Seeking a way through:

Employers have handled disputes involving transgender issues “really badly”, the general secretary of the UK’s largest trade union has said.

Unison’s Christina McAnea said unions have a responsibility “to try and make sure that we find a way through this” and she would be happy to work with organisations on the issue. Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman, she referenced the need to ensure trans people are not discriminated against while also ensuring women with concerns are “listened to and heard”.

But what does “the need to ensure trans people are not discriminated against” mean? What does “discrimination against trans people” consist of?

That’s the problem. It doesn’t mean what it means in the case of subordinated groups such as women or workers or people of color or LGB. They’re not confined to ghettos or systematically paid less or confined to menial jobs. It generally appears to mean they should be instantly and unconditionally believed when they say they are the opposite sex. But there are many compelling reasons that is not a right. It’s not invidious discrimination to need to know which people are male; that’s especially true in the case of women.

It comes amid an ongoing employment tribunal involving NHS Fife that centres on a trans doctor’s use of a female changing room.

Always the same sneaky refusal to state the facts. Upton is not a “trans doctor”; he’s a trans woman, aka a man. The tribunal centers on a male doctor’s use of a female changing room. The relevant adjective is not “trans” but “male.”

Unison’s women’s conference, which was held in Edinburgh from Thursday until Saturday, backed a motion stating “trans women are women and trans men are men” and supporting the controversial policy of self identification.

Which is both an insult and a threat to women.

The Scotsman asked Ms McAnea whether a woman should have a right to a single-sex space, such as a changing room, which excludes trans women or those born male.

She said: “I think it’s hard to come down hard and fast on some of this.

Well think again, then. Of course it’s not hard. Men should not invade women’s spaces. End of story.

“I just cannot believe it’s not within the grasp of managers in a big organisation to find a way through this that both satisfies the need to ensure that trans women aren’t discriminated against, and ensures that the voices of women who have got concerns about some of these things are listened to and heard.”

Well that depends on how you define “discriminated against.” If men who claim to be trans women would stop invading women’s spaces then yes, there could be a way through, but there is no sign that that’s happening, and union bosses like this one are zero help.

Ms McAnea said the women’s conference had carried the motion “because they take the view that giving trans women rights doesn’t take away rights from women”. She said: “That’s not to say it’s not legitimate to have a discussion when women raise issues about safety and single-sex spaces.

In other words she’s just spouting easy platitudes that contradict each other. The view that giving trans women rights doesn’t take away rights from women is flatly contradicted by those issues about safety and single-sex spaces – and there are also the issues about sports and prizes and hiring and promotion and all the rest of it. “Giving trans women rights” in the sense of ordering everyone to agree that they’re actual women obviously takes away myriad rights from women. That’s why we object to it!

“But there’s all these definitions about what does that mean that I think need to be discussed. And what is the actual problem we’re trying to address?”

Hello? We’ve been doing that. For years. We get called names for doing that. Pay attention.