Not sticking up for the Government or the EHRC, but I think Sex Matters are wrong, and still dont seem to understand the SSE (no doubt the moran has been pontificating).
Legally self identification does not exist. I dont think either the Government or the EHRC have ever said it does, in fact recently the EHRC has repeated it isn't legal.
There is a huge difference between what Stonewall etc., have managed to persuade people and what exists in law.
The law is about people with a GRC - and intending to get one (which is the really dodgy area of course)
So, at the moment as Lady Haldane said, once a man has a GRC he is a "legal woman" and "for all purposes" can be considered the opposite sex.
However, where an organisation invokes the SSE, a GRC does NOT give a man with a GRC the right to be part of the provision of, or user of, a service correctly advertised as being SSE as per EA.
Anyone who advertises (as ERCC did) that they are invoking the SSE but then include TW with a GRC are acting illegally.
As they would be if they include those who "self identify" as the opposite sex.
It is a cruel act by the Government to tell the EHRC to write a clearly explanation of the law, when in response to the recent judicial review by FWS, the EHRC issued a statement saying that the law is muddled and hard to follow. ie re-write the EA to say the word sex means biological. (Dont think the EHRC would ever call for the repeal of th GRA).
No doubt Labour as the people who wrote how the GRA interacts with the EA, and are so smug that women can, if they are very good, invoke the SSE in limited circumstances, want to make sure the EHRC toes their line by having to put it in writing.
Far better if the EHRC stuck to their line that the law is a muddle and needs to be clarified.
All this is totally different from the much bigger problem, that most of society and the media think the Stonewall guidelines are the real ones.
And as we know from the ERCC, they may have been found guilty of bullying, but they have not been charged with falsely advertising under the SSE.
Who listens to the EHRC when Stonewall propoganda is pumped out every day by willing followers?
And as is clear, no one has or every will be sued for falsely claiming a service is women only (SSE) but they in fact include men with a GRC, or not even that.
Most laws cease to be effective when the public as a whole ignores them.
And here we have a situation where not just the public, but local government, Scottish Government, funders and some women's groups deliberately break the law.