Good Law Practice launch a EHCR/Supreme Court challenge over toilets

@ItsCoolForCats I think yes the GLP will be doing us a bit of a favour by losing though I don't know if they'll ever stop trying. The government seems to be divided and isn't strong enough to just knock this on the head and say "this is the law so either live with it or put forward a bill to change it (and lose us a few more elections)". Instead they're claiming to be "neutral" even though what they're really saying is (a) illegal and (b) weak ("it's not us, a big judge did it and ran away")

Looks like they're still hoping that the courts will sort it out for them and then we'll all forget it and go home.

Could Badenoch ask a question about this at PMQs?

It links to the government's general flip floppiness on economic policy and suggests a lack of honesty.

ETA: I suppose it depends how much they think the topic has 'cut through'.

The GLP's nonsense case has at least shone a bit of light on the murky bollocks of the government.

This from Lord Hodge's intervoew in The Times:

'It’s not for the legislature to mark its own homework and say, ‘Well, we said that, but actually we meant something else’. I think it’s healthy for a democracy that you have someone outside the political world determining what is the meaning of the words that our legislature has chosen to use”'

From Legal Feminist on X…

https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2025/11/14/three-questions/

🤔🤣

NGL, when I saw some guy had been arrested wearing an admiral's uniform, I wondered what ex-Prince Andrew has been up to now

Yeah, he's a Walt. Service people really don't like that!

Police arrested him under the 1894 Uniforms Act, which bars anyone who has not served in the armed forces from wearing military uniform. It carries a maximum fine of £1,000.

So being optimistic, if the GLP loses (their case does seem weak), will they actually be doing us a favour? If the court rules that the interim update was correct because it accurately reflected the binding law of the SC judgement, then will this finally put to bed all the mutterings from activists and MPs about the EHRC going too far (further than the judgement)? And it's not just Baroness Faulkner being a big, mean, transphobic bigot.

And if that happens, then Bridget Phillipson might finally stop faffing and lay the code of practice before parliament. And she can say to all the mutinous labour MPs, "sorry, I have no choice".

Well a woman wouldn't have had those medals so it's have been even more of an OUTRAGE.

I saw that. I wondered what the story would have been if he'd pretended to be a former navy servicewoman.

Case by case basis is what we already have in society now. It's just that the service providers are failing to conform to the law.

The bottom line is that if it is a single sex provision, no members of the opposite sex can be admitted. If members of the opposite sex are permitted, then it cannot be a single sex provision.

It just needs service providers to stick to the law or be sued - as in the Darlington case. And with clarity from the SC, the EHRC, the judgement in the GLP case and the government, it will be a slam dunk and no one will want to be taken to court over failing to provide SSS.

There can be no other outcome. The judge is not going to agree with the GLP that some men are women, even though there is no way to define at what point they become women and that admitting those men would not be discriminatory to other men. There is no way the GLP are going to get a ruling in their favour because what they are asking for has no legal standing, is discriminatory and does not even make sense.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce8zexp2kp5o

Seems you can't identify as a former navy serviceman. It's an arrestable offence.

Quite how this is an arrestable offence because it isn't actually harming anyone, when pretending to be a woman has lots of ways it can harm is frankly beyond me.

Of course it's men in positions of responsibility/power who are affected by men posing as a former serviceman....

Yes, it is a delay tactic to take the heat off the government that is emanating from its own backbenches.

Phillipson wants to deliberately lose it for the EHRC doesn't she?

How is this a problem for us on this subject?

Maybe she's too cowardly to say it herself because it will damage her politically.

But have a stitch up legal case which explicitly says the same? Suits us. Maybe actually suits her.

The reality is there isn't going to be a landslide to the left at the next election. Even if it does get in it will be a coalition and there will be a very nervous attitude to any attempts to explicitly change the law to erase sex even amongst the ranks of the left.

So the law will stick if the ruling does go out way.

If the ruling goes against us, then it only adds more fuel to a fire that perceives the traditional parties as having neglected all safeguarding.

We have to worry about the wider political ramifications if this doesn't go well for us, but we already know this is a fairly desperate legal case.

Which just shows where we are, sadly.

I bet Nigel Farage would, unfortunately.

I think the whole premise of the GRA will need tackling, sooner or later.

Not going to find many politicians brave enough to agree with you on that, though.

Yes, ultimately the counter-argument involves sex-discrimination (women more disadvantaged than men by mixed-sex services), but the route to that is tortuous.

Actions carried out in pursuit of 'an enactment' (which would include WR1992) are exempt from the EA so the question is whether WR1992 is truly met.

WR1992 doesn’t have to assume TWAW, only that it allows men to use women's facilities at work in exceptional circumstances eg those contemplated by Croft (Croft was legally male and still would be once 'transitioned enough', because GRC not yet invented). Croft hasn't been overturned, as such.

SC ruling tells us the EA can only be interpreted in a way that overturns the spirit of Croft, but not why. Wrongly drafted and in need of amendment?

I think the whole premise of the GRA will need tackling, sooner or later.

I think you are right Gnome.

I wonder if Bridget Phillipson is trying to have her cake and eat it, here. She can go "But look! We tried!" about her suggested case-by-case solution, knowing full well that it would fail legally.