Should Muslim women be forced to give beauty treatments to males?

Oops - hit post accidentally.

... and insusting that the law says that ' gender reassignment' means that the individual has to be treated as his or her preferred gender at all times. So the Muslim woman would still have had to fight for her rights.

What's important to remember about this customer is that their non-binary status isn't recognised in law. If they had said that they were undergoing a process of reassignment to become female, their status would have been protected under the Equality Act.

And the outcome would have been the same: the Muslim woman would have refused to touch an unrelated male, and would still have had to defend her actions. The protected characteristic of 'gender reassignment' means that people with that characteristic must be treated the same as other members of their sex. But trans activism organisations have been misrepresenting the law and

Does it occur to you that scheduling someone's working hours to avoid any times a man might be in a small unisex salon is completely unrealistic?

Why? On certain days or times of the day, haircut person is in doing their thing, on other days or at other times of day, female offering female only services in there. Many salons operate on the basis that you can only get certain treatments on certain days if a certain provider is working that day. Many women work part time/around school hours, so you have to go in on the days/times your preferred provider is working. Not great if you are wanting to attract passing trade, but doable if you operate on an appointments only basis.

Absolutely if you work on a unisex Salon you should treat both sexes.

The salon may be unisex, but why should that require all people working there to be unisex?

I can see conflict if the salon had that view and an employee didn't, and the law would need to take a position there.

But if the salon and employee are in agreement that an employee does female-only, are you saying the law should say "no, sorry, you aren't allowed to have female-only staff, you have to make all staff do both sexes". Really?

If they had said that they were undergoing a process of reassignment to become female, their status would have been protected under the Equality Act.

Yes, but that still wouldn't mean they had to be treated as if female. They just couldn't be treated worse than other males who weren't "undergoing reassignment".

(I'm fairly certain that's where the law stands. I'm less certain about the situation post-GRC. We still await case law to sort this out, as we're apparently not getting the judicial review.)

I think this is Islamophobia. Forcing a Muslim woman to go against her religion and “deal” with touching a male or being out of a job. I think it is disgusting.

"He/she/they"
So putting that in my work email signature.

Absolutely if you work on a unisex Salon you should treat both sexes. We shouldn't pander to anyone's religion you take the money you do your job.

The alleged 'abuser' being from a religious or ethnic minority also seems to be part of the pattern.

Yaniv targets ethnic minority women too. This time is just a manicure but if you think beauticians shouldn't be allowed to be single sex only how long will it be before a man claiming to be 'they or she' demands intimate waxing from females.

What about if a man held string views about women? Should he be able to refuse to serve them?

This is where religion comes into it. If your religion says you are not able to touch a member of the opposite sex, then you are protected under the Equality Act. If you just don't want to touch someone of the opposite sex, then that becomes more complicated (and am not a lawyer so don't know how that would play out in court).

What's important to remember about this customer is that their non-binary status isn't recognised in law. If they had said that they were undergoing a process of reassignment to become female, their status would have been protected under the Equality Act.

Maybe so, MissBarbary. It seems reasonable to me.

Here's the tweet posted to encourage a pile-on:

twitter.com/andreadgiovanni/status/1395050765123719168

The replies mostly make clear that a woman's protected characteristics should wither away in the face of a man's demand for validation.

Look at where it goes:

twitter.com/andreadgiovanni/status/1395060428800151552

What if he believes he's female?

That is irrelevant.

I am not making assumptions about the set up of this particular beauty provider: if they meet the criteria for a single sex service then that should be protected. But many of the responses here fall wider. It is not just women who have religious (or other) reasons for refusing to provide services to the opposite sex and in cultures where these religious reasons are accepted the outcome for women is calamitous.

What a ridiculous person. How many thousands of places can you get a manicure in London?

The single-sex exemptions for beauticians are a little bit complicated. What the guidance says is:

"If you run a beauty-related business and want to provide separate services for men and women or a single-sex service for men or women only, then you need to be able to objectively justify providing your service in this way. You must meet other conditions as well, such as that a joint service would be less effective, or that men’s needs and women’s needs are different."

So I guess the question is whether the beauticians can objectively justify providing a single-sex service. I think the fact that the customer was non-binary doesn't come into it - the question is whether they are in their rights to refuse to provide the service to a man.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/equality-law-hairdressers-barbers-and-beauty-salons