Ah what a fine parade of headlines:

The Guardian:

Trans charity Mermaids fails to have charitable status stripped from LGB Alliance

BBC News:

Trans charity Mermaids loses challenge against LGB Alliance

The Telegraph:

Trans group Mermaids loses bid to have gay rights charity shut down

The Guardian account is surprisingly free of snide insinuations:

The transgender children’s charity Mermaids has lost its attempt to have charitable status stripped from the new gay rights organisation LGB Alliance.

Golly! The Guardian calls it “the new gay rights organisation” instead of calling it “the anti-trans rights organisation.”

In the hearing last autumn, the two organisations set out their opposing views. The legal discussion pitched the LGB Alliance’s position that there are only two sexes and that gender is a social construct against Mermaids’ position that the gender identity of trans people should be affirmed. It focused attention on increasingly divisive debates over sex and gender identity, and the legal definitions of same-sex attraction and sexual orientation.

That too is a much more reasonable account of the gender critical view than we’re accustomed to seeing. It doesn’t quite get the opposition right though – the part that describes the LGBA is ontology while the part that describes Mermaids is ethics, aka what sex or gender is versus what we should do about people who are confused on the subject. To make the two positions match it should be something like “the LGB Alliance’s position that there are only two sexes and that gender is a social construct against Mermaids’ position that gender identity is as real as sex”…or real in the same way sex is, or something like that. Ontology v ontology, not ontology v what should we do now. Matchy matchy.

The LGB Alliance points out that it never wanted this very expensive fight.

“Two years ago, we were clear that Mermaids had no standing to challenge our registration, and today the tribunal has confirmed that we were correct. While this is a battle we did not seek, neither would we flee from it. But the cost to us and to our supporters has been huge.

“Our legal fees amount to more than £250K and that money has come from small supporter donations. So, while our win is great news for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, we can’t help but reflect on the fact that a sum like that would have been better spent on projects such as our helpline for young people.”

Mermaids says it’s considering an appeal. Of course it does.