EHRC on Woman’s Hour 21/5/25

https://thelawdictionary.org/decision/

It is a legal decision. The decision of the court. Standard wording for a judicial determination.

A conclusion reached after an evaluation of facts and law.

I don’t think so, but then I don’t agree with your definition of ‘decide’ either. Anyway, here’s a screenshot from the summary at the end of the judgment which might clarify for you. supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042

I've just started to catch up.
right at the beginning they're doing the intro - supreme court judgement...
"it decided that the terms women and sex in the equality act..."

Is this how they see it?
decided. ie: invented, made up, changed the law?

Rather than "restated, reconfirmed, made clear"

Its irrelevent to the EA. Identifying as something has not status.

So is not a protected characteristic.

Why is this still clogging up this thread?

If you think it is a serious discussion why not start a thread about potential problems for clubs and associations and the Equality Act.

And then it there ever are any actual relevent points being made more would see them?

If you want to have a lesbians and straight men identifying as lesbians picnic you could I think do the following:

You can have a lesbians' society (female + sexuality pcs)
You can have a straight men with gr status society (male + sexuality + gr status pcs)
Each society involves an intersection of protected characteristics so is allowed.
The two societies can decide to team up and run a joint event.

I'm not against people doing this if it's what they want to do. By having the lesbians' society without any men in, they are free to decide democratically (or indeed despotically if the society is so constituted) if they want joint events or not. And other lesbians are free to say they want to have their own society without all the joint events with males in. And everyone is free to decide which of those societies they want to join.

No, that cuts across protected characteristics.

It's not a single-sex organisation, because some men are included (and some women excluded). It's not an association for people who are same-sex attracted, because some people who are opposite-sex attracted are included (amd some who are same-sex attracted are excluded).

It's exactly the sort of nonsense grouping the supreme court said made the alternative interpretation of the EA unworkable.

'Lesbians and anyone who identifies as a lesbian' then, yes, any man could join.

I dont know why this is still going on on this thead.

This is about the EA.

Identifying as something has no legal status.

That is just pure Stonewall poppycock.

Organisations presumably can say "whilst we are open to anyone joining, this organisation is aimed at X and events, wording and discussions will be arranged around the needs of X"

But there is nothing stopping them including all men.
If they promoted themselves as 'Lesbians and anyone who identifies as a lesbian' then, yes, any man could join. It doesn't mean that every man would want to join, so they would probably end up with a group of like minded people and everyone would be happy. I mean, they'd probably end up with a group of just men who were unhappy about there being no lesbians, but nobody would have been discriminated against.

Telegraph has picked up on this interview

Parliament told to obey ‘law of the land’ over trans ban
https://archive.is/bkd45

I agree with this summary. I didn't even find the occasional brief drop in sound quality a problem. She handled Nuala well

I also liked that Nuala clearly found this frustrating, rendering any potential gotchas ineffective.

It's pretty clear to me that Nuala is on the side of TWAW / #bekind / they just want to pee

I've never heard such bad-tempered and under-informed whatabouttmenz? guff on WH before.

Yes it was the Scottish government position I think - because if their interpretation won the day lesbians would not be able to exclude tw with a grc from social groups, they could instead have an association for gender critical lesbians. I expect it helped the judges to see that sex must mean biological sex.

It has been explained numerous times, in many threads. And by Akua Reindorff. No mix and match of characteristics. Everyone must share all of them.

Quite honestly I am not sure and hadn't really paid any attention to the detail.

As had really come on the thread to find out about the interview.

Seems these days most threads deviate from the OP and just become general discussions around issues already covered elsewhere or could be their own thread.

My mistake for allowing myself to get side tracked.

Just to add I am really concerned about what will happen to the EHRC one Baroness Falkner leaves.

yes, but it has to be an AND not an OR. You can have an association for female same-sex attracted people, but not for people who are either female or same-sex attracted. Job advertising is different (under certain very restricted circumstances, you can advertise things for underrepresented groups only - I've never understood exactly what the rules are, but it happens for certain academic fellowships, for example).

That EHRC guidance is old (2014) but its p20 still seems pertinent.

Just had time to listen on catch up. I thought the Baroness was very good, speaking from her remit as Chair of the EHRC she focused on the law and how it should be interpreted and implemented. I liked that she told questioners that they should read the judgement and guidance and avoided getting drawn into specifics. I also liked that Nuala clearly found this frustrating, rendering any potential gotchas ineffective.

Not sure if there is a later version.

What equality law means for your association, club or society
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what-equality-law-means-for-your-association-club-or-society.docx

You can have an association based on 2 protected characteristic, ie sex and sexual orientation.

Just as some jobs are advertised under sex and race.

No, associations can have rules that include all people with the SAME set of protected characteristics, but they can't mix and match. If they include any men, they have to include all men.

I haven't listened to the programme and know that had I been listening I would have got aggravated by a bad phone line. And think that they shouldn't use one if it isn't reliable or do, which sometimes they do, of dialing up the person on an old fashioned land line.

(Sorry - it really irritates me)

But I am not saying this is the reason, but am very aware that since the Court ruling, and the issuing of the Interim Guidelines, Kishwer Falkner has come under a sustained attack by the usual suspects. And an inference that her own staff are being quite hostile.

So as PP have said I am sure she was being this is now the law, these are the consequences. In fact it wouldn't be her place to say the judgement was good or bad for anyone group or another. It is to look at the judgement and see how it impacts on various laws.

But wonder if she is now back in a hostile work place, which if it is now (again) must be complete shit given the torture she was put through before.

I dread to think who Labour will engineer to take over her job.

Surely the answer is yes. They can include anyone they want in their group as long as they make it clear that’s what they are doing.
If they explicitly say it is for lesbians but then allow men to join they could be challenged in court.

There was some discussion in the SC case, IIRR, of something like, could there be an association for women who were same sex attracted AND shared the protected belief of being gender critical. I think the answer was basically yes, but that if the SC case had gone the other way the problem was that you still couldn't have excluded men with a GRC who claimed to be attracted to women and said that they were GC - regardless of how nonsensical their presence in such an association might appear. (I think part of that may be my extrapolation, but there was, I'm pretty sure, some discussion about whether you could get round the problems by appending "and GC beliefs" to some of the other PCs.)

I don't think they could create a group open to lesbians plus all men, because that discriminates against women who aren't lesbians. The short answer does indeed seem to be "no". (As Naomi Cunningham said at the the LSE!)

My guess is that you could create a group that's open to everyone but mostly it's transwomen and women who want to hang out with transwomen want to go. Like a group that hosts LGBTetc "bring your own frock" events, all welcome!