Please help me send an email to our Chief Exec who has announced they are ignoring the Supreme Court

When the workplace regulations were written in 1992......trans ideology wasn't the thing it became in more recent years....and common sense dictates that 'Sex' refers to biological sex. Nobody can change sex, and the word 'gender' is not interchangeable with 'sex'.

I'm not sure why you are so keen to find a way to circumvent the ruling and in so doing knowingly violating female boundaries? Can you explain?

I imagine a few test cases will settle things back down to approprriate and workable reality

Do you disagree with my interpretation or do you misunderstand my interpretation.

If you disagree, fair enough.

If you misunderstand, I think the premise of your question is the wrong one to help you understand.

...have you tried reading the full thread?

I still disagree with your interpretation - help me understand.

If segregation/apartheid is generally unlawful in the UK, what was the legal basis for allowing segregated the single sex facilities in the 1992 Workplace Regs?

Employers who do not provide compliant facilities could subject themselves to loss of public liability insurance; and furthermore permitting male people to persistently use facilities which are designated single sex ( for females) could bring about a 'Sexual harrassment' charge. -which I'm sure most companies would be keen to avoid.

Yeah, welcome to page 1 of the conversation. Thanks for your contribution...

Now try reading the rest of the thread.

But this isn't just about the permissability of single sex provision. I have not doubted that the result of the Supreme Court case is that service providers - and probably employers - may provide single (biological) sex toilets and changing facilities.

The OP is about whether they are mandated to do so.

And the mandate for single sex provision comes from the 1992 regulations, not from the Equality Act. OP is not arguing that their employer has the freedom to have a trans exclusionary policy, they are arguing that they have a duty to do so.

That position is simply not settled by the FWS case, no matter how much people insist that it is.

Workplace regulations state that employers must provide single sex accommodations for employees, unless the provison is of the single oocupancy with integral washbasin type.

"Workplace regulations require employers to provide single-sex facilities for staff. Specifically, the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 mandates separate facilities for men and women, including toilets and changing rooms, unless each facility is in a separate, lockable room used by only one person. This requirement is for reasons of propriety and applies to all workplaces, not just public ones."

This isn't true.

Do you think that there was no ability to have single sex spaces before 2010? The legal mandate for single sex toilets and changing facilities comes from the Workplace Regulations 1992.

So if an employer chooses to adopt a trans inclusive bathroom policy as the OP's employer has, it would be on the basis that the Workplace Regulations allow them (or arguably mandate them) to do so, not on the basis of the Equality Act.

The Supreme Court ruling does not represent new legislation, of course, it merely clarifies existing legislation. Supreme Court rulings are binding on all lower courts.

I think you need to read carefully what I wrote. I have not said that newer legislation overrides older legislation. I said that where these is a conflict between newer legislation and older legislation, the doctrine of implied repeal means the former takes precedence, with some limited exceptions like constitutional statutes.

Now either you didn't read what I wrote, or you did and still think I am wrong to accurately describe a key part of UK constitutional interpretation. Neither of which speaks very highly of your ability to engage critically in these issues.

I agree that there was ambiguity about how the GRA interacted with the Workplace Regulations and the Sex Discrimination Act (and later the EA). The SDA and the EA are the legal mechanism which permits the segregation of facilities by sex, not the Regulations in themselves.

The FWS scotland case removed that ambiguity. No further rulings specific to the Workplace Regs are needed now the Supreme Court has clarified what the EA means for sex segregation.

ETA Your lack of reply to my previous posts implies your agreement that this argument poses a significant stumbling block to your hypothesis.

But wouldn't you be invoking the equality act when you are talking about single sex spaces? There can't be a single sex without invoking the equality act. That's what it's there for. To allow a single sex space to exist.

No, you’re wrong. And you don’t seem to have any legal background, do you? As for your assertion that newer legislation overrides older legislation, that’s a total legal howler. Unless repealed, all legislation is valid. Doesn’t matter if it was passed in 1725 or 2025.

The central problem with your position that the definition of sex relates to the EQA only is that this relates to sex discrimination. If a woman is being discriminated on account of her sex by the misinterpretation of sex in other legislation, then she will succeed in her claim. So good luck with asserting that an interpretation of certificate sex in the workplace regulations doesn’t end up discriminating against actual women. If a rule is being implemented that discriminates either directly or indirectly on women on account of her sex, then that’s all it needs to succeed. Allowing men with a GRC to be included in the provision of female-only services won’t be a valid defence. And as for self ID, it holds zero water. Bye-bye ´Janette’

You missed a bit.

the SC confirmed sex = biological sex for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010.

Not necessarily for any other statute.

Your post is a good example of many posters on here who are simply ill equipped to consider legal issues.

I haven't thrown anyone under the bus. I have read a judgment. Read legislation. Understand statutory interpretation. And pointed out that those claiming that this matter is settled law are simply wrong.

None of that has any reflection on what I think the law ought to be. It would be possible to be as GC as they come and still be able to see that the legal position was not definitively resolved in respect of the Workplace Regs. You can be entirely supportive of trans rights, as I am, and still recognise that the law affords more rights and protections to those with a GRC than without, without it implying that you agree with that state of affairs.

That inability to separate out what the law is and what you would like the law to be is one reason so few posters on here seem capable of discussing legal issues.

@VivaDixie
Despite the fantasies of transpeople, the SC confirmed sex = biological sex and where facilities are SS men can't use the female facilities.

The Workplace Regulations 1992 required the sex segregation of toileting and changing facilities at work. You may find it helpful to contact Sex matters as they will be able to assist you.

I mean the first and main reason is that there is explicit statute saying that a trans man with a GRC is for all purposes a man, and a trans woman is for all purposes a woman, without any explicit carve out for the Workplace Regulations.

This is in spite of the fact that standard Parliamentary legislative process is that if you do not wish to impliedly repeal prior inconsistent legislation, or for definitions not to apply in respect of prior legislation, you need to do so explicitly because of the doctrine of implied repeal. And in spite of the fact that Parliament actively considered specific and explicit exclusions and chose not to include the Workplace Regs in their exclusions.

But again, you keep missing the point I am making. I am not saying the courts would never interpret the Workplace Regs as applying only in respect of biological sex. In view of the direction of the Supreme Court and some of the leaps in logic in their judgment it's entirely possible they will. But it is also entirely possible that they will not. My point is that those claiming the matter is settled are wrong.

They're not at all confused. You're making my point for me.

The Equality Act 2010 came after the GRA 2004. So it is entirely rational and in keeping with normal statutory interpretation that if there is a conflict between the two, the courts determine that Parliament intended the more recent statute to prevail.

The same is not necessarily the case for a preceding statute.

@PlanetJanettehas already thrown all trans people without a GRC under the bus by hanging her argument on the GRA. While I might suggest that she is being a little transphobic by doing that, it doesn't help to advance an analysis of her constitutional argument.

I agree that where a new Act is passed, it overrides any previous Act unless it specifically doesn't. So far, so good. The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 defined men as males of any age and women as females of any age.

The Workplace Regulations 1992 required the sex segregation of toileting and changing facilities. This could only mean men are male and women are female.

The GRA 2004 declared that an acquired gender would be applied for all reasons. This could mean that men with a GRC are female and that women with a GRC are male.

The Equality Act 2010 repeated the definition of a man as being a male of any age and a woman as being a female of any age. This means that man means male of any age and woman means female of any age. This replaced the GRA definition.

@PlanetJanette's principle of 'last up, best dressed' would suggest that a GRC don't count for shit when it comes down to workplace facilities.

I'm sure that @PlanetJanetteis panting like a greyhound out of the slips to prove me wrong in a court of law.

I can't take the credit for this clarity - it was Susan Smith of FWS on a webinar earlier this week. It's much easier once you think of it this way around - anywhere you need or want to consider segregation, the EA is invoked.

Please re-read my original post.

unfortunately, many years ago I studied Law and there were numerous examples of poorly drafted or ill considered Statutes that then required case law to clarify what was intended or how to deal with situations which had not been considered when the original Statute was drafted.

In my opinion, as someone who holds GC beliefs, the GRA is a illogical and ill conceived piece of legislation. It attempts to blur the boundaries between biological sex and gender.
Drafted by a “captured” Civil Service under the watchful eye of Stonewall.

”fag packet, lunch break, teenagers”

FYI: I have worked in the field of criminal justice for a long time, including working for a “Stonewall Champion”. I have worked with numerous “ trans identifying” and gay clients. Unfortunately, the gay clients were often the victims of discrimination and violence. But the biggest problem that the “trans identifying “ clients faced was that other people refused to acknowledge their reality.

This is another good argument. It would be ridiculous for Parliament to have intended for one law (the workplace regulations) to require pseudo-single-sex provision of toilets that are facially discriminatory under the Equality Act 2010. A court will need to find a way out of that bind, and the obvious one is to presume that 9(3) of the GRA applies to the Workplace Regulations. Can you think of a different solution?

@PlanetJanette
The Supreme Court interpreted the term 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 only. It did not interpret the reference in the 1992 regulations.

I disagree and so does the Supreme Court.

The SC didn’t need to interpret the Workplace Regs because it’s the segregation by sex that invokes the Equality Act.

The workplace regs couldn’t specify single sex facilities without the exceptions permitted by the Equality Act (or its 1975 predecessor)

The EA applies wherever segregation is proposed for any of the protected characteristics by employers, service providers and associations.