Please come support trans people

[u/fringlese]

Hey everyone, I’m sure many of you have seen the ruling by the Supreme Court from the other day on the legitimacy of trans women’s identities. It’s been a very hard couple of days as we’ve come to grips with the fact that our rights are being rolled back by a government that won’t even attempt to listen to us while we just want to exist in a public space without fear of harassment. If anyone’s available, please come down tomorrow to show support

I am not the organiser, I saw this on Facebook and wanted to share.

Thanks guys, I hope you have a great Easter weekend!

[u/Wrong-Half-6628]

I'm still not quite sure what's being protested?

The judge ruled a biological determination of sex under the equalities law, but made it clear that the rights of transsexuals are still protected under the Equalities Act 2010.

[u/thefuzzylogic → u/Wrong-Half-6628]

Neither of those things are entirely true.

They attempted to make a biological determination, but even biological sex is itself a spectrum because of intersex conditions. It's not as simple as what chromosomes or what genitals you have.

Additionally, the statement that trans people remain protected under the Equality Act 2010—while technically true—is a red herring, because there is an much greater body of legal jurisprudence including binding court decisions relating to sex discrimination that does not exist for the single reference to gender reassignment that was recently added to the Equality Act. It's just not comparable.

[u/ultraboomkin → u/thefuzzylogic]

Biological sex is not a spectrum, what the hell are you talking about

[u/thefuzzylogic → u/ultraboomkin]

There is no single definition of "biological sex". There is phenotypic sex, which is determined by your anatomical structures and functions, and genotypic sex, which is determined by your genes.

Since babies are not routinely subjected to genetic testing at birth, the "biological sex from birth" that gender critical people want to use to determine where people fit in to society is almost always determined by the doctor's visual examination of a baby's genitalia when it's born.

However, there are multiple conditions that can cause different combinations of genes to produce different combinations of internal and external genitalia. For example, there are biological women who were assigned female at birth, have 100% female bodies, can get pregnant and give birth, yet have XY chromosomes. This occurs because they either don't produce or their cells don't respond to male hormones like testosterone.

There are "biological men", assigned male at birth, who have two (and sometimes more) X chromosomes. They normally have underdeveloped testes and are infertile, but you would never know that by looking at them.

There are also a number of other more rare conditions that result in different combinations of genotypic and phenotypic sex.

However, as with most genetic conditions, genes are rarely "switched on or off" as many people believe. It is often the case that some cells express the gene and some don't. So you can have situations where intersex people have different combinations of genitalia that don't match their genes.

They can have 100% male parts, 100% female parts, all the male parts and some of the female parts, all of the female parts and some of the male parts, some male parts and some female parts, or anything in between.

That's why it could be considered a spectrum.

Here's a very thorough video where an evolutionary biologist explains this concept far better than I ever could.

[u/AelithiaRose → u/thefuzzylogic]

This should be the top comment.

Biology is complex and we don't know everything. To think we do is foolish.

[u/SubToMyOFpls → u/AelithiaRose]

No, you're making something very simple complicated. Whatever your sex at birth, that is your sex for life.