UK Supreme Court: No to gender-neutral passports

No it’s not what you’re arguing. Your argument, from what I can decipher of it, primarily consists of attempting to portray your own opinions as ‘objective biological reality’, ignoring the fact that science simply does not support your argument. You’re attempting to use pseudoscience to justify discrimination in law against people who do not conform to your standards.

The same sort of pseudoscientific nonsense was used in the past to justify discrimination in law against people who did not conform to other peoples standards throughout the history of human civilisation, particularly in the Victorian era when some people got a bit of a hard-on for attempting to classify people into different groups and determining their rights accordingly, based upon conflating biology with behaviour according to their own moral standards and justify their behaviour by calling it science, when they could no longer rely on everyone being in agreement as to the existence of an omnipotent invisible deity as providing an objective standard for their moral guidance.

"I’m making the point though LB that the people who’s argument generally consists of “sex based upon science” and “biological reality” and all the rest of it, are unlikely to have ever opened a science textbook in their lives. They are perfectly willing to lean on scientific evidence when it suits their opinions, and reject scientific evidence when it doesn’t suit their opinions."

That's hardly a fair argument though. It could just as easily be thrown at the other side of the debate. What's the actual truth regardless? Science tells us that sex is highly predictable based on genetics. But, that's off topic here. I don't have any real problem with gender neutral passports, so long as we're saying it's gender and not sex.

Genocide? Seriously?

It’s an entirely fair point because it’s exactly what they do. Consider another example of racial purists who rely on DNA profiling as evidence of their racial purity, who undermine their own argument about the validity of the testing when someone gets a result they don’t like. Essentially, there’s something wrong with the test -

How many people who make the argument about the importance of biological markers, do you imagine have ever undergone sex testing themselves? I would suggest the answer is not too many of them, if any at all. If they had, they’re much more likely to receive results which they won’t like.

It’s true that’s irrelevant here though, but the reason it’s irrelevant is because legal documents such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, passports, etc - they’re all documents which record biographical details, not biological details. They are biographical details which are self-reported, and the certificates provide supporting evidence. It doesn’t mean for example that in countries where same-sex marriages are not recognised in law, that a couple are not married. Their marriage is not recognised under the laws of that country, in the same way as X on a passport under the Sex/Gender heading has legal recognition in some countries, and no legal recognition in other countries.

What’s happening in the UK is that people are campaigning to have alternatives to the binary classification of gender recognised by the Home Office in the UK in the same way as it is in countries like Australia -

Who is they exactly? It’s a bit of a stretch to compare “racial purity” with beliefs around the dimorphic nature of biological sex. Are you actually hinting that people who believe there are only two sexes probably also believe in racial purity, and are therefore white supremacists? Otherwise, what have they got to do with each other?

That Australian government page you linked to is interesting because it’s a great example of where this fuzzy thinking around sex and gender can lead:

“The gender markers we use are: M (male), F (female) and X (non-binary/indeterminate/intersex/unspecified/other).”

The X is conflating two completely different things: gender which can be non-binary, and sex which for over 99.998% of us is observed at birth and is binary. The tiny tiny number of intersex people can still be accommodated in that binary even if their sex that was observed/assigned at birth turned out to be wrong.

You also made the point that very few people who believe in biological markers have been tested themselves. That’s true because for almost all of us, we don’t need to be tested. We know what sex we are already.

I think it is bogus science that has led us to this ‘sex as a spectrum’ situation where it’s widely believed that the number of exceptions to the sex binary is much greater than it really is.

’They’ is the people whom I was referring to in my earlier post whom I characterised as follows, a characterisation which you pointed out was unfair in your view, and so I explained my reasoning for it -

the people who’s argument generally consists of “sex based upon science” and “biological reality” and all the rest of it, are unlikely to have ever opened a science textbook in their lives. They are perfectly willing to lean on scientific evidence when it suits their opinions, and reject scientific evidence when it doesn’t suit their opinions.

The reason I made the analogy between people who argue biological purity, and people who argue racial purity, is because essentially their arguments are the same, and their same arguments are undermined by the results of tests which they claim support their argument, as evidenced by the fact that the assumptions they long believed about themselves turned out to be undermined by their own standards of evidence.

The point isn’t that anyone decides whether they need to be tested or not, it’s that those people who argue with claims that science proves them right because chromosomes, have never actually subjected themselves for sex testing. They’re relying on their own instincts and senses as much as anyone else is. As much as to say that they have no interest in science, they’re only interested in evidence which supports their point of view. It’s fine to say you know what sex you are already, but without supporting evidence by way of sex testing, your declaration is as legitimate, or indeed illegitimate, as anyone else’s declaration of what they know of themselves to be true.

The binary classification of sex as it pertains to humans still holds in terms of scientific knowledge and medical standards, as distinct from other sex determination and classification systems used to classify other species in biology besides humans (there’s a few), so I don’t imagine anyone need get their knickers in a twist just yet about the end of human civilisation as we know it.

The point I was making in giving the Australian passports as an example is that just as Lord Reed suggests - In law, sex and gender are terms that are used interchangeably, and it’s accepted that both mean and refer to the same concept. That’s all that’s relevant in the context of legal recognition of sex or gender, as opposed to the idea that the appliance of science (and badly at that), is the only relevant criteria in determining standards which have no basis in science, but are entirely based upon classification standards created by humans, in much the same way as laws are created which govern a society.

Let’s not pretend that science invented laws too, or that people didn’t determine sex for themselves long before science was ever developed. Most people still use the same crude techniques to determine sex as opposed to any notions of compelling the entire population to undergo sex testing, because that’s the only way you could be absolutely certain that what you’re filling out on your passport is biological fact, and not just what you believe about yourself.

Riiiiight…

Ok Father Eskimo 😒

Omg like… read the post again. I wasn’t making any correlation between sex and race. I was pointing to the fact that for racial purists, some of them were surprised by the results of a test which they were sure would confirm their identity.

In the same way - biological purists who advocate that the only way anyone can be certain of their identity is by means of sex testing - they too might well be surprised that the test results would not confirm what they always believed about their own identity. It can happen in the most unexpected and unfortunate circumstances, and it has real-world consequences -

I’m neither rubbishing the generally accepted practice of visual observation to determine sex, nor am I rubbishing science. My point is, and always has been, that for the smart alecs who bleat on about chromosomes and “biological reality” and all the rest of it, it is THEY who are talking rubbish, because science does not support their opinions. They’re willing to accept evidence which supports their opinions, and unwilling to accept the same standard of evidence when it conflicts with their opinions about “biological reality”.

The point being that they themselves would be unwilling to undergo sex testing, because of the possibility of discovering something about themselves that conflicts with what they’ve always been comfortable in believing about themselves, and if they’re not willing to undergo sex testing to verify their identity, then they cannot expect anyone else should have to undergo sex testing in order to verify their identity. Self-identification is sufficient for everyone, and it holds everyone to an equal standard.

That’s why the challenge in the UK was taken, because the UK Home Office only allows for a choice between two gender identities on it’s passport forms, and anyone else is compelled to lie about their identity in order to satisfy those conditions if they wish to apply for a UK passport.

And a Merry Christmas to you too 😁

It doesn’t really require careful reading to understand that I was speaking of sex and gender being used interchangeably within the context of law, which is what this case was concerned with.

In science, sex and gender refers to two different concepts - sex within the context of biology, and gender within the context of psychology - the scientific study of behaviour and the mind. There is some attempted overlap between the two different concepts within the context of evolutionary psychology, but the concept of evolutionary psychology itself has largely been dismissed as pseudoscientific nonsense, quite rightly IMO as it is still largely dependent upon its proponents ideas of promoting sex stereotypes upon which ideas about gender are based.

The term “intersex” is a bit of a misnomer IMO, as you rightly point out they are still one sex or the other and conform to the binary classification of sex. That’s still distinct from classification of gender, or as you suggest - what people identify as themselves.

Only those people who regard biological sex as the most important factor in determining rights accorded in law based upon biological sex need take a test to determine their biological sex. No such test however is required of anyone in making a statutory declaration of one’s sex or gender for the purposes of applying for a passport or any other area in law where all is required is a statutory declaration of either one’s sex or gender. Simply having one’s sex recorded at birth is not a test, it’s an observation and classification which is based upon sex stereotypes - essentially either an inny or an outy, nothing particularly scientific about it, as the method existed long before scientific evidence began to show that biology wasn’t as clear cut so to speak as was previously considered an accurate means to determine sex.

Even if I were to accept your argument to justify the current situation as being suited to 99.99% of people, it still permits discrimination against the 0.01% who do not acknowledge or adhere to the concept of gender. Think of it as being similar to people who are non-religious. It’s probably easier then to see why for a person who is non-religious, presenting their only choices as being between one religion and another for the purposes of the education of their children, might be an issue. The fact that it suits the majority is not a sufficient justification to deny people whom the current paradigm doesn’t suit, the same rights as everyone has already. Similarly, the same is true of gender. Fortunately for that tiny minority of people, equality legislation prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion, which also applies to people of no religion in that they too are protected from discrimination.

The Supreme Court decision in the UK purposely very narrowly interpreted existing legislation relating to Human Rights law in order to come to the conclusions it did, which I do completely understand, though I don’t necessarily agree with their interpretation. Essentially they were of the opinion that given there was no guidance from Parliament, and no guidance from the ECHR in terms of case law which would indicate that they would disagree with the current circumstances, the Supreme Court were of the opinion that the UK was within it’s right to maintain the current system. The UK are not required to go above and beyond what is required of them in accordance with international Human Rights law. They could do, if they wanted, as Ireland has done, but they weren’t required to.

The judgement itself makes for interesting reading, and certainly if you can read the Daily Mail article in the opening post, you can read this -

It’s also worth noting the recent publication of the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee in which they refer to the lack of legal recognition of people who are non-binary in point 222 -

If you imagine there’s any difficulty in reconciling sex with gender in law, or issues with the terms being used interchangeably, then the recent US Supreme Court decision re: Bostock v Clayton County is well worth a gander -

Because of it’s similar argument against discrimination based upon sex, this case was heard at the same time and the decision of the Supreme Court also applied -

It’s not strange at all that words have different meanings depending upon the context in which they are used. That some people would wish to limit words to definitive meaning according to their understanding of language is nothing new, but it’s simply a fact of language that words can have different meanings depending upon the context in which they are used, in any language, not just in English, not just in law, and not just in science.

There is no real number of people who have disorders of sex development because wouldn’t you know it the terminology keeps changing for one thing, and secondly any figures will only ever be based upon estimates as opposed to actually being able to quantify the number of individuals in any given population with disorders of sex development, notwithstanding the number of people who aren’t even aware of the fact that they have a disorder of sex development, until such a time as it may be inadvertently discovered, if it is ever discovered at all.

Recording sex at birth isn’t a test, it’s simply a record of the details of the birth. The sex testing used at the Olympics was for the purposes of determining eligibility to enter into the womens category in competitions. What you’re referring to wasn’t any more accurate than the observation of one’s sex when they were born. The Barr Body test which replaced it wasn’t particularly accurate either, nor was the DNA testing which replaced that, and in reality it was causing a lot more issues than addressing the single issue it was purported to be addressing, and that’s why it too, was eventually abandoned.

Currently in UK law as I pointed out already, there is no requirement for anyone to undergo sex testing in order to confirm their sex when applying for a passport, and it’s a good thing too that people are not required to undress at the security gates in international airports so the security staff can have a good gawk to determine whether they are or aren’t the sex they claim to be on their passport. That sort of determination merely by visual inspection is the sort of thing that fuels this sort of idiocy -

And Mme. Macron is not the first victim of such stupid conspiracy theory nonsense either, Michelle Obama was subject to the same sort of accusatory nonsense a few years back from quacks with similar political views as those of their French counterparts.

Yes, words can have different meanings but in contexts where they need to be coherent eg in science and law, then they should be coherent and clearly defined. Otherwise, we end up as you suggest, unable to say how many people there are with disorders of sex development, because terminology keeps changing and nobody agrees on what a disorder of sex development is, or even if such a thing exists.

The same fuzziness leads to strange things like I pointed out earlier with the Australian passport office suggesting intersex people might use X instead of M or F for their sex. That’s why we need clear definitions of some things like sex and we shouldn’t be confusing gender with sex.

“Recording sex at birth isn’t a test, it’s simply a record of the details of the birth. The sex testing used at the Olympics was for the purposes of determining eligibility to enter into the womens category in competitions. What you’re referring to wasn’t any more accurate than the observation of one’s sex when they were born.”

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. First you say recording sex at birth isn’t a test and then you acknowledge that sex testing at the Olympics wasn’t any more accurate than observation of sex at birth. But, it’s the same thing - i.e. observation of sex, and is a test. See the following from citizensinformation.ie about birth notification forms which include an objective determination of sex as either male, female, or indeterminate (rarely).

A Birth Notification Form (Form BNF/01) is usually completed with the parent(s) by hospital staff (in the case of hospital births), or by a doctor or midwife (in home births), to guarantee that correct and accurate information is recorded.

You’re also saying sex testing isn’t very accurate. What is that based on exactly? It depends how you define sex. Though you must have a clear enough definition yourself to say that 99.99% is not very accurate. So, I think it's a bit inconsistent to say this, while also saying we don't know how many people there are with DSDs because terminology around the definition of sex keeps changing.

“Currently in UK law as I pointed out already, there is no requirement for anyone to undergo sex testing in order to confirm their sex when applying for a passport”

But, there never has been a requirement for sex testing like that beyond what is in your birth certificate, which I think is or used to be an objective determination of sex. It's not clear to me what the point of biological sex on a passport is, and if it's not needed and there is a strong demand for self-declared gender, then it's fine with me to replace sex with gender, so long as we are clear what it means.

I think it's silly to give credence to conspiracy theories. People deciding themselves whether someone looks male or female is not the same as an objective determination of a person's sex at birth.