FOR WOMEN SCOTLAND (AGAIN)

Posted byGordon DangerfieldPosted inUncategorized

In my last blog post in August of last year I made these observations (and feel free to skip or skim the paragraphs which follow in bold if you don’t need them repeated):

Paragraph 28 of Schedule 3 [of the Equality Act 2010] provides as follows with regard to single sex services:

A person does not contravene section 29 [direct discrimination], so far as relating to gender reassignment discrimination, only because of anything done in relation to a matter within sub-paragraph (2) if the conduct in question is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

(2) The matters are—

…

(c) the provision of a service only to persons of one sex.

Before the court’s clear decision in For Women Scotland, this was an obscure and highly controversial provision. Now, it isn’t.

Firstly, for the purposes of single sex female services, the provision must apply to biological females who are undergoing gender reassignment. If a single sex service were to exclude a so-called “transman” from its female services on the grounds, say, that her beard and deep voice were “triggering” for rape victims, that is clearly an exclusion made because of her gender reassignment.

As such, it clearly requires justification under paragraph 28 and, if justification cannot be established, it will equally clearly be direct discrimination against the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Secondly, it may be arguable that a biological male in possession of a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) under the Gender Reform Act of 2004 (GRA) falls to be regarded as acquiring some form of legal fiction which allows him to be classed as a “biological female” for the purposes of the Equality Act.

In Fair Play for Women Ltd v The Registrar General for Scotland and The Scottish Ministers [2022] CSIH 7, the highest civil court in Scotland said this:

There are some contexts in which a rigid definition based on biological sex must be adopted.

And this:

Some of these limitations have been carried over to apply even where a person has successfully obtained a GRC under the GRA….The point which these examples all have in common is that they concern status or important rights.             

As I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s a pity that the court didn’t say more about where exactly a GRC fits into the definition of “biological female” for the purposes of the “status” and “important rights” conferred by the Equality Act.

My own interpretation of these statements is that a biological male with a GRC remains a biological male for the purposes of single sex provision and that there is no need to invoke paragraph 28 of Schedule 3 to exclude him, along with all biological males, from single sex female services.

If I’m wrong about that, and if paragraph 28 does require to be invoked in order to exclude a biological male with a GRC from single sex female services, then that will in my view have serious consequences for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament. I’ll deal with that in detail in the last of the forthcoming articles.

(Spoiler: if having a GRC does turn a biological male into a “biological female” for the purposes of the Equality Act, then it is simply absurd for the Scottish Government to claim, as they do, that the Bill’s provisions allowing biological males to obtain a GRC by essentially self-identifying as female do not intrude into the reserved area of the Equality Act. Clearly, they do, and as such the Act, if passed, will be struck down by the courts as outwith the competence of the Scottish Parliament.)

The decision of the Inner House today means that I was wrong — for now at least — about a biological male with a GRC remaining male for the purposes of the right to access female single sex services under the Equality Act. As such, and as I noted in the last paragraph above, the Scottish Government’s Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Act, which purports to allow a GRC to be obtained by self-ID must by definition intrude into the reserved area of the Equality Act. It is therefore now inevitable in my opinion that the Act will be struck down when the court gives its eagerly awaited decision on the application of the UK Government to have that happen.

Not for the first time, we should all be grateful to For Women Scotland for bringing the action that will cement this result.

The decision also means that my observation about the application of paragraph 28 above moves from hypothetical to actual. The Inner House has today decided that — for now at least — a biological male in possession of a GRC is to be regarded as being of the female sex for the purposes of the Equality Act. All other trans-identified males remain male. This means of course that, as the bulk of my last post was concerned with explaining, the current “trans-inclusive” policies of the Scottish Government are clearly unlawful as applied to female single sex services, and always have been, because they regularly force biological females to share female single sex services with biological males, whether those males have a GRC or not. (And of course only the tiniest minority of trans-identified males do have a GRC.)

Single sex female services must now take urgent advice on how to counter these unlawful Scottish Government policies, and ensure that all trans-identified males without a GRC are excluded without exception from their services. They should also make use of paragraph 28 to exclude biological males with GRCs where excluding them is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. As explained above, these biological males are not being excluded because of their sex, which the Inner House tells us is now female. Rather, they are being excluded on the ground of gender reassignment because, although they are (so we are told) now of the female sex, it is permissible under paragraph 28 to exclude them on the legitimate and proportionate grounds that, for example, their obviously male bodies, deep voices, hairy chins and so on are triggering to female rape victims.

In other words, it is the very fact of their gender reassignment from male to (so we are told) female that makes excluding them legitimate and proportionate in terms of paragraph 28.

Of course, all of this has the strongest whiff of absurdity about it, as the court itself recognised today when commenting that the sorting out of the whole awful mess must be a matter for society as a whole and not just for the interpretive function of the courts.

I disagree with the judges’ decision today but I genuinely sympathise with the impossible position in which they, and the courts in general, now find themselves. Laws have been passed, and judicial decisions made, on the basis of the most absurd ideas, which have no basis whatsoever in reality, and now the courts, which really have only very limited and highly compartmentalised expertise, are being asked to reconcile reality with the absurd fantasies which have been given legal force.

It is as if the Flat Earthers somehow got their doctrines passed into law and the courts then had to reconcile that law with all the other laws — on air traffic control, shipping navigation etc — which are needed to regulate reality. However expertly they applied their very narrow expertise to the task, and with however much sophistry and appeal to authority they “resolved” it, planes and ships would still be crashing into each other out there in the real world, as well as much other mayhem.

So it is with a law that says human beings can change sex.

We all need to start again from scratch, and we need to start with the patent absurdity of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

38 thoughts on “FOR WOMEN SCOTLAND (AGAIN)”

  2. Thank you for sharing this blog Gordon.

    This ruling potentially opens the floodgates for a massive number of claims against the Scottish Government and against other public and private bodies that have imposed unlawful gender self-ID policies for very many years.

    Examples include biologically female prisoners being subjected to biological male prisoners who self-ID’d as a woman, women who lost out on an employment opportunity to a male applicant who had self-ID’d as a woman, hospital patients being forced to share a ward with biological males who self-ID’d as a woman, sports women losing medals, prize money and sponsorship to biological males who self-ID’d as a woman, women in changing rooms and public toilets who have been subjected to biological males who had self-ID’d as a woman, women using rape and abuse crisis centres and similar services being subjected to biological males who self-ID’d as a woman, men and women who have suffered in the workplace, including some who lost their jobs, for objecting to the unlawful self-ID policies, businesses who incurred legal and other costs (including staff training) in order to interpret and apply the Scottish Government’s unlawful self-ID policies and staff in all sorts of jobs suffering the stress of having to interpret and apply the Scottish Government’s unlawful self-ID policies. These are just a handful of examples. I expect there are a great many more.

    Many of the public and private bodies could have claims against the Scottish Government, who forced their unlawful gender self-ID policies upon them on threat of funding withdrawal, contract loss etc.

    The potential number of claims is huge. The potential cost of these claims could easily run to hundreds of millions of pounds, potentially billions.

    Those responsible for imposing these unlawful policies need to be held to account.

    Kind regards,

    Colin Dawson

    Sent from my Galaxy

    Liked by 3 people

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    1. Thanks, Colin. I agree that claims should now be brought by all of those affected by this unlawful policy of “trans inclusion”, especially since the Scottish Government made it a condition of funding female single sex services that they include any biological male who claimed to be a woman. As a result, many such services were faced with the awful choice of traumatising those they were set up to serve or closing down altogether. It’s an absolute scandal, and heads should roll. Of course, since this present Scottish Government holds itself accountable for nothing, only the kinds of action you mention will produce any justice for anyone.

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      1. Yes, indeed, Gordon, it is the only way forward. It will be costly in terms of funding such actions, though, and I am certain that the ‘trans’ lobby is relying on most women being worn down by the constant battles. If it was possible to sue the SG, that would make more sense because they are the ones responsible. Or individual politicians who supported this stuff.

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  5. The GRA 2004 was a disastrous piece of legal fiction (irrespective of its motives) which when progressing through committee stage was recognised to be potentially damaging to women and children. Any legal fiction is bad law. Repeal the GRA.

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    1. Spot on, Joan. They all knew what would happen, but tried to sweep it under the carpet with what cannot be other than lies to placate a very, very loud-mouthed minority – men campaigning for the right to breach every boundary there is.

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  6. It is somewhat ironic that people in Scotland will now have to sue the Scottish Government for introducing policies and laws we despised and had protested against for many years. This same government which steadfastly refused to listen to anything that Scottish electors had to say, especially if they disagreed with the government.

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  7. Agree absolutely with you, Gordon: the 2004 GRA must now be the target for repeal. Many of us have been saying for a long time that it is nothing more now, in the face of subsequent legislation on some-sex marriage, than a springboard for the ‘trans’ lobby to breach more and more boundaries, more and more established laws. What is wrong with people that they cannot see that this is not a bout normal civil and human rights, but about men’s sexual ‘rights’. It must be questionable whether anyone has ‘sexual rights’ per se because one person’s sexual ‘rights’ will inevitably breach someone else’s, so that consent, and only consent, must be the arbiter.

    If Westminster will not repeal the GRA 2004, chaos is going to ensue, and very soon, whether or not the GRRB is struck down by the courts. It is the GRA 2004 which is the crux of the problem, both legally and socially. This mess is what happens when laws are badly researched, badly scrutinized and badly flawed in their application. The Scottish Government should take note and cut its not inconsiderable losses on this issue.

    I do not believe that the court had any choice but to give the ruling it did on the ForWomen Scotland appeal, given how the law is set out in the 2004 GRA, but it is still a massive blow to female rights as will be any and all issues flowing from this decision, as both governments, the SG and Westminster, have been told over and over again. I think we need to go even further, though, and alert the UN itself to the absurdities of its position on the question of ‘trans’ issues, which goes much deeper into the dark side of humanity.

    It swallowed wholesale the unreality and, frankly, delusions and deceit, of the ‘trans’ lobby in relation to the incorporation of the Yogyakarta Principles and other related issues. This requires to be remedied if females are not to be erased from all public life – which, I suggest, is the intention, on behalf of men’s sexual ‘rights’ – and it is the men who are leading this drive, make no mistake, regardless of the ‘transmen’ and supposed ‘trans’ children who occupy the other two parts of this (supposedly) three-pronged movement.

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    1. Absolutely spot-on as usual, Lorna. Even in the tiny number of cases of transsexual men like Mrs Bellinger who have the genuine delusion that they need to get their bodies as close to women’s bodies as possible, there is not the slightest justification for inscribing their delusions in law to the detriment of 51% of the population and 100% of reality.

      No other distressing delusions — whether anorexia or schizophrenia or self-harm or any other forms of mental illness — are dealt with by this kind of affirmation, let alone by affirmation in law, because everyone understands that telling an anorexic that she’s fat or a schizophrenic that he really does hear voices only makes the problem worse, while forcing other people to pretend that they share these delusions is so obviously absurd that no-one, as far as I know, has ever had the sheer nerve to suggest it.

      More power to you and Joan, and everyone else who has been fighting this dangerous, harmful nonsense for so long.

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  8. Gordon I posted this comment earlier this morning either it has not gone through or it doesn’t meet with your approval
    This is a comment I posted on WOS today based on the results of the FWS case, I find it incomprehensible that people who appear relatively sane can fall for this insanity, laws, rules and regulations are SUPPOSED to benefit society overall and secure the safety and protection of the weakest members of society , I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion that we and FWS have to start again , the ABSURDITY of this whole clusterbourach where the MAJORITY of the electorate are vehemently opposed to this reviled law YET in order to challenge this regression we have to continuously raise exorbitant funds to pay for our challenge WHILST the protagonists of this stupidity the Scottish government use OUR money in an attempt to defeat us
    twathater says:
    1 November, 2023 at 6:21 pm
    It is becoming more apparent that to defeat the lunacy of gender PISH the only way to rebalance sanity is to undertake Rubies proposal to revoke the 2004 equality act
    As a husband, father and grandfather I am incandescent with anger that thousands of years of science and biology are being ignored and destroyed to accommodate people with mental illnesses and the deviants perverts and paedophiles who attach themselves to this lunacy
    I cannot understand how females who support this depravity cannot see the impact it will have and is currently having on the safety and security of our girls and womenfolk, at 72 I desperately need independence but if Posy Parker were to form a political party in Scotland PROMISING to undo ALL this weird pervert shit I would vote for them in a heartbeat
    ALBA have said that they will protect women’s spaces but they have NEVER committed to undoing all the pish that sturgeon and her perverts have introduced, they undoubtedly will follow the usual VIRTUE SIGNALLING acquiescence when the do Gooders turn up

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    1. Ha, as if I would ever disapprove a comment from you, TH! Don’t know what happened to the earlier one, but very glad to have your views as always.

      What makes me optimistic about Alba is that brilliant feminist activists like Eva Comrie and Denise Findlay are driving the bus on their policy in this area. Like you, I mistrust all career politicians, and actually loathe most of them, but people like Neale Hanvey are essentially activists themselves rather than the usual professional politicians and that encourages me too.

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      1. Thanks for your response Gordon and I agree with you re Eva and Denise the only thing that I am reticent about is they can go off on hobby horses which as we know diverts from the target and they have the politicians my way or the highway attitude , we have suffered greatly with that attitude over the past 9 years

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  9. Pressed for time right now so will leave a more substantive response to later but as a quick reaction – great to see another blog post appearing. Dinnae be a stranger!

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  10. Nice analogy about “It is as if the Flat Earthers somehow got their doctrines passed into law and the courts then had to reconcile that law with all the other laws — on air traffic control, shipping navigation etc — which are needed to regulate reality.”

    I wrote about this case today too – https://roadlesstraveller.substack.com/p/scottish-case-that-grc-changes-your-sex – to say (while it’s the consequence of deplorable flat earthery), it’s not as bad as I first thought.

    It only concerns some 5,000 men and even then it does not apply the case of sport, among other exceptions.

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    1. Thanks, Robbie, I read your article and agree that it’s very useful for people to have the information you give there. I hope the information I give above about the use of paragraph 28 of Schedule 3 of the 2010 Act is also disseminated widely to those running female single sex services because a carefully written blanket policy which says effectively that the service will always believe it to be proportionate and legitimate to exclude trans-identified males with GRCs would be lawful in my opinion and would achieve the same result in practice as would have been achieved if FWS had won their appeal.

      Basically, female single sex services already have to rely on the “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim” argument because otherwise their services would be the most blatant direct sex discrimination against men, so they all already have carefully-worded policies which emphasise the need of those using them for privacy, dignity, safety etc as their legitimate aim, and the exclusion of all men as their proportionate means of achieving it.

      All that is required is for these policies to be duplicated with the appropriate slight amendments to allow for a similar blanket ban on male-bodied GRC holders. Of course, the absolutely safe legal route is to make each para 28 decision on a case-by-case basis but I’d be surprised if a blanket policy of the kind I’m suggesting was found to be unlawful if challenged. When the stakes are as high as they are with, for example, traumatised rape victims, I think you could always justify a safety-first blanket ban on all male bodies via para 28.

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    2. robbie: at first glance, that seems fine – only 5000. However, self-ID was, essentially, a GRC without the bother. I wrote a long time ago, when the GRRB was brought in, that, with every institution being captured, including the NHS, and albeit GP practices are, to all intents and purposes, privatized within the NHS ambit, if the GRC becomes attractive to the very many more than 5000 fetishist and autogynephiliac, woman facing larpers and predators, self-ID would be achieved by hordes of these men applying for one and being ushered through the system with minimum obstacles. If they can find a GP to sign them off without too much hassle, they will meet the criteria for a GRC anyway, and I think their next step will be to try and reduce the obstacles to a GRC. After all, most of them already ‘live as women’ in that they are stealing our every space in their crimplene frocks and size 12 kitten heels. This relentless movement will try anything to breach the rules, so I would expect them to try this very soon, as the implications of the court ruling sinks in, and they see the way blocked for the majority of the larpers. We have to be ready for them.

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      1. Thanks for your comment. Yes, self-ID by way of GRRB does seem to be a GRC without the bother. Still, I draw some hope from the last ditch defence that Gordon speaks of (paragraph 28 of Schedule 3 of the 2010 Act) coupled with the boundaries in the GRA that I mention. I mean, it’s bad, but it’s not entirely hopeless.

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      2. No, I agree that it’s not entirely hopeless, but we cannot afford to relax for one millisecond. These people are relentless in their pursuit of their own agenda, and they will be looking to carve out a new pathway to what they want, believe me. Since early 2015, the push to deprive females of all their rights – not just some – has been utterly relentless. We are very glad for all the men who do support us, but, for too many, Schadenfreude seems to be a thing, as if national politics, the law, business, local politics, and so on should be out of bounds for female people. We need men to step up to the plate and we are very grateful to those who do, but I think that all this has been such a salutary lesson to many females, that we are still not accepted as half the human race (because this ‘trans’ stuff is also part of the men’s rights movement) and, as a result, we are just beginning to think about creating a political party for ourselves, for example, and branch out from there. We thought we had won our equal rights and that they had been cemented in law, but, apparently not, and we now have to fight all over again to keep them. It really is exhausting and dispiriting, but we will not give up or give in to these people. Oh, and I’m not having a go at only some men: many females have betrayed us and themselves, and those girls who come after them, having allowed themselves to be seduced by what is, essentially, a men’s sexual rights movement.

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  11. I wonder how many of our virtue signalling and supposed civic minded progressive politicians would be as eager to introduce reviled legislation vehemently opposed by the electorate if they were forced to personally pay the legal fees to defend their stupidity
    I wonder if Alex Cole Hamilton would be as vociferous about doing it for you Beth

    I would like to see a Scottish constitution that placed responsibility on politicians for their actions because I am heartily sick of watching these incompetent people create mayhem and ruin , the incompetence of the Scottish executive over the past 9 years has cost this country and our citizens hundreds of millions of pounds YET not one of them has been held to account , hundreds of millions that could have been used to FEED families or HEAT for pensioners , or build affordable social housing , or launch a not for profit energy company in the coldest part of the uk that is energy rich
    These people are the same as CEO’s of business they are extremely happy to accept their grossly inflated salaries, expenses and bonuses but when everything turns to shit it is always someone else’s fault or lessons have been learned or it was outwith our control

    I truly believe that the only way Scotland can progress is to adopt the SALVO ,SSRG and Liberation.Scot demand for a REAL PEOPLE’S ASSEMBLY where the electorate representatives will hold politicians to account instead of political parties manipulating and lying to the electorate, remember THEY work for US

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  12. Does this ruling affect Stonewall? As far as I can recall Stonewall advised companies and organisations on bringing their workplace policies in line with trans inclusion. Would this leave the charity open to being sued? They’ve made an awful lot of money from giving out incorrect information. Some people might even have lost their job due to incorrect company policy – surely both companies and individuals could sue?

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  13. Your earlier post WHY SINGLE SEX FEMALE SERVICES ARE NOT FOR BIOLOGICAL MALES
    referring to For Women Scotland v Lord Advocate and Scottish Ministers [2022] CSIH 4
    seems to say the opposite (if I’ve understood both posts right).
    Is this so? If so, is the change explained?

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    1. Sorry, jeredaw, you’d have to be more specific. As far as I’m aware, they both say the same thing. If you mean the legal fiction that males with a GRC are for now, according to the Inner House, of the female sex for the purposes of the Equality Act, I’ve always taken account of that reality-denying legal possibility, as I do again in the post you’re commenting on. If you can be more specific, though, I’ll answer specifically.

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      1. Sorry, Gordon I should have been more specific:
        in the present article you say

        “The Inner House has today decided that — for now at least — a
        biological male in possession of a GRC is to be regarded as being of
        the female sex for the purposes of the Equality Act.

        …

        As explained above, these biological males are not being excluded because
        of their sex, which the Inner House tells us is now female.”

        In the article
        WHY SINGLE SEX FEMALE SERVICES ARE NOT FOR BIOLOGICAL MALES
        you say

        “In other words, if a biological male is undergoing what we colloquially
        call “male to female” gender reassignment, that process …

        … will have no effect at all on his “sex” for any of the
        purposes of the Act. His “sex”, for any of the purposes of the Act,
        will remain male.”

        Thanks for answering so promptly. I should have tried to work this
        out for myself. Maybe the answer is simply that it is context-dependent,
        as the [2023] CSIH 37 case says
        ‘[16] [about [2022] CSIH 7] The Second Division agreed that the meaning of
        “sex” was context-specific. There were cases in which a rigid definition
        of “sex” based on biological sex had to be adopted.’

        I see the legislation discussed in detail
        (Gender Recognition Act 2004, Equality Act 2010)
        are both UK Acts – not Scottish Acts – so aren’t English court
        decisions on this stuff just as relevant to Scotland as Scottish ones?

        If I’ve done battle effectively with WordPress, my name should appear
        as “Jeremy Dawson” – here’s hoping!

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      2. Thanks, Jeremy. I’m afraid I’m still not sure what it is about the two posts that you think is inconsistent.

        The passage you quote from the first post remains a completely correct statement of the law, as is also recognised in the second post. A biological male undergoing gender reassignment remains of the male sex for the purposes of the Equality Act. What the Inner House has now decided, and what I was wrong about, as the second post acknowledges, is that when a biological male gets a GRC, he has not only COMPLETED his GENDER reassignment but is also now of the female SEX for the purposes of the Equality Act. I think that’s a fundamentally wrong decision, not least since it means that a biological female with a GRC will have to be treated as a male and will be legally barred from all kinds of female single sex services that may be vital to her health and safety. This was pointed out to the court in arguments but, as far as I can see, they just ignored the point. What’s important, though, is that it’s the law of Scotland for now that a male with a GRC is legally female for the purposes of the Equality Act. Every other male, including those undergoing gender reassignment, remains male.

        I’m not aware of authority in England that contradicts that view, though of course “Stonewall law” and previous EHRC guidance — when that organisation was captured by the Stonewall madness –does. You’re right, though, that this is a UK statute and so all UK courts should have a consistent view on it. If there were to be an inconsistency, then the UK Parliament could legislate to clarify or a case could be taken to the UK Supreme Court. I’m hoping For Women Scotland will appeal to the Supreme Court, which I’m sure will uphold the Inner House’s view that sex is biological sex, and which I’m hoping will overrule the Inner House’s anomalous decision on the effect of the GRC.

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  14. Hi Gordon
    the inconsistency I was referring to is about whether
    “when a biological male gets a GRC, he … is … now
    of the female SEX for the purposes of the Equality Act.”
    You say, you were wrong about this: I thought your “wrong”
    view was clearly expressed in the other post, eg

    the Inner House … has now clarified that, for the purposes of the Act,
    “male of any age” means – and has always meant – biological male

    and

    “My own interpretation of these statements is that a biological male
    with a GRC remains a biological male for the purposes of single sex
    provision”

    And you yourself refer to the “Inner House’s anomalous decision
    [by which I understand the most recent one] on the effect of the GRC”

    It’s true my previous comment didn’t properly take account of the
    distinction between transgender people with or without a GRC – sorry.

    Anyhow, my question was not about inconsistency between the posts
    (which is well enough explained by you saying
    “The decision of the Inner House today means that I was wrong”
    and “I think that’s a fundamentally wrong decision”)
    but about the apparent inconsistency between the court decisions
    you describe.

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  15. Well, thanks Gordon. But I’d really like to know whether this
    is a problem with my understanding or a problem with my expressing
    myself clearly, maybe some other reader can help.

    (1) “when a biological male gets a GRC, he … is … now
    of the female SEX”

    (2) “a biological male with a GRC remains a biological male”

    Rightly or wrongly, these seem inconsistent

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    1. I’d say the problem lies in your reading comprehension, Jeremy, or, dare I say it, in your lack of good faith.

      Your quote (2) above is part of the whole passage in the first post, quoted again below. I was explicitly stating that the court hadn’t covered the point, giving my own opinion about what the answer should be, and then indicating what the consequences would be if my own opinion was wrong. Your quote (1) then proceeds from the second post, where I explain what the court has now decided on the point, that my own opinion was therefore wrong, and that the consequences of the court’s decision will be the ones I predicted (about which I was right, as you’ll have seen from the court’s upholding of the UK Government challenge):

      “As I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s a pity that the court didn’t say more about where exactly a GRC fits into the definition of ‘biological female’ for the purposes of the ‘status’ and ‘important rights’ conferred by the Equality Act.

      “My own interpretation of these statements is that a biological male with a GRC remains a biological male for the purposes of single sex provision and that there is no need to invoke paragraph 28 of Schedule 3 to exclude him, along with all biological males, from single sex female services.

      “If I’m wrong about that, and if paragraph 28 does require to be invoked in order to exclude a biological male with a GRC from single sex female services, then that will in my view have serious consequences for the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament.”

      This really is my last word on this, and if there’s a single other reader on the planet who understands what point it is you’re trying to make, I’d love for them to accept your invitation to comment.

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  16. “lack of faith”!! For alluding to the fact that the various judgments
    seemed inconsistent (or sufficiently nearly so to lead you to be wrong
    when writing about them) ??

    With a comment like that, don’t expect to have seen my last word.

    For the record, I don’t attribute you being wrong in the earlier post
    either to your lack of comprehension in reading the earlier judgments
    or to any lack of faith.

    For any other reader (who has already studied the judgments
    Gordon’s posts were about), I was interested in whether and
    how the later one explains the (near-)inconsistency.

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