In their own way, even the UK Supreme Court conceded this when they said that a trans woman could sue as a woman without disclosing she was trans.

One of the reasons I'm a tiny bit bullish about trans rights (even in the UK) is that I think many non-hostile lawyers grasp that asking someone to prove their protected characteristic is not compatible with a liberal framework.

There's also been a very famous court case that decided you can't discriminate on the basis someone possesses one kind of certificate and not the other (simplifying a bit).

We are an Olympic city now Rachel!

Yes I agree. I've only skimmed the decision but I'm not sure the puberty blocker ban or policies on gender in education would come out unscathed either.

What is meant to happen in Northern Ireland? Seriously...

A full Court judgment (with 16 intervening MS and EP supporting the Commission against Hungary), leading to the clear conclusion that the Hungarian anti-LGBTQ law is 'contrary to the very identity of the Union as a common legal order in a society in which pluralism prevails' #EUlaw

One of the things that made me come around on this (apart from having a "self-id" approach in Queensland and the sky not falling in) is trying to come up with a workable alternative that doesn't involve having a sex tribunal.

I don't believe it, but I really do wish thylacines were still alive.

The real conspiracy is that the Chinese found the camera and have kept the summit photo hidden.

Justice Roberts’ former clerks coming to his defense without saying they are former clerks is really something.

I kind of think that people should be platforming/discussing FWS at this point. A lot of people don't realize how repellant and extreme their views are until they are exposed to them.

I'm not going to pretend to understand UK politics, but I suspect that getting rid of Starmer is a coordination problem, and "wait until after May" has become a sort of Schelling focal point.

Congrats Lewis! I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm surprised to hear that most academics celebrated it.

I wouldn't advise students not to go to the UK for a DPhil/PhD (I advise students to rethink US PhDs these days), but it's not the easy choice for them it used to be. Oxbridge, in particular, has reverted to being closer to the mean.

I agree with all that. I even think unis probably need to do something about heckler's vetos. But I have no confidence this will improve things, and suspect it will be weaponised to quash counter-speech.

I'm sure no one takes me seriously (and quite right that they don't), but there is a consensus building across the fields I work that the UK universities are in precipitous decline. The effect has been somewhat hidden by what is happening in the states and elsewhere. But this is bad.

I forget where I came across this argument first (it's a classic after all), but you won't come across a better introductory argument for the social construction of disability.

Today's discovery is Jesus and Mary Chain (also at Metro) in 1986: archive.org/details/ajc0...

I know. But I think one does need to think about what the motivations of some of the people involved are here. There is a real desire to humiliate trans women in particular. I think the cross-examination that Dr Upton received was an embarrassment to the British legal system.

Just noting, re the nurses, that their case involved a lot of rumour mongering and nastiness about Rose (the trans woman). All of it held to be false by the tribunal.

I vaguely remember that. The Darlington nurses were also offered another space, which as far as I can remember was found by the judge to be "unsuitable". The counterfactual where it wasn't unsuitable is interesting to consider.

I know you don't like to speak for cis women and I respect that. But I am very comfortable saying that anyone who is upset about changing with a trans man should be given another private option, rather than expelling the trans man.

Lots of people just don't understand why that latter option is humiliating to trans people (or pretend not to).

I think across both sides there is broad agreement about that. No one should be forced to change in front of everyone else. The debate is about whether that is achieved with extra privacy options or by saying "get out of the women's changing room you 'biological male'" to one or two trans women.

Out of curiosity, what would you say the principle in Peggie is? I find it a difficult decision to understand.

Middlemarch is so wonderful it makes me want to forgive the English for everything else.

Which is probably why so much of the debate becomes a philosophical debate about categorisation rather than proper consideration of the evidence.

Right. And what needs to be established (I think) is that the advantage is on the level of a "category" advantage not regular genetic advantage (so compare e.g. the ACTN3 gene).