Supreme Court - are single gender spaces still allowed?

No. There is no concept of gender separate from sex in UK law.

You can discriminate on the basis of sex under the EA exemptions - e.g. you can refuse men access to certain jobs or groups or accommodation.

But you can’t discriminate on the basis of made up nonsense that has no legal status like feeling that someone has a genuine gender identity or not. You can’t say ‘only men with special feelings can come in’.

I wonder what will happen with the Hampstead swimming ponds?

Letting men into cubicles used by women, be they changing or toilet, gives them clear opportunity to hide cameras. It’s happening. You might be fine with it. I’m not.

@AmIHumanOrAmIAYeti thats a disgusting remark. I don’t like any porn and I think your response was idiotic. You just like how you sound.

Can you define 'genuine trans'

This is the sticking point for me. What does 'genuine' mean. And someone can really believe they should have been the opposite sex and still get a sexual thrill from being in spaces intended for the opposite sex, the two aren't mutually exclusive (and actually, I would argue, are two sides of the same coin).

And why should we be taking that man's wants into consideration at all, when it comes to women's spaces?

I have not joined a couple of things which are for women as they admit men who identify as women. I did ask about this issue before and was told that was what they did as they admitted women clearly it was pointless continuing the conversation. I will now ask again

But that was in the context of service providers etc not employers. Employers will have access to more information.

The SC did refer to Croft on the comparator issue approvingly without any suggestion that it was affected. As I say, the underlying principle in Croft derives from Human Rights rather than the Equality Act and the SDA, so it doesn't appear to be affected.

Only if you’re a fan of Primark porn.

Incredible on radio someone told not to use ‘biological woman’. Just woman.

The ruling means we get our word back.

Amazing.

For women = female only.

A book group for women recovering from domestic violence might need to be single sex. Same for a crafting group for women recovering from breast cancer.

I grew up with DV. Father was an utter monster. By my late teens, I was self harming, borderline anorexic, had selective mutism and crippling social anxiety. I was terrified of men. I couldn't go anywhere that men might be. I couldn't go in a shop if there was a man behind the counter. I once had a panic attack and hid at the bottom of the school field because I went to a school event (girls school) and there was a group of teenage boys there. For a year, the only place I went was the female only session at the local council run gym. No male staff worked there during that time.

So yes, we do need female only things even when women aren't undressing.

A health minister couldn’t answer what this meant for changing rooms / hospitals etc

I’m very happy about this ruling, angry women have been gaslighted for so long.

But I’m still not certain what we will see. I hope we get single sex spaces back.

I think there is something to do with toilet provision where it's ok to provide mixed sex if there isn't room for single sex, eg in a little cafe.

Maybe women should start using the urinals. I predict that would change things pretty quick.

I think there may be more push back on whether making a space / group specifically for 'women' is necessary.

I'm delighted people can now ask for / get SS spaces and services when there is a genuine need. It's less clear if we need SS craft groups / book clubs etc.

I'm disappointed (but not surprised) at some of the anti-trans views I'm seeing on social media. Some people seem to be gloating about being able to use this ruling exclude TW socially, or speaking as though it becomes mandatory for groups to exclude TW if they use the word women in their description. I support including TW / TM socially and respecting how they want to interact with the world in situations where sex/ biology aren't relevant.

Hopefully, if the GRA was repealed, the recent ruling on single sex space provisions under the EA would supercede previous case law.

There is inherent regognition in the current ruling that gender reassignment never creates a situation where the person becomes the opposite sex.

If they want to argue that gender reassignment does, at some point, change your sex, then they are going to have to argue that position from scratch.

They will need to argue it, openly, without obfuscation of language, without using under-the-radar tactics and without lying about how the law works.

By doing all the above, they have set back the rights of medically transitioning transsexuals by years. They may even have created a situation where that group of males will never again find an opening for being treated politely as if they were women.

All the teeth gnashing and woman bashing is ironic, because this is a situation wholly created by deliberately deceptive transactivism.

My understanding is the way the law works here is that the legislation supersedes previous case law. Nobody is arguing anymore that a TW needs to reach a certain stage in transition in order to do anything. This was not an argument in the Peggie case or the EBPF case. Before the SC decision the question being asked was does this person say they are trans and do they have a GRC. Beyond that there is no enquiry about how far that person has gone in their transition journey. Having a vaginoplasty doesn’t give you a greater entitlement to use the women’s changing room or run in sports. This is old pre-GRA caselaw. And it’s what we would return to if the GRA was repealed.

Porn star? Male stripper? Penis model? Maybe not mainstream, but all legal.

Well as I say it's not 100% clear. The quote from the case is in my first post upthread. Some people think that has been overtaken and now the point that it changes is when a GRC is obtained, but it's hard to be certain in the absence of further case law.

Just to add I answered the OP question on the basis that it was meant to be about single SEX spaces as gender is a social concept not a fact!

Rape Crisis centres and Women's Aid refugees are all independent groups, but are usually affiliated to other groups like themselves.

However decisions on how groups are run and services provided are down to the governing board of each group.

There is no law that says any group has to provide women only services.

Nor for instance are funders told you must ensure you fund equally.

So in effect if a local council or funder said to a local women's support group we will fund you but you must be trans inclusive (which has happened to many groups) the group could continue to provide services but none of them would be women only.

What they cant do, and this was true before yesterday, is advertise that their services comply with the SSE (not sure if they will go on being that).

As we know from IamSarah's case in Brighton, the service provider was funded by the local council be was not obliged to provide women only services. But are local council's in breach of equality themselves if they fail to equally fund women only service and trans inclusive services. Or are they discriminating against the sex class of women if they dont fund any SSS.

Over and above the politics or policies of service providers, one of the biggest pressures on groups in the funders setting guidelines on how their money should be used.

Not forgetting that more women's project have been closed in the past year by local councils because as far as they are concerned women only services are too expensive to fund. Why should women get a refuge when they can just be sent to a mixed sex hostel. So underneath the issues of today's court case where TRAs have tried to manipulate the law, is the far older hostility and disregard of women of the overarching MRAs who seem to be just a plentiful generation after generation.

Watching the WI with interest, i’d love them to have to actually serve women again.

i.e. that transwomen eventually gain the right to use women's toilets at work

At what point do they gain the right?

My opinion is the central principle still stands - i.e. that transwomen eventually gain the right to use women's toilets at work (relying on the Human Rights Act) but employers can say that they should use the disabled toilets during their transition.

The decision noted that the GRA would be coming in and a lot of people have taken the view that the point that one gains access to the women's toilets at work is now when a GRC is granted (see e.g some of the comments in the case of R (Green) v SSfJ which was post GRA but heavily cited Croft) but that aspect seems less perhaps a little less certain following today's judgment.

But I haven't seen anything in today's judgment to undermine the central principle, nor cases such as A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police which held that a transwoman police officer had the right to carry out intimate searches of women.

So, as I say, I think we have seen some progress today, but it doesn't change some of the troubling case law.