Council in process of ‘considering’ implications of Supreme Court ruling
Dale Spridgeon, local democracy reporter
A north Wales council is “considering the implications” of the recent Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman.
Judges recently unanimously ruled that a woman is defined by biological sex under equality laws.
The judgement has implications for workplaces, public services, schools and other organisations.
The council says it is”fully committed” to supporting the rights of women and trans people, and is now looking at its policies, guidelines and procedures.
During Cyngor Gwynedd’s full council meeting on Thursday, May 1, a question was raised by Cllr Gruff Williams.
He asked: “In the context of the latest decision by the Supreme Court, what arrangements are in place to confirm that women in Gwynedd have access to places and opportunities of all kinds for women only?”
Implications
The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services and Legal and the Welsh Language, Councillor Llio Elenid Owen, replied: “The council is in the process of considering the implications of the ruling taking into account further information, e.g. the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Interim Guidance, published on 25 April.”
The Commission aims to update its guidance after consultation, and it will go before the Westminster Government before the summer recess.
According to the Commission “many people” have questions about the ruling but the updated guidance would provide “more clarity,” Cllr Owen, said.
Gwynedd would “look to see if its policies, guidelines and procedures. “aligned” with the ruling,” she said.
“We expect for the guidance to finally go before the government before the summer, to receive further clarity and guidance on the situation.”
She wanted to “draw attention” to what the Supreme Court had noted, saying the ruling was “not a win for either side.”
It was “very important to emphasise” that the legal definition, within the Equality Act “did not reduce trans people’s legal rights against discrimination”.
“Gender reassignment was one of nine characteristics protected under the Equality Act, 2010,” she added.
Change
In a supplementary question Cllr Williams asked: “What facilities and arrangements would need to be secured, and where and when will we see the change to reflect the ruling?”
Cllr Owen replied again, that like every other organisation, further information was needed to fully answer.
She wanted to take the chance to emphasise “our support and stance with the trans community”.
Cllr Owen said: “Everybody should be free to select their own gender identity, that should be something we respect, not a reason to exempt trans people from society.
“We are totally fully committed to supporting women’s rights and the rights of trans people
“Lots of questions are being raised and there were wider conversations following the ruling over ‘where this left’ inter-sex and non-binary people who did not conform with the definition.
It was important that the voices of those affected were included in the discussions, she said.
“There is a real concern that some people could take advantage of this ruling, and use it to express prejudice against the trans community,” who she said were “already vulnerable”.
She feared that “some in Gwynedd could misuse the ruling, to make the lives for communities who lived on the borders, more difficult.”
“We’re here as councillors to support all Gwynedd’s residents to live in harmony, respect and dignity.
“As a person who grew up as a woman, I don’t feel that trans people’s rights have been taken from my rights at all.”
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A lot of people seem determined to exaggerate the complexity of the Supreme Court’s ruling which is perfectly simple: men are men and women are women in the sense that eveyone understood until “trans rights” became an issue a few years back. I put “trans rights” in inverted commas as trans people already had the same rights as everyone else, and no-one has ever explained what additional rights they lack. Incidentally the Court of Appeal ruled in February this year that there is no such legal category as “non-binary” in the UK. Intersex people are not hermaphrodites or some sort… Read more »
What this is really about is returning to an era when men and women were defined by their biology and nothing else. Where the purpose of women was to have children and the men existed to be the hunter gatherers providing the means to raise those children. That’s why some get so upset by the divergence of gender roles from the biology that’s been “insidiously” allowed to happen since the suffragettes. How can someone be a women if they can’t have children? That’s the fundamental issue that upsets and confuses so many. It’s all very Handmaid’s Tale.
“Man” and “woman” are indeed biological not social categories. Any attempt to turn “woman” into a social category based on either outward appearance (adoption of female costume, mannerisms and so on) or on some ineffable feeling of internal womanhood both reinforces regressive social stereotypes, and dissolves into logical and legal incoherence, as set out in the recent Supreme Court ruling. The most vigorous and effective critics of gender ideology – the doctrine that a man can become a woman by saying so – have been left-wing feminists who most certainly are not arguing that woman’s place is staying at home… Read more »
Then you deny humans their humanity. It’s the social that separates us from the animal.
There are plenty of other social animals around: elephants, meerkats, penguins, wolves… One of the features they and we share is manifesting two distinct sexes. In some cases we humans distinguish between them using words such as “stag” and “doe”, “bull” and “cow” and so on. “Man” and “woman” sre similar biological categories. To state this does not deny humanity but simply states a fact about the natural world of which humans are part.
And the primary role of the female in the animal kingdom is baby making, is it not? Can you give any examples of female elephants becoming prime minister? It’s only gender – a human construct – that allows an adult human female to be more than their biology. Legally realigning gender with biological sex as the court has done, to state that a woman is defined in the eyes of the law only by her biology, reverses decades of progress that allowed women to not be defined by their biology. Of course this is arguing that woman’s place is staying… Read more »
I can’t think of any elephants of either sex that became Prime Minister, though there’s good documentary evidence that one called Babar was crowned king. It is at least as plausible as the idea that people can change sex. Do you know when the concept of “gender” in the sense that you employ was first recorded in the English language? It was in 1945. How did all the women who achieved anything before then do so, one may ask? How did Cleopatra, Hildegard of Bingen, Margery Kempe, Elizabeth I, Aphra Behn, Jane Austen, Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie get anything… Read more »
Universal suffrage was only achieved 17 years before 1945. That wasn’t down to a sudden change in our understanding of biology. That was a change in our social and cultural understanding of the role of an adult human female within society. That can’t be described by the words “biological sex” but can be described by the words “female gender”. And there are plenty of people who still believe that was a mistake, all of whom will be celebrating this ruling.
I agree with your first three sentences. But I’ve never met or even heard of anyone who believes women under the age of 30 should not have the right to vote: clearly I move in more progressive circles than you. And no-one in 1928 or 1945 talked of “female gender” because the concept had not been concocted then.
https://www.newsweek.com/andrew-tate-women-shouldnt-vote-us-election-1961140
That’s the gender ideology he’s teaching our young men.