robertmullins.bsky.social
Law lecturer, University of Queensland. My views are not the views of my employer.
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That's more less the argument they're running in the Sandy Peggie case, I think--that the exposure to the trans person itself is the harm/disadvantage.
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Yeah it took me a while to make sense of it too. From what I've read, they think the very presence of trans women is an increased risk, almost a priori, which I think is a view they should be reluctant to voice in Court.
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Yes. Sincerely: you are a lot tougher than I am! I think GLP have good arguments too. I'm just not getting my hopes up.
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In terms of the actual law, I think you have it roughly right: they are trying to argue that single sex spaces under the EA 2010 cannot be gender inclusive. They then argue you need to have single sex spaces or you discriminate against women. But they largely ignore the rights of trans people.
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This doesn't mean that e.g. Good Law Project will lose (like I say I'm not an admin law expert, and I'm Australian!) but it's a reason to be realistic in terms of expectations.
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One thing to factor in (it is not my area and it's very complex) is that what people are applying for is judicial review of an administrative action by the EHRC. This means that the standards for overturning/forcing revision are quite high and the EHRC has the advantage.
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There is a line in that piece (very telling imo) about homosexuality being a 'natural' form of attraction...the reader is invited to connect the dots. Doesn't he remember the 80s and 90s?
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"they aren't some creature of myth" 😬
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Spice things up with a safari suit once in a while. That's the way our elders did it.
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My colleague Stevie Martin makes some very sound observations about the Australian laws here: ukconstitutionallaw.org/2024/11/27/s...
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I have been shocked at how often VAD opponents have misrepresented the Australian experience, which seems to me to be far more representative of the current proposal than Canada.
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HR departments just can't stop having goofs and spoofs.
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It's all pretty scrappy at the moment. I'll send you a message. I think we need as many people working on this as possible.
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I have just been writing about this: the suspicion of "separate but equal" services that Lady Hale voiced in Coll applies equally to segregation of gender diversity. Even on the FWS reading (especially on that reading) we should view it as very hard to justify.
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Would you recommend anywhere to start on normative conflicts in law apart from Raz/Kelsen? I've mainly studied the logic side.
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So a clash between an obligatory and permissive rule? Yeah that's tricky but I like the idea it makes for a disjunctive obligation to X or ~X (i.e. in this case a permission)
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Anyway, suppose parliament passes one rule "Arrest Clark Kent" and another rule saying "Don't arrest Superman". Seems like a case where you might have Rule(X) and Rule(~X) to me as a matter of positive law, not a possibility to be ruled out a priori.
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I think it's important to distinguish between the pair of rules (Must(X), Must(~X)) and the pair (Must(X), Must(Y)) where we have ~(X&Y).
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Liam I think you are a model of how to do public philosophy, and I have learned from your scholarship as well.
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I think this is what the panic about youth gender medicine is about for some people as well. (I've realised this far too late.)
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I never know what to make of these arguments, to be honest. So I'm sitting this one out!
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I don't disagree with your larger point (I'm a constitutional rights 'skeptic' myself), but the eastern Australian states (Qld, NSW and Victoria) now all have weak human rights legislation
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All my apes gone.
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How many GCs are left that have otherwise conventional left-wing views on social issues?
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But it's a good reason for liberals/moderates who want to stay in the ECHR to lobby for legislative reform before this goes anywhere. It's worth reminding them of that.
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Exactly. If this is what makes them withdraw, they would have withdrawn eventually anyway.
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I have at least one friend who doesn't want a trans rights case to go to the ECtHR for this reason. (I think if it's worth having, the convention has to protect trans rights.)
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Quite a few GCs (Hannah Barnes, Sonia Sodha) are also coming out against assisted dying. (I realise that it is a complex issue for many people but when your views on all these social issues start to line up it's not just a coincidence).
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In some ways, people like Stock are travelling the same path all former liberals/egalitarians who realised they were social conservatives as they aged have followed, but it has taken me a while to see it clearly.
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Lady Hale's discussion of the anticipated effect of the GRA in A v West Yorkshire is illustrative here, especially when read together with Croft and the 'mischief rule'.