Sex-based protections in UK law - dialogue with someone who would abolish them

Instead of screenshots, this post is reproduced in *full text* in another, more recent post on this website.

Sex-based protections in UK law - a dialogue with someone who would abolish them on grounds that ‘sex’ (in the sense of ‘being sexed’, i.e. male or female, and with that ‘sex difference’) is an empty category and a tool of oppression under Patriarchy

Between 3rd and 7th March 2020, I was in a long online exchange with someone in response to Suzanne Moore’s Guardian article ‘Women must have the right to organise’ (2nd March 2020)
I was (am) on side of upholding sex-based rights in UK Equality Act 2010.
‘Abi’ (name changed), a self-described ‘intersectional feminist’*, took the view that sex is thoroughly socially constructed, and that the business of classification of individuals by sex is patriarchy** (and patriarchy is misogyny).
Our exchange began when I quoted Suzanne Moore from her article: “ The latest silencing of women is a warning. You either protect women’s rights as sex-based or you don’t protect them at all“, to which ‘Abi’ replied: ““Sex based rights” is silly.”
What developed was as in-depth a conversation I have had with someone of opposing views, extending over 200+ replies..
I am posting because some readers might find interesting.
It’s a 20 minute read.

*The link at ‘intersectional’ is to an academic paper by US social theorist Dr Kimberle Crenshaw from 1991. Crenshaw is credited with having introduced ‘intersectionality’ as a tool or technique of social analysis, in which attention is drawn to individuals’ circumstances and the ‘intersections’ of ‘axes’ of their social existence through which the individual can experience discrimination and oppression. The ‘axes’ are sex, race, class.
**To some, ‘patriarchy’ is synonymous with misogyny. If ‘patriarchy’ is regarded as a ‘dominance hierarchy’ then this is already saying the same thing. I don’t see that it must be regarded this way, and I don’t.

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How can there be ‘perception of sex’ without some background notion of ‘sex’ so that we can say it is what we perceive?

How can there be perception of race without some background notion of what Race is? 

I think the innateness of gender identity, whether it exists or not, is irrelevant and I do not believe the laws will constitute that it must be so.

But *that it exists* and *that it is innate* is precisely what is stated by advocates and is advanced in policies and proposed law reform, now, in the UK.

I’m not convinced the categories [‘woman’ / ‘man’] are terribly meaningful

I find no consistency in valuing such culturally inscribed categories (identities, even) as ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ while seeking to abolish the concepts that comprise their meaning

How much is it our business to go around policing other people who don’t match up to what we expect to see. (My position is: that’s None of our business at all).

How much is it our business to oblige others to recognise or accept our view of ourselves, however earnestly we hold it? (My position is: it’s not a right).

Thank you to Dr Jane Clare Jones for her blog/essay Judith Butler: How To Disappear Patriarchy In Three Easy Steps, from which I quoted in this online exchange.