One of the many issues in this case is the complete loss of institutional competence. It’s obvious this was an issue that required careful thought, and the decision maker sought advice not from, heaven forfend, a lawyer, but from a very junior equality and diversity officer.

https://twitter.com/tribunaltweets/status/1890051457656967375

And the “equality and diversity lead”, two years in the job, had the baseless self confidence to give a definitively wrong answer rather than saying let’s take specialist legal advice. If this was an external adviser there’s little doubt the advice would be actionably negligent.

1/ Re Olympic boxing, I suspect this will be a moment, as Isla Bryson was, where a debate which mainly occupies the chattering classes will break out into the general public consciousness. Footage of a man punching a woman will go round the world. 2/ The overwhelming male physical advantage is most obvious in sports requiring strength, speed and explosive power. Boxing is the clearest example of that. And mismatches are uniquely obvious and brutal. There is widespread societal revulsion at male violence against women.

Some thoughts on permission to appeal to the Supreme Court being granted in the FWS2 judicial review. First, as others have observed, it is rare to get permission to go to the UKSC. It is vanishingly rare to get permission from the Inner House. 1/. Off the top of my head I can think of only two other examples since the permission requirement was introduced (the prorogation case, and Hochtieff v SSE, which was a split decision in the Inner House with the Lord President being the dissenting minority). 2/.

This is, with respect, unfocused and far from coherent. Worked examples usually help. Para 27 of sch 3 contains the exemptions for singe sex services. Sub para 27(7) refers to services where there is likely to be physical contact between service provider and recipient. 1/

https://twitter.com/stephenwhittle/status/1669307240132620295

And where the provider might reasonably object if the recipient was not of the same sex. One obvious example would be beauty treatments such as intimate waxing. A female provider might reasonably object if asked to provide that service to a male recipient. 2/

This is incorrect. GR is a protected characteristic. So is sex. Whether a person’s sex for legal purposes (cf s9GRA) is the same as their birth sex determines whether the complaint is discrimination on grounds of sex or of GR (see eg R(Green) v Secretary of State for Justice).

https://twitter.com/speakoutsister/status/1668920782066532353

And there are a whole host of sex specific provisions. See eg para 27 of sch 3 of the EqA:

Some thoughts on Kate Forbes, religious belief, equal marriage etc. It is to state the obvious that religious belief is protected in law, and though we are now a largely secular society, being a believer should not be a disqualifying feature from high office. However…/1. The reason religious belief is protected is the history of persecution on that basis, most of it not by atheists against believers, but rather by members of dominant sects against perceived heretics. So recognition of the freedom to hold competing beliefs is the essence of it./2.

This is interesting. It’s a predictable ducking of the question but ducked on the basis of “not having enough information”. That seems to imply that in theory, and with sufficient information, one could answer the question:, “is Isla Bryson a woman?”. /1.

https://twitter.com/holyrooddaily/status/1621118635648638977

That in turn seems to imply that there are, or at least that there may be purported transitions that are not genuine. The very eye catching stats on the types of offences committed by prisoners now identifying as trans would tend to suggest that. /2.

Some thoughts on Isla Bryson. First, since the GRR bill is not in force this situation is not a consequence of it specifically. An amendment which would have addressed one of the issues that has arisen was voted down, but it would not have affected this case even if passed. /1 Secondly, SPS has for some time been operating a policy that runs ahead of its legal obligations. In particular it does not differentiate between prisoners with a GRC and those without, and it presumptively assigns prisoners to the estate that matches their asserted gender/2

A short thread with some further thoughts on Equality Act implications of yesterday’s vote to pass the Bill. Preliminary observation: the GRR bill does not - because it cannot - amend the Equality Act. This is a point much emphasised by the bill’s supporters. /1 They point out, correctly, that the anomalies I am about to refer to already exist and are a consequence of the unhappily and messily defined boundary between the GRA 2004 and the EqA 2010; and thus the GRR bill does not itself *cause* those anomalies./2

This is rule 64.11 of the Rules of the Court of Session. It covers so-called “Dawn Raids” under s1 of the Administration of Justice (Scotland) act 1972 - broadly equivalent to what used to be called Anton Piller orders in England. Note the restrictions on executing the search. These protections are part of a carefully considered package of amendments introduced to make the s1 procedure convention compatible following ECHR incorporation at the turn of the century (see eg Charteris, “Sun sets on dawn raids” 2000 SLT (News) 271).