Daniel Radcliffe responds to JK Rowling's latest tweets about gender identity

JK is not affirming that, and is not confused about the distinction between gender and sex, she is intentionally ignoring it in an attempt to create a straw man argument. She, like most TERFs, knows exactly what she is doing by using said straw man arguments, dog-whistles, ignoring the existence of intersex conditions in their black & white rhetoric, playing the free speech card, claiming to be the real victims due to "censorship", all in a deceitful attempt to turn others against recently passed gender identity and transgender discrimination protection laws.

E.g. JK has previously tweeted in support of another TERF, Maya Forstater, who lost her employment tribunal wrongful dismissal lawsuit over holding similar beliefs and making similar tweets as JK has, and I think the judge's summary in that case sums it up perfectly:

I accept that the Claimant genuinely holds the view that sex is biological and immutable. For her it is more that an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available. Even though she has come to this belief recently she is fixed in it, and appears to be becoming more so. She is not prepared to consider the possibility that her belief may not be correct. I accept that the belief Claimant goes to substantial aspects of human life and behaviour.

I next considered whether the Claimant’s core belief that sex is immutable lacks a level of cogency and cohesion. It is avowedly not religious or metaphysical, but is said to be scientific. Her belief is that a man is a person who, if everything is working, can produce sperm and a woman a person who, if everything is working, can produce eggs. This does not sit easily with her view that even if everything is not, in her words, “working”, and may never have done so, the person can still only be male or female. The Claimant largely ignores intersex conditions and the fact that biological opinion is increasingly moving away from a absolutist approach to there being genes the presence or absence of which determine specific attributes, to understanding that it is necessary to analyse which genes are present, which are switched on, the extent to which they are switched on and the way in which they interact with other genes. However, I bear in mind that “coherence” mainly requires that the belief can be understood and that “not too much should be not expected”. A “scientific” belief may not be based on very good science without it being so irrational that it unable to meet the relatively modest threshold of coherence. On balance, I do not consider that the Claimant’s belief fails the test of being “attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance”; even though there is significant scientific evidence that it is wrong. I also cannot ignore that the Claimant’s approach (save in respect of refusing to accept that a Gender Recognition Certificate changes a person’s sex for all purposes) is largely that currently adopted by the law, which still treats sex as binary as defined on a birth certificate.

However, I consider that the Claimant's view, in its absolutist nature, is incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others. She goes so far as to deny the right of a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate to be the sex to which they have transitioned. I do not accept the Claimant's contention that the Gender Recognition Act produces a mere legal fiction. It provides a right, based on the assessment of the various interrelated convention rights, for a person to transition, in certain circumstances, and thereafter to be treated for all purposes as the being of the sex to which they have transitioned. In Goodwin a fundamental aspect of the reasoning of the ECHR was that a person who has transitioned should not be forced to identify their gender assigned at birth. Such a person should be entitled to live as a person of the sex to which they have transitioned. That was recognised in the Gender Recognition Act which states that the change of sex applies for “all purposes”. Therefore, if a person has transitioned from male to female and has a Gender Recognition Certificate that person is legally a woman. That is not something that the Claimant is entitled to ignore.

Many trans people are happy to discuss their trans status. Others are not and/or consider it of vital importance not to be misgendered. The Equal Treatment Bench Book notes the TUC survey that refers to people having their transgender status disclosed against their will. The Claimant does not accept that she should avoid the enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering a persons, even if that person has a Gender Recognition Certificate. In her statement she says of people with Gender Recognition Certificates “In many cases people can identify a person’s sex on sight, or they may have known the person before transition.... There is no general legal compulsion for people not to believe their own eyes or to forget, or pretend to forget, what they already know, or which is already in the public domain.” The Claimant's position is that even if a trans woman has a Gender Recognition Certificate, she cannot honestly describe herself as a woman. That belief is not worthy of respect in a democratic society. It is incompatible with the human rights of others that have been identified and defined by the ECHR and put into effect through the Gender Recognition Act.

There is nothing to stop the Claimant campaigning against the proposed revision to the Gender Recognition Act to be based more on self-identification. She is entitled to put forward her opinion that these should be some spaces that are limited to women assigned female at birth where it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. However, that does not mean that her absolutist view that sex is immutable is a protected belief for the purposes of the EqA. The Claimant can legitimately put forward her arguments about the importance of some safe spaces that are only be available to women identified female at birth, without insisting on calling trans women men.