I don't really have time to read through the entire judgment and look at the actual legal implications but I think that the idea that this will not make any meaningful difference is a complete fallacy, especially since the judgment itself states:As best as I can tell, the legal justification was that having "woman" not refer to biological sex in the Equality Act (which governs anti-discrimination stuff) would cause large parts of it to make absolutely no sense, the stuff referring to maternity and pregnancy for example.
There's still legal protection for transgenders from discrimination, but this is now solely on the basis of them being trans, rather than also being covered by provisions covering women.
The overall message that they seem to be trying to send is that this is just technical legalese that will make no meaningful difference to anyone, but I'm not sure I buy that. An official legal distinction has been made between trans women and natal women, a line in the proverbial sand. I don't think anything like this could have happened a few years ago.
In enacting these exemptions, the intention must have been to allow for the exclusion of those with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, regardless of the possession of a GRC, in order to maintain the provision of single or separate services for women and men as distinct groups in appropriate circumstances. These provisions are directed at maintaining the availability of separate or single spaces or services for women (or men) as a group – for example changing rooms, homeless hostels, segregated swimming areas (that might be essential for religious reasons or
desirable for the protection of a woman’s safety, or the autonomy or privacy and dignity of the two sexes) or medical or counselling services provided only to women (or men) – for example cervical cancer screening for women or prostate cancer screening for men, or counselling for women only as victims of rape or domestic violence.
This very clearly allows for the banning of transsexuals from single-sex spaces, both MtF and FtM without this being cosnidered as discrimination
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