Quick question as comment on Facebook is making me doubt myself. If the reforms go through

place marking because this is brilliantly helpful

The EA needs to be amended to give women the right to access single sex services, accommodations etc. as we clearly cannot rely on service providers to look out for the rights of women.
Yes absolutely - I stressed this in my response, I actually have no right to single sex space except through a gatekeeper. Challenging that as an individual would be impossible.

The interaction between the GRA and the EA seems straightforward but it is not. A person with a GRC is legally deemed to be female which means they have the protected characteristic of the female sex as well as the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. There are exceptions in the EA that allow discrimination e.g. for sports, single and separate sex services, occupational requirements, accommodations etc. and there are exceptions specifically allowing discrimination against persons on the grounds of gender reassignment in relation to services for different sexes. The problem is that it is not at all clear how this should work. There’s a number of problems:

• For single sex spaces etc., the reason males who become legal females are excluded is not because of gender reassignment but because they are male. From a legal perspective, it is not at all clear how these provisions should be applied. There are not many cases and they tend to be specific to their facts so it’s not likely future cases will provide clear guidelines that service providers can feel confident applying.
• The government guidance says this should be treated on a case by case basis but this is not clear in the text. With a significant increase in the number of people who are biologically male but legally female, it is very difficult to deal with this on an individual basis.
• Acceptance of people who have taken no meaningful steps to transition undermines the justification for separate services for the sexes. If a service provider accepts biological males (some of whom might be legal females and some legal males) who have not made any meaningful transition, what is the justification for excluding other males?
• The GRA doesn’t allow anyone to ask for a GRC so how are they supposed to apply the exceptions for gender reassignment? Also, people who receive information about gender reassignment in an official capacity are not allowed to disclose it so prison officers are not allowed to tell women inmates that another inmate is male even if they are asked.

Another important point is that the EA gives the service provider the right to discriminate. It doesn’t give women the right to access single sex services. I think this is a big problem for women as so many service providers are choosing not to apply the exemptions even when they are entitled to (Top Shop, Caledonian Express, Girl Guides etc.).

The EA needs to be amended to give women the right to access single sex services, accommodations etc. as we clearly cannot rely on service providers to look out for the rights of women.

It's illegal to ask to see someone's GRC. In the EA10 itself it says (wrt transsexuals) "providing their birth certificate will be sufficient"
So as you can't even know whether someone has a GRC how on earth can you exclude them on those grounds?

Repeal the GRA.

I get the impression the government think it won't change anything because they do think the EA allows women's spaces to exclude transwomen if there is a good reason to be single sex (vulnerable women, sleeping, communal changing, would otherwise push women out). The trans-activists think it won't change anything because they think transwomen are already entitled to enter any spaces GRC or not. Businesses have been trained by stonewall etc so inclining to the latter view so single sex spaces are already massively compromised. GC women are concerned as having a birth certificate in target sex makes it harder or impossible to apply single sex exemptions (due to very unclear legal status between GRA and EA) and it's another brick in the wall of overwriting biological sex with gender identity.

Whatever they do with the legislation it needs to be written very clearly, to distinguish between gender identity and sex, and to clarify how it interacts with the EA. Wrote that in my consultation response.

Another thing I'm unclear about is this concept of "individual assessment". Is it an assessment of the space in question? This is a refuge for women who are fleeing domestic violence therefore it is not possible to accommodate transwomen whose presence may be triggering? Or the individual in question? This TW has been victim to xyz and has no record of violence themselves so should be accommodated? The latter would put huge burden on the provision in question. And seems to go massively against safeguarding which does rule on groups to prevent harm from occurring rather than wait for harm to be proved.

*Phrasing in terms of women and transwomen as I don't think there has been any great push for transmen to go into men's spaces or concern from men if they do.

My understanding is that the Equalities Act does say that even transwoman with a GRC can be excluded from single sex spaces under the exemptions (in very limited circumstances eg refuges) .

The problem with this (as well as that it is unusable in the current climate and small women's organisations daren't risk bringing the wrath of the TRAs down on them) is how in practice do you actually do this?

If someone looks like a male, dresses like a male, behaves like a male, then hands you a birth certificate that says female, what do you actually do at that point?

Yy to the answers above.

They'll be single sex but anyone who says that they are that sex will be.

Because of the trouble they'll cause, people will generally stop even asking and start assuming (to be polite).

I don't think that's specifically handled by the law but I cannot for one second imagine that the non-gender dysphoric self-ID crowd would give up such a valuable label.

Do people stop being transgender after they get a GRC?

I have had to read the Guardian legal views piece in chunks to try to understand them all and read between the lines.

I guess my biggest problem with this is why the basis for these reforms seems that people must erase their history/birth sex, this is in direct contradiction to Stonewalls “some people are transgender get over it” since they don’t want to be recognised as transgender and for acceptance, but as the opposite sex.

who say the law will only be properly clear if it is examined in a court. Which is why I think people are giving in.

This is the point. You can grant all of the rights in the world but they are meaningless unless they can be enforced. The way things are going, any barely scraping by women's refuge will realise that if they invoke the EA 2010 exemption against a transwoman, there's a good chance they'll be taken to court, funding will appear to back the transwoman all the way to the Supreme Court, and the refuge will be looking at 5+ years of legal struggles easily totalling £1M, and will see that they just can't go there.

Rights are about enforceability, not words on the page.

It confused me too. The questions seemed so reasonable - the word 'gender' is used throughout the consultation so it's easy to be lulled into thinking the 'sex' exemptions will prevent male-bodied people in women's spaces. I was ready to answer 'no', it wouldn't make a difference to the Equalities Act, but then remembered the whole point about the new birth certificate and privacy restrictions is that the person is legally recognised as the other sex.

It's a bit like saying anyone found breaking and entering will be prosecuted but the key is under the mat for anyone who wants to use it.

Strictly speaking the equality act does allow for a trans person with a certificate to still be excluded in some single sex spaces. I believe a rape centre is the example given, however, there are people ( i beoelev lawyers) who say the law will only be properly clear if it is examined in a court. Which is why I think people are giving in. They don’t have the time and money to fight the tra in court.

(And there are now some of us who are calling for the repeal of the GRA).

There is a profoundly dishonest thread in AIBU in which a "lurker" with an "open mind about the GRA" says that because various women's refuges, rape crisis centres, etc are going along with self-ID, this is proof that it will have no impact on their operations.

Separately I've seen comments about how women's refuges, rape crisis centres, etc have faced the real prospect of losing funding if they come out as "transphobes" (ie maintain the 2010 EA exemptions.)

It's clear what kind of picture that paints for me. It's about coercion.

Eleanor you're right. A GRC is genuinely quite a challenge to get, i do see that, but it is a major deal because it changes your legal sex, thereby affecting single sex exemptions.

The pressure now is both to remove all gatekeeping from the GRC process (self id), and before that has happened legally, to prioritise the Equality Act protection of those undergoing gender reassignment over the Equality Act protection of sex. With the result that services provided nominally as single sex become single gender, as GirlGuiding now say they are, with both sexes using them.

Yes, that stumped me when I looked at the consultation. Single sex spaces WILL be kept.
BUT men can self identify as women, get a birth certificate that says they ARE FEMALE. Then they access single sex spaces.
I agree this should be made very clear and it isn’t.

Quite!

Here are refuge professionals explaining why they fear GRA reform to self-ID would make single sex services impossible to implement on the ground:
fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/FPFW_report_19SEPT2018.pdf

This Guardian piece is also good on the legal options and issues with self-ID for single sex services (a variety of opinions, some conflict:

amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/19/gender-recognition-act-reforms-six-legal-views-transgender-debate?__twitter_impression=true

Essentially to be able to sometimes exclude males biological women need a clear social and legal category that applies only to them. If any man can legally become a woman because he says he feels like one (no medical checks) and hardly anyone is allowed to say or ask or confirm (privacy allowances), how on earth will single sex services work on the ground?!?