The EHRC says:
Our job is to help make Britain fairer. We do this by safeguarding and enforcing the laws that protect people’s rights to fairness, dignity and respect.
As a statutory non-departmental public body established by the Equality Act 2006, the Commission operates independently. We aim to be an expert and authoritative organisation that is a centre of excellence for evidence, analysis and equality and human rights law. We also aspire to be an essential point of contact for policy makers, public bodies and business.
Trans pressure groups have always relied on the interpretation of advice given by the EHRC. They relied on it during training for public bodies and businesses. The Government relied on it, when the Ministry of Justice out-sourced prison policy to Gendered Intelligence.
But the EHRC's advice was wrong. It has never hidden the fact that it wants to foster 'inclusion' and appears to have allowed that bias to cloud its judgement. In a nutshell it said that employers and service providers would be advised to allow a transgender person to access spaces and services "in their acquired gender" (sic).
Councils were persuaded that they would be guilty of discrimination unless they embraced 'inclusion'. Ditto girl guides, NSPCC, Womens Aid, the NHS, schools, Crown prosecutors and the police. It was no coincidence that codes of practice for these organisation began to talk about 'transgender identity' as a protected characteristic in both the civil and criminal law.
Trans people themselves were persuaded that they had a perfect right to be treated in their acquired gender and had no qualms about taking full advantage of those rights to enter toilets, short-lists and apply for women's jobs. "Transwomen are women" they proclaimed, under the illusion that the law was on their side..
It was only when organisations challenged the EHRC, that it revised the advice.
Even after getting it wrong, the EHRC pressed ahead with its inclusion agenda. In its written evidence to the Select Committee on reforms to the GRA,(2018) it recommended getting rid of the sex binary, saying:
....sex markers on administrative forms, identity documents and data collection forms should be reviewed to facilitate inclusion.
Today (15/06/2019) we learn in the Times that EHRC were keen to prosecute discrimination cases against schools and services, in collaboration with Mermaids. They are nowhere to be seen when it comes to the 'sex' protected characteristic. Funny that.
What sort of independent, purportedly neutral, 'expert' and 'authoritative' human rights defender gets the law wrong;
provides bad advice to trans people;
sets service providers and public bodies on a course to 'inclusion';
and wants to remove 'sex', in favour of gender?