Women & Equalities Committee 2.30pm Today, 9th June, Mary-Ann Stephenson Chair at EHRC giving oral evidence

Just watching Rosie Duffield. Does she have a gold Dinosaur trinket on her necklace?

😍

What impact will it have on ECHR commission, it's suppose to be independent of parliament, so this rejection of their guidance by parliament must call into question their independence.
If everyone on the committee stands by the guidance that's been rejected will they all have to be replaced by W&EC until this so called independent commission get it 'right'. 🤬

What we are seeing is MPs working to undermine the existing law and enabling and encouraging breaking the law even though the majority of the public is clearly not in their camp and of their mindset. Keeping in mind this also undermines numerous other safeguarding related laws which have very clear public consent.

When are parliament going to decide these are criminals and even terrorists? Or is that the plan, to enable them?

The law remains the law until parliament decides it's not law and rewrites the law.

They can only kill off guidance to the law. If the guidance is accurate, all they do is help to expose companies, charities and public services to liability at significant cost.

Which obviously really helps everyone.

Fuckwits

I've had a week in real life of realising the general level and ability of people you would assume to be competent and capable is well below what you'd expect and then having to clear up various messes along these lines. Being able to blow hot air doesnt change legal liabilities. Indeed in the last 30 mins I've had a conversation with someone working in law about the dangers of using AI to use/understand the law and how it gets your arse sued.

Sorry, I have skipped a lot of posts... can a 'fatal motion' be used on a law from 2010 that was clarified in 2025? If the guidance is scrapped, the law remains law. Are they just grasping at straws to demonstrate that they are OTRSOH?

They are in a parallel universe. Mary Ann Stephenson answered clearly and coherently on what the law is. However, the TRA MPs on the committee closed their ears to any answer they didn't want to hear. It wouldn't have mattered what MAS said. They are a lost cause.

This is really what campaigners should be focused on and drill down on rather than trans in this particular scenario if I'm honest. The trans issue merely highlights the problem that despite political declarations of commitment to and directives on this matter by several parties over a period of years none of them have actually DONE anything to back up this commitment. There's absolutely no substance to the issue of safeguarding by sex and with regards to privacy and dignity on hospital ward for ANYONE - be they male, female or trans. And therein lies the issue zero political will to take the matter seriously and make meaningful change.

I have to assume this 'fatal motion' is an attempt to thwart the legislation, and reveals a desperate and ignorant attempt to mis-use parliamentary process.

These MPs are immune to reason or any sense of fairness at all.

Sarah Owen, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee said on her bluesky accout two hours ago:

"I have signed the fatal motion on the code of practice. The answers to the questions I raised below - and to those from other committee members - fell far short of anything workable, just or fair'

A fatal motion is a rare parliamentary procedure used in the UK House of Lords and House of Commons to block proposed secondary legislation (such as statutory instruments or regulations). If passed, it "kills" the proposed legislation entirely, forcing the government to start the process over if they want to introduce it again

https://www.thetimes.com/article/bf429e22-4634-4191-badb-d0f8f6917dc3?shareToken=b7dfb9c1ffdfbb50a172e31352bb2c28

That was my first thought, if he won't go in a male ward he can go on a trolley in the corridor, the NHS are good at doing that. 😂

Alternative provision is unnecessary. In line with standard NHS practise you will be cared for in the corridor. Corridors are mixed sex.

Not RTFT but how can the NHS seriously say they can’t tell men from women without realising the serious implications this has for patient care? I don’t mean beds and making women unsafe etc, I mean medical treatment, test ranges, drug doses, physiology?

In this case, not so much given the seriousness of the ward, the fact that no one was capable of leaving their beds, most were too ill to talk much, and there was 2 nurses at all times (pluss HA's) for 6 kids, I think it was fine. Not ideal, but not practical to do much else.

😂

#sadtimes

They're such clones of each other. And none of them seem to realise it. They don't comprehend that they are just the latest in a massively long line of men all behaving in exactly the same way.

I can't believe you practiced actual genocide on me.

#fuming

@RedToothBrush all of what you say is correct but worth noting that putting a trans patient on the single sex ward aligning with their gender identity does not constitute a breach of the NHS same sex ward rules and would not be reported as such. Doing this (and creating a de facto mixed sex ward) IS the NHS policy.

Our audit sets it all out. Only about 5% of trusts are honest about this in terms of what they put on their website (even then the average person would not interpret “single gender” accommodation as mixed sex - which it could well be). The other 95% lie and say it will be single sex when their policies say it won’t

100%. Many people (not going to say most) would feel somewhat uncomfortable with telling a man in a dress to use the men's, but if there's unisex available then they'll certainly not see it as a breach of human rights that the Ladies is for actual women only.

These MPs are completely out of touch. The general public do not think it's an egregious breach of someone's human rights to have to use a unisex facility. So they come out with these ridiculous stories of sad lorry drivers being unable to shower, or about a trans refugee who has wet himself three times in the space of a few weeks because of the EHRC guidance.

<registers username> he's laughing at you, rather. With profound apologies to Single for the accidental missexing, but trusting that this will be a useful demo of how people whose sense of self-worth doesn't depend on others playing along react.

This was such a none point though because the showers at service stations are in individual lockable rooms, often only accessible with a key and/or located in the designated HGV area. They aren’t open plan showers with gaps and skimpy curtains. They are like unisex disabled toilets.

These MPs are so gullible.

She's laughing at you, mate, not offended. We've seen it all before, and you defaulted to Michael Winner-esque 'calm down dear' at precisely the point male scolders here always do.

I suspect if it was men getting routinely assaulted, including surgeons whilst actually carrying out operations, it would become much more of a priority.