Houses of Parliament refuses to ban trans women from female lavatories

If facilities are for women, no men can use them . It's really not complex. You cannot have 'women and transwomen only ' because that unlawfully discriminates against other men.Everything is either totally unisex, or divided by biological sex.

https://www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/expert-comment/post/102kb9l/do-retailers-have-to-provide-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms-for-their-cust

Tbh, your questioning of the self-evident implications of the judgement seems to be based on a need to see these implications expressed precisely as you wish, in particular phraseology, as opposed to multiple equally clear alternatives.

I’m still struggling on my phone, but quite frankly, this sub-heading from the HOC Library should be enough.

“The Supreme Court has ruled that references to “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act refer to biological sex (a person’s sex at birth).”

Thank you, but that's the EHRC guidance ruling, which has already been mentioned and isn't the same thing as the SC ruling I was asking about.

Of course, it does raise an interesting second question of "at what point does guidance become the standard interpretation of a law that does not expressly state what the guidance does".

I think the crux of the point here, which is very much worth considering, is this: Is there a legal basis for the SC ruling to be challenged. I'm not legally qualified so don't know the answer, but for obvious reasons would like to be certain of whether or not our interpretation of the SC ruling can actually be challenged.

Until then, I will say again, SC ruling is on the definition of a women. It is up to organisations, institutions, and individuals to then interpret that ruling;

they're quite explicit that sex is biological sex, and woman means biological woman.

And it's my understanding that if you use the single sex exceptions in the equality act to exclude men, this includes transwomen, because they're men.

If you don't use the SSE, then you are not excluding men. Any of them.

But if you do exclude any man, it includes transwomen.

Conversely, if you include transwomen, you have to include all men. For the purposes of the equality act, they are the same.

So you can have a mixed sex space that includes men and women, but if you call it a single sex space, by invoking the SSE, it is exactly that.

edited to correct the numerous typos that made that absolute gibberish

Until then, I will say again, SC ruling is on the definition of a women. It is up to organisations, institutions, and individuals to then interpret that ruling; hence the EHRC issuing interim guidance stating that trans women should not be permitted to use women's facilities in workplaces and public-facing services like shops and hospitals.

I get the sense you fundamentally misunderstand.

You do understand that the EA2010 is existing law, right?

If you want to understand the effect of this ruling you need to be reading the Equality Act. Not just looking for magic words about what organisations can and can't do in the text of this judgment.

The relevant law is the Equality Act. Read that.

@BeizenderKarneval And this one.

@BeizenderKarneval Read the comment I have quoted.

Please can you reference the section(s) of the SC ruling that expressly state that that only 'women', as defined by said ruling, are permitted into female-only spaces?

Another point is that this is tautological. A female-only space is a female-only space.

And then the actual real text about female-only spaces isn't in the ruling.

It's in the Equality Act itself. The SC ruling didn't say what organisations have to do - it said how to interpret the EA2010, which does.

Summarised on this particular point it says:

1. Sex discrimination is not permitted.
2. Except to bar one sex from a single-sex space.

And we've just clarified the definition of sex - GRCs don't count.

Simple.

Yep. Turn up for the books!

Link to the consultation:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/code-practice-consultation-2025-changes-apply-across-code

Interesting that even on this board we get the incorrect, over confident misrepresentations of the law. The guidance that's now out for consultation goes through numerous scenarios but there's no consultation about the ruling that single sex spaces are completely legal.

I should also make it clear, if it's not already, that I do not support trans-women coming back into our spaces; but with so much misinformation flying about right now, I just want to be accurate in my understanding

That's perfectly fair and I'm very happy to wait. In fact, I'll re-read the SC ruling again whilst I do as I'm genuinely curious to learn if I did miss something.

Women (including trans identified ones), and gay and lesbian people, have legal protections onf paper and in theory but in practice apparently, the law is just kind of rough guidelines that let you make 'choices'.

That was my original point. I'm very, very happy to change that interpretation based on new facts if they can be supplied, but I could not find anywhere in the SC ruling any clause that states it is a requirement to ban trans-women from female bathrooms. I know you want it to be there, we all do, but I don't think it is.

I'm very open to being proved wrong on this if anyone can please direct me to the section of the ruling that actually states this.

Until then, I will say again, SC ruling is on the definition of a women. It is up to organisations, institutions, and individuals to then interpret that ruling; hence the EHRC issuing interim guidance stating that trans women should not be permitted to use women's facilities in workplaces and public-facing services like shops and hospitals.

Aha! Thank you, @NecessaryScene. 🙏

I would… but am on my phone, ill & subject to lots of interruptions, so please don’t take a subsequent silence as an admission it’s not there (apologies for pre-empting this possibility, but we get a lot of cynical posters unwilling to engage meaningfully here). I’ll try to get it onscreen & paste, but if I struggle or go quiet, & if you’re more free, you’ll be quicker yourself! A quick skim will get you there. Or someone else will help.

Please can you reference the section(s) of the SC ruling that expressly state that that only 'women', as defined by said ruling, are permitted into female-only spaces?

You could start by reading the summary.

265. We are aware that this is a long judgment. It may assist therefore if we summarise our reasoning.

[...]

(xiv) There are other provisions whose proper functioning requires a biological interpretation of “sex”. These include separate spaces and single-sex services (including changing rooms, hostels and medical services), communal accommodation and others (paras 210-228).
...

And then go back to paragraphs 210-228 as indicated.

Creating something "female-only" is something that is legislated by the exemptions in the equality act - however "female" would be defined. The only legal way of excluding "men" to do it is to meet the "single-sex" exemptions, and they've now clarified that those are based on biological sex - with the reasoning for your female-only spaces in paragraphs 210-228. So the only legal "single-sex" discrimination to create such spaces is based on biological sex.

If your space isn't female-only, the EA exemptions and ruling on "female" don't affect you. But other regulations do require female-only facilities, eg workplace toilets. Which then means they must be biologically-female-only to be legal by the EA.

The ruling is easy to read. So is the EHRC guidance. Both easily availabe on line

All of that.

It's been staggering and grim to watch.

Women (including trans identified ones), and gay and lesbian people, have legal protections onf paper and in theory but in practice apparently, the law is just kind of rough guidelines that let you make 'choices'.

Of course the game plan is getting obvious now that if you ignore the actual law and wait for the guidance which will be discussed in parliament, you not only have a long time to continue doing what you want, you also have a hope that a bunch of stupid and fantastically misogynist MPs will somehow find a way to destroy those very inconvenient protections to those groups and enables a small group of men to access non consenting women in a state of undress or extreme vulnerability, including for sexual purposes, and ensures lesbians can't escape those men either.

Honestly, what is the point of MPs if the law is meaningless and so is any kind of ethics? Why bother?

No. If they choose to call it single-sex, it has to be single-sex.

Wait a minute, the Scottish parliament, who are completely batshit, have already changed their toilet arrangements , and Westminster won't??

Who is the senior person responsible for the decision?

Oh well the ladies will have to put up with piss over the pan for a little longer yet

Keep copies of everything

Even the Scottish Parliament has sorted their toilets, and they are both institutionally misogynist and generally incompetent, so it's clearly not that difficult