God he is such an annoying grifter. To be clear he is not pursuing an appeal, as the UK Supreme Court is the last stop, and also he is not a party who could appeal anyway. Instead, he is pursuing a new legal argument:
Let’s say he succeeds in the High Court and the Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal or agrees with him. Hey, he won! It changes literally nothing. The Equality Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court remains the law of the land. At best, the issue is referred to Parliament to consider amending the Equality Act to treat transwomen as women. The UK Parliament can ignore it totally. If he then decided to try his luck in the European Court of Human Rights and succeeds, guess what, it changes literally nothing. The UK Parliament can completely ignore that too.
If he was really serious about this, he’d raise money to donate to the Labour Party in return for rewriting the Act. Only a shitload of cash could ever make this a political priority, and even then there’s no guarantee considering how toxic an issue it is and how little political capital the Labour Government has to burn.
I thought I'd take tthe time to read the Goodwin decision, as I have seen it trodden out everywhere as a counter to this judgment. Anyone can read it
here
This case does not address anything concerning bathrooms or the equality acts and that transsexuals need to be treated entirely similar to women. It first of all specifically concerns post-op transsexuals, which nowadays is a minority group of transpeople. Only those people that have fully transitioned both medically and socially would be included in this protection.
Secondly, it concerned specifically a procedure cocnerning pensions and the continued need to pay national insurance contributions, as he was still legally a male this would have potentially had the effect of the government explicitly outing him, which was considered an issue.
However, the msot important aspect is that as with nearly any right under the European Convention of Human Rights, in the case of aa conflcit of rights, tthe different rights need to be weighed against each other. As the Court itself states:
Nor is the Court convinced by arguments that allowing the applicant to fall under the rules applicable to women, which would also change the date of eligibility for her state pension, would cause any injustice to others in the national insurance and state pension systems as alleged by the Government. No concrete or substantial hardship or detriment to the public interest has indeed been demonstrated as likely to flow from any change to the status of transsexuals
There was not really any need to weigh different rights in this regard, however in the case of the current ruling, this would certainly need to be w eighing of rights, as it would cause injustice to others, among them women's right to privacy, as well as a possible clear detriment to public interest. AS the case invovled specifically article 8, the TRA seem to forget the second paragraph of this article:
There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
This does not mean that no difference can be made between women and men and that transsexuals might not be excluded from specific protections
