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Comment by red_admiral | Hacker News Reader

Safe for individuals, mainly.

The UK right now is also trying to figure out who can use what bathrooms. I don't understand the details myself.

The legal question (that was settled by a recent case) was whether the word woman in existing legislation includes transwomen. The particular case was primarily whether transwomen could qualify for preference given to women for certain posts "on the boards of certain public authorities in Scotland".

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

The toilets things getting the publicity is more a matter of the media being obsessed with that aspect of it. Obviously there are implications for that, but also for many other things.

The EHRC [1] (Equality and Human Rights Commission) has issued guidance [2] that suggests public toilets could be affected. In practice I think life will go on as usual in any organisation that's not explicitly anti-trans, but there's a risk that someone will make a statement by suing a venue for sex discrimination.

As far as I know, the judgement affects much wider issues than just the women's "quota" on boardrooms in Scotland. It seems like a lot of major employers and their lawyers are trying to understand the implications and promising they'll have a update for everyone "soon".

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/equality-and-hum... [2] https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/interim-upd...

Bathrooms are only a small part of this.

The Supreme Court ruling will also ensure that males are not present in women's prisons, women's hospital wards, women's sports, domestic violence refuges for women, and many other spaces designated as being single-sex.

It also confirms that, in law, sexual orientation is defined in terms of sex. One of the intervenors in the case included lesbian groups who were concerned that legal recognition of the rights of lesbian women would be rendered meaningless if heterosexual males could simply identify as such.

As for bathrooms, they are one of the few facilities for which access is based on trust. The activists who insist that they're going to use opposite-sex bathrooms regardless of what the law says are confirming that they can't be trusted to respect boundaries and stay out. Which says a lot really.

I'm not sure that it says what you think it says. It seems to equally apply to the trustworthiness of people like Rosa Parks.

How so? Are you suggesting that the civil rights of males are being violated when they're told that female-only spaces are off-limits?

I'm merely following the logic of your argument, that people who violate rules demonstrate untrustworthiness and a lack of respect for boundaries; you did not specify an exception for those people whose civil rights are being infringed by those rules.

Are you saying that it's fair to extend such an exception?

You're taking part of my comment and ignoring the context in which it was written.

I think you should expect to have your arguments deconstructed on HN.

To do that requires addressing the actual argument.

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