9. The exclusionary claim that trans women are not women nor trans guys men

 

Trans women are women, just as trans men are men. This is recognised in law - to take the example of trans women, they are legally women 'for all purposes', as the Gender Recognition Act says. That Act became law in 2004 and it is still law.

But more than that, they live psychologically as female - it is simply who they are . It is their innate and essential being and identity. And that female identity gets lived out socially, as the Equality Act recognises, applying 'she' and 'her' pronouns.

Women are diverse and trans women are one kind of woman among many. The Equality Act does not deny their womanhood, and acknowledges in the Act(7:2) and the Explanatory Notes which the legislators drafted (7:41) that a person can undertake a process to change sex. That's the Act's own language.

The term 'biological sex' does not even occur in the Act. Nor does the Act imply that 'biological sex' is the only exclusive test of who a woman is. There are other ways of attributing womanhood, according to these laws. This term 'biological sex' is imposed on the Act 15 years later, retrospectively, and contrary to the Act's context and understanding at the time the Equality Act was drafted and passed.

Trans people can decently, honestly live their lives in the sex, and as the gender, they find themselves most aligned to in their innermost state of being… their 'gestalt' consciousness, their deepest sense of self. They deserve dignity and acceptance as women and men, in the sex and gender of their deep self-knowledge and life, when - as the Equality Act itself states - they 'change their sex. That can lead to far happier more productive lives, often breaking free of mismatch and dysphoria into psychological ease.