Australian Court asks what is a women

Australian Court asks what is a women

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Gecko1978

Original Poster:

10,458 posts

164 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
BBC News - Australian court rules in landmark case that asked 'what is a woman'?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c07ev1v7r4po

A online chat / social media platform for women revoked a trans women's access and membership saying they were not a biological women.

The owner of the site is a self identified TERF as per the article and refuses to use the preferred gender pronouns of the plaintiff.

The court have ruled against the site who are going to appeal.

Question is should a site be able to discriminate in this case?

For clarity I don't support mis gendering people or generally being hurtful. Sex and Gender seem to be different characteristics depending on who you ask.


ScotHill

3,527 posts

116 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
I mean, women are such a sidelined group in society that people can't even give them the decency of a plural verb/article, no wonder they get het up about chicks with dicks.

2xChevrons

3,534 posts

87 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
The concern for me is the quote from the judge that case law found sex is "changeable and not binary", which was the basis for dismissing Giggle's argument.

That's exactly what I have always pushed back against when critical voices say (in effect) "deluded wokes think you can change sex". Because I've never seen that actually argued or stated before on the LGBT side - the majority 'line' has always been that sex is biological, gender is social. The arguments come about how much one determines the other and which is more important - being male/female or a man/a woman?

I'm neither a judge nor a developmental biologist but I don't really see how an argument that sex is changeble can be legally sound.

This will get touted as a victory for trans/woke but really, taken as reported, it seems to be saying that gender and sex are the same - you can change your sex (????) and then become, for social purposes, a woman. By tying gender and sex together (or, at least, appearing to confused them) it's actually more Gender Critical than it first seems, albeit possibly inadvertently.

The point, surely, should have been that if Giggle was exclusionary based on sex, not gender (as the site owners claimed) then they could only determine that by insisting prospective members submitted DNA tests to prove they were biologically female? An AI-driven photo checker won't really do that - it will only ever deliver a probability and that will be driven by things that would usually fall under gender expression rather than sex.


Mr Penguin

2,712 posts

46 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
I also think the judgement will cause issues down the line.
The answer to the question "what is a woman" really depends on what it is used for and shouldn't be a one size fits all answer.

In boxing that definition should be more restrictive than most other cases and exclude those brought up wearing dresses but who have XY chromosomes and male bone density, in chess tournaments the chromosomes probably don't matter.

In this case it is perfectly reasonable to have a website which is only for those brought up as girls to be able to openly discuss their experiences.

chrispmartha

16,725 posts

136 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
Tickle V Giggle, surely the best court case title of all time?

I thought it was a bizarre Roger Hargreaves book at first.

Gecko1978

Original Poster:

10,458 posts

164 months

Friday 23rd August
quotequote all
2xChevrons said:
The concern for me is the quote from the judge that case law found sex is "changeable and not binary", which was the basis for dismissing Giggle's argument.

That's exactly what I have always pushed back against when critical voices say (in effect) "deluded wokes think you can change sex". Because I've never seen that actually argued or stated before on the LGBT side - the majority 'line' has always been that sex is biological, gender is social. The arguments come about how much one determines the other and which is more important - being male/female or a man/a woman?

I'm neither a judge nor a developmental biologist but I don't really see how an argument that sex is changeble can be legally sound.

This will get touted as a victory for trans/woke but really, taken as reported, it seems to be saying that gender and sex are the same - you can change your sex (????) and then become, for social purposes, a woman. By tying gender and sex together (or, at least, appearing to confused them) it's actually more Gender Critical than it first seems, albeit possibly inadvertently.

The point, surely, should have been that if Giggle was exclusionary based on sex, not gender (as the site owners claimed) then they could only determine that by insisting prospective members submitted DNA tests to prove they were biologically female? An AI-driven photo checker won't really do that - it will only ever deliver a probability and that will be driven by things that would usually fall under gender expression rather than sex.
The court case might end up defining what one is (appeal to follow) then the AI is less important if they are also asking "do you meet this legal definition". As the case stands the trans women is a women so should have access