Trans toilets

I'm confused by your thread tbh op, maybe someone can clarify for me what you're actually asking - what I'm reading it as is that you currently have designated male / female spaces for customers to try on clothes but your staff facility is a unisex toilet? Are you questioning whether your employer will be obligated to install separate male/female bathrooms for staff? Or is it handling customer changing should anyone trans come into your shop?

If the toilets, I've worked loads of places with unisex toilets (not cubicles, sink in with the toilet floor to ceiling lockable rooms) and my employers simply wouldn't have had the space in the premises to be able to create a second toilet, especially if priority in space was given to create an accessible bathroom. If there was a ruling that this had to be provided a whole lot of employers couldn't maintain their current premises.

If the changing rooms, I think it's incredibly tricky because this issue will only ever affect trans people who do not 'pass'. It's totally unenforceable and I think could create real issues if staff start challenging female customers who appear more masculine or male customers who appear more feminine. That's an actual minefield.

A couple of prosecutions and fines might concentrate his employer's mind.

Perhaps it's easier to understand if you look at the cumulative effect of the legislation itself and the Supreme Court judgment.

1. Sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act. (This is true of both the male and female sex.)
2. Various parts of the Equality Act deal with situations in which things are provided on a single-sex basis. One of the most significant examples is found in paragraph 27 of Schedule 3 (single sex services).
3. In order to justify providing a single sex service, you have to satisfy one of the criteria in the section, AND demonstrate that it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The criteria are fairly wide ranging. Some are very specific, for example, hospital or personal care situations. Some are quite broad, for example, the service may be used by more than one person at a time and a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.
4. The Supreme Court judgment goes into more detail on this point. Paragraph 211 is particularly useful. It gives examples of single sex spaces or services which include changing rooms, homeless hostels, segregated swimming areas, medical and counselling services. Paragraph 211 makes it clear that parliament's intention must have been to allow for the exclusion of trans people from single sex services for the opposite sex, regardless of whether or not they hold a gender recognition certificate.
5. Paragraph 213 of the Supreme Court judgment then goes to compare and contrast the effect of these exemptions if sex means biological sex (and concludes that it is clear and straightforward), against if sex means certificated sex (and concludes that this would be fraught with difficulty). The judgment also says, quite rightly in my view, that if a service provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a gender recognition certificate even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify their refusal to provide the same services to men who also look like biological men.
6. Paragraph 217 of the Supreme Court judgment deals with the "might reasonably object" criterion in the Equality Act and concludes that if it is reasonable for a woman to object to the presence of a male person, the reasonableness of her objection cannot be founded on whether that male person has a gender recognition certificate or not.
7. For these reasons and the numerous other reasons which are explained at length in the judgment, the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the word "sex" in the Equality Act can only mean biological sex, not identified or certificated sex.
8. So now let's take another look at the famous Schedule 3, paragraph 27 of the Equality Act. It allows the provision of single sex services where the relevant criteria are met. And we can take a common sense approach as to when those criteria might be met. The Supreme Court has already given some specific examples in the judgment, but broadly speaking, we are talking about all situations in society where single sex spaces or services are provided because we, by common consensus, consider this to be reasonable. Nobody is seriously advocating for all changing rooms or rape crisis groups to be made mixed sex. Some people might say, "Why do we even have communal changing rooms anyway? Surely in this day and age everyone should be in their own private lockable room." But nobody is saying that the creepy guy who sits at the bus stop opposite the local girls' school at 3pm every weekday but never catches a bus should be getting changed in the same space as those girls down at the local swimming pool. So we do all understand on some level that single sex spaces are in some circumstances desirable and necessary. And the Equality Act, passed by our own sovereign parliament and upheld just recently by the Supreme Court, expressly acknowledges that there are circumstances in which single sex spaces and services are appropriate. There is in fact a broad consensus about this in society. The fact that it exists in society and that this has been accepted by the majority of people is your evidence that it has been accepted as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
9. So, then. The Equality Act permits the provision of single sex services and the Supreme Court has confirmed that sex means biological sex, and cannot possibly mean anything else.
10. Show me where the Equality Act permits the provision of "single sex plus" services. By which I mean single sex plus a select few members of the opposite sex. Because if you cannot find such a clause in the legislation, that means you have no legal basis on which to provide single sex services to women plus trans women. You can either apply the single sex exemption in the Equality Act to provide a single sex service for members of one sex only (which would exclude trans women from a single sex service for women), or you can provide a unisex service. You cannot do a weird hybrid of the two.

So really, the question is not, "Where does it say in the law that you have to exclude trans women from women's spaces and services?"

The question is actually, "Where does it say in the law that you can have a single sex space or service for women but also exercise your discretion to include trans women in that space or service?"

And the answer is, it doesn't.

Because a lot of people, organizations and institutions, were not following the law. So For Women Scotland had to take this to court, to find out exactly what “woman” meant in the Equality Act.

Now that the EA has been confirmed as being what everyone sane knew it was, there’s lots of squealing and outrage that those who got it wrong have to put it right. Now. Right now.

Re: changing rooms which are designated single sex, they're single sex. If some companies chose to ignore the EQA2010 and make such spaces mixed sex, then they need to follow the law. At the moment they are breaking it.

That's it.

Because prior to the ruling people were mixing up 'gender' and sex and thought that if someone identified as having the gender of a woman that was enough to give access to any spaces designated for women. The SC had now clarified that sex and gender identifty are not the same thing and that to access single sex spaces you have to be a member of that sex classification, not identify into it through 'gender'. It's important because it (should) put a stop to the argument about whether trans people should be treated in every way as though they are the opposite sex, even when this impacts on the rights of people who are that sex. The SC has said not.

As for businesses wanting full guidance, the full guidance is in the judgement. All they have to do is read it. This "wanting the guidance" is just a delaying tactic by people who don't want to implement the law as it has always been because they want to stay with Stonewall law.

Lots of laws aren’t enforced, people are expected to act lawfully in general, we don’t live in North Korea! There isn’t a speed camera on every road or a policeman at every till, yet most of us manage to drive within the speed limit and not shoplift

All the pub lady has to do, if she is determined not to allow her female customers a single sex toilet, is put a little male stick figure and a little female stick figure on all the doors. what she cannot legally do is put a little female stick figure on a door, then allow males as well as females into the space.

Oh please, as if those same business were doing all this hand wringing before they started illegally letting men into women single sex spaces.

This.

Your friend is entitled to provide only unisex toilets in her pub. If she claims her toilets are single sex but allows people of the opposite sex in, then I imagine she could be sued for any distress caused by someone encountering a person of the opposite sex in what she is presenting as a single sex space. There will be people who would do this who feel sufficiently strongly about the issue, so it will be interesting to see watch and see. She may feel she is discriminating if she refuses trans people use of opposite sex facilities, but she wouldn't be.

This is the absolutely damning independent review of the ERCC after an equally damning employment tribunal -

https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources/ERCC-Review-Report-FINAL1-.pdf

Rape survivors were harmed by an institution, headed by a culture steeped in an ideology which insisted that a mixed sex service was a single sex service because TWAW, supported by a captured Government who insisted that an incorrect interpretation of the law was the right one.

She could lose her license for breaking the law if this is reported. Seems a stupid risk to take, but obviously it’s up to her if she chooses to risk losing not just custom but her licence.

It can be enforced through the courts with a discrimination claim which will cost her money, time and stress so saying ‘I’m not going to change and no one can make me’ is pretty short sighted.

By the way she is discriminating, she’s discriminating against women. You may think her clientele don’t care, but if this is a pub open to everyone it only takes one person to bring a claim to court.

It clarified the law, which was being ignored by many organisations. Now, we know that the law is what we always thought it was, and that sex refers to biological sex, not gender identity, in law.

And in terms of the law being applied as it should be, the recent cases of Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses challenging being pushed out of their own changing areas or being suspended for avoiding changing their clothes in front of a man will be considerably strengthened by the clarification. The case of the occupational requirement being ignored by the board of the ERCC in order to appoint a man who told rape victims to 'reframe their trauma' can now be robustly challenged without fear of being called a bigot.

To anyone believing the bullshite of Stonewall/Scottish Trans etc who fought for the complete eradication of the single sex exemptions in my last post and also insisted that such exemptions included males who self identified into them, you were sold a lie

It's not 'proportionate aim' it's proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The aim must be legitimate and the means of achieving the aim must be proportionate.

This is not some new special test dreamt up by the supreme court. PM/LA runs through equality and human rights law like a stick of rock. Single and separate sex services have been lawful under the EA since 2010 if they meet this test.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/3/part/7

Note how each paragraph begins 'A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to sex discrimination ...'

Section 29 is the part of the EA that says a service provider must not discriminate against people because of a protected characteristic.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/29

The exceptions in schedule 3 part 7 say that sex discrimination in the provision of services is lawful in specific circumstances, including meeting the PM/LA test. It's this part of the EA which allows separate men's and women's facilities in the first place. Separate services for men and women are unlawful unless they meet the conditions of these exceptions.

The 2022 FWS Haldane judgment said that women includes tw with a grc but not those without, and vice versa for men, except for parts of the act where it means actual sex.

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/lgufy1zd/court-of-session-petition-of-for-women-scotland-limited-for-judicial-review-13-december-2022.pdf

The SC judgment overrules that and says that throughout the EA women does not include any tw whether they have a grc or not, and vice versa for men.

https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042

Would it pee on it's own seat?

She better not be labeling them as men and women's toilets then, or she's breaking the law; you can either have single sex or mixed sex, but you cannot legally have women and SOME men with special lady feelz.

Several posters seem to be under the impression the single sex exemptions are new law. It's not, here are the relevant pages from the EQA 2010 legislation -

All that has been clarified is that single sex does (and has done since the EQA2010 was enacted) mean biological sex rather than self identified or 'legal' sex, despite what various lobbying groups have been insisting for the last decade -

Single sex exemptions/exceptions -

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/20/7

Sports

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/14/5

Occupational requirements

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/26/1?view=plain

And service providers can declare all they like that 'people can stay mad about it' or their pals can (hilariously) hide threads about it but it's not going to stop the legal challenges. They've already started.

@FairCat
It doesn't matter for the purposes of this debate. The point is the options are a service for everyone or separate services for males and females.
The "proportionate..." test is often wrongly described as being about whether you can allow males into a particular female only service, but it actually applies to having that female only service in the first place.

And what's the legal definition of a proportionate aim? The courts don't care about the opinion of people on either side of the discussion, it is only concerned with what is written and subsequent case law.