Hi Robbie
Thanks for your msn link to Mermaid's response to JK Rowling. I have linked to the Mermaid's website as well for the full letter:
https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/news/dear-jk-rowling/It's interesting how Mermaids and other trans lobbyists try to convey the idea to the less well-informed public that the Equality Act 2010's protection from discrimination for people who are changing gender allows trans women access to single-sex spaces. This allows them to try to claim that people are being discriminatory when they are not in order to create a toxic climate of phobia accusations. Mermaids say in their open letter to JK Rowling that “Trans women are already entitled to use the facilities that align with their gender identity, and those protections have been in place since the Equality Act 2010,”
However, the Equality Act 2010 and accompanying explanatory notes makes clear that sex is a protected characteristic and that sex is separate from gender reassignment and that it is lawful to prevent trans women from accessing women-only spaces if it can be justified.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/20/7One of the many examples provided in the legislation is:
Gender reassignment: paragraph 28
Effect
739.This paragraph contains an exception to the general prohibition of gender reassignment discrimination in relation to the provision of separate- and single-sex services. Such treatment by a provider has to be objectively justified.
Background
740.This paragraph replaces a similar provision in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
Example
A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful.
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I think Mermaids would be better off addressing the actual concerns expressed by women. These concerns are not usually about trans women sexually preying on girls or women but one concern was about male predators stating they are trans women in order to gain access to women-only spaces.
The other concerns I have read about - and many examples of this happening in real life are on this thread - were about erasing women's voices and experiences of being women by allowing trans women into single sex spaces and allowing trans women to define what women are and are not allowed to talk about in those spaces, with threats of social ostracism, emotional, financial and physical harm if women did not comply. Women, whose experiences are based on their biology, want to be able to have access to services that take into account their biology, without those spaces being invaded by biological men trying to tell them what being a woman should or should not mean.
Regardless of the complications in biology of whether you have a SRY or RSPO1 genes
https://www.nature.com/news/2006/061009/full/061009-14.html that may cause XX chromosomal people to have external male genitalia or XY chromosomal people to have external female genitalia (with associated health complications eg. usually infertility or skin-thickening issues) the issue is the lived experiences of biology and associated social and cultural effects for the majority of girls and fertile women (which trans women have not experienced) e.g. being socialised from a young age to please others at the expense of themselves in order to have value which is not something little boys face to the same extent, being sexualised and objectified from a young age, being labelled negatively if you are too assertive or competitive while boys are praised for displaying assertiveness, puberty, privacy needs, menstruation issues, physical inferiority in comparison to men (such as height, weight, strength, stamina), worrying about the risk of sexual assault that affect freedom of movement and study and work choices, worrying about the loss in economic and social value and the physical, financial and social risks of pregnancy and childbirth from a young age for a significant portion of your life, body shape changes, changing vaginal secretions, hair removal etc
These experiences due to biology often result in women having negative outcomes in many areas, and a requirement for single sex services to try to redress the balance to lead to a fairer outcome.
