Trans Friend

  You expect The Daily Mail, The Telegraph or The Daily Express to be horrendously reactionary. But I’m not sure why the Times newspaper is so anti trans. It is publishing opinion pieces suggesting that the implications of the recent High Court ruling are much more far reaching than they actually are. And they are presenting trans rights activists purely as crazed anarchists destroying property and threatening violence against their opponents. They have headlines like “unhinged trans activists show true colours”.   By the way, the same article suggested that trans activists are misinterpreting the judgement, when actually most trans deniers are doing exactly that by saying that the ruling means that trans men have to use the ladies and trans women have to use the gents. Let’s be crystal clear. It means no such thing.  And although many threats have been made by trans activists, they are just threats made in anger. I don’t believe any of such threats have been carried out....

The headlines after the High Court’s decision in Women Scotland Ltd vs The Scottish Ministers focussed on     the decision that in the Equality Act, the term “woman” means biological woman. Understandably this caused consternation amongst trans people and their supporters. This was made worse by widespread misreporting which suggested that the effect would be far more far reaching than is in fact the case. Now that there’s been time to analyse the ruling, there have been a few rays of light.  I have referred to the fact that the ruling does not mandate the exclusion of trans people from single sex spaces, it merely allows someone to do so. Further reading of the judgement makes it clear that it has to be done “as a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim” and it has to be done in the least discriminatory way possible. This implies that judgement has to be made on a case by case basis, so, for example, a blanket ban for ideological reasons would be illegal and disc...

  As a cis man I sympathise with the women who have to queue to use the ladies’ while we men pop in and out in a moment, though we do have to spend ten minutes loitering outside the ladies waiting for our other halves to finish.  My wife guiltily admits that if there aren’t too many men about she’ll pop into the gents and use one of the cubicles. If I’m in restaurant with only one loo of each gender, if the gents’ is occupied I’ll use the ladies.     After all, at my age it might be a choice between that and wetting myself. Shocking I know, but there’s nothing illegal about it.   That’s right, if I, a cis man, pop into the ladies for a quick pee I am guilty of no offence. Apart from possibly embarrassing everyone, including me.   It follows that a trans woman is perfectly entitled to use the ladies’ too.  In fact I don’t believe there’s any law about the use of loos. I stand to be corrected, but I believe in privately owned public spaces like bars and ...

Today I will hand over to Jonathan Sumption, a retired high court judge recognised as one of the leading legal brains of his generation.  “ Lord Sumption, a former Supreme Court judge, argues that the High Court ruling on the Equality Act, defining "woman" by biology, does not mandate the exclusion of transgender women from single-sex spaces. He clarifies that while the ruling allows for such exclusion, it doesn't obligate service providers to do so,   according to the BBC . He further emphasizes that the ruling aims to avoid taking sides in the ongoing debate about transgender rights,   says the Independent . Instead, Lord Sumption argued that while many have taken the ruling to mean that service providers are obliged to provide single-sex spaces based on biological sex, the ruling meant that excluding transgender people from single-sex spaces was allowed, and not a breach of the 2010 Equality Act.” So now you know! 

  A lot of the heat in the gender debate is around women’s need, and indeed their claimed right, to safe spaces, and about how trans women would compromise their safety, or at least their feeling of safety.   Alas some women suffer domestic abuse at the hands of their partners and they need safe spaces. I don’t believe any trans sympathiser would argue with that.  Trans exclusionary feminists say that    trans women aren’t women. Whether or not you agree with that, excluding trans women from safe spaces only makes sense if you believe cis women and trans women behave differently, ie if you have a lurking fear that trans women represent a threat to cis women and that they might perpetrate sexual assault or worse.  I have searched the web and haven’t been able to find a single instance of a violent assault of a cis woman by a trans woman. And I think it safe to say that if such an incident occurred, the Daily Mail would splash it across its front page and dec...

  I studied Biology at university so I know a bit about this. Well, all right, it was 50 years ago and I concentrated on plants after the first year. But I studied genetics especially and I do remember a little bit even after all this time.   Most trans deniers are fond of saying that if you have a Y chromosome then you’re a man. It’s obvious.  But as usual it’s not that simple.   In the early days and weeks of an embryo’s existence it has the capability of becoming either male or female. After a while, if the embryo has a Y chromosome, it generates hormones called androgens which initiate the formation of the male    physical form. But if left alone, the embryo will be female. Female is the default gender if you like.  There are some individuals who have so called androgen insensitivity syndrome (“AIS”) which means the embryo doesn’t respond to the androgens and carries on merrily developing as a female.  At birth these children are invariably re...