Law changes to strengthen women's rights by rewriting the Equality Act on the basis of biological sex instead of gender identity might not take place until next summer

@EasternStandard the same regulations apply now as they did pre-GRA. The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 state:

20.—(1) Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily accessible places.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary conveniences shall not be suitable unless—

(a)the rooms containing them are adequately ventilated and lit;

(b)they and the rooms containing them are kept in a clean and orderly condition; and

(c)separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.

Note that while a workplace has to provide separate facilities, they don't actually have to require their employees (or patrons) to use the correct facility and I can't see that changing.

We need female sex to be only that for spaces, sports

I can’t see any other way otherwise it’s just what we have now?

If allow transwomen into the Ladies' loo then you should label the loo as 'women and transwomen'.

And Non Binary people and femme queer men and many many other identity choices that may mean a male person would prefer not to use the men's provision and would prefer to be among women. It is not just those who choose the identity of transwoman.

Which is great, IF this is a mixed sex women's provision alongside a female only provision that all male people of all identities stay out of, and women consent to the mixed sex experience as much as the male mixed sex space users do.

Equality of choice, equality of respect, equality of inclusion.

If you believe female people do not deserve this, then you're a male supremacist, not a trans 'ally'.

How did legislation work before the GRA?

Did places have to provide by law a female and male area and how was that defined?

If allow transwomen into the Ladies' loo then you should label the loo as 'women and transwomen'.

This is pretty much what we have now just without the longer sign

I’d amend using biological sex, using the EqA and enforce somehow

Venues might need third space

I cannot see how else to do it, either we get single sex spaces back via law or men have access

This is the real problem with the EA. It assumes a degree of reasonableness that no longer exists.

Absolutely this. The good will is gone. The reasonability is gone. It has to be assumed that those with poor intentions will exploit any loop hole to the last possible decimal place with absolute zero conscience. Law made proof against personality disorder is rapidly becoming a real thing.

And it must become an equality requirement that services must provide, certainly for taxpayer and local authority funded resources, a female only option which is firmly gatekept from male service users irrespective of their legal fiction or identity choice. Alongside mixed sex options, male options, add seahorse and clownfish options for all I care, but this business of male people playing dog in the manger on principle of having to shit on women to feel happy has to be stopped.

This would include protected female only wards, female only hcps, female only refuges with a proportionate to the population number which are mixed sex and women given choice - the majority would be single sex - and Local Authority funding required to insist on an accessible female option to ensure there is no female exclusion in order to grant funding.

Hi Pencils

My point was that while there were lots of SIs used to amend the primary legislation, there were far more changes that were implemented via directions, designations and notices. I agree that this has no bearing on how any change to the EA might be implemented.

I disagree with PlanetJanette on whether a SI would be appropriate. SIs for the EA have to be affirmative so would be laid before Parliament in draft form and would have to be approved by both houses. I can't see how fresh, primary legislation would be required.

Sadly, I'm less confident about what any amendment to clarify the meaning of sex as biological sex would achieve. The PCs included in the EA are all described in the vaguest of terms to avoid having to define each of them in minute detail and running the risk of missing something. If sex were to be clarified as being biological sex then every known chromosome variation or DSD would have to be listed and assigned as male or female. The SI would sink under the weight of gotchas and 'what abouts' thrown at it.

Then, assuming that a SI is delivered with a workable definition of sex, what would change in practice? The EA has paragraph after paragraph of single sex exemptions. It even assumes that sex means biological sex by including a paragraph which says that it is not a breach of the Act to exclude people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment (which includes people with a GRC). Despite this, actual single sex spaces are about as common as hen's teeth. No clarification of the EA will change this because applying the single sex exemptions is voluntary. We've seen the challenges that poor woman in Brighton has faced by trying to set up a single sex rape group. Will clarifying the EA solve her problem?

This is the real problem with the EA. It assumes a degree of reasonableness that no longer exists. The law needs to be changed to compel services or spaces that might be single sex to be explicit as to what, if any, degree your service or space is 'single sex'. If allow transwomen into the Ladies' loo then you should label the loo as 'women and transwomen'. Any failure to do so would be a breach. The provider can't just look the other way but would have to own their decision.

Does anybody have a better idea?

@PlanetJanette @JanesLittleGirl Yes thank you I am well aware that the coronavirus rules were changed on the daily because of primary legislation which gave the minister the power to do so.

Nevertheless the rules were changed using statutory instruments. They're all still there on the legislation website, labelled 'Statutory Instrument'.

I'm not clear what your point was. I was not making any point regarding the feasibility of clarifying the EA using an SI, I was merely providing the covid rules as an example of SIs for those who might not know what one was.

Out of interest - does anyone know how safe Kemi Badenoch's seat is? We could do with her remaining when/if on the opposition benches.

Those changes were made using Ministers' statutory powers under the relevant legislation, not by statutory instruments.

It's still hot, I'm very tired but

Would it be quicker to just repeal the GRA?

Because if this heat ever subsides I am very willing to email every single MP, and write letters to newspapers and any other thing we can think of to start the process.

You have to go through the process though? It looks like consultation is part of it. Yes it’s frustrating and I’m
sure Kemi and co are feeling it, but she is pushing forward despite legal weeds

I can see why people think as you do but I find it a hard read. Our only way out of this is legal change

Labour will stop this avenue dead

Which legal change would happen if not this one?

Yep. Me too.

If women's equality and rights are going to be a desperate carrot to try and win an election, which means leaving this all to roll around for another year?

Fuck that. Actions, not words. And it proves that the Tories are too weak to stand up to the religion having taken over the civil service and many of their own people, which means Stonewall and a bunch of extremists now make the law and we just have a lot of very expensive people wittering in the HoC to no purpose.

If that's not enough of a crisis to get the Tories off their bums and doing something, then nothing is.

The link you provide actually shows that Parliament did consider various aspects of the interaction between the GRA and the Equality Act.

But more importantly, when I talk about full knowledge of the GRA, I don't mean individual MPs or Peers. I mean that the Equality Act was passed after the GRA. The obvious purpose of s23 GRA is to modify the operation of legislation which drafters might not have identified as needing consequential provision as a result of the GRA.

In other words, there were thousands of pieces of legislation on the statute book when the GRA was passed. Drafters will have tried to identify any of them which needed to be amended or adapted to reflect new arrangements in the GRA, and expressly done so on the face of the GRA itself. But s23 recognises that references to gender or sex in pre-existing legislation were ubiquitous and so drafters may well not have caught them all.

So there are two big barriers to amending the Equality Act using section 23. First, and most fatally, the power is only to 'modify the operation' of a statute. Not to amend the statute itself. Second, because the power is explicitly highly limited - the explanatory notes explain that it is "strictly limited and is provided due to the entirely novel nature of this legislation. Legislation has made distinctions on the basis of gender for centuries, and the use of gender-specific terms, though it has reduced, nevertheless continues in some contexts. Though a thorough analysis has been conducted of areas in which the facility to change gender may cause difficulties or complexities, this section acknowledges the possibility that other instances may come to light in the future." In other words, it's about modifying the operation of pre-existing legislation, not about amending future legislation.

I can't in all conscience vote Labour any more. Unless the Tories actually sort this out before the GE to show good faith in protecting women's rights I can't vote for them either. What a let down.

It sounds like standard process, just reading pp

Wasn’t there a letter from Kemi to ECHR on this who said it’s up to gov but go ahead

It all takes time but this path would stop with Labour

It seems the only (?) chance within law atm

I can’t think of other ways to get single sex spaces, maybe someone else can

"Using it to amend an Act that was passed in full knowledge of what the GRA said is likely I think to be ultra vires for a number of reasons."

It might be ultra vires but not because the Act was passed in full knowledge of what the GRA meant.

There is evidence in Hansard that when Parliamentarians sought clarification of the implications of EA2010 in terms of the GRA that there was obvious confusion and misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, of the relationship.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2010-01-11/debates/10011139000077/EqualityBill#contribution-10011146000033

Reading that, I have to wonder what would have happened if the Bishop of Chester had been present to move his own amendment? If he had pressed on and Peers did gain "full knowledge" of what they were being asked to approve?

That’s because specific powers were available under primary legislation to do so.

The sex matters proposal is extremely dubious. They want to use s23 of GRA to amend the Equality Act.

I would highly doubt that could be done. Section 23 allows modification of the operation or Acts, not amendment of Acts. It is also clear from explanatory notes that this is intended to cover prior legislation which might not have been considered when the GRA was being drafted.

Using it to amend an Act that was passed in full knowledge of what the GRA said is likely I think to be ultra vires for a number of reasons.

Yes another MP could probably use a PMB slot to table a change but it would almost certainly not get anywhere. There is a reason legislation is generally drafted by parliamentary counsel - it is because a lot of thought goes into wording to ensure it is as legally watertight as possible.

Public consultation is a standard part of the legislative process.

When's that election we have to have by the end of Jan 2025 going to be.