Houses of Parliament refuses to ban trans women from female lavatories

Maybe we need to be doing some more protestin in the HoP.

There's a good long history of it.

https://ukvote100.org/2018/02/19/ladies-allowed-how-women-were-banned-from-central-lobby-and-re-admitted-100-years-ago/

True

Do tell!

There's a whole 'women's tour' of the HoP.

https://virtualtour.parliament.uk/womenandparliament

They already have.
https://www.parliament.uk/visiting/venue-hire/commons/planning/accessibility/toilets/

Whilst we are talking about legislation I would like toilets in schools to have floor to door gaps so any children that have epilepsy or diabetes or any other condition or event (spiked vapes etc) that may cause them to collapse without warning, are able to attend school safely. The positive side effects of this would be that toilets would have to be single sex, and less sexual assaults would happen in toilets. It would be the best way to reduce the number of children who die in school toilets, as all schools should have a defibrillator now.

But 'not allowed' might mean.......

<wangle wangle wangle wangle somehow this means women cannot have boundaries that men don't like>

My MP says it. The most important thing about women's rights is that they are respectful to men.

It would be perfectly simple to re designate a population proportionate number of those m/f spaces as gender neutral, and signpost them.

They are not acting because they do not want to respect women's protections in law.

It begs the question why they are not adding some unisex facilities in addition to the male/female? Is it because the HoP is a very old (presumably listed) building so they have a lot of limitations?

I imagine for a long time there were no female facilities in the building and presumably at some point in the latter 20th century they had to adapt for that - maybe repurposing what at one point would have been all male facilities. Do they have disabled facilities in the building now?

The most practical solution for a very old building like the HoP would be to just have the M/F facilities they already have but that would upset the TRAs in the building. So perhaps in absence of having the space and planning permission to create extra unisex space they think it's a good idea to flout the judgment.

@MyOliveHelper Link to the latest YouGov Polling on the SC ruling [and previous polls on transgender issues]

https://yougov.co.uk/(popup:search/transgender;type=surveys)

@BeizenderKarneval “Should” in this case is equivalent to “ought to”, which links to obligation and duty around expected action. Not a suggestion.

I know some fun facts about Parliament loos. They have an interesting history.

Building regs do.

The term now accepted is ‘universal’.

Though I know that Parliament currently say they have gender neutral.

It would seem the respect they want to show to everyone that works or visits the House of Commons doesn't extend to women. At least we know what these fuckwits think of us.

Wouldn't it be nice if the EHRC issued the guidance, and then issued a piece of paper that said

this means transwomen are not allowed in women's toilets unless you call them unisex, and admit all men. In which case the women can sue. If you don't get it, please see the dry, legal document above.

As I said upthread, I'm sure we will be seeing court cases and ETs soon.

What is also clear is that the majority of the public want and expect facilities to be single sex. So as well as legal risks, businesses will also need to consider the branding risk and financial implications of the public taking their business elsewhere.

It will be a case of someone in a court room saying 'yes, by law I should not have permitted this to happen, but....<Reasons>'.

It's not going to go well, is it?

Or someone who identifies as their mum, perhaps. I can actually imagine someone trying this on.

All this talk about 'should' and 'must' ignores that behind the words lie implied sanctions.

If you provide sex-segregated spaces, you will lay yourself open to a sex-discrimination claim (against which you will have no defence, to the annoyance of your insurers) if you do not keep them strictly sex-segregated.

Some sex-segregation is mandated by law.

And there's case law that says that a failure to provide sex-segregated spaces can also lay you open to a sex-discrimination claim, which the guidance alludes to.

It's not rocket science.

Yes, NecessaryScene, it's the "accompanied" part that makes taking kids in seem reasonable to us (btw, you copied part of what I wrote before I corrected the typo, I wrote "objection" for "exception"). But does anything legal say that? It would need to be in the EA, as it relates to provision for service users, and I think it isn't.

I think you have a good point in that this political movement has effectively ended common sense, shared meaning and good will being possible to rely on any more. Rather like vexatious complainants have to be recognised in legal processes because of the abuse of process: similar boundaries will be required.

The trouble is, it's not clear to me what makes that legally different from what TRAs would say is a common sense objection to which nobody with any sense would object, viz, allowing men who attempt to pass as women in.

They will need to get their mum to bring them in, for starters.

MyOliveHelper
There's nothing to say that single sex facilities must be provided.

ChateauMargaux
I fear that this is the way things will go... single sex provision is not legally required..

HM Government disagrees.

Part T 2024 of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010 states very clearly
The objective of this requirement is to require toilet accommodation in non-residential buildings to be separate single-sex toilets, with single-sex shared or individual hand-washing facilities.

Couldn't be clearer - single sex toilets AND hand washing facilities are required.

Unisex, or 'universal' toilets, as they are officially called, are optional unless there is no space for the required single-sex toilets
Universal toilets can be provided in addition to single-sex provision and where space allows. Where there is not sufficient space to provide single-sex toilets, fully enclosed universal toilets should be provided.

[Note 'can', not 'must', or 'should', though a pedant like me would have preferred 'may be provided in addition...' - lots of fun there for BeizenderKarneval ]

Unisex toilets have a specific definition:
fully enclosed room which contains a water-closet and washbasin and hand-drying facilities, and is intended for individual use by persons of either sex.

so just taking all the signs off the women's and men's toilets and sticking on a new sign and declaring them 'unisex' does not make them a building regs compliant unisex toilets.

Oh and building regs have even something to say about signs :
All toilet accommodation should have clear and appropriate signage.

Toilet accommodation: Approved Document T - I'm sure there's a copy in the HoC library...

I am a bit bothered about the kids thing, I must admit, because it's not covered explicitly in the law, is it? That is, there isn't a stated exception saying that young children of the wrong sex can be in a single-sex-exemption-using space without making it mixed sex. To us, it's obvious that they are a common sense exception, to which nobody with any sense would object. The trouble is, it's not clear to me what makes that legally different from what TRAs would say is a common sense exception to which nobody with any sense would object, viz, allowing men who attempt to pass as women in.