HR tell trans identified person to use work toilets that match biological sex. Person refuses. Colleagues complain about their presence in incorrect toilets to HR. What's the legal position of all parties?

It is amazing how much legislation there is around toilets and workplaces.

One of the reasons I worked from home for eight years was the main office could not support the requirements in terms of diameter of waste pipes needed and it was cheaper to have 50 home workers than move (800+ people).

There are the barriers of space, cost and what changes are permitted to the building.

Surely the business should be ensuring that there are also plenty of sole-occupancy fully-enclosed toilets, and then should have the same rules for everyone that you can either use the cluster cubicle/urinal rooms for your own physical biological sex, or you can use the single occupancy rooms, and it's fine to do either, for everyone of every possible gender. Having different rules of less access for any category of people is discriminatory, and it is established in law that failing to provide a singie sex facility is discriminatory to the women who need that (it's irrelevant how many women there are who don't need it, some do) and it is established in law that a facility that can be used by women and also males with a feminine gender identity is not single-sex. However there is no barrier to having plenty of single-occupier enclosed rooms that can be used by anyone irrespective of gender.

It goes further than that @MickelC , under 1992 workplace regulations, employers are required to provide single sex toilets (and showering/changing facilities if the job requires it).

a fact the CIPD has still not commented on their “trans workplace inclusion guidance” the useless fuckers

In the UK an employer is allowed under the Equality Act to have single-sex toilets and to require staff to use the ones that match their biological sex. A trans-identified person does not automatically have a legal right to use the opposite-sex toilets, even if they identify differently. It is lawful for HR to tell them to use the correct facilities.
If the employee refuses after being given a reasonable management instruction, it can become a disciplinary issue. A claim of constructive dismissal is very unlikely because the employer is enforcing a lawful rule that applies to everyone.
Colleagues are also entitled to raise concerns if someone is using the wrong toilets. HR has to take those complaints seriously as well.

Somebody could suddenly "discover" they were trans a minute before they started in the role.

Or they may just be trans in office hours.

Excellent post from @BonfireLady. I couldn't agree more.

I particularly like her/your(?) reference to the social contract and how it works in similar cases, like red traffic lights, etc. This seems to be something that we're losing these days...

I also like the statement "but the law is without emotion here", which, of course, reminds me of that great quote from Aristotle in Legally Blonde: "The law is reason free from passion".. Which is not a sentence I ever thought I'd write. Go, Reese Witherspoons!

It wouldn't delight them because it would be a recognition of the fact that there are differences between them and women. Anything that breaks the immersion tends to go down badly.

But it would be more than enough from an employer and they'd certainly have no grounds for valid complaint.

It's disappointing isn't it and really reinforces the belief that they have nothing to argue with other than personal stories of woe and, when those fail, descend into personal attacks. He is clearly intelligent and understands the arguments being made but has some kind of mental block on understanding why this situation has arisen.

I'm wondering if such a space was provided and only men who identify as not men used it would that satisfy such men.

Usually a gender neutral toilet means a single fully enclosed toilet (like a disabled loo) which you usually get in cafes etc.

In the Good Law Project judicial review of the EHRC guidance, the barrister for the GLP appeared to be arguing that the toilets themselves had to be male or female, rather than the users of the facilities. So this seems to be a theme!

Edited for clarity

Oh I agree - but in many ways posting the reality on here is not going to change many views - but it does and has served as a bastion of truth and it is in that context that it is worth reminding some out there of that reality

Toilets are sexed not gendered. Use your sex's toilet along with all members of your sex, regardless of their gender.

fwiw I share your view, but it's taken a while for the prime minister to admit that women can't have a penis and the highest court in the land had to confirm that the equality act refers to women in the biological sense...and the EHRC is still trying to get it's head round that apparently. So while your argument might convince biological realists like me, it's not me that you have to convince.

no - relevant to now...

sex is the observable and scientifically provable reality of the human body

gender is the societal stereotype produced by observing the habits of the sexes - that men generally are more likely to be builders / women more likely to be in the caring professions / that blue is seen as a boys colour and pink for girls / that women wear skirts / that women are more 'delicate' than men etc. - all things you can see as being observations of the stereotypes of our culture

but they are the observations of now - high heels came into the country for men originally - now seen as a stereotype for women, pink used to be associated with boys and blue with girls - trends and stereotypes change over time - they are not embedded... and there is plenty of historical evidence for this...

so if a man takes on the gender appearances of a woman - they are not living in the gender of a woman, they are extending the gender of man - because gender is not defined by the symbols or accoutrements, it is defined by external observation and stereotyping... so a man wearing a dress is simply starting to extend the gender observations of men - if enough do it, they don't all become women, the stereotype would simply change so that dress wearing was seen as a part of the male gender pattern...

that there are those who have an agenda which means they wish to pretend otherwise doesn't make their claims any more true, and they can pretend all they wish but a man in a dress is simply a man in a dress...

You're thinking of the old days before sex and gender went their separate ways. Now afaik sex is the biological reality and gender is an unprovable belief about yourself ( of which apparently there are currently 72 - at least if one of them is cat gender, a litter box is a small price to pay).

I really hope that the person in question follows the sage advice of all the Redditors, because that thread is a very good look at the mindset of TRA's. They never cease to entertain.

I am a Trustee of a small charity that recently moved offices. Before signing the new lease we crunched the numbers/practicalities of the loos.

Readers, we paid about £10k to add an extra loo. It is/was probably easier in an empty building, when refitting a kitchen area and cabling etc, but really not too time consuming.

No way I’d be sacking a TW under this new legislation. No sireee Bob. That’s a legal precedent right there waiting to be jumped on by the TRA lobby along with the Daily Mail headlines, death threats, nervous breakdown and losing your livelihood.

I would be making the men’s toilets into accessible toilets and giving the men a portaloo somewhere else if they want single sex.

Let the males with the fewer psycho friends take me to court.

The GLP Barrister has then thrown all 'trans' people under the bus...

You can not live in any gender other than your own as gender is an external observation of how you live, not an internally chosen approach to life... So any choice by an individual to live differently simply expands the societal observation of how that sex lives and therefore the stereotype that is gender...

So a man claiming to be transgender / transwoman...
Is still physically / biologically and legally a man.
They are still male gender - everything they do from wearing a skirt to makeup and body mutilation simply changes the shape of how society observes examples of men - therefore expanding the male gender - it can never mean that they are living as the female gender as that is an observation of how women live and they can never be a woman.

Therefore, a transwoman (man) simply needs to use the male loos and they will be in accordance with their sex / lived gender - both of which are male.

My point being I don't think the majority of these men want a safe space to pee they want to be beside the women.

Ah you see the way this works is that thing are only a non issue as long as trans people get their way.

Wouldn't a gender neutral toilet be a mixed sex toilet? So from the perspective of a man who identifies as not a man a space that biological men use. And from the perspective of the MRA's a biological woman with a gender Identity would (by their own argument) be a man.

And just thinking out loud, if a workspace had a number of men who identify as not men and all those men where given a space that was for them and them alone, that space would be a space designated for biological men.