Labour have reneged on promise about single sex spaces - again!

And that is because "Trans women are aso women".....Just because they've stopped chanting it, doesn't mean they've abandoned it. Kier Starmer is a slippery lawyer. He knows that unless 'Sex' is clarified to mean biological sex, then trans identifying men are also legal women.

Personally, It was always clear to me what Labour's position was, and which also remains their position. Just because Wes Streeting has accepted the Cass Review it doesn't mean any of that has changed. They do not want to clarify the meaning of 'Sex' and they want, in principle, to keep single sex spaces open to trans identifying men ( or, at least, most of those spaces)

My impression was always that "single sex spaces" meant that in some circumstance they would be permitted. Refuges, for example; but this would be the exception rather than the rule. The sorts of spaces that most women use....toilets and changing rooms would remain open to males depending on the discretion or policy of the individual provider.

Edit: wrong thread.

The Equality Act is not the only legislation at play here - women (sex, not men with a GRC) also have a right not to be discriminated against under the ECHR.

It seems they ran on a trans-manifesto, with 'trans' meaning, like 'identify as', what follows will mean the opposite of what it actually says.

I think we are pretty much at the point of having to assume anything they said before the elections is the opposite of their intentions now they are in power.

Yes, exactly - this is merely a reflection of the EA as it currently stands.

Obviously women can still bring a discrimination claim, but the thing that's annoying is that being GC doesn't count as a protected characteristic when it comes to single-sex spaces (as religion and belief are carved out of this bit) so women would have to argue that it discriminates against them purely on the basis of their being female (which obviously it does in reality), but a court might take the view that since lots of females think sex=gender identity nowadays and are fine with mixed-sex spaces, it isn't accurate to say this is a woman-based issue, but more a belief (i.e. GC) based issue.

So because other women have given away our rights because they're apparently fine with mixed-sex everything, it makes it much harder for those of us who still care about sex to prove we care because of sex and not because of our 'belief' in our sex.

What a mess.

The only vaguely positive thing I can see in this Labour 'clarification' is that companies and employers can no longer say that the Equality Act 2010 compels them to offer only unisex/mixed sex toilets and changing rooms. So if someone takes an organisation to court to challenge their policy, the org can't claim that they were only following the law and had no other option.

Yes.

Guidance from Sex Matters for filling in EHRC' s consultation on their proposed guidance. Deadline Jan 3rd.

sex-matters.org/take-action/respond-to-the-ehrc-consultation/

Quite, Gail. You don't see those same posters on these threads though do you? Now it's all going to shit as predicated based on Labour's actual words. Nope.

I remember a poster on here pre-election assuring us all that Labour would definitely, absolutely protect single sex spaces, services and sports and we really shouldn't worry our little heads about it. Just leave it to the ever so intelligent and well educated left wing women who are working with Labour to sort it all out for us mere plebs.

It was blatantly obvious pre-election when KS and AD stated how very proud they were of the GRA and EqA that they were never going to put women's needs on the agenda anywhere.

He also made a comment about "litigation is expensive", handwaving away the fact it would be our money asked for, for crowdfunding. And certainly taxpayer money to defend it.

Oh will it, will it be "expensive" to diminish ourselves to some technical indirect discrimination case law?

Women are a sex class, Foran. Men are not in it. Comments and musings from men like him make me sometimes think they should be nowhere near our fights.

The point is we keep listing all the cases of the failure to protect single sex spaces and hold Labour responsible and the institutions doing it too.

So come the elections in May every year Labour has to ask awkward questions.

Labour are SCARED of losing the next election. We have to prove that gender is one way that might happen.

But Labour keep telling us how proud they are of the GRA. I think that's the problem here. AD especially.

The only vaguely positive thing I can see in this Labour 'clarification' is that companies and employers can no longer say that the Equality Act 2010 compels them to offer only unisex/mixed sex toilets and changing rooms. So if someone takes an organisation to court to challenge their policy, the org can't claim that they were only following the law and had no other option.

Although, again it's the government leaving it to individuals to use the courts to seek remedy in the face of stupid legislation and policy.

It's frustrating but women are used to fighting to get what they need, why should this be any different? I'll contribute to as many bloody crowdjustice cases as I can afford and participate in as many lobbying campaigns as I can.

Labour are going to have to stand over their decisions and reap the public dissatisfaction.

They really do think we're stupid.

Thinking we’re stupid would be a step forward in that it’d at least suggest they were thinking of us. Whereas, I suspect women don’t matter or occur to them to think about at all apart from vaguely existing as support humans for men.

I'm not sure about this. Yes single sex provisions are not compulsory, but if someone can prove the gym not having single sex spaces disadvantages female people (protected characteristic of sex) disproportionately, the gym would be guilty of indirect discrimination under the EA.

So, I think...

Having mixed facilities only is ok unless it can be shown to disadvantage one sex disproportionately, in which case indirect discrimination.

Having mixed sex (self ID) "women's" facilities is ok unless it can be shown to disadvantage one sex (1) disproportionately, in which case again, indirect discrimination.

Having single sex "women's" is only ok if it's a proportionate solution to a problem.

The unknown is whether EA "sex" is based on legal sex and therefore includes the opposite sex if they have a GRC, or is based on immutable (albeit in very very rare cases misclassified) biological sex.

(1) presumably any protected characteristic can result in indirect discrimination? If so, does having mixed sex "women's" spaces put an org at risk of indirectly discriminating against people with protected beliefs?

There’s a big difference between optional spaces and compulsory spaces.

If a gym ignores its right to offer single sex spaces in favour of being inclusive, that’s their right. We get to choose not to frequent them.

If an employer doesn’t exercise its right to provide single sex spaces, then employees are disadvantaged. Ditto hospitals and prisons.

Supermarkets, clothes shops, gyms etc can decided what service they offer. Employers, hospitals, sports, prisons need to use the single sex exemption.

Just a theory, Starmer is avoiding at any costs schisms in his party, as per usual.

We are all waiting with bated breath the outcome of the Supreme Court ruling on what “sex” means in the Equality Act. As is Starmer. If it goes our way it will go his way too, not that he cares about women in his public leadership career.

It will solve his problem, he will not have to nail his views to a pole, he can say the law says XYZ, alienates nobody in his party Sorted for him.

Sorted for us, except there will have to be an awful lot of legal challenges by us witches to assert our rights.

I for one loathe him and I am a Labour Party member.

I don't think Kishwer Falkner is impressed.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/ehrc-statement-examples-incorrect-single-sex-spaces-and-gender-self

She's written to AD asking for all responses and pointed out that their draft statutory of Practice is now out for consultation . Closing date 3rd Jan 2025.

It's rubbish but I think mixed sex toilets / spaces that lie and call themselves single sex probably break the laws on lying to consumers and taking away the choice to protect themselves / make an informed choice.

Women and men have religions and beliefs that mean they may need to access single sex spaces. If a company lies and calls a space 'womens' most people will assume this is single sex, not gender. It's deception of customers and discrimination against sex realist beliefs, some disabilities, and many religions.

... we found that the majority seem to correctly interpret the Equality Act’s single-sex spaces provisions. In some cases, guidance reflected the organisation’s own policy to allow those with the ‘gender reassignment’ protected characteristic access to single-sex spaces that correspond with their self-identified gender, but did not incorrectly suggest that this is mandated by the Act. Had organisations suggested that their policy was mandated by the Act, however, this would have been a clear misinterpretation of the law.

Approximately 10% of the guidance submitted had text or examples that seem to have misinterpreted the Act’s single-sex spaces provisions. This was in a number of nuanced ways, including not acknowledging that the Act allows providers to exclude those with the ‘gender reassignment’ protected characteristic where justified, or, acknowledging but misinterpreting these exceptions.

This suggests that there is confusion or a lack of awareness among some service providers and some of the public about the Act’s single-sex exceptions, and how to apply them in practice. Although guidance does exist, the results of this call for input suggest that there is further work to do to ensure everyone has clarity about these exceptions in a range of different contexts. The Minister for Women and Equalities has since written to the EHRC as the independent regulator to share the findings from the call for input and to ask them to review the examples of guidance that seem to have misinterpreted the Equality Act. ...

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/response-to-call-for-input-on-single-sex-spaces-guidance/response-to-call-for-input-on-single-sex-spaces-guidance

(see that in fact they have asked the EHRC to provide better guidance, which is it turns out to be as convoluted as their advice on advertising SSE jobs, will be as much use as a wet sponge in a thunderstorm)