Junk Jurisprudence
On Wednesday's ruling from the U.K. Supreme Court defining 'sex' in the narrowest of biological terms.
In response to Wednesday’s appalling ruling from the U.K. Supreme Court, I joined other members of the Academic Affiliates of the Global LGBTQ+ Human Rights Program at the Harvard Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights in discussing the consequences:
The U.K. Supreme Court has now added junk jurisprudence to the junk science of last year's Cass Review on gender-affirming health care in Britain. Like the Cass Review, this ruling will fuel further discrimination, stigma, and violence against transgender and other gender diverse persons, notwithstanding Lord Hodge's caution "against reading this judgement as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another." Moreover, the impact of this ruling will not be limited to the United Kingdom: we have already seen the Cass Review invoked in efforts to repeal Chile's pioneering gender identity law and to block the introduction of gender-affirming health care policies in Colombia. We will now surely see this ruling cited as the global assault on the legal rights, on even the very legal existence of transgender people marches on.
The plaintiffs in this case, For Women Scotland, were backed financially by billionaire author J.K. Rowling. For Women Scotland, Rowling, and other so-called "gender-critical" feminists are carrying the water for the anti-gender movement that uses attacks on LGBTQI+ people -- especially on transgender and gender diverse people -- as well as on sexual & reproductive health & rights and on immigrants -- as its key tool to undermine democracy, civil society, and the rule of law across the world. Like the gender-critical feminists, the anti-gender movement -- a movement backed by mega-rich Russian oligarchs, American evangelicals, and extreme-right Spanish and Latin American Catholic billionaires -- purports to be acting in defense of women and the family. This ruling will further embolden the anti-gender movement in both the Global North and Global South, though the impact will be especially dire wherever civil society is weaker and less resilient. Though For Women Scotland, Rowling, and their allies are celebrating now, this ruling takes us one step closer to a world where biology is cited to restrict the rights of all women, regardless of gender identity or expression.
The full set of commentaries can be found here.
