That word “exclusion”

A little look back at Maugham v Rowling a couple of months ago:

Jolyon Maugham, a campaigning barrister, described Rowling’s definition of “sex-based rights” in the wake of a recent Supreme Court ruling as being “about the exclusion of trans women”, which he said was “mind-blowing”.

The exclusion of trans women from what, though?

Certainly not from everything. JKR doesn’t want to exclude men who pretend to be women from public transportation, restaurants, Waitrose, parks, cinemas, theatres, the public highway, medical facilities…the list is endless. She wants, I think it’s fair to say, to exclude them from the definition of women, which is simply a continuation of what has always been the case, and from some spaces and institutions and competitions that are specifically for women. That’s all. It’s not “exclusion” tout court, it’s reasonable exclusion for reasons of safety or fair competition or both.

Maugham must know that, but he doesn’t word it that way. That is at the very least manipulative as well as unjust. He should stop.