Labour’s trans guidance ‘poses danger to women’

Oh, it's worse than that.

GLP was never a charity. I quote from their website announcing the change of ownership structure.

"When Good Law Project was set up in 2017 by Jolyon Maugham he wanted the public interest features of a charity but outside of the moving political guardrails policed by the Charity Commission. So he adopted a structure which mirrored many of the features of charities.

Charities don’t exist to make a profit and can’t declare dividends so Good Law Project was set up as a not for profit company limited by guarantee – such companies can’t declare dividends – and an asset ‘lock’ was added to prevent its assets from being gifted or sold at an undervalue."

Note the use of the word "guardrails". Guardrails, we all know, exist for safety's sake. The vulpicide and his pet project have no time for safety, evidently.

https://goodlawproject.org/our-ownership-structure-is-changing/

Do you mean will the charity commission be interested in complaints about GLP?

If so, no because GLP aren't a charity

It opens up these conversations about deviancy regardless.

And don't be surprised if he takes it further anyway.

Is there a legal basis for this?

He seems to just be collecting complaints of the 'they said something nasty about me' type.

Two can play at that game, but would the Charities Commission be interested?

The deviant GLP case could be a godsend.

If it were (and this is theorectical) to find that men ignoring single sex spaces and invading women's toilets etc, were indeed deviating from the law and violating women's privacy and dignity - it would then class these men as essentially firmly as pervs if only in layman's terms.

It makes Jolyon's gambit particularly high risk for trans people. Not only could it reaffirm women's rights and the law as it stands with an emphasis on safeguarding but it would also highlight people breaking safeguarding as basically antisocial. That would be a spectacular own goal.

If a judgement were to go the other way, I don't think it poses such a risk for women purely because it makes the public in general situation up and go wtf and you will get eventual roll back albeit it slower.

I have no idea what Jolyon is playing at. Playing for such high risk cases which are lose-lose even if successful is utterly bizarre. It's either 5th column or total brainwashed cult thinking. It's not professional. Jolyon is definitely going to get my vote for TERF of the year at this rate.

The guidance becomes pretty much a model of clarity if we go back to a situation where government documents accurately display sex.

Sadly it’s outside the EHRC’s responsibility to opine on ID and documentation issues - it has to play the hand it’s dealt.

The guidance itself is not really a model of elegance and clarity.

😂Love this! I wonder if it was before Bridget's minions got their hands on it? Surprisingly, I think not, but they definitely didn't make it any clearer (where's the incentive?)

FlirtsWithRhinos
The simple fact a woman can openly complain when a man appropriates our resources or enters our spaces without being told it's her attitude that is the problem is still a huge improvement.

It is also a return to the status quo ante; this was the state of play during my entire life until the past, oh, ten or fifteen years. When I was a child girls were taught that if a man was being objectionable, we could always duck into a ladies where he couldn't follow us and wait until an adult woman came in, then ask her for her help or escort to get past him. Also that if a man came in and we screamed loudly, help would almost certainly arrive in short order. (Even if a man had to come into the ladies to chuck the perve perp out.)

None of this "screaming is a bigoted hate crime" nonsense back then.

I think that the real underlying problem is the existence of service providers who are gender-addled. They know what sex people are just as well as the rest of us, but like to think that it's complicated, and that by letting in transwomen they are sticking it to the transphobic 'man'.

They need to be repeatedly told until they get it, that when they provide a women-only service, they will be in legal jeopardy unless they take all reasonable steps to exclude people who look like men (a class of person that 99.9% maps onto actual men).

What's reasonable will depend on context. If safety (DV refuge) or fairness (sport) is at issue, authoritative proof might always be necessary. Otherwise, a request to use a gender neutral alternative, based on appearance only, might be enough. If the service user is female, they can prove it if they want to, but they don't have to if a gender-neutral alternative is adequate to their needs (which btw it has to be, to avoid discrimination against trans people).

Hopefully the legal commentariat will clarify this in the coming months. Although of course people like Maugham will be trying to do the opposite.

The guidance itself is not really a model of elegance and clarity.

Shows how one 'be kind' lie (letting people change sex marker on ID) causes so many later issues.

TRA Mission Accomplished🙁
Confusion is a tactic, isn't it?
Everything is so very complicated, words don't mean what you think they mean, yes but what if..., can you clarify the clarification of the last clarification..etc etc.

Hopefully many of the young people not too deeply embedded in the 'community' will find better ways to manage their mental health problems.

We need to get it out of the schools, so it's not even 'presented' as a possibility.

We need Read some Piaget please! to write an article on it.

Even the act of deciding whether to use opposite sex, same sex or gender neutral facilities forces the person to recognise that they have not changed sex

That's a really interesting point I hadn't heard before. I wonder if, psychologically, it really will make a difference? That, eventually, it will just become second nature, and society will revert back to something resembling what it was 15 years ago.

My hope is that the SC ruling and EHRC guidance will lead to a drop in numbers of young people believing that the solution to all their problems is to declare themselves to be the opposite sex. The affirmation of using opposite sex facilities is no longer available, at least not without the risk of being questioned, which in itself is pretty non-affirming. Even the act of deciding whether to use opposite sex, same sex or gender neutral facilities forces the person to recognise that they have not changed sex and that few people actually believe that they have. Hopefully many of the young people not too deeply embedded in the 'community' will find better ways to manage their mental health problems.

The immediate problem women have is if service providers pretend it does prove he's a woman. But I assume this attitude would put the provider at risk of sex discrimination?

Yes, and I hope so. I think we've had the answer already, somewhere, but there's been so much discussion now, I'm getting confused!

Ok, that's about enough out of you! Pineapple on a pizza, I ask you ...

I remember when India Willoughby waved about his female passport to prove that he was a women on question time. This didn't convince anyone then, and it won't if ask to leave the women's loo.

The immediate problem women have is if service providers pretend it does prove he's a woman. But I assume this attitude would put the provider at risk of sex discrimination?

putting pineapple on pizzas

There's noting deviant about that, you have pineapple on gammon and chips, why wouldn't you have pineapple on ham and pizza.

No 'Transing' the pizza. 😭

There's a lot of back-and-forth based on 'Supposing some arrogant male so-and-so insists on entering a women-only space, although the law is clear that he has no right to be there..'

How very far from 'The good men stay out, so the bad men stand out'.

Justice Swift in the GLP decision said
40 The notion that an employer or anyone else is required to “police” the use of a lavatory, person by person and day by day, reveals the application of a “logic” so strict that it is divorced from reality and from any sensible model of human behaviour.

Toilets could be very clearly labelled a THIS TOILET IS FOR THE USE OF BIOLOGICAL WOMEN ONLY./THIS TOILET IS FOR THE USE OF BIOLOGICAL MEN ONLY or a snappier version would be BIO WOMEN/BIO MEN.
indicating that toilets are segregated by biological sex, not gender.

You'll still get men who are hell-bent on using the women's toilet, like it's some kind of challenge or mission, but at least we can make it more obvious that they are transgressing - or as Sex Matters put it, deviating - by doing so.

Maybe they'll eventually just get bored and move on to being transgressive about something else...standing on the wrong side on escalators, putting pineapple on pizzas, or something.

Most people obey even if they disagree.
Some entitled people won't. Some will be challenged and back down. Some will be challenged and double down. Some will sneak past unchallenged.
Of those, some will get away with it.

Is speeding a good analogy here?

Which is reasonable.

It goes like this.

Signs say as per SC and therefore UK law, this [thing] is women-only / men-only by biological sex.

Everyone knows their own sex even if they pretend they don't understand what such a word could even mean because clownfish.

Most people obey even if they disagree.

Some entitled people won't. Some will be challenged and back down. Some will be challenged and double down. Some will sneak past unchallenged.

Of those, some will get away with it.

But that's how most laws and rules work.

They set the expectation and allow for enforcement and prosecution. They don't require 100% enforceability to be considered reasonable.

The illegality of rape, for example, is ultimately only enforceable after the event, boils down to he said/she said snd has a terrible reporting rate let alone conviction rate. Yet we all understand it's vitally important to women that rape is illegal because it makes the clear statement that this society thinks women's consent matters.

So yes, a few sneaky males will sneak in and be very pleased with themselves. A few daft allies will form one of those Dr Upton defense circles round their trans "woman" mate to huddle into the ladies and feel very smug they got one past the TERFs (as if a bunch of girls orientating themselves around a man is progressive!)

But that's no reason to throw our hands up and say nothing can be done.

The simple fact a woman can openly complain when a man appropriate our resources or enters our spaces without being told it's her attitude that is the problem is still a huge improvement.