Open Democracy pushing stupid:

The EHRC wants to redefine sex. Here’s what it means for trans people

Subhead: OPINION: Proposal to rewrite the Equality Act is part of the right’s ideological war on trans people’s right to exist

No. That’s a lie. It’s a much repeated lie. Open Democracy should be better than that.

Trans people in the UK could face a significant rollback of rights if proposals made this week by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to redefine ‘sex’ in the landmark Equality Act are adopted by the government.

Genuine rights? Or specious “rights” invented just for trans people? Rights that are not rights should be rolled back.

The EHRC wrote to the government on Tuesday suggesting it should end rights and protections based on a person’s legal sex and instead base them on ‘biological sex’ for the purposes of the act, which came into force in 2010.

Because women need particular rights and protections for reasons that are rooted in their “biological” sex as opposed to anyone’s fantasy sex. Women can be raped. Women can be impregnated. Women are not as strong as men. All that makes a difference to who needs what rights.

Over the last few years, the government has ensured appointments to the EHRC reflect its political agenda. This was highlighted in a letter raising concerns about the independence of the EHRC to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) in June 2022, sent by Stonewall and Disabled People Against Cuts on behalf of 26 LGBTQ+ charities and allies.

Ah Stonewall – well great, women’s rights will for sure be safe with them.

The EHRC’s suggestion that we define sex using so-called ‘biological sex’ is likely to amount to the same process that currently applies to legal sex – whatever is recorded on the birth certificate – but with the deliberate disapplication of the Gender Recognition Act.

The group’s letter to the government gives several examples of how the EHRC envisions this would apply in practice. Any single-sex women’s space (such as a hospital ward), women’s association (such as a book club for women) or lesbian association would be allowed to exclude trans women automatically. 

Yes, and? Women should not be allowed to have single-sex spaces like hospital wards and associations such as book clubs? Women should be forced to allow men everywhere? Isn’t that just a bit rapey?

The letter states that the current illegality of doing so “impact[s] on freedom of association for lesbians”. To support this point, the EHRC cites ‘FiLiA’, a campaign group that runs an annual conference promoting so-called ‘gender critical’ ideas.

This is despite the fact that trans lesbians are simply a subcategory of lesbians, much like (for instance) disabled lesbians. There is no more reason to create a provision to allow associations to discriminate against trans lesbians than there would be for any other group of lesbians.

No. That’s not a fact and it’s extremely not true. Swap the word “fake” for “trans” and maybe you can grasp why. A big onion is still an onion; a fake onion is not an onion, because that’s what “fake” means. Tall lesbians, clever lesbians, French lesbians, working class lesbians, academic lesbians – all are still lesbians, with one added thing we’re told about them. Trans lesbians on the other hand are men, so not lesbians. (I suppose the “trans” could mean women who identify as men and are attracted to women, but in practice it doesn’t. In practice it means men who pretend to be lesbians.)

Women sometimes need to get away from men. Deal with it.