@OldCrone
So this post is going to be different from most of my others. This is solely how I'm trying to interpret the legislation, the explanatory notes, and the issued guidance from EHCR, and trying to get it all too match up, and then applying that reasoning to what's happening re:single sex service provision.
Going from the EHCR guidance re:single sex organisations and access for the purposes of Gender Reassignment it looks like it's the other way around. Notably the explanatory notes for s7. use the following language:
• A person who was born physically male decides to spend the rest of his life living as a woman. He declares his intention to his manager at work, who makes appropriate arrangements, and she then starts life at work and home as a woman...
• A person who was born physically female decides to spend the rest of her life as a man. He starts and continues to live as a man...
Coupling that with the wording in s7.ss1 itself:
• A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment . . . for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.
and I'm beginning to see why EHCR wording is the way that it is around the inclusion of somebody with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment.
So the logic behind EHCR reasoning seems to be:
• At the moment somebody gains the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment they are to be considered the sex of the acquired gender for the purposes of the interpretation of EA2010, except where exception has been made, or where exemption may be applied
.
• Therefore, for the purposes of the use of facilities and accessing single sex spaces and services, the person with the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment is to be treated as having protected characteristic of Sex in their acquired gender, not their gender at birth, except where exception has been made in law, or where an EA2010 exemption has been lawfully applied
.
• Therefore denying somebody access to single sex spaces or services on the basis of their acquired gender amounts to a breach of the provisions of EA2010, except where exception is made in law, or where an EA2010 exemption has been lawfully applied.
Except, that chain seems incomplete to me. It feels like there should be case law somewhere informing or reinforcing EHCR guidelines, but I can't find it. I've just spent the morning looking through relevant ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) cases, and not finding anything, and nothing's jumping out from Supreme Court decisions either. I'm wondering if I'm looking in the wrong direction, and there might have been a Tribunal or County Court case decision that hasn't been reported on well enough for me to find using a cursory search.
But anyway, in regards to the Guides it looks like:
• A girl can join the Guides because they are determined to be a woman for the purposes of having the protected characteristic of Sex and therefore are legally eligible to join.
• A boy cannot join the Guides because they are determined to be a man for the purposes of having the protected characteristic of Sex, and therefore have no legal recourse to join.
• A child who has the acquired gender of a girl can join because they have the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment and therefore should be considered as having the the protected characteristic of a woman for the purposes of the interpretation of EA2010 in this regard.
• A child who has the acquired gender of a boy cannot join because they have the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment and therefore should be considered having the protected characteristic of a man for the purposes of the interpretation of EA2010 in this regard.
• A girl who joins the Guides and then obtains the acquired gender of a boy via the mechanism laid out in s7.ss1.EA2010 is no longer considered to have the protected characteristic of a woman and instead has the protected characteristic of a man for the purposes of the interpretation of EA2010 in this regard, but it is reasonable within the interpretation of the law to allow that child to remain in the Guides for an adjustment period until that child is ready to leave (one argument could be that the child is exploring of the option of acquiring the protected characteristic of Gender Reassignment, but has not made the commitment to obtaining that protected characteristic until such time as they leave the Guides, another could be that the Guides are exercising discretion of the strict interpretation of EA2010 in the best interest of the child and this therefore can be considered to be acting in the public interest in a limited way).