EHRC single sex guidance out

As a woman with daughters and grand daughters I'm relieved at this clarification

MBM's response to the new guidance.

murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2022/04/04/mbm-response-to-ehrc-guidance-for-providers-of-separate-and-single-sex-services/?

The foot-stamping tantrums going on on Twitter are genuinely something to behold.

But the point is it is not a legal precident - it holds no standing in other cases. It does not impact on how the law should be interpreted. Because it is only a first tier case. They were also deemed covered not because they were non binary but because they were perceived as having the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

I understand that it’s not legal precedent, but it muddies the waters when it comes to those identifying as non binary or gender fluid.

Law firms were flagging this up as yet something else to be considered in the world of gender woo.

Posted too soon.

….after the appeal. Didn’t that mean there can be lack of common understanding of words in law? ( At the time the census was first devised gender would never have meant natal sex but the judges ignored that.

@CharlieParley
It is customary and entirely accepted by the legal profession that terms that have a common meaning that is understood by people in the same way are not further defined (otherwise statutory writing would be an impossible undertaking - imagine having to define every single word!). At the time of writing the Equality Act (and now) this applied to the terms male and female.

In Scotland that case regarding the census,
that gender should not be on the form as being synonymous with sex, was lost even. Ar afte

It is customary and entirely accepted by the legal profession that terms that have a common meaning that is understood by people in the same way are not further defined (otherwise statutory writing would be an impossible undertaking - imagine having to define every single word!). At the time of writing the Equality Act (and now) this applied to the terms male and female.

The reason why man and woman were defined is because at the time of writing, a man with a GRC may have been understood as a woman legally. So for the purposes of the Equality Act the lawmakers clarified that the terms man and woman referred to sex, not legal status.

This is why the FWS judgement is so important, because it actually spells out and thus confirms that the Equality Act definition of sex is indeed a reference to biological sex.

For now and until it is superseded by a different higher court judgement, this is the authority on the question what the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act definition refers to.

MNHQ
a post by me at 20:08 was deleted by you but was not as far as I knew any of the following:
personal attacks
posts that break the law, including hate speech of any kind
trolling, misleading or deliberately inflammatory behaviour
trollhunting
spamming

I have simply been trying to understand something I find complicated. Please would you explain?

Seems good. The examples are helpful!

Sorry, Allison

Gosh, DadJoke, all your lovely insistence on this ridiculous verbiage put me in the gardening mood. Here's to the brave women without whom we'd not be where we are, £50 to Alison made me feel loads better!

I'm with you tabby, one by one we will address these issues. Not only are there no justification in including males on female wards, but in all the other areas they have managed to butt in over the recent years. 'And still she persisted'

Surely then it is now clear that female sports cannot include males without a GRC and can exclude males with one.

@LangClegsInSpace

“ScrollingLeaves
Please would some one tell me this:

Can a person with a GRC be allowed into an otherwise sex segregated space regardless of the fact that they are physically the opposite sex?”

It's worth reading the whole thing.

EHRC are saying it makes no difference whether they have a GRC or not. They can be included or excluded, it's up to the service provider.

They can be excluded in the same way as male people with no GRC as long as it's is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

Thank you very much for explaining, I appreciate it. Yes, I shall get on and read the whole thing.

The level of argument on the other side would rarely require a senior civil servant involvement in addressing the issues raised

well no.

Yes, but the definition of sex isn't laid out in the Equality Act which is the point of Dadjoke's gotcha argument, so the Scottish judgement must have drawn on earlier decisions.

Lol Eresh, I hope EHRC got a few temps in to put together 'cleared lines' replies, which will politely explain to those lovely people that 'Stonewall law' is not, actually, the law. The level of argument on the other side would rarely require a senior civil servant involvement in addressing the issues raised, as is demonstrated by our local prospective complainer

Karon Monaghan QC in the quote I posted refers to the recent FWS appeal judgement - I'm not sure how it affects England, the law is different on many things but some legislation isn't devolved and this may apply to the overarching question of what defines sex?. She seems to think it's authoritative.

The Equality Act is not devolved and applies to the whole of the UK. That was the point of the case: the Scottish Parliament had no capacity to change the Equality Act. Only the UK Parliament can.

Frankly now we're down to 'female privacy, dignity and exclusion is something only Nazis would consider' the end is in sight.

And it's not like we're having to do anything except sit back and let the evidence roll in.

EHRC are saying it makes no difference whether they have a GRC or not. They can be included or excluded, it's up to the service provider.

They can be excluded in the same way as male people with no GRC as long as it's is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

If you're that bothered please raise it directly with EHRC, I'm sure there's a contact for complaints on their website

I expect they'll have quite a backlog to deal with from pleasant and polite people as we know will email them.

Sorry meant to quote DadJoke in first paragraph.

The matter of whether EHRC are correct when they say the EA2010 refers to biological sex. That’s it.

Karon Monaghan QC in the quote I posted refers to the recent FWS appeal judgement - I'm not sure how it affects England, the law is different on many things but some legislation isn't devolved and this may apply to the overarching question of what defines sex?. She seems to think it's authoritative.

Also a reminder that the Gender Recognition Act is not called the Sex Recognition Act, so there is a delineation, GRCs are described "the person's gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person's sex becomes that of a man". So the legally fictive "sex" (not exactly the same legal status as the biological equivalent as some sex based exemptions exist) is gained by the act of obtaining a GRC.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/7/section/9