Best tweet ever on trans madness

Note that if you have a GRC you are legally of that sex "for all purposes" www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/9

So a man with a GRC is legally of the female sex. So I'm not sure if you can exclude them at all.

A man who is merely 'considering' that is protected from discrimination but that doesn't mean the law recognises them as female.

It just means you can't discriminate against them without good reason.

Regulation 20 of the Health and Safety at Work Regulations REQUIRE that you maintain separate sex toilet UNLESS each toilet is a standalone private unit.

Therefore it seems to me that men without gender recognition certificates should NOT be in women's toilets, and this is not discriminatory as it is a legal requirement to maintain separate sex facilities.

"Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic now, the Tories changed the Equality Act"

On a point of order, the Equality Act was a 2005 Labour manifesto commitment and was passed by said Labour government in April 2010.

The intent of the Act was clarified prior to it passing.

publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmpublic/equality/090611/pm/90611s04.htm

"The explanatory notes state that a person who was “born physically female” and decides to live as a man, “starts and continues to live as a man”, with no medical intervention at all—just passes as a man—will have undergone gender reassignment. He will have started that process by proposing to do it in the first place, and will have continued it, but if he had started it—had proposed it, but withdrawn—he would still have been covered while he was proposing it."

So basically anyone who even thinks about being trans or non-binary is covered.

The Equality Act has a long list of exceptions:

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/3

"A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to gender reassignment discrimination, only because of anything done in relation to a matter within sub-paragraph (2) if the conduct in question is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
(2)The matters are—
(a)the provision of separate services for persons of each sex;
(b)the provision of separate services differently for persons of each sex;
(c)the provision of a service only to persons of one sex."

Sorry to quadruple post, but this is important: Morning, the most updated version of the Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 is here: www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/l24.pdf

It has been updated many times since the regulations you quote were mentioned. They now NO LONGER EXIST anywhere within the regulations themselves (check it out, full link of all information posted above). They haven't for a while. In fact, 13 refers to falling objects, and 20 (sanitation) makes no reference to what you claim.

There is no penalty or criminality for not providing single-sex bathrooms, nor is there anything but the expectation that workplaces allow transgender people to access the bathroom of their choice during transition in modern legislation.

Morning: also, from Government Equalities Office guidance to employers: “a trans person should be free to select the facilities appropriate to the gender in which they present. For example, when a trans person starts to live in their acquired gender role on a full time basis they should be afforded the right to use the facilities appropriate to the acquired gender role. Employers should avoid discriminating against anyone with the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’."

"Agreement needs to be reached on the point at
which use of any gender-specific uniform or facilities,
such as toilets and changing facilities, will be
changed. It is appropriate to agree with the employer
that the individual starts to use the facilities for their
new gender at the point where they begin to attend
work in that gender.
Other approaches, such as requiring the trans
person to use unisex toilets for disabled workers, will
not be appropriate (unless, of course, the individual
is disabled), except in the very short term and at the
request of the worker who is transitioning. It will be
necessary for the employer to explain the situation to
immediate work colleagues as well."

No morning, you are completely wrong. The Equality Act has superceded that from 1992, and classes anyone who is going through transition as already having a GRC (Hence employers not being allowed to ask for one). You're basing your information from an Act from 26 years ago that has since been superceded by both the 2005 Gender Recognition Act AND the 2010 Equality Act.

Anyone going through transition is now considered covered due to the 2010 Act. Previous legislation is not relevant to the situation. You might want to read the actual Act itself.

Describing it as a "criminal breach" when it is the actual guidelines and expected situation nowadays is completely incorrect and spreading misleading information.

www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2016/07/23965.pdf

You might want to read the section regarding "transgender workers" as nowadays the expectation is that they start using their chosen toilet from the moment they begin presenting.

robinR
Whats the problem?

1. If someone appears to be a male at the moment we can legally challenge them. After gender self ID all they have to do is state they identify as female and carry on filming. And we can be prosecuted for a hate crime.

2. Some women including Muslim, Sikh, Jewish, Romany, need women only medical sercices and private spaces. They will no longer be able to ask for a biologically female doctor. Or a female only domestic violence shelter, or rape crisis centre.
   We try to encourage women out into public life, this will drive them back into the home.

So much for 'intersectional feminism' if it excludes some women but includes someone with a penis how is it feminism at all?
Now do you see theres a problem for women? Other women maybe, not you?

Presumably this transgender person isn't going to be stood in the cubicle with you? What's the problem?

If women is interpreted on the basis of gender identity then they are considered discriminated against, if by sex then no.

The problem is the vague woolly definitions in the EA.

It is. Changing rooms are given as a specific example in the EA as something which may need to be exempt. The problem is various trans centric guidelines and backlash that organisations get. We need to raise the profile of women as a protected class.

Christ - I stand completely corrected - I was under the impression that sex based segregation was still legal where there was a demonstrable need, apart from in the case of a GRC..

Well.. that's a bugger.

And the battle hasn't been "lost". Laws can be changed. This was slipped in under the radar. People don't know that their rights have already been given away. That doesn't mean campaigning and challenging and awareness raising should stop. Quite the reverse. It's more needed than ever.

And we know Miller's report recommended getting rid of ALL exemptions for those with a GRC.

It's not just about toilets though. For example prisons cannot refuse to house a TIM in the female estate if they have a GRC:

4.1 Arrangements must be in place to determine the legal gender of all offenders at the first point of contact. This will inform assessments and decisions where binary (male/female) services for offenders are required1. Where legal gender cannot be determined, staff must use the best information available and consult with equality leads where necessary (sources of advice and support are listed in Annex F). Staff must not ask to see a GRC but can request sight of a birth certificate. Where an offender does offer a GRC as form of evidence and identity, they must be treated in the gender identified on the certificate. (from PSI 2016 - Care and management of transgender offenders)

Some of the people around here are still trying to fight a battle that was lost in 2010, and acting like the battle hasn't actually even happened yet.

There is currently provision for exemptions, even in the case of GRC, where it is considered proportionate, such as employing an MTF trans as a rape counsellor. They are not generally applied. Part of the feminist campaign will be to strengthen these exemptions. Transactivists want to get rid of them.

Sorry, I should clarify - you're right mostly regarding that there aren't laws currently protecting bathrooms as single-sex occupancies, HOWEVER there ARE still bathroom laws - as companies find out if they try to stop transwomen from using the bathroom of their choosing (they are taken to court and the companies lose under breaking the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 and the Good Practice Services Guidelines).

@FizzyWaterAndElderflower

As DJBaggySmalls says, you're incorrect. Anyone in the process of transitioning is covered and has been since 2010.

This is one of the weird things I've found about this campaigning, to be honest. People are acting as if suddenly Men are going to be allowed to use the women's toilets IF the changes suggested by the Conservatives actually go ahead, when in reality transwomen (MTF) have been allowed to use women's toilets fully since 2010, in whatever stage of transition they are in. Some of the people around here are still trying to fight a battle that was lost in 2010, and acting like the battle hasn't actually even happened yet.

The fight currently is against self-declaration and self-diagnosis without any medical diagnoses, NOT against diagnosed transpeople using the bathrooms (or other facilities) of their choosing. There's nothing that can be done about that - it's been law for the best part of a decade.

Employers aren't even meant to ask for a GRC legally.

FizzyWaterAndElderflower
Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic now, the Tories changed the Equality Act. People are protected as soon as they decide they want to start the process to apply for a GRC. They dont have to have made any changes.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

they are allowed by law to use the facilities of the gender they identify as

That's not quite correct. Actually, there are no laws about which toilets people use at all, any many can go into a women's toilet in the UK, but social convention is that these are sex segregated.

There is a duty for an employer providing facilities to provide sex segregated ones where appropriate though - gender isn't a protected characteristic, only people who have a GRC are covered by it at the moment.

Anyhow, back to the amusing tweet

It is indeed remarkable how easily the pomo 'sex is a spectrum and a metaphysical unknowable' shit falls apart when you apply to any other biological phenomena. And it's ripe for satire, as this tweet shows.

It reminds me a bit of Mary Lou Singleton's remark about her trans-supportive left-wing friends (paraphrasing):

'They will claim that biological sex is fluid and too complex to define, but somehow, when they want eggs, they just know to get hens.'

All these words games around semiotics, intersex conditions etc, are ultimately sophistry in service to a political goal: to deny sex-based oppression by saying that females don't exist.

Thanks for clarifying, woman11017. I didn't realise your main issue was toilets/change rooms.

Yes, it's really shit, isn't it, that our sex-segregated spaces have been opened up to men - that women and girls lose the right to participate equally in public life in the name of 'equality'. Very Orwellian.

I'll shut up now! The post at 14.40 was tesco reply. It's the law.
Thanks.

DonkeySkin Sorry to disrupt thread, I just wondered if anyone has successfully kept public spaces safe and especially toilets for girls and women. Genuine query, but thanks, I won't disrupt further.