated sex.
Knowledge is power
It is incumbent on
every activist and advocate to study The Supreme Court judgement to appreciate
the rationale behind their summation and conclusion.
At the very least, read
Section 22, Summary of our reasoning, which contains Paragraph 265 on Pages 84 to
86; the attendant paragraphs informing their reasoning are suffixes to the
respective subsections.
While I am not a
lawyer and obviously not as emotionally invested in this situation, my reading
of the judgement is that it is sound, based on unimpeachable legal precedent,
and argued with due consideration of all parties involved, that they have stated,
it is not a victory for either side.
It provides clarity that would roll back some unfortunate and extrapolated interpretations
of the law that have both advantaged and disadvantaged certain groups with
common characteristics; that would always be the result of a petition for
interpretation made to the highest court of the land.
The fight for
exclusive and/or inclusive places for protected characteristics as per the
Equality Act 2010 must advance beyond protest to provision. I also do not
believe the slippery slope argument is relevant to this case.
References
BBC News: Five key takeaways from
Supreme Court ruling
Observer Editorial: The
Observer view on Equality Act ruling: A dignified compromise that respects the
rights of everyone
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