UK Supreme Court rules ‘woman’ means biological female
(www.politico.eu)
from Eyekaytee@aussie.zone to world@lemmy.world on 16 Apr 2025 10:09
https://aussie.zone/post/19505153
from Eyekaytee@aussie.zone to world@lemmy.world on 16 Apr 2025 10:09
https://aussie.zone/post/19505153
#world
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Reality and science disagree, but whatever.
Truth doesnt mean a thing to people full of hate…
That’s bullshit.
The rules obviously got set up with a specific definition that was understood at the time. Changing the definition after makes no sense. It changes what the rule was about in the first place.
There are still laws about trans people.
Makes sense. I think it’s possible to hold this belief and still be pro-trans rights. There’s literally not a limit on the number of laws we can have, seems silly to change what a legal woman is rather than include transgender women people as an additional group that these laws can apply to.
I would be interested to hear trans’ users opinions on whether they view themselves and/or prefer to be treated as literally the same as the other biological gender, or something different.
E.g., male-to-female trans folks, do you hold that there is only one kind of woman and you are no different from those born as women?
Or do you think that transgender people have a fundamentally different experience, and thus trans women are a little different category of women?
I don’t mean any offense by the question, I’d really just like to know how people see themselves.
Yep, my point exactly. Admittedly I am not a trans person, but my understanding is that trans people have slightly different concerns, protections and risks than cis people.
A legal woman? Let me ask you a simple question. What law should be made that should be different for men than women? Laws should be able to cut gender/sex completely out and exist or they are inherently sexist.
How about the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013, which provides additional protections and services for women who are in domestic violence situations. Things like access to free rape exams, legal representation etc.
Shouldn’t need to exist as women only. Should exist for anyone in a domestic violence situation/rape exams/legal representation etc. Why would it be treated any different. It’s either illegal or not. Why help someone more than another just because their gender/sex?
I’m not personally a lawyer. Also, I’m Australian and our discrimination laws don’t allow the laws to discriminate on the basis of protected qualities like sex, religion, age, sexual identity/orientation and intersex status.
Maybe some laws (I.e. protective laws) should apply more specifically to trans people though, I’m not sure what sort of awkward legal situations can arise by every law applying equally to every person.
What would they protect for them? Harassment is harassment, and a hate crime is a hate crime. If the motivation was to hurt trans people in general it should be a hate crime just like any other group being singled out out of prejudice
Are you saying the law shouldn’t recognise trans people as a group? They should be just men or women (of their identification) in the eyes of the law?
Lets say a trans person breaks the law and goes to prison. Should a trans man go to a man’s prison (where they will face statistically higher rates of abuse), or should the law provide some nuance in this situation?
“If the motivation was to hurt trans people in general it should be a hate crime just like any other group” were my words. Why was your first question that I thought they weren’t considered a group of people?
Laws should be written for people. Punishments for crimes are dictated separately for the most part. They just put max/min fines and incarceration times.
If you get a DUI it doesn’t say in the law you get up to twelve months in a women’s/men’s jail, it just says jail. The particulars of how the incarceration is dealt with is usually decided elsewhere (hopefully by the judge) while gender identity is stillprotected class in the U.S. Will it be for much longer, I’m not sure, I hope it is though.
I recognize that you consider them a group of people. But I am trying to understand your position. It sounds like you want the law to be blind to trans people/men/women, because any laws pertaining to a singular gender would be discriminatory.
Surely you can’t be speaking for all countries, though, when you say that it’s up to the judge? I would have thought that some countries would handle these things as a matter of law. In that case, wouldn’t it make sense to have a law for transgender people that’s different for men and women and trans people,?
In Australia, for example, it seems that trans women go to men’s prison; resulting in negative outcomes for the inmate. Perhaps a law in Australia would prevent that from happening?
Oh boi, having studied law, i can confidently say that using words with no clear definition in laws and trying to apply them is one of the main problematic and debate fuel of judges and lawyers.
And “man/woman” are clearly not words with one specific definition, even in the past (maybe people cared less about the definition, but it does not make it more specific).
This is the precise reason why that clip everyone lost their mind over was using the wording “birthing person” when discussing rights related to abortion.
You can get your “anti-woke” panties in a bunch for terms like this. But there is a reason they are used when deciding laws. It is meant to very very specific and at the same time being very very inclusive to the rights the law is meant to protect.
It’s so no asshole tries to take away your rights on a technicality they made up in their mind.
No one is calling women, nb’s, or trans men “birthing persons” except in this specific context and for very good reason.
But this isn’t about changing a definition, it’s about expanding recognition to a previously mischaracterised portion of the population.
If racoons were at one point considered to be cats but now we know they’re actually much closer related to bears than anything else, are we changing the definition of “cat” and “bear”?
Trans people are just people. It’s like saying “there are still laws about black people” in the Jim Crow South.
Laws should be written to be inclusive, not exclusive. When laws are written in these fragmented ways it is the exact purpose of right wingers to exploit them. It is written to SERVE THE POWER OF OPPRESSION.
This is the same as “gay people can have civil partnerships”. While ignoring that it is literally just a method used to exclude gay partners of the same rights married partners have.
It’s the same “separate but equal” bull shit that has existed over and over. I don’t know how “well intentioned liberals” keep falling for this same trick over and over again throughout our history.
The rules on “sex” are entirely based on social definitions of gender norms. Or tell me you would be confused by seeing this guy walk through TSA with F as his sex.
olympics.com/…/transgender-boxer-pat-manuel-makes…
Edit: I really should not have to use “passing” trans people to make my point. But I feel like people live in a different reality where every ID check is followed up with a genital inspection.
Wonder how much money that notorious TERF Rowling paid this court.
Then they should update the Equality Act.
Yeh, my understanding is that this was a ruling on the current law, they said that if they rules otherwise, the law would be unworkable I think?
So therefore parliament should legislate properly about it rather than just trying to bend what already existed.
The American mind cannot comprehend this.
Now define “biological female”.
Right? Is this phenotypic or genotypic?
phenowhazzle?
Is it the DNA or T and A?
DNA or TNA he says, that’s gold! 😂
Total Nucleic Acid (mixed DNA and RNA extracted from a sample together)
Many women have their uterus and/or ovaries removed before or during child bearing years due to complications, cancer, etc. So, I’m sure you would change this to say born with to define it. I will say this: not all women are born with this equipment, but are XY on the genotype. I won’t even go into the complexities of the genetic side of the house…
right, “born with”.
not sure I understand what you’re saying in the second half, could you elaborate?
edit: i think i see what you meant. most women are XX, maybe that was a typo. chromosomes are strongly correlated with sex but are not what determines it. that’s why i didn’t mention chromosomes. you’re right, not all women are born with a uterus, or with ovaries that actually produce eggs. but from a biological standpoint, we can determine which gametes (egg or sperm) that would be produced, were it the case that everything was functioning.
XX/XY was typo, yes.
again “not always” is the answer to your last note"
we can determine which gametes (egg or sperm) that would be produced, were it the case that everything was functioning.- there are individuals born with both sex organs. My point is that this is all exceeding complex and any simple answer is being used to drive another narrative than science.No problem - good call-out and you’re correct as far as I’m aware.
What about true hermaphrodite? That’s a term for a specific type of intersex that has both sex organs fused together. And develop secondary sex characteristics during puberty.
fipto is using the same talking points anti-trans activists (like Matt Walsh) use to argue that intersex people aren’t real or legitimate - “hermaphroditism” in humans historically referred to when genitals are ambiguous or there is a combination of sex organs, including true hermaphroditism where the body develops ovaries and testes.
fipto’s point is only that in a narrow sense we haven’t yet recorded a case where an individual like this has produced a mature egg as well as viable sperm at the same time, though I think that may be false, since there is a recorded case of a true hermaphrodite who ovulated and successfully fathered a child (produced both eggs and sperm). This is rather rare, even for true hermaphrodites, though. (@massacre@lemmy.world you may care to see this too.)
As an aside about terminology: “hermaphrodite” is an outdated term, and the term “intersex” replaced it. Already a new term has begun to replace intersex in many contexts: “differences in sexual development” (DSD).
fipto’s point is somewhat irrelevant, though - there are humans who are true hermaphrodites and fipto’s motivations in making her point here are questionable.
The reality is that there is no great controversy among scientists on this, and the scientists themselves were happy to refer to people with ambiguous genitals as “hermaphrodites”, and the scarcity of people producing both eggs and sperm don’t undermine anything about the existence or reality of intersex individuals, because someone’s sex and gender is much more complicated than just which gamete they produce.
For fipto, however, who probably believes someone’s sex is based on the gamete they produce (a common lie peddled by anti-trans and anti-intersex activists), the lack of individuals with both eggs and sperm proves to them that intersex individuals do not actually exist. They probably think each of those intersex individuals can be actually classified with the binary sex system that the evidence does not support, and which scientists have moved on from. The main motivations to hold onto a view like this are, like for anti-vaxxers and creationists, social and political rather than based in evidence.
recommended follow-up:
There are only two reasonable definitions. One is: born with genitalia that look female (i.e. female on birth certificate). The other is “identifies as”. Both of these could be important in different contexts.
Your definition has the downside that the government would have to check your medical records to determine gender. That is an insane breach of the medical records.
No? You’ve just invalidated your own original argument by acknowledging you would add the “born with” despite the fact that I said there are women who were NOT born with the
reproductive apparatus organized to support production of the large gamete (ova).In other words, your own argument is not self-supporting. So I don’t feel I need to elaborate further than the point here is that OP is saying “define biological female” is defeatingly complex and requires assumptions to even proceed, and even then any answer doesn’t land in the “definitive” answer you probably want.
can you clarify what they are not born with? I want to make sure we’re on the same page, and discussing the same specifics. women can still produce ova without a uterus. women can still have a system that supports the production of ova if they have ovaries that don’t function for whatever reason.
There is a fairly broad spectrum of answers to this. My point was that there is no neat/definitive answer based strictly on production of OVA, external genetalia, Uterous, ovaries, hormonal levels, hair manifestation on the body, etc. I’m not sure what value there is in discussing specifics. If people add “it’s my opinion” to a comment, then that’s fine - it’s an opinion. But when it’s pushed as “everyone agrees” or “scientific basis” it gets into very loaded territory.
Edit: BTW, I’m not accusing you of presenting it as scientific fact. Just trying to cut through to a common ground understanding that anyone can have an opinion on this, but once it’s “legal” it becomes exceedingly murky to define outside of opinion.
you have been very respectful, and i mean this with respect as well: do you think it is possible that there is a scientific answer to this, and perhaps you don’t know enough to confirm or deny it?
this is really only a debate when it comes to humans, because it is not emotionally charged at all when we speak of the sex of a dog for example. it is reasonable to say that approximately half of dogs produce sperm, and those are the males. the other half produce eggs and are females.
there isn’t really a debate there, no one claims that “dogs with long hair are female” or anything stupid like that…
in every animal, sex is determined by what gamete their body is set up to produce. this is just what the scientific method has shown, really. i say this with no hate or love in my heart either way. if science is able to show otherwise, then i shall follow it there. it is not my opinion, and it is not what i want to be true. it is just an observable thing
Is there a scientific answer to this? I believe the answer is only a “qualified” answer. Like I mentioned - any 100% answer cannot be correct. Even “common sense” answers of “I know what a biological woman is” are wrong in several circumstances. I’m not a researcher, only a layperson with a decent amount of of biochem and related coursework under my belt. I get the subtle comment about me not knowing enough to confirm or deny it. I’ll say sure to that one. I’m not an expert.
I question why there’s a debate at all. There are really only 2 “platforms” of concern apparently from all political discourse I’ve read: 1) Bathroom usage and 2) Sports. I would like to change your comment
this is just what the scientific method has shownto add my own part that you yourself captured:in approximately half of the population(statisticians will forgive me for “half” when it’s a variant ratio over time of women to men (I think 105% of men born to women born).But let’s take that half the population and pull a number out of the hat to say 99.99% of all people born have an obvious sex assignable at birth (via whatever means). OK, but that leaves 1 in 10,000 as the outlier to which the UK is now attempting to apply a law. Something close to ~370K babies are born daily. That’s 37 people per day world-wide and my ballpark percentage is egregiously conservative. 13,500 people in this ambigous state world-wide per year.
These are people, they have rights and deserve to live life. They should have access to toilets and education. It’s certainly expected in Western societies - you would expect NO LESS for the 99.99% who are clearly identifyable by external/internal/microscopic means. So ultimately all of this is just used to marginalized an already tiny population of people before we even consider gender role, brain phenotypes, hormone production / lack of production, etc. I think it’s fair to say "some people are born different, many of them don’t realize what is “different” until they reach puberty and start to notice “hey, I’m not like the other girls/boys”, perhaps even coming to terms with a stark realization that terrifies them “well shit, I guess I’m trans”. If you think that Trans people make certain Cis people feel uncomfortable, put yourself in the Trans person’s shoes! I doubt any one comes to that internal understanding lightly.
The ONLY reason to treat trans people or even “debate” what sex they are (without them getting any say in that!) is to marginalize them. The VAST VAST majority of humanity does not fall into this situation, and I’d argue are almost to exclusion not impacted by it personally. The notion may make them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps even physically concerned in some cases. But what’s to debate? That a trans woman should not use a female bathroom stall? Lesbians walk girls locker rooms the world over - should they not be able to go to the bathroom with other “biological” women? By the way, even that is easily solveable with lockable individual/family toilets/showers
So, I guess after this long diatribe (and thanks for sticking with me here) I would say, it’s almost completely irrelevent what science “shows” here as any “definitive” answer requires assumptions or exclusion of a small portion of the population to be definitive and the only purpose of the “debate” is to shunt an already fragile population into further inhumanity.
By the way, if science somehow today immeidately said X criteria is definitively a biological female, to what end would that information be any more useful than our passionless view of dogs or other animals? The answer? To exlude anyone not X. It’s the inevitable and only conclusion.
Ninja edit: “answer” to “conclusion” in last sentence
Beautifully put. This is an excellent summary of the situation.
Fair. I think my point was related to what makes sense in any reasonable social setting, not what is the exact biological definition which appears to be more of a scientific question.
Just to be clear on this, in my opinion anyone born with a vagina who wants to identify as a woman, should be treated as such. That’s if you have grown up thinking you were a woman, such an identity cannot be taken away.
Opinion is a whole other ballgame. Glad to support it as an opinion. And logically that’s where this law is going to reside… not in any science. I suppose, upon reflection, that is my underlying message.
I agree that both could be useful in different contexts. I’m only speaking of biological sex in my definition, which is different from gender. in ~99.9% of cases, doctors can tell from observation at birth what someone’s sex is, and it is noted on the birth certificate. (to clarify, do you consider the birth certificate to be a medical record?). I do support the amending of birth certificates if the doctors observed incorrectly. I don’t think think any other medical records would have to be shared with the government, but (beside the point: ) you should assume they always are anyway. but doctors could never “check medical records to determine gender” anyway, as gender and sex are not the same.
Just to be clear, such a change to the birth certificate should NEVER happen if the person involved does not agree with it. It would 100 percent violate the Hippocratic Oath, as it can be very harmful.
“Annoying outgrowth around the pussy”
It is vague, but it does rule out “man in a dress and wig”. I mean men in dresses and wigs is great and all. They are free to do what they want. They just aren’t women, and I will never call them such.
It’s not only vague, it’s completely wrong. You can’t over-rule biology with court rulings, and biology doesn’t care what the concept of “male” and “female” means to humans.
Please form a single file line for the government sanctioned genitalia check. Each one of you could be a man in a dress and wig and it’s super important to me to know which.
UK really wants to be an American colony so badly right now. Get ready to lose your NHS and pensions soon enough.
Of to the EU I go
They now thinking about repealing hate speech laws to please JD Vance.
Why can’t people call themselves whatever gender they identify as?
Explain to me what the problem with that is.
Look up what gender dysphoria is, if you really want to understand what’s going on.
This is also the reason, why your completely made up example never happens.
The person in that example idientifies as a straw man, and nothing else.
Homosexuality used to be classified as a mental illness too. Why couldn’t it be treated through therapy? Perhaps because in both cases conversion therapy: 1) doesn’t work 2) is insanely unethical and seeks to use science as a weapon to enforce conformity 3) does not actually advance the care of the individual.
A person with gender dysphoria can spend their entire life repressing it, battling against it, and not get to feel present in their own life. The so-called John 50s. Or they can be given hormones and ADDRESS the incongruence directly.
Look at the case of David Reimer for example. You cannot force someone to live in a gender role that was assigned to them if it doesn’t match who they are, whether it’s by man or by nature.
The reason you have to resort to strawmen is because the things you describe just don’t happen. So what difference does it make to you that the guy you walk past in the grocery store is trans? Same as the difference it makes to you that someone else is gay.
And what difference do you make to them? You advance a world that’s hostile to them. You make their life harder. You make them into a group of people who need to win the right to exist.
I encourage you to reconsider your views, not from a place of picking holes in arguments, but from a place of love for your fellow man.
So basically everything that you said doesn’t address a single thing in my comment.
You’re simply Gish galloping at the moment going from one thing to the other.
Is there anything specifically you would like to address about my comment.
Specifically how the mental illness of gender dysphoria debunks the “I identify as” in the trans community in a relation to the comment that was responding to?
Also stop using the term straw man you don’t know what it means none of you know what it means most of the internet doesn’t know what it means you just heard it on some YouTube debunking videos.
Nope. It doesn’t debunk anything. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness, yes, but it is not the same thing as being trans, it is a possible consequence of being trans .
Not everyone who’s trans has that mental illness, but I guess they share the feeling, that they don’t want to express the gender identity of their assigned gender very strongly. So your strawman of the person who does everything in their control to appear as a masculine manly-man and to fit a masculine sterotype, while they identify as a woman is highly unlikely.
I know perfectly well, what a straw man is. But I’m not gonna argue about it and leave the de-railing to you.
The point is, that your example is a made up fantasy, that never happened and you’re arguing against it to support your stance, while no one ever pleaded for that case. Doesn’t matter what we call it, it’s bullshit rhethoric either way. And it doesn’t make you look like someone who’s arguing in good faith.
Your news article also doesn’t support your fantasy. None of the people in this article are wearing flannel shirts or scraggly beards, basically it doesn’t tell us anything about the gender expression of these people at all. The only thing male about them is their genitalia (which is biological sex, not gender), and while I can understand, that this leads to confusion in an all naked spa, it is a completely different thing, than what you initially argued against.
Also your source is pretty obviously biased against trans people, their wording makes that clear.
Ok, let’s say someone does walk up to me wearing overalls and a flannel shirt with a huge scraggly beard and says they identify as a woman.
How exactly does that impact any of us negatively?
Nothing.
What does your comment have to with the language being confusing?
goofy how the “equality act” differentiates between different types of people
Oh look, an illegitimate court making up illegitimate rules.
I am not following this topic.
As I understand it this means that a man that in some way transforms to a look like a woman (since the internal feeling is that of a woman) are still considered a man.
What are the practical rights differences between a man and a woman under UK law?
Retirement age is one.
So a baby girl is a woman???
I get what you’re saying, but no. The ruling is specifically “woman” means “biological female”, not “everything is a woman”.
So a biological female child is a woman per this definition. As OP said.
Only if you assume that the word “means” defines a symmetric relation.
Laws need to be explicit.
I don’t think anything in the ruling hinged on the semantics if the world “means”. That said, there is nothing ambiguous in saying that a logical relation is not symmetric. Symmetry, like reflexivity, transitivity etc, are well defined in algebra.
When does it not?
A definition identifies the meaning of the word being defined (the definiendum) with the meaning of the words doing the defining (the definiens). It declares their meanings identical, which implies equivalent, which implies symmetric.
The ruling makes law follow a precising definition, which imposes limitations on the conventional meaning to reduce vagueness.
The word “means” is also used for logical entailment, in which case it’s not symmetric. The dog’s coat is wet which means it’s raining. And of course, a man is a featherless biped, but not every featherless biped is a man.
But the way, we are not arguing about the same thing. You think I’m defending the stupid ruling. I’m not, I’m just saying that language is not algebra.
In fact to paraphrase Nish Kumar, if we’re going about precisely characterizing things, a more interesting precise characterization than the meaning of the word woman is the characterization of the people who obsess about it as transphobic idiots.
Yes in the contexts you gave.
No in this context: they’re referring to the ruling on the legal definition.
Where does it say that?
It’s a technical discussion of a legal definition. Defense/preference/endorsement is not implied.
Pinning down legal definitions is what the legal system does. No one is claiming to personally defend it.
A baby girl is a biological female.
Yes.
I have a feeling you think you’re saying something different than what I said.
Oh, ok. Not a synonym “All women are biological females, but not necessarily all biological females are women.”
Got it.
Lol who hurt you?
How does this help “creative dressers”? And what trans overreach are you referring to?
Isn’t just mind blowing what a colossal waste of time this whole thing is? Imagine if we spent this energy on solving real issues but I guess idiots need to be occupied with something or they’d become self aware.
The highest court in the country is spending time on deciding what a word means. This should be emberassing.
If we weren’t distracted by this we wouod have to unify against the top 1% earners of the world and nobody™ wants that.
And here lies the issue. Maybe I am understanding how society and science are defining terms in these cases, but: doesn’t woman/man = gender (which differs depending on culture, time period, etc) and female/male = sex (which is a medical/scientific term)? It appears both sides of the table are trying to make these terms mean something they do not.
Either way, I see no practical point in actually making a law defining these terms, especially when the legal definition is not even correct scientifically speaking. There are so many biological changes that trans individuals go through when they medically transition and society will see them differently if they “pass” in their society. Also, sex isn’t so black and white either.
Thanks for the summary, very helpful.
To my knowledge, the words man/woman are not originally a social construct - they’re the biological terms for human males and females (like a bitch is a female canine, and a rooster is a male chicken). However, as science has advanced, it’s become increasingly clear that biology is not as binary as male and female.
On the other hand, we have binary gender roles, which are a social construct. Since external genetalia generally form the basis for assigning gender roles, there is a very close but not exact overlap between gender roles and biological sex. The argument is that since gender roles don’t always match biology, the words man/woman are social constructs. Effectively, they’re trying to adapt the original definitions, but are not unexpectedly meeting with resistance.
Going back to this specific law, my immediate question would be: what determines whether you’re biologically male or female? Is it your current genetalia or the genetalia you were born with, i.e. what about trans people that have transitioned? If it is the genetalia you’re born with, then what about hermaphrodites? If it’s your genetics, then what about intersex people? Etc.
The law wasn’t written to account for all these complex biological possibilities. So it sounds to me as if the scottish courts were trying to simplify by effectively letting a dr. make that decision. I assume as a next step the UK will face court cases challenging the definition of “biological”.
Adding to the complexity, in my opinion, is that this particular case is about equality. This raises difficult questions about privilege, and nature vs nurture. The chess example comes to mind, where trans women have been excluded from the women’s only tournament. The main tournament is open to all genders, so they can still play, just not in the women’s only tournament. The argument is that due to gender roles, cis women are likely to have faced much higher barriers to learning chess as children than trans women. Those disadvantages from enforced gender roles is why the women’s league even exists, as an attempt to encourage more women to participate, and trans women wouldn’t have had to overcome the same barriers.
So, coming back to equality, what is more important, your current gender presentation, or the gender role in which you were raised? The answer to that question depends on so many factors in each situation, that I’m not convinced trying to force people into existing definitions make sense. It feels to me as if we need new legal definitions with more categories, but it is going to be extremely difficult to create definitions that adequately address the issues.
Of course , I never saw a non biological woman. Do stones have genders?
How does this impact law meaningfully? Are there any important legal distinctions between men and women?
With facism, inequality and the impending threat of ww3 threatening the stability of the world this certainly doesn’t seem like a bs waste of time and energy at all