A worrying thought about the SC judgment

Sorry if already mentioned, but introduction of gender neutral facilities could well be sex discrimination on the basis that the impact is greater (negatively) for women than for men. Any org thinking of making facilities gender neutral should carry out an Equality Impact Assessment. Properly.

How do you know this? Just wondering if it’s changed recently due to high coverage of Bryson and others.

Well, now they can be legitimately challenged without the fear of a visit from the thought police.

Indeed. And it’s never enough is it? Many organisations have probably been continuously scrabbling to not get cancelled, rather than bowing to the gender woo because they actually believe in it. Now they’ve got the backing of the law to say, sorry guv’ 🤷‍♀️.

Added: Oh and I saw a lawyer on another thread explaining why it is up to the person to prove they should be allowed, not the organisation, who have the right to refuse entry
Oh, that’s good to know.

I think the worst it can get would be- ‘mainly men’ and ‘mainly women’ (essentially what we have now) and that would only be acceptable where single sex places aren’t required.

So as I understand it, workplaces are required to offer single sex facilities.
People providing a service (gym) aren’t- and we can vote with our feet.

No, that isn’t what discrimination means in this context.

If you didn’t let a man use the men’s facilities because he had the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, then that would be discrimination.

Read the judgement so you understand what is and isn’t required.

supremecourt.uk/cases/judgments/uksc-2024-0042

A third space has actual accessibility purposes. Parents with opposite sex children, teens and adults with SEND who need to be accompanied by carers or relatives, and of course a third space permits the women who consent to use a mixed sex space to do so.

Yes, it will not be good in terms of validation or in terms of having compelled the non consenting women to submit, but the whole point of the judgement was 'you can't have everything'.

Probably a good idea to make sure that some of those questions innundating the EHRC are coming from women so it's not a wholly one sided thing.

It will be the obvious next step: that where provision is made, accessibility is equal. There can no longer be mixed sex and mens without there being a womens too.

From the statement by the EHRC they will be policing this.

Sarah Montague often has me shouting at turning off the radio for interrupting and speaking over a great many of the people she is interviewing. She didn't this time. Funny that.

But do they need a third space? We've been told there are, what, 64 genders? Do they all get their own space? Or shall we keep it more realistic and merely have female non-binary, male non-binary, MtF, FtM...

There’s also a fundamental flaw in using Equalities Law to police sex separation, in that there is a safety aspect that only goes one way that does not exist with any of the other PCs…

AND a lot of people can’t or have never had the need to think that on an abstract level, self-ID will allow literally ANYONE in. They say things like “yeah but you’d know if they were “at it”” or “nobody would go to the lengths of pretending” - they don’t understand how laws actually work, that a rule then must be applied without fear or favour. They think that somehow there will be a sensible person in the shop or wherever in the moment who will magically be able to step in and veto people who are exploiting it. It’s naive but it’s how lots of people operate. Which is fair enough on some level but that’s why you need to legislate for bad faith actors whenever you make abstract rules.

A thought - it would be possible to make current provision mixed sex, but if they do this simply by changing the notice on the door, and relabelling them "with" and "without urinals", would it be possible to make a case for indirect sex discrimination? Some would be making full provision for one sex while others wouldn't. You could argue that while nominally they were mixed sex, in reality the previous sexed based purposing of the faciltiies was continuing.

I was amazed at that. Apart from anything else, what she was suggesting would be illegal.

The vast majority of the general public still see Trans as vulnerable. They imagine confused effeminate man in a dress who has had surgery. We urgently need to get the message out on this.

There are already spaces that people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment can use.

They use the toilet appropriate to their sex, as based on that characteristic they have the same rights as everyone else.

Men who are now wailing that they can't go out in public if they can't use female toilets are saying the quiet part out loud.

This is indeed a risk and thus it is why we need to flesh out the argument that NOT invoking the SS exemption is in itself sex discrimination because it inevitably exposes women to more detriment - safety in particular - than men.

If companies and council/government buildings do not provide single sex facilities, whether that is a toilet or a changing room, then women in particular may have to bring cases claiming direct discrimination, as they can no longer take part in public life.

I can't see those cases failing now and it may only take one or two high profile ones to make everyone else fall into line.

(And of course in the case of employers the workplace regulations are crystal clear.)

Or trans ppl can use spaces for their biological sex

Legally they will have to make sure there is space for trans people as they aren’t allowed to discriminate so either they will need to have a third space or they will have to make existing spaces neutral.

Another thought, they’d really have to remove urinalysis to have men’s as gender neutral which would be expensive which venues won’t want to, or men will have to use cubicles which men won’t want to I should imagine. I think venues will be more bothered by upsetting men than they were women.

So time for men to ‘be kind and inclusive’ to TW in their spaces.

I note that many female gym users are now moving towards a preference for female only sessions.......and are sick of being perved on by men in mixed sex sessions.

They might do this but I am hoping most places will just say ‘ not my fault gov, it’s the law that says it men’s and women’s innit’

The whole gender bollocks thing has been shown to be far more problematic and far less popular than it was when organizations started changing provision. So I am hoping they will just revert back to how things used to be.