Supreme Court Ruling on Trans Rights in Equality Act

[Tristan]

Im intrigued where hes going to assign someone who he believes both has a vagina and is not international-competitive-sport-female.

WTF does this even mean?

[Grumble]

Im intrigued where hes going to assign someone who he believes both has a vagina and is not international-competitive-sport-female.

WTF does this even mean?

You don’t seem to think having a vagina is relevant to the sex of a person.

[Tristan]

Im intrigued where hes going to assign someone who he believes both has a vagina and is not international-competitive-sport-female.

WTF does this even mean?

You don’t seem to think having a vagina is relevant to the sex of a person.

Where have I said that?

[Grumble]

WTF does this even mean?

You don’t seem to think having a vagina is relevant to the sex of a person.

Where have I said that?

If we're going to insist someone with a DSD where male androgenization occurs but who was marked as "female" on the birth certificate is a cis woman then cis starts to lose some of its meaning as commonly understood. It will mean you can have biologically male cis women.

How do you think babies are assigned male or female? Having been present for 3 births I can tell you it’s not subtle.

[Tristan]

You don’t seem to think having a vagina is relevant to the sex of a person.

Where have I said that?

If we're going to insist someone with a DSD where male androgenization occurs but who was marked as "female" on the birth certificate is a cis woman then cis starts to lose some of its meaning as commonly understood. It will mean you can have biologically male cis women.

How do you think babies are assigned male or female? Having been present for 3 births I can tell you it’s not subtle.

Yes, that (understandable) lack of subtlety can mean that DSDs that affect males can easily be missed and someone can erroneously be identified as female when they might not be.
In the vast majority of cases what seems obvious on first examination is correct. But it isn’t every time.

[Grumble]

Where have I said that?

If we're going to insist someone with a DSD where male androgenization occurs but who was marked as "female" on the birth certificate is a cis woman then cis starts to lose some of its meaning as commonly understood. It will mean you can have biologically male cis women.

How do you think babies are assigned male or female? Having been present for 3 births I can tell you it’s not subtle.

Yes, that (understandable) lack of subtlety can mean that DSDs that affect males can easily be missed and someone can erroneously be identified as female when they might not be.
In the vast majority of cases what seems obvious on first examination is correct. But it isn’t every time.

There you go again, saying that the genitalia aren’t truly relevant to sex. They aren’t everything, but neither are chromosomes. Nothing here is absolute. This brings us back to trans individuals - I don’t pretend to know the latest science, but I don’t think people are just pretending to be the opposite gender. There is probably a biological reason for people to go against their sex assigned at birth.

[Tristan]

How do you think babies are assigned male or female? Having been present for 3 births I can tell you it’s not subtle.

Yes, that (understandable) lack of subtlety can mean that DSDs that affect males can easily be missed and someone can erroneously be identified as female when they might not be.
In the vast majority of cases what seems obvious on first examination is correct. But it isn’t every time.

There you go again, saying that the genitalia aren’t truly relevant to sex. They aren’t everything, but neither are chromosomes. Nothing here is absolute. This brings us back to trans individuals - I don’t pretend to know the latest science, but I don’t think people are just pretending to be the opposite gender. There is probably a biological reason for people to go against their sex assigned at birth.

This is nonsense. Trans people and people with DSDs are not the same thing. The rates of trans people who also have a DSD are very low. The significant majority do not.

It’s far more likely that there’s a significant psychological rather than just a biological reason. But even if there is a biological basis for transgenderism all that does is help explain why they think they’re the opposite sex. It doesn’t mean they actually are. Anorexia is thought to have both biological and psychological influences but we do not say people with anorexia are actually fat in some way.

Now, the health implications of socially treating people with gender dysphoria and anorexia the way they see themselves is very different. In anorexia it could kill them. In gender dysphoria the implications are less significant (though not non-existent - hence restrictions on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones at certain ages).

And that brings us back to the Supreme Court ruling. It effectively says trans people can be treated AS IF they are the sex they think they are in many cases, but not in all cases. There are cases where the actual sex of the individual is important and there’s a balance of rights to be struck.

[Stephanie]

How I think of myself isn't really that relevant though. Yes it must be weird, unsettling, upsetting, distressing etc etc. to find something like that out, but in something like the example of the boxer their feelings about the matter and how they see themselves are secondary to what they actually are. Khelif may not see herself as male, but it's quite possible she actually is and is disqualified from the female category as a result. We may find out soon.

The fact Khelif's statements are all about appeals to emotion (feels like a girl, grew up as a girl etc.) rather than anything more concrete indicates there's a definite chance the tests wouldn't come up with the result she wants. If she had something more concrete I'm sure she'd have said something by now.

Ok but which bogs must they use?

f.ck me, you guys are obsessed with toilets.

Toilets are a very obvious way that trans people will be discriminated against. The majority of the population and indeed trans people aren't olympic athletes.

[Bewildered]

Yes, that (understandable) lack of subtlety can mean that DSDs that affect males can easily be missed and someone can erroneously be identified as female when they might not be.
In the vast majority of cases what seems obvious on first examination is correct. But it isn’t every time.

There you go again, saying that the genitalia aren’t truly relevant to sex. They aren’t everything, but neither are chromosomes. Nothing here is absolute. This brings us back to trans individuals - I don’t pretend to know the latest science, but I don’t think people are just pretending to be the opposite gender. There is probably a biological reason for people to go against their sex assigned at birth.

This is nonsense. Trans people and people with DSDs are not the same thing. The rates of trans people who also have a DSD are very low. The significant majority do not.

It’s far more likely that there’s a significant psychological rather than just a biological reason. But even if there is a biological basis for transgenderism all that does is help explain why they think they’re the opposite sex. It doesn’t mean they actually are. Anorexia is thought to have both biological and psychological influences but we do not say people with anorexia are actually fat in some way.

Now, the health implications of socially treating people with gender dysphoria and anorexia the way they see themselves is very different. In anorexia it could kill them. In gender dysphoria the implications are less significant (though not non-existent - hence restrictions on puberty blockers and cross sex hormones at certain ages).

And that brings us back to the Supreme Court ruling. It effectively says trans people can be treated AS IF they are the sex they think they are in many cases, but not in all cases. There are cases where the actual sex of the individual is important and there’s a balance of rights to be struck.

So I think what you wrote about low rates of DSD amongst trans people is correct and just a fact. But Grumble just said there is probably a biological reason. You really think that claim is nonsense? I thought there are more biological possibilities beyond just those things that can be identified as DSD or are classified as DSD and that the current science view is more towards that end . I asked chat gpt because I don’t have time to go search for a long time and it believed that in medicine they had moved away from the view that transpeople’s desire to identify as a different sex to that was assigned at birth was purely psychology and that it is not known what the biological causes are, but there are many possible factors. I’m not saying we need rely on chat gpt given how it can hallucinate or Hoover up inaccurate info, just putting what it says to you:

You're asking one of the most important and complex questions in gender science: if being transgender is not due to a disorder of sex development (DSD), and not purely psychological, what is it? And yes — there is active research into biological (including physiological, neurological, genetic, and developmental) contributions to gender identity that do not fall under DSD.

1. Brain structure and neurobiology
There’s evidence from neuroimaging studies that the brains of transgender people sometimes show features more similar to their experienced gender than to their sex assigned at birth:

INAH-3 nucleus in the hypothalamus: Smaller in trans women than in cis men, more similar to cis women.
White matter microstructure and functional connectivity: In some studies, these align more closely with gender identity than assigned sex.
Caveats: Results are variable across individuals, and there’s debate about causality (innate vs shaped by experience or hormones).
2. Genetics and epigenetics
Some genetic and epigenetic factors might contribute to gender identity:

Twin studies show higher concordance for transgender identity among identical twins than fraternal twins — suggesting a heritable component, though not deterministic.
Studies have looked at genes related to:
Sex hormone receptors (e.g. androgen receptor gene variants)
Steroid metabolism
Brain development genes
No single “trans gene” exists — it’s likely a polygenic and multifactorial trait, like most complex human traits.
3. Prenatal hormone exposure
One well-supported hypothesis: gender identity may be shaped by hormone exposure in utero:

Brain sexual differentiation occurs at a different time from genital development in the fetus.
If there is atypical timing or sensitivity to androgens, this may lead to a brain that “develops male” or “female” differently from the body.
This model is not considered a DSD unless there is an identifiable disorder of hormone synthesis or action — which is rare.

4. Physics or fundamental biological models?
No, there’s no current research indicating that physics in the sense of particle physics or quantum theory directly causes gender identity differences. However:

Some speculative or fringe theories explore non-classical developmental biology, epigenetics, or chaotic systems modeling — these are not part of mainstream science.
There is growing interest in understanding developmental patterning and self-organization of sex/gender differentiation, which could someday involve deeper physical principles (e.g., morphogen gradients, cellular signaling cascades), but still within the realm of biology rather than physics as such.


5. Sociocultural and embodied cognition models
Although not biological, some active investigation focuses on how gender identity emerges from the interaction of body, brain, and social context. These models see identity as real and valid, even if not reducible to biology alone.

The 4th point sounds like drivel but the 1, 2, 3 seem reasonable to me. 5 seems a very subtle distinction from psychological but also possible. Again I have not looked into the science, I am relying on my memory, and past understanding and the fact that chat gpt seemed to say similar things. But I just want to know what yiu think of these possibilities, and why you think grumbles statement is nonsense.

After saying what grumble wrote was nonsense you then do seem to address biological reasons as a possibility though unlikely, but you then make an analogy to anarexia to argue they still have a different gender. I don’t think that analogy is very helpful. Anarexia is a condition that needs treatment right ? Being trans gender is not a condition I think, though gender dysphoria is (do I get this right?). If someone with anarexia starves themsevles while believing they are overweight they will harm themselves, so the key issue there is whether or not they need to eat more food or less food to be healthy. For transpeople it is far more complicated. If they have brain differences such that they do feel and behave like a women (man), then they may be happier living as a women (man) even if all the reproductive parts are male (female). It also means they will be uncomfortable entering toilets and would be happier being treated as a woman in all places where we distinguish by gender. Similarly for other possibilities. So these things do matter for whether we classify people as male or female and one can argue that this unrecognised *biological* difference is a reason to say they were assigned the wrong sex at birth. Of course even if it’s psychological they can also be happier living as the other gender and many of the issues debated around this still exists, but I am focusing on the biological possibility because I think the argument here was about the Supreme Court ruling and whether you could in principal replace the “assigned at birth” part with something clearer that accounts for mistakes and refers to true biological gender. The point being there different biological aspects to gender, and DSD is just one aspect of this, and we don’t even understand what the other aspects are yet it seems.

[Bewildered]

* I mean unhappy entering toilets of the opposite gender to the one they identify as.

Also apologies for the clumsy description of anarexia above. I was just trying to explain why it’s a bad analogy…

[Tristan]

So I think what you wrote about low rates of DSD amongst trans people is correct and just a fact. But Grumble just said there is probably a biological reason. You really think that claim is nonsense?

To be clear, here's what I think is nonsense. If I've misunderstood Grumble then apologies, but I think it is nonsense to claim that the existence of people with DSDs indicates that trans people are genuinely the sex they think they are.

I also think it is nonsense to claim that the existence of biological (alongside psychological and societal) reasons people may have gender dysphoria is evidence that they actually are the sex they think they are.

After saying what grumble wrote was nonsense you then do seem to address biological reasons as a possibility though unlikely,

I say there's likely a significant psychological element alongside a possible biological one.

but you then make an analogy to anarexia to argue they still have a different gender.

I try to use sex rather than gender. Gender is more about identity, expression and roles, whereas sex is biological. The conflating of the two is a problem.

In fact, this is one of the issues I have with gender ideology. It's often inherently conservative and reinforces gender norms. It says that if Philip actually wants to be called Philomena, likes pink and wears frilly dresses then Phil might be a woman, because that's what women do isn't it? The fact Philomena still has a cock and balls is less relevant than the pink and the dresses.

Now ok, I'll admit that's a big oversimplification, but I think there's an significant element of truth in there. It reinforces rather than challenges gender norms. And that has meant that women have been asked to make space for Phil, rather than men being asked to update their assumptions about what men can wear, like and do. As a famous author once said: "Dress however you please.Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security."

The concept of gender, and the idea that it trumps sex, is, to my mind, deeply regressive.

Being trans gender is not a condition I think, though gender dysphoria is (do I get this right?).

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Being transgender means you are gender dysphoric.

If someone with anarexia starves themsevles while believing they are overweight they will harm themselves, so the key issue there is whether or not they need to eat more food or less food to be healthy. For transpeople it is far more complicated. If they have brain differences such that they do feel and behave like a women (man), then they may be happier living as a women (man) even if all the reproductive parts are male (female).

I think the analogy holds. Body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are both conditions we choose to treat in different ways. As I explained before the implications of each are different, so the treatment needs to be different. With anorexia there is no option to affirm the person's sense of themselves that doesn't end in their death. That's not the case with gender dysphoria, so we've chosen as a society to go down the affirmation route. That can be made to work within limits, but does need an acceptance that it's affirmation of a fiction and that it won't apply in all scenarios, which is what a lot of this debate is about.

[noggins]

"it's affirmation of a fiction and that it won't apply in all scenarios"

So, you agree that the attempt to define a "femaleness" to apply in all scenarios is bunk, and for most scenarios they should be treated as the gender they identify as, and all that's left to differ on is a few edge cases.

[Tristan]

"it's affirmation of a fiction and that it won't apply in all scenarios"

So, you agree that the attempt to define a "femaleness" to apply in all scenarios is bunk, and for most scenarios they should be treated as the gender they identify as, and all that's left to differ on is a few edge cases.

No. I'm saying that in some scenarios actual "femaleness" might not be the only thing that's relevant and people who aren't female but want to be considered as such can be included. Including them doesn't make them female. Nor does it mean they should be treated as such in all scenarios. But in some cases actual "femaleness" is very relevant and those who aren't actually female can and should be excluded. Which is basically where we are now following the ruling.

What needs working through now is what those scenarios are and how to approach them.

[Lew Dolby]

The media really, really need to make their minds up one way or the other. At a Reading Swimming Club meet, a trans woman, Anne Isabella Coombes, who has competed as a woman many times before, was barred from the womens races. So she turn out bra-less, in mens' turnks for the mens' races. Fine so far, but . . .

. . . newspapers who ran the story blaired out her chest in their photos. Is it standard to blair out man-boobs ????!!!

[Bewildered]

So I think what you wrote about low rates of DSD amongst trans people is correct and just a fact. But Grumble just said there is probably a biological reason. You really think that claim is nonsense?

To be clear, here's what I think is nonsense. If I've misunderstood Grumble then apologies, but I think it is nonsense to claim that the existence of people with DSDs indicates that trans people are genuinely the sex they think they are.

I also think it is nonsense to claim that the existence of biological (alongside psychological and societal) reasons people may have gender dysphoria is evidence that they actually are the sex they think they are.

After saying what grumble wrote was nonsense you then do seem to address biological reasons as a possibility though unlikely,

I say there's likely a significant psychological element alongside a possible biological one.

but you then make an analogy to anarexia to argue they still have a different gender.

I try to use sex rather than gender. Gender is more about identity, expression and roles, whereas sex is biological. The conflating of the two is a problem.

In fact, this is one of the issues I have with gender ideology. It's often inherently conservative and reinforces gender norms. It says that if Philip actually wants to be called Philomena, likes pink and wears frilly dresses then Phil might be a woman, because that's what women do isn't it? The fact Philomena still has a cock and balls is less relevant than the pink and the dresses.

Now ok, I'll admit that's a big oversimplification, but I think there's an significant element of truth in there. It reinforces rather than challenges gender norms. And that has meant that women have been asked to make space for Phil, rather than men being asked to update their assumptions about what men can wear, like and do. As a famous author once said: "Dress however you please.Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security."

The concept of gender, and the idea that it trumps sex, is, to my mind, deeply regressive.

Being trans gender is not a condition I think, though gender dysphoria is (do I get this right?).

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Being transgender means you are gender dysphoric.

I’m not sure, I think some people may strongly feel they are a different gender without felling the distress that would imply gender dysphoria. But I think that is not the main point, it’s more that I believe that most trans people and the medical establishment believe they do not need to be cured of being transgender, they need to be cured of having to live a life as the gender they do not identify. You have a different view to this maybe? But from that perspective is very different to Anarexia and the analogy is a poor one.

If someone with anarexia starves themsevles while believing they are overweight they will harm themselves, so the key issue there is whether or not they need to eat more food or less food to be healthy. For transpeople it is far more complicated. If they have brain differences such that they do feel and behave like a women (man), then they may be happier living as a women (man) even if all the reproductive parts are male (female).

I think the analogy holds. Body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are both conditions we choose to treat in different ways. As I explained before the implications of each are different, so the treatment needs to be different. With anorexia there is no option to affirm the person's sense of themselves that doesn't end in their death. That's not the case with gender dysphoria, so we've chosen as a society to go down the affirmation route. That can be made to work within limits, but does need an acceptance that it's affirmation of a fiction and that it won't apply in all scenarios, which is what a lot of this debate is about.

ok so you kind of addressing the point I just made above (in red) here, but it seems to me that this is the fundamental distinction. Their feeling of being another gender is not harmful to them, it’s being forced to live as the gender they don’t believe. It sounds here like you are accepting some of this, but your arguments are I) some of the approaches allowing them to live that way impinge too much on others and shouldn’t be allowed and II) you worry there may be some health risks with some medical interventions to help them do this. Is this a fair summary or it’s stronger than this? To me these two points are very understandable as general issues, but sometimes I got the impression your views go beyond this. Not sure if is just that you take positions ( or have a level conviction / partisanship) i would consider extreme within those general points or if your view actually go further than this? I think there are some specific issues in point I) that are challenging to deal with and we have to think hard how to solve them in ways that address both sides. Issues with sports categorisations and conflicts with freedoms for women to have protective spaces. There are places where for example transwomen face the same issues as cis women and places where they don’t, but I also think the side arguing for about how trans women are trampling over women’s rights when e.g. discussing representation are ignoring the fact that trans women are almost certainly face very severe discrimination for being trans. For II) I don’t know, I’m not an expert but the impression I have is the science and health experts are saying these things are safe, while non expert advocates are pushing dangers. There could be some concerns that there has not been time to assess the long term risks.

[Tristan]

ok so you kind of addressing the point I just made above (in red) here, but it seems to me that this is the fundamental distinction. Their feeling of being another gender is not harmful to them, it’s being forced to live as the gender they don’t believe. It sounds here like you are accepting some of this, but your arguments are I) some of the approaches allowing them to live that way impinge too much on others and shouldn’t be allowed and II) you worry there may be some health risks with some medical interventions to help them do this. Is this a fair summary or it’s stronger than this?

Yes, I think this is broadly right.

I'd also add the point I've made before about it being quite regressive in some ways, in that it reinforces gender roles and norms by reinforcing the idea that if you're male but identify with behaviours, aesthetics, roles etc. thar are typically associated with females then maybe you're actually a woman. It allows less space for men who might just want to live as men differently to most other men.

One of the things I used to love about Eddie Izzard was his "I'm a bloke in a dress" thing back in the 90's - '00s. That seemed genuinely more progressive than the Suzy caricature of a woman today.

To me these two points are very understandable as general issues, but sometimes I got the impression your views go beyond this. Not sure if is just that you take positions ( or have a level conviction / partisanship) i would consider extreme within those general points or if your view actually go further than this?

My language has certainly got blunter over time, in part for clarity. I remember maybe 10 years ago going along with the pretense and thinking "Let them have the word 'woman'. What harm can that do? At least there's still male/female to provide clarity and distinction" but then over time they came for that too. Lots of handwaving, obfuscation, talk of clownfish, and "oh, well actually it's a lot more complicated than that" etc. The TRA movemement became much more strident with the insistence that "Trans woman ARE women" and the implications of that (leading to the need for the SC ruling).

It got to the point of compelled language and essentially compelled thought. No longer a legal and social fiction we could go along with to muddle through and compromise on to keep as many people as happy as possible. It got to a point where a tribunal was needed to define in law that it's actually legal to think differently on this and to state the belief that sex is immutable (the Maya Forstater case).

Call it polarisation if you want (there's certainly an element of that) but it got to the point where being more blunt about these things in discussions about it seemed better. I think that's a journey a lot of the "TERFs" have been on. I was at an event recently with Helen Lewis, Hadley Freeman and Sarah Ditum (a friend) and that certainly seemed to be the case.

Does that mean it's how I talk to transwomen when I meet them? No, of course not. Out of politeness I refer to them by their preferred pronouns, use their new name etc.

But in the unlikely case I was asked outright "Tristan, do you think I'm actually a woman?" I would sensitively tell them no. A decade ago I'd probably have said yes.

[IvanV]

The media really, really need to make their minds up one way or the other. At a Reading Swimming Club meet, a trans woman, Anne Isabella Coombes, who has competed as a woman many times before, was barred from the womens races. So she turn out bra-less, in mens' turnks for the mens' races. Fine so far, but . . .

. . . newspapers who ran the story blaired out her chest in their photos. Is it standard to blair out man-boobs ????!!!

Congratulations to Anne Coombes for showing how bl..dy silly is the situation we are now in, and getting in the newspaper over it. Though I suspect it was ignored by the kind of newspaper that likes what the Supreme Court said and doesn't want to show it off as silly.

But I'm realising that the prospect of a politician wanting to come along and fix our laws just now seems a bit low. Probably, like the recent much overdue correction to England and Wales' abortion laws (why limited to just there?) we may have to come back to it after some more decades and some more ridiculous outcomes in court ruining some people's lives. When the particular fights of today have quietened down.