Too Much To Ask?
Main audience: UK people
When I say both of my countries are really on the same general path, I suspect most people don’t see it. The USA is, as usual, more brash and headlong about it. The UK usually puts a gloss on it, boiling the frogs slowly enough to escape notice. Once in a while an outburst like Brexit pulls back the veil, but it is soon in place again and we can bumble along as though nothing notable is happening.
Most of the time I point to how politics in my two countries is connected at the financial donor level, which leads to connection at the strategic level. I point to the general path of travel.
But today what stands out is who gets the biggest targets painted on them by both countries. Immigrants, and now transgender people.
For anyone who didn’t notice yet, today the UK Supreme Court ruled that the words “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act are limited to a biological woman and biological sex.
People who rant against such concepts as nonbinary or transgender people, including J.K. Rowling who backed the case that led to this ruling, are delighted. The UK government expressed its approval too, with a spokesperson saying, “We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex. Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government.”
The court ruled unanimously that in the Equality Act 2010, transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs) do not meet the legal definition of a woman. The court says the law focuses on biological sex at birth, not acquired gender even with a gender recognition certificate. The court acknowledged that “biological” does not appear in the definition of man or woman in the Equality Act, but decided “the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman.” The ruling specifically said this means access to single-sex spaces is meant to be based on biological sex.
This ruling will bolster people, institutions and agencies that want to restrict access to services and spaces for trans women.
Look at what’s happening in the USA now. That’s where the UK is going. This ruling is a step along the path. The way is paved with endless steps like these, putting down one group of people, and another, and another.
When I first heard about this ruling, the voice of Rodney King ran through my mind. In 1992 Los Angeles erupted in riots after police officers who had beaten him were acquitted. He didn’t want violence. He said, "Can't we all just get along?"
Can’t we?
Can’t we all just treat each other evenhandedly? Can’t we all see each other as people and treat each other accordingly?
Preferably in both of my countries. Please.
As the mother of a 26 year old trans daughter, I look on in great dismay. My daughter is to use men's public washrooms in the UK now? So let's see who gets accosted and assaulted (for real) in bathrooms now.
Thank goodness we're in Canada. But she travels and the world is getting smaller and smaller.
So much meanness in this world. So much energy wasted on hate of The Other.