Liz Truss shift

some women will refuse to use trans-inclusive services. Many of them will be particularly vulnerable, eg survivors of abuse. Others will just feel unsafe because of typically male behaviour patterns. It's essential services are available for them too.

If it's a free choice for organisations to provide single-sex or mixed-sex services, where is the legislation that will make sure single-sex services are available for those who need them?

M&S aren't dummies, that should say...

It will be up to service users to use the service they want to use - be it single sex, trans-inclusive, whatever.

What happens if all services decide to be 'trans inclusive', and therefore exclude some women?

And sometimes women and girls won't have a choice of which service to use. Female prisoners can't just go somewhere else if the MoJ decide men who say they are women should go to women's prisons. What about girls in schools if they all decide to make the toilets and changing rooms mixed sex?

Tbh I don't agree. It definitely doesn't mean 'female-exclusive'; I know many, many women who will happily share facilities with TW. Don't forget that all the polling shows women are much more sympathetic to TRA positions than men are. Many (most?) women don't mind if a TW is in the M&S changing room. M&S are dummies (whatever the Per Una range might suggest); if most women strongly objected to their policy on changing rooms they'd go out of business. It's not happening. Most women do not feel excluded by these policies. I don't personally really understand why, but then I don't understand lots of things - why people voted for Johnson, why they voted for Brexit, why they didn't like Ed Miliband... we have to deal with things as they are, not as we'd like them to be.

some women will refuse to use trans-inclusive services. Many of them will be particularly vulnerable, eg survivors of abuse. Others will just feel unsafe because of typically male behaviour patterns. It's essential services are available for them too. But, in general, trans-inclusive services are not female-exclusive in the real world - because most women happily use them. (I've used an M&S changing room myself recently.)

What Truss/the government is doing is throwing it back to service providers to choose what they want to do and with that the responsibility for what happens thereafter. Which could play out over the longer term in a number of ways.

It's Schroedinger's law as usual.

It is simultaneously a single sex women's facility
And a facility that anyone of the male sex can use at will
And therefore in actual fact when the word salad is made, excludes females from women's facilities.

We're going to have to start the court cases for discrimination against females. Again.

It will be up to service users to use the service they want to use - be it single sex, trans-inclusive, whatever.

Not wanting to be critical but 'trans-inclusive' in fact means 'female excluding', it is not the nice positive thing it is dressed up as. And using it hides the reality and makes it sound like a jolly nice thing no one should make a fuss about. Which is the point.

Single sex or mixed sex is the only factual reality of this.

"“The Government has no interest in changing the current situation where transgender people are able to use facilities of their chosen gender."

If transgender people can choose to use facilities for the opposite sex, how can anyone apply the single-sex exceptions in the EA?

Thank you for your replies SamphiretheStickerist and OperationDessertStorm. Clearer now!

Pacifucstate yes she was v impressive. Shes holding her nerve. The response to her is completely illegitimate. And even now after 4 yrs I'm amazed at the organisations that have joined in reporting the ehrc to the UN.

Ovahear I think you're right too about the tory approach.
It might mean women having to use the courts to show indirect discrimination by services that fail to provide a service on the basis if sex, and only provide the service on basis of 'chosen gender'.

But if at least it is made clear that it is perfectly legal to set up a service that is genuinely female only that will help. And it will be more difficult for orgs to give dodgy advice to service providers saying they will be breaking the law if they don't include tw in all f services/spaces.

Yep @Manderleyagain cross-posted with you but basically saying the same thing! Falkner didn't sound to me like a woman who's going to be pushed off course. She was very polite but it came across strongly that she thought the behaviour of many of the activists is completely horrifying and illegitimate. I think they've mis-stepped by winding her up so much. She might get pushed out of her position if there's a strong enough political storm, but she's not going to give in just because some people jump up and down, and crucially she has the support of the government.

Pacificstate I think you are right. I listened to the interview too and agree.

I might be wrong because it's worded quite fudgily but I think that's it.

I can imagine that Truss has been told (or has decided - she's not a donkey) not to stir this pot any further for now. She does have a possible global conflagration to deal with.

Kishwer Falkner's interview with Holyrood Mandy (Mandy Rhodes - www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,kishwer-falkner-is-life-now-so-brittle-that-to-ask-questions-is-to-be-deemed-to-be-controversial) is worth a listen. Falkner explains clearly that it's the government's role to make legislation (the equality act, which they have no intention of redrafting right now) and the EHRC's role is to provide interpretation and guidance on those laws. It seemed to me that it was clear as daylight, from what Falkner was saying, that the upcoming EHRC guidance on single sex exemptions will provide a clear space for service providers to provide single sex services - in a way that the muddy language of the EA has so far not done.

After that, as PPs have said, it will be up to service users to use the service they want to use - be it single sex, trans-inclusive, whatever. And those providers of domestic violence and rape services who want to provide single sex services will have a much safer legal harbour from which to do so.

Basically, Truss can afford to be a bit ambiguous and not add a gender trashfire to her inbox right now because the next bit isn't her responsibility, it's the EHRC's. She's already given a very clear signal about the political direction she's following by canning the GRA reform. Reported remarks aren't significant right now. I might be being overly optimistic, but that's my reading.

This is what I take her to mean:

• ehrc should make clear to providers of (eg) women's services that they can restrict access on basis if sex (ie exclude trans women). That's lawful.
• where providers choose to restrict access on basis of chosen gender instead (ie include trans women) they should be allowed to. The government has no plans to change this.

Both are lawful but are not the same.

The government obviously interprets EA as saying both are lawful, they have no plans to change that, and they support ehrc in making that clear.

The more libertarian arm of the Tories aren't big on regulating business so I expect what they want is for any business or org to do what suits their working model best.

This of course works in both directions, they probably want companies and orgs to be confident they can invoke SSE if they choose and understand it's perfectly fine and legal to do so.

On the flip side some places - an LGBTQ nightclub for example, will probably want to have mixed sex spaces in line with what they believe and the gov probably doesn't want to interfere with that either.

I think Truss is hoping for a return to common sense and market forces dictating these decisions. Which does also put the onus back onto women to fight our corner e.g refusing to use a business or service (and telling them why) that does not accommodate women and girls safely or in a way that is dignified for us. Maybe even bring discrimination suits for places that do really daft things like provide male only toilets but no female toilets.

I don't know if she's being naive as to the extent orgs are being pressured over perfectly legal exemptions and how this has all come about.

I suspect it's more that they don't want it to become the government's problem beyond reinforcing what the EQA says which is if you want your org to provide a single sex service it is completely legal to do so.

But also NB people (and all the others) can also use either. So they’re not even organising/segregating by ‘gender’. It’s a false sense of security.

If some organisations wish to give gender credence then that is their choice. But is is not, and should never be, the default position.

And that is how I read LTs letter. Single sex exemptions exist. Legislation is clear. But transgender people should not be denied services as a blanket ruling. Choice...

Total hogwash @DisgustedofManchester

Here in stonewalls own words

www.stonewall.org.uk/women-and-equalities-select-committee-inquiry-transgender-equality

4th bullet down - remove single sex exemptions

Having opened the stable doors by sheer stupidity and lack of due diligence they're now all scared and not wanting to take responsibility for trying to recapture the horse.

The female electorate don't behave in the ways that terrify, they are the easier ones to upset. We know in reality what happens when the responsibility is dumped on a service to try saying no to males: they get attacked and rats nailed to the door and harassed into oblivion until they say they promise to be all about males and spit on female interests like all good services should.

And a leadership race is large on the cards and I would bet that everyone's trying to look neutral and likeable. I never used to 'hate' anything, I thought it was morally wrong, but I am really starting to get there with 'hating' this abysmal abnegation, cowardice and misogyny towards those born female in this country, while repeating lies that they don't believe in sex.

They fucking well do.

Not quite, as personality types are not included n the EA2010
But yes, M+S have chosen to make their changing rooms mixed sex.

But, Samphire, they haven't just made them mixed sex/for everyone though. They are still "women's" and "men's".

And Liz Truss says transgender people are able use the facilities of their chosen gender.

So M&S etc are apparently segregating "by gender", although "gender" isn't covered by the EA either.

I feel sick. They are simply dropping the issue like a hot potato hiding behind no self id as though that has any real world meaning. It's down to the EHRC now and they are being put under pressure due to this Safe to be Me conference in June.

It's only contradictory if sex and gender are fudged together, and gender given priority over sex. And if single-sex exemptions, together with freedom of speech to defend them, have to be fought for rather than respected.