LGBT Groups and the EHRC Guidance

Slightly tangential, but whilst a group to represent LGB and T would seem to me to be lawful, it shoud be unlawful to deny what it is to be L or G or B, which means an LGBT group would only make sense if it was careful to ensure that it was also only for gender critical people. It would make no sense if there was a group for LGB people, but who also included T people who denied what homosexuality is.

An LGBTQI+ group would be full of 'spicy straights' and people identifying as queer and furries many of whom would be straight... it would be a group of very diverse people united around only one thing: their belief in gender ideology.

In all honesty the only people such a group would wish to exclude would be those who are non compliant or heretical regarding gender ideology, which would be many LGB people.

They would not however be able to do so using the Equality Act.

What is the belief?

There's a gender ideology belief, but that's just the T.

This is also how I understand it.

Was itching to add this, so I'll just echo!

Yes, your LGB group can include same-sex attracted people who perform a gender identity, while excluding everyone else.

What you can't have is an exclusively LGBT group where some of the T are opposite-sex attracted.

You can be lawfully exclusive if your group consists ONLY of people sharing the SAME protected characteristics.

Frankly, women who say they're lesbians and like shagging 'female penis' owners aren't lesbians. They're either straight or bi.
Bisexuals are same-sex attracted, so if their group is LGB or LB and their trans friends are also bi, it's all good.

Meanwhile, trans people can carry on having exclusively trans-only meetings where they plot how to silence women.

There really isn't a problem.

LGBT might be a protected belief. So perhaps an LGBT ideological meeting could go ahead just like, say, a Quakers meeting.

I think a lot of contributors not only to this thread but to others have had a humour by pass today.

Personally not only do I think that the GRA / GRC should be disapplied to the EA, but the GRA should be repealed.

But in the meantime, the EA has gender reassignment as a protected characteristic which via a GRC, in some circumstances, means a person has a "legal sex" that is not their birth sex.

And despite Labour lying to their teeth when they wrote the EA one of the clause in the SSE was about the ONLY times a single sex service could legally exclude someone with a GRC.

ie despite the lies Labour is telling now they always intended that those with a GRC (except for a very few occassion) were legally the opposite to their birth sex.

However, finally at the Supreme Court they recognised that in including gender reassignment as a protected characteristic the protected characteristic of sex was being impinged on.

No other protected characteristic was treated in this way in the EA.

So in clarifying that the word sex in the EA could only mean biology they were undermining the attempt by Labour to socially engineer as law that somehow sex could be 2 things.

That's why the only people actually impacted by the Supreme Court ruling are those with a GRC or on the route to a GRC. What "rights" they did have in the EA have been removed.

But the Court stressed that this only applied to the EA. ie in relation to discrimination or alternatively achieving equality. (eg only biological women on a company board would be counted towards achieving equality on a board. Not allow TW to be said to have made a board equal.).

So as this thread has been about the EA, not about how society as a whole, or social events etc., organise themselves, I was in a labourioius way saying that to form a trans only group under the EA would mean it would be hard to talk about it also potentially being about sexual attraction as there would be contradition to those who are trans as to whether the EA meant they could only talk about being sexually attracted to someone of the same sex or even the opposite sex by having to out yourself to reveal your birth sex. ie you are using a protected characteristic under the EA which says sex is only biological, your group has to function on that level. But for many, if not all trans people, they want the affirmation that they are accepted as the "sex" their GRC gives them - which the Supreme Court has not invalidated (when operating within the remit of the EA).

Edited to add - the EA does not recognise self identity.

Exactly.
The SC decided that in effect the GRA was disapplied from the EA.
A MCW is a man with the PC of GR.
A woman who claims to be a man is a woman with the PC of GR.

Also, just to reiterate, the EA is an anti-discrimination law. The starting premise is that you may not discriminate against anyone on the basis of any of 9 PCs unless you can rely on one of the exceptions in the Act.

So LGBTQ groups aren't "illegal", but restricting access to/membership of the group for non-trans heterosexuals is unlawful because some heterosexuals - people who claim a trans identity - are included. Nor could you lawfully exclude L, G or B people who do not claim a trans identity.

IANAL but I think you could justify restricting access/membership if the raison d'etre of the group was belief-based. That would be the PC that they shared.

No this bit you wrote is wrong: “I was pointing out that under the EA having a GRC means you legally become the other sex”

The EA has nothing to do with having a GRC. That’s a separate piece of legislation.

The Scottish govt argued that a GRC changed your sex for the EA but they lost.

The SC ruled that there’s no ambiguity or confusion in the EA: sex can only mean biological sex.

A GRC is irrelevant for the purposes of the EA. The protected characteristic of gender reassignment does not mean and does not require the person to have a GRC.

That is an interesting contribution. Thanks.

So which is the sexual attraction. Your legal sex or your birth sex.

Sex.is biological. Therefore sexuality is based on biological sex. The SC judgement had a whole section explaining it with reference to lesbians.

Sexuality is defined by sex. So its definition is affected by the SC judgement.

But arguably yes, LGBT could be viewed as a mixed characteristic group that would fail the EA criteria under either the SC or ScotGov interpretation. Or you could say that under the ScotGov version, LGB sexualities all translate to 'anyone attracted to anyone' - which would make the group open to all and therefore allowed.

I think you've misread that para.

I think you misread my intent. ie I was pointing out that under the EA having a GRC means you legally become the other sex. But the recent ruling said that in the EA sex was always biological. So which is the sexual attraction. Your legal sex or your birth sex.

And as most people with a GRC the whole point it to be accepted as having changed sex what attraction is there in being with people who are saying their sex is a legal construction rather than being able to persuade somebody who has stuck with their biological sex to accept someone with a legal sex as "being that sex".

So a support group for people with a GRC could be a support group. But would provide not support for sexual orientation.

Which would it be? The certified sex or the biological sex?

So an LGB group for people who are same sex attracted would include lesbians, gay men and bi people of both sexes. It would also include trans people who are attracted to people of their own biological sex.

Which was the original configuration of the LGBT, as heterosexual AGPs were in general hostile to gays and lesbians and didn't see themselves part of the gay rights movement, and stayed away. This is why the T made sense at the time. Ironically, adding the T could be read as: you might think that because you present as female you're not welcome but we still consider you gay (i.e. you're still a man 😮) and you're always welcome! But it would be wrong to say there was just one interpretation of the T and certainly it was contentious.

Surely the SC clarification is irrelevant? It was only to do with the definition of sex. An LGBT group doesn’t differentiate by sex: it’s open equally to males and females, so what’s changed?

I think you've misread that para.

As I said, the trans group would be for people attracted to either sex (or, which I left out for the same of brevity, both) - i.e. sexuality is not a consideration. And because it is not a consideration, for this group it doesn't matter how same/opposite is defined.

First of all, for years, women's network groups in corporations have been told they have to accept men joining because it would be illegal to have a women only group. Many corporate women's network allows men (actual self-identifying male men) as members - in practice they don't join (usually). If you're worried about being sued, allow 'straight allies' to join in your constitution, keep it on the down low and calm down, no hets will join. Why would they?

Secondly, you're making the naive mistake in thinking that because something is illegal, it's enforced. It rarely is. Rape is common and widely practised without punishment (99%+) as is disability / maternity / pregnancy discriimination. Most burglaries go unprosecuted. At the other end, littering, fly tipping and streaming IP without paying - all illegal, all rarely prosecuted. You usually have to get 6 figures in legal fees and 3-5 years of your life to get the EA enforced.

Not forgetting if it is less than 25 participants it is not covered by the EA.

When it has no formal rules or fewer than 25 members

Clubs which have no formal rules governing membership or whose membership is less than 25 are not associations in equality law.

For example:
• A book-reading club run by a group of friends.
• A walking club which anyone who finds out about it can belong to.
• A choir which is open to anyone who works at a particular place but where no approval is required to join.

This sort of informal ‘club’ is not covered by equality law at all.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/equalityguidance-associationclubsociety-2015-final.pdf

A T group for people covered by the gender reassignment characteristic would include trans people attracted to either sex, but exclude LGB people who are not trans.

But this wouldn't work because in terms of the law someone with a GRC is "legally" the opposite sex.

But under the Supreme Court ruling, can no longer claim that "legal" sex within the context of the EA because the ruling said that for the purposes of the EA sex was biological.

ie the previous "legal right" to claim that for all purposes someone with a GRC was the opposite sex is no longer true in relation to the EA.

So it wouldn't ever be a group about sexual orientation as those with a GRC would have to declare their birth sex. Or it would be difficult to classify as being same sex attracted.

Could make a complicated meet up if linked to sexual orientation!

But as a club or society support group for people with a GRC obviously okay.

Right, there are couple of different issues rolled up here (who can be in a group, and what a group is), so let's break it down.

Firstly, if you have an exclusive¹ group that is covered by the Equality Act then whatever the inclusion characteristics are must all be shared by everyone in the group.

So an LGB group for people who are same sex attracted would include lesbians, gay men and bi people of both sexes. It would also include trans people who are attracted to people of their own biological sex. It would exclude trans people attracted to people of the opposite biological sex.

A T group for people covered by the gender reassignment characteristic would include trans people attracted to either sex, but exclude LGB people who are not trans.

An LGBT group includes people with a mix of characteristics, and not everyone will share all of them. So it's not allowed.

So your initial concern is not unfounded. You cannot have an exclusive¹ group that is covered by the Equality Act that includes all of LGB and T.

But.

You could have an LGB group and a T group who hold joint events. (If anyone challenges the legal technicalities you might also need to hold some separate events, to show clearly they are separate groups - but it's unlikely anyone would get that nitpicky. Just having separate membership lists is probably enough.)

Or you could have an LGBT group that is not covered by the Equality Act.

Groups only count as 'associations for the purposes of the Act' if they have 25 or more people and have membership criteria.

An LGBT and allies group (or event, service etc) that was aimed at LGBT people but let anyone join in, would be absolutely fine.

A group for 'people interested in the LGBT lifestyle'² would be fine.

So technically it does cause some difficulties for mixed groups, but there are workarounds if people want them.

¹ In the sense of including people with certain protected characteristics and therefore excluding people without them.

² Whatever that might mean - it can be as broad as Stonewall's umbrella.

Plus I second Flirts' point earlier - what do you have in common?

Just want to illuminate this a little:

Actually I do think LGBT people do share genuine social challenges / experiences that are tied to Patriachy's ideas about what is "ok" and my list of examples was a genuine attempt to show that.

Without denying the utter mess that T- and Q-politics have made of the LGB political movement I don't think the narrative that "T jumped on totally separate LGB" is entirely fair. Some strands of cross sex identity or performance have long associations with L, B and/or G culture and people.

Like so many things, it's best to stop thinking of "T" as one thing and see it more properly as a whole bunch of different reasons people adopt a cross sex persona, some of which do align and overlap with LGB experiences and politics. Commonalities that come from shared history and shared oppression are no less real than ones that come from shared bodies.

One reasons that #NoDebate is so bloody frustrating is that by refusing to accept there are meaningful and fundamental differences between groups (TW and women, LGB and T) and within groups we can't have conversations about what we share, conversations that would actually build shared understanding and insight.

The whole question doesn't make sense.

T isn't a protected characteristic, gender reassignment is. Unless we want to define T narrowly as people with GRC, the protected characteristic doesn't get into play for T focused group - and they never did.

Well that was what I was trying to say.

So in asking about LGBTQI* only(!) group not all the initials are protected characteristics, so the EA isn't relevent.

And in fact, despite all the hype about how trans are being discriminated against, the current social practice, acceptance of events, groups etc., advertising under the umberella term aren't ever challegened as far as I know.

But thankfully the protected characteristics do allow men who are same sex attracted to form a group, and women who are same sex attracted to form a group.

And sadly this is still the case. That the protected characteristic of same sex attraction has been underminded by the trans activists. Who, as we all say so often, seem to focus on imposing themselves on other groups.

But surely the law is only relevant if you want to use protected characteristics to exclude groups. You can have a railway enthusiast and fishermen's hobby group without any problems until you say it's only for pregnant women and gay men.

The WI for example has a problem because they cannot declare they are single sex and exclude some men but not others: women and that small group of men have no shared protected characteristic that permits legally excluding others.

Who from an LGBT is that group going to wish to exclude and therefore want to use that law?

A lesbian group could. A gay men's group could. An LGB group could. And those groups as we all know, do need to.