How is this happening? Why aren’t companies etc. adhering to the equalities act?

The policy states that prisoners are placed in a prison according to their legally recognised 'gender'. So a male rapist will go to a women's prison if he has a GRC which makes him legally 'female'.

Evidence from the MoJ in the recent Judicial Review showed that they go in the female estate whether or not they have a GRC and, apparently, it is not allowed to ask whether they do actually have one. Superb safeguarding, really fantastic.

Prisons, well they do a risk assessment on the individual to validate they are genuine and will not harm fellow prisoners.

Well, that's worked out well hasn't it?

The only validation going on is the validation of males by females that said males are women, they are not and it is abusive to force females into being validation tools for men.

Also worth checking who the risk being assessed is to. As at panels discussing male prisoners being transferred no one has represented, spoke for or even mentioned the needs and interests of the female prisoners in the situation, the primary purpose of a risk assessment can turn out on investigation to be intended to protect the male prisoner from risk such as experiencing transphobia from female prisoners.

There was the wing in a women's prison created for male prisoners who were too high risk to permit full transfer with the idea of there being some association but separate facilities etc. This however was never used for its purpose as the male prisoners involved, whose offending history against women had been so serious that the risk to women prisoners was considered to high took legal action against feeling discriminated against, and got what they wanted.

I at this point could not get more cynical. Many agencies, the prison services among them, now provide two totally different standards of interest, consideration and care based entirely on birth sex. It's proved beyond all doubt now that gender creates a hierarchy that benefits the male sex and disadvantages the female sex, and that trying to claim that sex is 'complicated' and 'not binary' does not make this harsh reality go away for women.

Ah! You'd think so, wouldn't you @DdraigGoch Especially as the answers have, more than once, proven to be

Yes

and

Yes

And still the male offender is housed in the female estate - and guess what?

Prisons, well they do a risk assessment on the individual to validate they are genuine and will not harm fellow prisoners.
@MishyJDI I'd love to know what was in this risk assessment. Perhaps it includes questions such as:

Does this person have a history of sex offending?
and
Did this person only claim to be transgender after they were arrested?

Then again, maybe it doesn't include such obvious questions.

Not directly but it could be argued that a lack of single sex spaces discriminates against Muslim women. Then there are women suffering from PTSD which gets triggered by being in a vulnerable position around men, failing to provide reasonable adjustments would be disability discrimination.

Just to add to that list in case helpful: also some orthodox Jewish women, some Roma/Traveller women, some women with Autism, and women who do not share the belief that transition changes sex and require privacy and dignity in spaces where they may be undressed, who would not be able to use a mixed sex space regardless of how the opposite sex identified. They all have an equally protected characteristic under law, and a right to access facilities. Dame Tani Grey has also voiced difficulties she experiences as a woman with a physical disability.

We have the carefully reached conclusion from UK sports councils this morning stating that the wishes of male people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment cannot be reconciled with fairness and safety to women; it is a case of choosing one. (Should wishes of one party be more important than fairness and safety of the other?)

And that the answer is to provide mixed options and women only.

We're starting to get there.

No one wants male people with this protected characteristic to not have their needs met, or to not have provisions available to them in respect of their characteristic.

But equally, no one should want female people to not have their needs met, or to not have provisions available to them in respect of their characteristics.

Women are not lesser than male people. Male people obviously cannot require answers that unfairly and unequally require removing these things from women that they themselves insist on.

Third spaces.

Yes, the EHRC really did point that out. I'm sure we're all just meant to ignore that though.

I think you may be right. So come on ladies, how about it? Bow down, give in, shut up!

Not on your nelly

This is the current status quo and has been clearly established in recent legal cases (AEA vs EHRC most notably, as well as the High Court judgement on trans women in prisons).

AEA vs EHRC has no bearing on other cases because it set no legal precedent. It established nothing, in other words. As the argument and reasoning of the judge was distinctly illogical, I expect that a similar case would end differently (the judge was saying for instance that AEA's argument was absurd, because if it wasn't they would be right. That's astonishingly circular reasoning. The Legal Feminist blog has an excellent article on that called Schrödinger's PCP.)

Most importantly however, there is something that most commenters from the self-id side of the debate keep forgetting:

The EHRC stated in court that blanket trans exclusion policies are not in compliance with the statutory code.

And the code says that organisations really need to have a good reason to exclude people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment from their service.

Yes, they did say that, and this is emphasised and celebrated by BlueberryCheezecake & friends.

The EHRC also stated that blanket trans inclusion policies are not in compliance with the statutory code either.

And the code does say that organisations must carefully consider the detriment to other service users if a member of the opposite sex is included in a single-sex service and the service must balance the rights of both, and not merely prioritise the needs of people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

(In practice this means a service can exclude them outright, but it would be preferable for them to offer an alternative provision to people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment that means they don't have to use the space provided for their own sex but which excludes them from the space provided for the opposite-sex. That would be legal, legitimate and proportionate.)

Yes, the EHRC really did point that out. I'm sure we're all just meant to ignore that though.

My thanks to CharlieParley for tirelessly c+ping that information.

I am sure I am not the only one, Mishy and Bluebs included, who can quote from it verbatim!

Feeling uncomfortable is not a legitimate purpose.

MishiJDI keeps asserting this on every comment about the issue. This is false. The Equality Act 2010 explicitly allows for exclusion on this basis. There's even a specific exception for this in Schedule 3, Part 7, Subsection 27, Paragraph 6b:

the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

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

And changing rooms are given as a specific example in the Explanatory Notes:

These exceptions would allow
separate male and female changing rooms to be provided in a department store;

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/20/7/4/3

The test usually applied is that of "a reasonable person". As the vast majority of the population continues to understand that we are male and female and accepts that members of either sex may reasonably feel uncomfortable undressing in the presence of members of the opposite sex in public spaces, it is legal to exclude men with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment from changing rooms provided for women.

The EHRC in its statutory code for services argues that those who are indistinguishable from the opposite sex should be allowed to use opposite-sex facilities, but the cases that have come to light where companies have caved in have all involved individuals who were obviously male. There is contention about the EHRC's position, from both sides of the debate, but in all of these cases even the EHRC would say no access to opposite-sex changing rooms.

there is a very, very blurred line around 'gender reassignment' that simply did not exist when the Act was written.

Indeed the Act introduced some of that blurring as they attempted a kind gesture towards those who intended (genuinely) to transition, but hadn’t really made much of a start. Because if you include that group, it opens the door to any Tomminanda, Dickenarealis or Harrietina who can claim they are intending to, even if they aren’t, as nobody can prove otherwise.

If a service provider gets taken to court for excluding a trans person, the onus would be on them to establish they had a reasonable justification that wasn't discriminatory.

Yes, as in a local rape crisis / DV centre stating unequivocally that it caters only for females as per it's articles, charitable status and, sadly, 30 year existence.

Why would anyone take such a charity to court for doing what it was set up for, is funded for?

Just as the Men's Shed MH team is there only for males, as per it's articles, charitable status and, sadly, mere 2 year existence.

No no no Bluebs you know better than that! You cite the guidance and twist it knowing that your version as the complete opposite of the examples in the very same gudiance you seem to rely upon!

Single sex means single sex, not mixed sex if someone wants it to be!

And Self ID doesn't exist, and there is a very, very blurred line around 'gender reassignment' that simply did not exist when the Act was written.

If a service provider gets taken to court for excluding a trans person, the onus would be on them to establish they had a reasonable justification that wasn't discriminatory.

Such as providing a female only service to meet female need, or not excluding females from a female only provision.

Yes.

If a service provider gets taken to court for excluding a trans person, the onus would be on them to establish they had a reasonable justification that wasn't discriminatory.

Which is exactly the same as the situation for excluding men.

Feeling uncomfortable is not a legitimate purpose. Well thanks for that @MishyJDI

Now we, women, can shout back, at TRAs everywhere - and your discomfort means bugger all in law either!

And then we can all set about having a proper discussion about what to do when the rights of different cohorts conflict.

Thanks for the confirmation that feelings mean nothing!

Blueberry yet again demonstrating the notion that single sex services are default mixed sex.

The judge in the case referred to summed up saying that the government intention was that transexuals were to be treated differently to men, but this does not mean the same as women.

Whether a trans person has a GRC or not is irrelevant to their treatment under the act, which makes no distinction between trans people with or without a GRC

Are you suggesting that the prisons policy I linked to is illegally making a distinction between trans people with a GRC and those without, since it refers to 'legally recognised gender'?

Does this mean you think that all rapists should be free to choose a 'female' gender identity so that they can all go to women's prisons? Or that they should all keep their penises in the men's estate where they belong?

But even if you can reasonably justify exclusion, you don't have to exclude - there's no penalty for being more inclusive than you have to be. The EA2010 doesn't oblige service providers to offer single sex services (trans exclusive or otherwise) it just lays out a set of circumstances in which they legally can if they want to.

Whether a trans person has a GRC or not is irrelevant to their treatment under the act, which makes no distinction between trans people with or without a GRC, and in fact it may be illegal for a service provider to ask a trans person to produce a GRC.

This is the current status quo and has been clearly established in recent legal cases (AEA vs EHRC most notably, as well as the High Court judgement on trans women in prisons).

If anyone is interested in reading Christine Burns twitter there's interesting information to be found.

In particular Burns was calling women pig ignorant for ever thinking that single sex meant anything other than free choice.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/863610/transgender-pf.pdf

As far as I understand it, the equality act allowes for exemptions for single sex facilities but leaves the decision weather to use the exemption up to the institution, and institiutions are choosing not to use the exemptions. Weather this is because they dont understand the law, have been misadvised (ahem Stonewalled) or just are staffed with individuals that have an overriding conviction that men must be centered at all times I dont know, I think it could be some combination of all of the above.