The equalities minister said
Trans women should use male toilets, the equalities minister has said, declaring that “services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”.
Bridget Phillipson said businesses should ensure “they have appropriate provision in place”, which could mean unisex facilities.
But she said the Supreme Court ruling was clear about the basis on which services should be used.
Her comments came after a long-awaited judgment delivered last Wednesday in which the UK’s highest court confirmed the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act “refer to a biological woman and biological sex”. It means transgender women with a gender recognition certificate can be excluded from single-sex spaces if it is deemed “proportionate”.
What “proportionate” means in that context I don’t know, nor do I know who will be doing the deeming.
Ms Phillipson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I know that many businesses, large and small, will ensure that they have appropriate provision in place. For example, many businesses have moved towards unisex provision or separate cubicles that can be used by anyone.”
She added: “There are important questions around, for example, the use of toilets, around the use of changing facilities, but there are also profound questions that I think are even more important about, for example, hospital provision, rape crisis centres, women’s refuges, where you are talking about people often being in that provision on an accommodation basis for an extended period of time. And I think it is important and welcome that the Supreme Court have put beyond doubt that providers can make sure that is done on the basis of biological sex.”
The terf communniny is wondering why she didn’t say so before, but it’s also rejoicing at the news.
It came as a minister condemned the “utterly unacceptable language” used by demonstrators as tens of thousands gathered to protest the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.
Education minister Stephen Morgan was asked about a placard at a protest in Parliament Square that showed an illustration of gallows alongside a slogan suggesting “the only good Terf (trans-exclusionary radical feminist)” is a hanged one. And the Labour frontbencher called for police action over what he said was the “completely and utterly unacceptable” language. Mr Morgan told Sky News: “It’s completely unacceptable language to be used, and obviously any matters that break the law should be reported to the police, and hopefully police action is taken.”
Where have they been these last 10 years? Why haven’t they been saying this all along?
Ms Phillipson said the Supreme Court ruling meant service providers “can now operate with absolute confidence in delivering single-sex spaces for biological women”. She told BBC Breakfast: “I do welcome the clarity that the Supreme Court judgment has brought in this area, making clear that biological sex is the basis on which single-sex spaces are provided.”
…
“Before I was a Member of Parliament I used to run a women’s refuge, so I know more than most how essential it is that women, particularly those who’ve experienced sexual violence and male abuse, are able to have safe, therapeutic environments, and that’s why there has always been protection there within the law for single-sex spaces.
“There has been some confusion. I’m glad that’s been cleared up, because providers can now operate with absolute confidence in delivering single-sex spaces for biological women.”
Why yes, there has been some confusion, and some bullying, and some shunning. Glad we got that straightened out.
I hope you’re right.
When the pronoun badges and rainbow flags* and Pride parades and endless days/weeks/months etc. of Trans pride/visibility/rememberance/vengeance/etc. are all gone,
when the captured institutions have all been de-occupied,
when Gender Ideology has been purged from school curriculae, the mainstream media, HR departements etc.,
when Judith Butler is taken about as seriously in academia as Bozo the Clown,
when the DEI-policies demanding adherence to Gender Ideology as a precondition for employment have all been revoked,
when Stonewall, Mermaids, WPATH, Amnesty International, the ACLU etc. have all gone out of existence,
when the whole Western World has gone through a very painful process of collective soul-searching to determine how things could possibly go so disastrously wrong**,
when the whole field of “gender medicine” is remembered as a scandal at least as bad as lobotomies,
when people are ridiculing the latest crazy fad by saying things like “that’s just like the males in women’s sports crap!” or “that’s like the guys who demanded access to women’s changing rooms!”,
etc. etc.,
then I will consider believing it.
* Sorry to the LGB people out there. It is no more possible to save the rainbow flag from its association to Gender Ideology than to save the swastika from its association to Nazism.
** Without simply swapping Gender Ideology for Trumpism.
Ships take a very, very long time to turn round. Especially ships of state which have been hijacked by lunatics whilst the passengers and crew were enjoying the nice cruise.
Those who noticed the original subtle change of direction have been slowing this one down for decades, but until recently it kept accelerating, albeit not quite at the rate it would have been doing were it not for the brave women and men sticking to the principles of fairness and reality like barnacles to the hull. Individual decisions such as those in court and tribunal cases and in parliament reduced the fuel supply, killing the acceleration; but with this clarification from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, reality has killed the engines and gained control of the rudder. The hijackers are doing as much damage as possible to the crew, but they are no longer able to influence the direction of the ship.
Of course, much eye-rolling is inevitable as those pusillanimous crew members who were hiding in fear in their cabins emerge to declare that they were always on the side of reality (“Please ignore the fact that we didn’t help those fighting the hijackers, and sometimes sent messages of support to the terrorists”), and we still have to contend with the passengers who believed that the hijackers were taking the ship to Shangri-la, thought that facts which showed the contrary were fake, and are attempting to impede the progress.
But we’ll get back on course.
Bjarte Foshaug@1: Unfortunately, you’ve got some babies in your bathwater, there.
Are the ACLU and Amnesty International (and, for that matter, Planned Parenthood) desperately in need of a purge? Yes. But getting rid of them, especially with the current state of things in the US, will not improve the state of affairs for anyone, even women. We need to have the strength to reclaim these institutions, unless you intend to do the even heavier lifting that would be needed to replace them wholly and entirely.
Similarly, the rainbow flag may still be salvageable. The Trans Lobby may have actually made this easier, by their adoption of the pastel blue-and-pink flag, thereby leaving the rainbow flag for the movement that actually did all the heavy lifting. I see no reason for Chicago to remove the rainbow flags from lampposts in Boystown, thanks.
Finally, I’ll note that “DEI” is a huge category, and a great deal of it is quite good. The problems occur when the group benefiting is neither adding diversity, suffering from inequality, and has been included from the get-go.
Freemage
In my feeble defense, I wasn’t handing out orders. I was simply stating what it would take for me personally to think the ship was finally turning after so many other predictions of ”Peak Tr…” have failed. The ease with which institutions have been captured, whether from the Trumpist Right or the Woke Left, has made me rather skeptical about the existence of any baby in any bathwater anywhere, I’m afraid. I’m under no illusion that anyone is going to lose any sleep over not having my trust, but if my trust is what you you’re after, then having anything to do with Amnesty, or the ACLU, or Planned Parenthood (forgot to add them to my list, thanks for reminding me) is not an option that is available to you. If your standards are flexible enough to go along with the crap that these organizations have already done, there is nothing that I for one would trust you not to go along with in the future.
As far as DEI policies are concerned, I was explicitly talking about ”DEI-policies demanding adherence to Gender Ideology as a precondition for employment”. I’m not in principle opposed to any effort to make workplaces more ”diverse”, ”equitable”, or ”inklusive”, although I do reserve the right to make up my own mind about what all this entails in practice (i.e. what does ”DEI” imply for, say, female-only spaces?). Too often, though, ”DEI” is indeed an ideological litmus test as well as a shorthand for tons of highly dubious postmodernist philosophy, identity politics, social constrictivism, standpoint epistemology, linguistic determinism etc. etc. See The Counterweight Handbook by Helen Pluckrose for examples.
* Wrong link. Here’s the right one (I hope. iPads and smartphones are really not ideal for commenting!).