The trans woman’s efforts to appear feminine
“In public, at least, her supporters claimed victory. Sandie Peggie had, after all, been found to have been harassed by her employer, NHS Fife, in four different ways. But the veteran nurse’s win was a relatively narrow one. It was far from the slamdunk gender-critical campaigners had hoped for and had, in truth, expected after their landmark Supreme Court win in April.
“A load of sexist shite,” was how one leading activist privately described the 312-page ruling. “I didn’t think the judge would fall for his [Beth Upton’s] schtick. I was wrong.”
It means an employment tribunal which has divided opinion for the best part of a year is unlikely to be the end of the case. An appeal, well-informed sources said, is now a “near certainty”.
The Dundee employment tribunal upheld four of Peggie’s claims against NHS Fife. It found that the health board had harassed Peggie including by failing to revoke Upton’s permission to use female changing rooms “on an interim basis” after the nurse complained, and had taken an “unreasonable” amount of time to investigate the issue. But it dismissed other allegations against NHS Fife and the entirety of the case against Upton.
Among the most contentious findings was that it “is potentially but not necessarily lawful” to still allow trans women — biological men who identify as women — to use female-only spaces in the workplace. The tribunal suggested that rather than a blanket ban on trans women in female spaces, permitting access would become unlawful only if a woman complained. Even then, various factors, such as the trans woman’s efforts to appear feminine, would have to be balanced when deciding whose rights took precedence.
Are you SERIOUS???
Who gives a fuck about men’s “efforts to appear feminine” so that they can follow you into the toilet or the changing room or anywhere else they feel like following you whether you like it or not?
“This ruling just shows the reason we need the guidance from Westminster to be published urgently,” Trina Budge, a director of For Women Scotland, said. She noted that the Supreme Court ruling stated that provisions required for the protection of women “necessarily exclude men”, yet this appeared not to have been considered. Unfortunately, this judgment is all over the place and, in parts, littered with nonsense and the language of trans activism,” Budge added. “This is a perfect example of how in the absence of any leadership from the UK government, the water has been muddied further. Public bodies are still being allowed to cling to the ridiculous notion that putting on make up and wearing a dress is what defines a woman.”
News flash: ANYBODY can put on makeup and a dress. It’s extremely easy.
News flash 2: I never put on makeup and a dress. And yet, I am a woman, and Jonathan “India” Willoughby is not.
And there lies the problem. In using external appearance, and not really appearance but superficial artificial things we add to our bodies as part of our cultural norms, to define men into being women, they define some women out of being women.
I don’t wear make up or dresses, either. I do have long hair. I do like earrings. Neither of those things is exclusively feminine, as men have been doing both of those for long times. I am a scientist; my husband is a librarian. Which of us is the woman? Neither of us has any doubt about the answer, but if we are using stereotypes to define us, that would invert our reality…our ‘lived experience’, as many like to say.
All efforts outside the biological to define man/woman, male/female, run into serious problems as soon as they are proposed. The sheer diversity of ways that people present create an insuperable barrier to such definitions. I guess the proper word for both my husband and I would have to be ‘non-binary’, since we are each a mix of traits considered ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. In other words, we are ordinary male and female, and don’t fit all the patriarchal gender expectations for either sex. So much so that my husband was often considered gay before we got married. I was often perceived to be lesbian, until we got married. Why? Because gender expectations are one of the worst ways to define who someone is.
Biology works.
Well, we’ve had an interesting time since Darwin and Wallace kicked off the idea of evolutionary biology, and human prehistorical studies started raising questions about Adam and Eve, answers in Genesis and all that.
But then the Australopithecines were discovered (by Louis Leakey and Co, from memory.) These were our ape-like ancestors, from whom our Homo genus emerged around 3 million years ago. Then came Homo habilis (Handy Man): ~2.8 – 1.4 Ma; considered the first tool-maker, with a larger brain than australopithecines, adapted for climbing and running, there followed, as the race-callers say, by Homo erectus: at ~2 Ma, spreading from Africa to Eurasia; successful, long-lived, and ancestral to later humans.
Homo heidelbergensis: An ancestor to both Neanderthals and modern humans, emerging around 500,000 years ago. Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis): Evolved in Europe/Asia, coexisted with H. sapiens, and died out around 40,000 years ago. (Some would dispute that, citing the case of Donald Trump.)
There followed by us: Homo sapiens: Evolved in Africa ~300,000 years ago, migrating out to colonize the world and interbreeding with other archaic humans. (h/t: AI.) That interbreeding arguably shows that they were of the same species, despite the Genus species configuration of their scientific name.
But now we arguably have a newcomer to the scene: Homo transgenderensis. He/she/it favours not the rainforest environment, nor the open plains. Rather, he/she/it is to be found lurking in womens’ washrooms, changerooms, and the like; but easily recognised by his/her/its male bulk. (NB: Please approach with caution. as members of this species are prone to crankiness and aggressive behaviour, particularly when confronted with non-trans females who question their chosen identity.)
Oh, but didn’t you know that trans people have always existed? At least their gendered souls have. In fact, the amount of gender essence in the universe is one of the conserved quantities of physics. There’s a theory that the gender field is solution to the much sought after theory of everything…
Bjarte: Is there nothing new under the Sun.? Does the Universe have to be so damned predictable and boring.?
Omar
There’s always the question of whether strangers on the internet are really “demi-gender”, “gender-fluid” or “gender-fae”. That’s pretty exciting, isn’t it…?
Ok, bad example, but…
Hey, look! A squirrel!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog#/media/File:Internet_dog.jpg
Omar, Bjarte, perhaps the ‘gendered soul’ is the dark matter scientists have yet to figure out. Or is it dark energy? Oh, I worry I am falling into the black hole of transgenderism…
So, no one can tell merely by looking at a person whether they’re male or female, right? But there are certain features that are considered “feminine”. But we don’t know what females look like, so we can’t know what those features are. But men who want to be women can change their features to look more feminine. But….
This is like one of those lame Star Trek episodes where Kirk destroys a computer by trapping it in a logic loop.
I think you’re being too reasonable in your interpretation of the word “feminine.” It’s probably more about pink dresses, sugar and spice than it is about, you know, female morphology. (Gross!)
Besides, we all have an innate knowledge of what femininity is, right? I think it comes bundled with our innate gender identities.
There’s a further, excellent, piece in the Times now, by Alex Massie. The plot has thickened; it looks as if the judge may have resorted to AI in composing the judgment, which contains a number misquotes and imaginary citations.