New argument takes ideological social engineering too far
RON Lumiere’s latest treatise that the exclusion argument suggests trans people are a threat is surely an AI-compiled script from the textbook of trans ideologue social re-engineers, (Letters, April 27).
To attempt to claim that somehow excluding male-bodied humans from women’s spaces impacts on the safety of women in the home is like comparing apples and pears; they are not the same.
Relationships within a home are voluntary, with options to withdraw. However, in Lumiere’s world male-bodied humans would be allowed to invade women’s spaces whether females like it or not. How is that possibly right and proper? Real equality can not be achieved by reducing the rights of others.
Alexandra Stewart, previously known as Alan Baker, a biological male incarcerated for murder, being charged with allegedly attacking a woman at HMP Greenock says it all. Wherever these individuals are contained, it seems logical they should not be in a women’s facility.
Lumiere and Tim Hopkins are masters at launching into tangents regarding trans issues to seek a position of their own design, regardless of the fact that wider society substantially disagrees with their mantra. Their aim is to draw on the inexactitude of social re-engineering mantra.
In reality, sex matters. It is fundamental biological fact and legislatively precise.
Whether transgender people are gay or lesbian is irrelevant, those are merely labels much loved by the divisionists and designed to separate from the herd, to amplify the difference that encourages discrimination. They are the tangent we don’t need to go down.
Never in any argument has there been a bigger need to KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Jim Taylor
Scotland
ON exclusion, Ron Lumiere has generated more heat than light in responding to my letter, which is unfortunate for a correspondent so aptly named.
At the outset of his letter, Mr Lumiere incorrectly applies the Equality Act’s general proportionality test for services to associations. For associations in terms of Part 7, the Act makes specific provision for restriction of membership under paragraph 1 of Schedule 16.
Section 101 expressly permits such associations to restrict membership to people who share a protected characteristic. Sex is one such characteristic.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in For Women Scotland, sex in the Equality Act means biological sex. It does not mean gender identity, nor is it altered, for Equality Act purposes, by a Gender Recognition Certificate.
In short, such an association may restrict membership to women, men, lesbians or gay men because sex and sexual orientation are protected characteristics.
As Mr Lumiere’s arguments depend on a false premise, I shall avoid adding further fuel to a fire that illuminates so little.
Brian Forsyth Edinburgh
I WAS very disappointed to read about the collapse of Air Service Training (AST) in Perth. My father came over from the Middle East to train at AST
Founded in 1931, it played a major role in the training of engineers and pilots from around the world and played a major role in the economy and community of Perthshire, taking part in school fairs and open days.
Indeed, AST instructor Captain Cyril Sweetman piloted the AST Hiller 12C helicopter used in the film From Russia with Love, chasing James Bond across the Scottish countryside.
I feel more could have been done to save AST through the Tay Cities Region Deal.