HOW THE LAW WORKS: A THICKO’S GUIDE (UK EDITION)
1. The people elect MPs to sit in Parliament.
2. Parliament passes legislation.
3. Courts sometimes have to explain what a law means.
4. The Supreme Court is the last word on any legal disputes about the meaning of legislation.
5. Legislation often sets up independent bodies to produce guidance, codes and other material to help understand legislation.
6. Guidance and codes of practice are not law and do not override legislation. Courts can (and must) take a statutory Code into account if it’s relevant, but it still isn’t the law itself. If the law and a code are in conflict, the law prevails.
7. The EHRC Code of Practice has to be ‘laid before Parliament’ for it to come into effect. Once ‘laid’, the ‘coming into effect’ is automatic (i.e. no positive vote is necessary) after 40 days UNLESS Parliament disapproves it. This requires the lodging of a formal motion by enough MPs.
8. Disapproving a code of practice does not, and legally cannot, change the underlying law. It merely delays the implementation of the code.
9. For Parliament to ‘override’ the Supreme Court’s interpretation here, Parliament would have to pass new primary legislation repealing or amending all or part of the Equality Act.
10. Before embarking on passing new legislation on something so fundamental, it is customary (though sadly not compulsory) for such a plan to form part of a pre-general-election manifesto.
Thank you @SportSEENuk and everyone who contributed for this outstanding report. I’m proud of my running achievements, and I want women and girls to have the same opportunities as I have in sports. I speak up because this means a lot to me, I can’t stay quiet.
#SaveWomensSports
The audacity and hypocrisy of this woman are beyond belief.
Hunt laments ongoing “confusion” about sex and gender - which she has done more than anyone else in the UK to create.
She actually says - I’m not making this up - “It is our job to create good law.”
Hunt spent her entire time as CEO of Stonewall undermining the law, creating confusion and above all training public and private sector organisations nationwide to “go beyond the law.”
That meant - break the law. It meant acting as if the UK had sex self-ID. Which it has never had.
But institutions and organisations from the NHS to the police followed her lead. They misrepresented and broke the law.
And this monstrous individual - I’m sorry, I don’t use this word lightly - dares to say, in the House of Lords - in which her presence makes a mockery of our institutions:
“It is our job to create good law.”
How dare she.
How dare she!
I admit to a certain morbid fascination with people like @stellacreasy and @NadiaWhittomeMP who brazen it out after being caught misrepresenting parliamentary process as it applies to the EHRC Code of Conduct - even after @akuareindorf and @Scott_Wortley have gone to immense lengths to explain, in great detail and with superhuman patience and courtesy, why they have got it completely wrong.
But their betrayal of lesbians and women in general - and their sheer dishonesty in refusing to admit openly they still want to replace all sex-based rights with self-ID - are not remotely fascinating. Just grotesque.
‘What the blazes’🔥😂
There is something delicious about a letter that starts almost playfully and ends with the recipient being advised, in effect, to obey the law and stop inventing one they prefer. Emma Nicholson at her sharpest.
Anyone going to the next Discworld convention should know that the organizers are disgracing Terry Pratchett's memory by giving some of the proceeds to TransActual, a trans lobby group. Having read and enjoyed many of his books, I do not think that Pratchett was the kind of man who would support sterilising gay and autistic kids.
Every MP who signs the motion tabled by @NadiaWhittomeMP to disapprove the “Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations” is displaying embarrassing ignorance of the law - as well as profound disrespect for the rights of women and girls, and of lesbians and gay men.
Do they even know that the “lesbian interveners” at the Supreme Court helped to secure the rights of homosexual women and men - which would otherwise have been lost?
The Supreme Court established that under the Equality Act, a lesbian is a biological woman who is sexually attracted to other biological women.
It rejected the vile idea that a man bearing a piece of paper with an F can be classified as a lesbian. That was incoherent, the court ruled.
Not just incoherent but a homophobic atrocity. So thanks a bunch, Nadia et al., that you want to turn the clock back on that ruling.
You know perfectly well (or am I assuming too much?) that the EHRC guidance is not the law. It simply helps service providers, associations and those overseeing public functions to apply the law.
But it sends a signal, doesn’t it - it tells people where you stand. You stand in the mud.
Your motion is not just a profound betrayal of so many of your constituents, it’s political madness. @Jonathan_Hinder is right: if you don’t snap out of it, the Labour Party is dead.
@labourlewis Do you think it would be ‘inclusive’ to allow a 40 year old to race in the children’s category if he got pleasure out of pretending he was 9?
Nobody would call that ‘inclusive’ because it turns the junior category into a mixed age category- *excluding* children from fairness.
As a disabled woman, you don't speak for me. If I need to undress, I do not want to share that space with a male. If I request same sex intimate care support, I do not want a man to provide it. Disabled women deserve dignity and privacy.
'Skin to skin is NOT for the "parent" & child, but for the "MOTHER" & child'
Ruth Lewis @MoMaBfing Live at the Derby Women's Festival in May 2026 - Full discussion on our free substack
https://t.co/lOrGB4CuYE
@LauraPratt33@_CryMiaRiver So far this month I have only seen LGB people moaning about having to put up with Pride. They see it being totally unnecessary as all the rights have been won, or because Pride events have become overly sexulised.
@Alonso_GD Could you explain what you mean by "anti-trans talking points" and then identify the ways in which they're unreasonable?
The core of gender critical belief (which I suspect is what you're referring to) is:
A. Sex is real and immutable. Everybody is either male or female.>
Wonder whether unions might reflect on their own role in this? Eg many unions seem to think men should be able to self-identify into female facilities including changing rooms used by NHS nurses, and have been utterly useless at defending rights of their female members on this.
Hey @TomSteyer, my mother has also loved sports her entire life, except she didn’t get to play sports in high school because her school didn’t have any women’s teams. She’s only a few years older than you & was in college when Title IX passed. She became the captain of the first women’s tennis team at her university.
My mom grew up watching her five brothers be celebrated for their athleticism. Meanwhile, she had no teams available to her. My mom is a naturally gifted athlete, but girls were expected to sit on the sidelines, cheer for boys, and never imagine themselves on the field.
Then, after Title IX passed, everything changed. Her university formed a women’s tennis team. She tried out, made the team, and became team captain. That opportunity, delayed for years, shaped her life. It gave her confidence, leadership, friendships, pride, and a sense of belonging that had been denied to her simply because she was female.
For millennia, women were kept out of public life, out of education, out of professions, out of the law, out of the vote, and yes, out of athletics, all on the basis of SEX, not gender.
And now we are told by you, Tom Steyer, to pretend that sex is irrelevant. That male bodies pumped have no advantage. That girls should just accept losing medals, titles, records, scholarships, and privacy. That after centuries of struggle, suddenly the category “woman” is opt-in for any boy who wants in.
But having inherited those rights from my mother and grandmothers who fought hard for them, I cannot and will not sit back and let you destroy them hard earned rights for future generations of girls.
@LibDems@EdwardJDavey Baloney. "British values" never included forcing women & girls to accept deluded/fetishistic men in our spaces, or wanting to sterilise kids, or compelling us to pretend ppl have changed sex. Take your misogynistic, homophobic, harmful ideology and shove it. (From an ex-member)
@jonnyboybrum@gingerneilnc@mytw68@mara_yamauchi I am a woman at parkrun. I used to love competing against my peers - its what got me hooked on running. Once I became aware of their sexist policy I stopped handing in my barcode - what's the point if they don't record accurately?
@gingerneilnc@mytw68@mara_yamauchi Did they publish who they consulted and their thought processed when weighing the competing needs of the different groups?
How many women need to say this matters before parkrun listens?
By continuing to prioritise gender identity over biological sex in its results system, parkrun is sending a clear message: women's concerns can be ignored.
It's time for a fair category for females.