woman, or a female, but has successfully undertaken steps to become entitled to refer to herself, legally, as female. Much of the report from Dr Stock deals with whether or not womanhood is a social or natural construct, falling clearly on the side of it being a natural construct, or natural fact, and not a social convention which a person can self-identify into. Any debate around the concept of woman, of womanhood, or gender more broadly as a natural, biological, or social construct falls well outside what I must, legally, determine in this case.
145 Turning now to the report of Dr Joyce, advanced by the respondents as a submission. Dr Joyce is the director of advocacy of an organisation called "Sex Matters", which she describes as a human-rights organisation concerned with clarity about sex in law and policy, based in the United Kingdom. Dr Joyce is also a journalist and author who has written on the topic of transgender identities and women's rights. She has a PhD in mathematics, but does not have any formal education or qualifications even in biology, let alone in gender, sex or law, being the topics which her report addresses. For the purposes of this proceeding, she is not an expert at all. She has no recognised expertise in any of the areas in which she expresses an opinion (or more relevantly, provides a submission). Thus, while Dr Joyce's submissions are in the form of an expert report, they have not been received as anything more than submissions. Dr Joyce was asked by the respondents to provide her opinion on:
The importance of a biology-based definition of sex to human rights, especially women's rights;
The importance to women's rights of being free to use sex-based language;
The importance of single-sex spaces, including virtual and digital spaces, for women's participation in public life;
Why allowing men (natal males) who identify as women into spaces (physical and digital) designated female-only is incompatible with women's human rights and women's ability to fully participation in public life.
146 The thrust of Dr Joyce's report, ultimately advanced as a submission, is that the concepts of male and female derive from reproductive anatomy, and the ordinary meaning of man is a male adult, and of female a female adult, and that it is not possible for a person to change sex. Dr Joyce refers to laws in other jurisdictions which allow a person to change their legal sex without having undergone any genital reconfiguration surgery. Those laws are not relevant to the case before me.
147 Dr Joyce also discusses why it is that women need women-only spaces, referring to the importance of single-sex spaces such as bathrooms for the protection of women and girls from sexual assault and harassment, as well as for women's privacy and dignity, mutual
