Hampstead Pond - Brave woman speaks

LAP is shorthand for a “proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.” I’ll be sure to type it out in full in future so that you can address substance rather than syntax.

It's funny, Dadjoke, but every time I see a post from you lately I get the Archers theme song playing in my head. Cannot explain it.

Jesus Christ on a bicycle @DadJoke
I can't tell if your posts are willful misunderstanding or a simple inability to comprehend. Do you know what the difference is between statutory and non-statutory guidance? Your actions are unlawful if you disregard statutory guidance. Your actions are unlawful if you disregard non-statutory guidance and cannot show that either the guidance doesn't apply to you or that the non-statutory guidance contradicts the statutory guidance. You have kindly illustrated that the EHRC guidance on sex and GR exceptions for service providers doesn't contradict the statutory guidance so disregarding it is unlikely to survive first contact with a court of law.

Sez you!

Why would I believe anything told to me by a person who claims men can be women?

There is no such thing as "LAP" it's just Dadjoke's twee attempt at fake legalese, to give his claims more apparent credibility.

Surely basic fairness should say, if there's a mixed sex pond, and it's known that some woman can only use a facility at all if there's a female only provision, and this is part of their diversity, intersectionality, identity, culture, all the stuff the TQ+ lobby bore on for England about, only total bastards who are MRAs would exclude those women.

Yes.

The statutory guidance does, and those are the examples to which you should refer, not the non-statutory guidance.

The judge in the AEA case said the best way to approach this is a legal challenge by someone affected, which has the added effect of more case law.

if you disagree with this use of the Pond, then find a service user who objects (I suspect the woman in the video would be up for it) do a crowd fund and challenge it.

In order to exclude trans women from women’s spaces, first the service provider has to decide to do so, and second, they must demonstrate this is LAP. We can argue about whether it is LAP or not, but that’s the law as it stands.

Agree. And the EHRC document provides guidance about when it can be LAP.

You've got real old man shouts at cloud energy today, @DadJoke

But then, as I never wear make up anywhere, your definition of woman doesn’t include me.

Back to square one, which is what do women and men who claim they are women have in common that nobody else does?

And no, claiming to be a woman cannot be the answer, because you can’t claim to be something unless you can define what it is.

If men are claiming to be women, it implies they know what a woman is in order to want to be one and it’s perfectly obvious they’re relying on the fact that everyone knows what a woman is… only they don’t fit that category.

@negeme you are tying yourself in semantic knots for absolutely no reason. It’s you, not me, who is using and defining “transwoman.” I don’t use that term. Trans woman is the term I use and only to differentiate them from non-transgender women. Transgender (adjective) woman (noun). I mean, really, look it up in a dictionary.

trans woman

plural trans women
: a transgender woman : a woman who was identified as male at birth

I cannot believe that you are so ignorant of the debate that you would think otherwise.

This is not the EHRC statutory guidance, is legally dubious and has no standing in law. The current statutory guidance does, and has survived legal challenge in AEA vs EHRC.

in particular - this section was challenged and upheld

If a service provider provides single or separate sex services for women and men, or provides services differently to women and men, they should treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present. However, the Act does permit the service provider to provide a different service or exclude a person from the service who is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or who has undergone gender reassignment. This will only be lawful when the exclusion is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim

The judgment also said:

that even if a service has met the first requirement by showing it needs to be a single or separate sex service in order to exclude men, nevertheless, it must also meet the second requirement to exclude transwomen where necessary.

So, everything I said about the guidance and the law is correct. In order to exclude trans women from women’s spaces, first the service provider has to decide to do so, and second, they must demonstrate this is LAP. We can argue about whether it is LAP or not, but that’s the law as it stands.

https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/equalities-human-rights-and-civil-justice-committee/correspondence/2022/briefing-note-from-robin-white-on-ehrc-guidance.pdf

Someone started a thread about lipstick, as a result of which I think I've got one:

'The only people who wear full-face make-up and lipstick in the office are 'women'.'

I don't think it's completely trivial, in that it identifies 'men' as unlikely to want to make themselves look more like 'women' when in a formal setting.

It is, though, still all about either enhancing or aping features associated with actual women aka femininity. So still weak.

Thank you.

I've saved this very clear post for the next time somebody tries to bamboozle us.

DadJoke, I'm really interested; can you supply some statements as theilltemperedclavecinist asks?

(and no, the disquotation property/principle isn't particularly complicated).

@negeme you are tying yourself in semantic knots for absolutely no reason. It’s you, not me, who is using and defining “transwoman.” I don’t use that term. Trans woman is the term I use and only to differentiate them from non-transgender women. Transgender (adjective) woman (noun). I mean, really, look it up in a dictionary.

trans woman

plural trans women
: a transgender woman : a woman who was identified as male at birth

I cannot believe that you are so ignorant of the debate that you would think otherwise.

@DadJoke You can argue that transwomen are women until you are blue in the face but the Equality Act doesn't agree. If TW are W there would be no need for Schedule 3, Part 7, Paragraph 28 in that act.

Talking of the Equality Act, you have been trying to persuade us that excluding transwomen from the Ladies' pond would be unlawful under the EA and its associated statutory guidance. This is link to the EHRC guidance on sex and GR exceptions for service providers:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/guidance-separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-equality-act-sex-and-gender-reassignment-exceptions.pdf

Careful reading of this guidance reveals that:

1 - excluding people with the PC of GR from a single sex facility is a proportionate means to achieve the legitimate aim of allowing access to people who would otherwise be prevented by their religion if a mixed sex facility is also provided.

2 - excluding people with the PC of GR from a single sex facility is a proportionate means to achieve the legitimate aim of protecting the dignity and privacy of that sex if a mixed sex facility is also provided.

3 - excluding people with the PC of GR from a single sex environment without providing a mixed sex alternative is not necessarily unlawful providing that there is a reasonable balance of impact on competing protected characteristics. If exclusion would cause a detrimental impact on 1,000 people with the PC of GR but cause a positive impact on 4,000 people with the PC of religion (practicing Moslems or Orthodox Jews) then that exemption would be lawful. The service provider would need to conduct an accurate survey to justify exclusion on this basis.

4 - there is no requirement to show that a majority of service users would benefit from the exercise of an exemption to exclude people with the PC of GR. A single letter or email from a woman who believes that including men with the PC of GR would remove her dignity or privacy or from a single Muslim or Orthodox Jewish woman who states that the presence of a biological man prevents her from accessing the service is enough for the provider to review their policy.

5 - any single sex provider who fails to justify their policy of allowing people with the PC of GR to use the facilities that they choose when challenged by a user from 4 will probably be acting unlawfully.

Readers may find it useful to retain the link to the guidance for the next time somebody tries to use Stonewall Law to justify men's access to women's single sex spaces.