What practical difference do you think the SC ruling will make?

Then it’s necessarily single-sex already!

Yes only big enough for 1 person.

Do you mean single as in one person at a time uses it? If so, that sounds fine.

We have a single gender neutral changing room at work. Staff done need to get changed very often but do occasionally. Is this still allowed?

It works well, people pop in when getting changed and then take their stuff with them. It is one of the cases where gender neutral works perfectly.

Its not a quote from but a paraphrase of the judgement.
https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_judgment_aea6c48cee.pdf
Press summary is here
https://supremecourt.uk/uploads/uksc_2024_0042_press_summary_8a42145662.pdf
The whole process was live streamed and is still on their website here
https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042#case-summary

I think this is the starting point for change. Where SSS are mandated, there is more weight to have them enforced if necessary. The EHRC would be the ones to do that I would imagine. This creates circumstances that make the denial of the need for SSSs harder where it’s not mandated. Why would any org argue that they don’t need to provide female only changing areas or toilets, if they’ve already provided them for staff?

This is almost the reverse of what Scottish Trans Alliance did in strategic activism by targeting female prisons & women who had no voice or say in who was housed alongside them. The argument was that if STA could persuade prisons to disregard female inmates the right to privacy, dignity & safety, then no other institution or organisation could argue against male
inclusion in female provision. This is how we’ve ended up here - where all female provision has been changed to mixed sex, without women agreeing to this.

I’m well aware lots of women are fine with this set up - so the arguments for 3rd spaces that cater to both trans identifying people & their many female allies are bolstered by all these progressive women & men who will absolutely utilise these 3rd mixed sex spaces to demonstrate their commitment to allyship & support for this most marginalised group of people.

It’s clearly a win win for everyone. Women have their rights to privacy, dignity, safety respected, those who feel ‘unsafe’ in our presence, who are offended by us having rights to maintain those boundaries for privacy, dignity & safety, who are concerned about what all those vulnerable people will do etc. can feel very good about achieving something tangible for ‘trans rights’ while still feeling morally superior in all ways to women.

I can’t imagine anyone taking issue with this brave new world ahead of us. What could possibly go wrong? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes and if you look at their website they use the terms children and young people not boys

whereas the WI only uses the term woman

The Boys Brigade has been mixed sex for a while without changing its name. So this is possible but they admit all girls and all boys.

Exactly - just get your Nigel to apply and he can sue if not included.

It does mean they must be excluded unless ALL men are included.
Otherwise a boy who wants to go to a girls' school but doesn't identify as trans is being discriminated against, because another boy can go to the school.

Except that they can now no longer exclude any men.

They’ll have to change something. This, from their FAQs is clear that membership is only available to women. If they allow transwomen but not other males they’re being discriminatory.

I want to see enforcement. And first off I want to see big payouts for all the nurses who’ve been bullied to Tribunals. BIIIG payouts. Because only legal liability for screwing women over stops them screwing women over.

Or just be very clear that they include men in their definition of women so that people can make an informed decision

So the Women's Institute will either have to exclude men or change its name?

I think the SC ruling will strengthen the legal position for women who get screwed over in their workplace for standing up for themselves. Plenty of tribunals and court cases still to come, I expect.

As stated earlier the justification for providing a SS facility in some circumstances will be because if they didn’t, they would not be adhering to other legislation. I think there is also now something in the building regulations now, about the provision of single sex toilets for new non residential buildings where they have to provide them and can’t get away with all gender neutral ones.

From last Wednesday,

If it says "female" or "women" or "girls" on the door
of a changing room, toilet, refuge, service
no males no matter how they present, may enter.
If providers want to allow males they have to change the signs to "mixed sex "

The Women's Institute and the Girl Guides will have to clarify that they are mixed sex.

All male prisoners have to be moved out of the female prison estate.

Providers are welcome to be trans inclusive
but they cannot do so while pretending they are single sex

Any areas where other laws require single sex (school toilets, workplace toilets, workplace changing rooms) need to ensure that they comply with the law as it was actually written
not as advocacy groups pretended it was.

Fresh signs in many spaces on Tuesday I suspect.

I think any employers who still don’t comply will change their tune once the various NHS nurses’ cases conclude (although they’ll likely settle now anyway).

For service providers who don’t have the same obligation to provide single-sex spaces but try to continue to segregate toilets, changing rooms, etc by gender identity, I think it will probably take a few people (men, women or both) making discrimination complaints/claims under the EA before service providers are deterred going forward, as it will become obvious how high-risk the strategy of knowingly breaching the EA would be.

I think even for companies who have tweeted their intentions to defy the law, once their legal advisors explain the risks and it starts potentially affecting their finances, they will quietly change their minds.

For example, companies’ bank loans will have ongoing representations that they’re not knowingly breaking the law, etc, so while management might have been be happy for their social media person to tweet support for gender ideology on the day of the judgment, the practical implications of knowingly defying the law will make that an unworkable position in the longer-term.

What would the legitimate purpose of providing a space or service marked as for ‘women’ that also admitted males?

Oh I think it will have to be enforced, otherwise organisations are at risk of claims for not protecting spaces they have said are single sex.

i don’t think much will change in respect of things like loos in train stations, shops etc, but I do think hospitals, gyms etc will change their policy to comply with the law.

I do have concerns that some places may do away with single sex spaces or take women’s
spaces away to be “unisex”.

I expect they will await the EHRC guidance. But I hope existing single-sex spaces are not lost. The only justification for their existence is to meet a legitimate aim: if they go, the aim will be unfulfilled.

If we had not had six years of politics being almost about one thing only (Brexit then Covid), then there might have been such a political discussion. If there had been a grown up Tory party engaging with the SNP instead of it getting to the Supreme Court to decide, possibly likewise.