New Green council motion disagreeing with EHRC guidance on SSS

Absolutely. Including some pointed questions around risk assessments for likelihood and costs if the council are taken to court and lose a case.

They can refer to the Peggie and Darlington cases for an estimate of costs.

self-identification should be sufficient in
normal circumstances for the purposes of access to and use of any of the
London Borough of Waltham Forest’s facilities and services.

Here, they're just trying to rewrite the law to what they wish it could be.

principle need not apply when there is a reasonable suspicion of danger
to a service user, bystander, or employee, or where there is a proportionate
means of achieving a legitimate aim." [my bold]

actually self-id never applies to any circumstance, and not even to any of the circumstances they list.

They are willfully misreading the Guidance and the law, or they haven't read either at all.

Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Are they ignoring legal advice?

mandatory equalities training

What is it with this use of the plural equalities? What are these various equalities? Do they think there is one equality for each protected characteristic? Or is there some other reason they don't seem to be able to cope with the concept of equality as a concept, but have to think of it as a collection of equalities? The Equality Act 2010 is surely about one equality that is for everyone, not a number of equalities, which can then be ranked in order of importance.

That’s a really interesting point, these types always call it “the Equalities Act” so you may be onto something there.

In a later statement, shared via the council leader Paul Perkins’ weekly newsletter, Cllr Perkins and cabinet member for finance Em Dean said: “We believe that misinterpretation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) current guidance on the use of single sex services and spaces – published earlier this year following a supreme court ruling on the definition of sex – presents a significant risk of exclusion for transgender people. The government’s own equality impact assessment admits as much.”

The motion received cross-party support, with Labour councillor Miriam Mirwitch said she saw transwomen as “my sisters and not a threat to my safety”.
Conservative group leader Emma Best, however, said the Tories could not support the motion.

Cllr Best said she was “unconvinced” it would “stack up legally” and the motion “felt like a mish-mash” between the monitoring officer’s advice and the Greens.
She also pointed to constraints on funding that could lead to “money being wasted” on ultimately ineffective policies, adding that “mandatory DEI [diversity, equality and inclusivity] training isn’t something we agree with”.

Editor’s note (17/07): This article has been updated to clarify that the Conservatives’ position is against mandatory DEI training rather than DEI training as a whole.

Greens to roll out equality training and gender neutral bathrooms amid trans inclusion push - Waltham Forest Echo

Do they mean to apply this to all council run services - ie social care, children’s services, schools? The motion is extremely unclear.

The examples that come to my mind where sex is relevant would be personal care, and placement in supported housing or similar for adults with disabilities. I guess also homeless/hostel placements? And I think that if children over 12 (might be 10) of different sexes have to share a room that is classified as overcrowding.

Hostel placements are one of the areas where gender identity complicates things. It's pretty obvious that a trans-identifying woman can't be placed in a men's hostel, but will she accept a place in a women's hostel? So what do social services actually do? The answer is probably that this person will have to sleep in friends' accommodation, possibly bed hopping. She shouldn't be on the streets, and no hostel is well placed to take her.

Sorry Ive not read the whole thread - if it’s like my council the real worry is social care… it’s the biggest part of the council budget and if this ruling does what I think then sex realists could be denied single sex care…. Urgh

There are no women's only hostels in WF and neither of the two new TA projects will be single sex for women and children either. The excuse given was that would legally mean boys over the age of 8 couldn't be housed there (this is complete bollocks).

Many of us have been told the council won't house victims of DV as that's what refuges are for... So much for the borough of sanctuary.

https://talk.walthamforest.gov.uk/using-council-buildings-to-meet-local-housing-needs-cedar-wood-house

Consultation closes on Monday but this is one of the new TA projects. The one that is right next to a school... To not make this single sex is madness but they've refused and refused to look at evidence including from women experiencing homelessness and young women experiencing homelessness to

You could always raise it with your MP. Oh no wait that would be Stella Creasey.

TBH Stella hates the Green Party based on her posts around local election time so she would probably pick up on this even though she shares the same beliefs as what is written.

Well that would just go to show how slippery she is wouldn't it. Let's see how she handles the yea but no but approach to the problem on her doorstep.

And people who are trans and homeless are usually placed directly into hotel accomodation (this is pretty much all over London not just WF) and not into hostels.

Social care - an elderly Muslim or orthodox Jewish woman has dementia. Her children request she has a female carer in line with their beliefs around religion and that women need same sex care. Can WF council guarantee any carer will be a woman ie provide a single sex service to women

I do, I would say it's worth that I do think trans people deserve fair access to health care and community care but not at the expense of women accessing those spaces safely - and not by eroding single sex spaces for women.

The biggest issue that trans people in th borough are facing is not gender neutral toilets it's access to shared care within the NHS which every man and their dog are also facing at the moment. There is basically only one GP surgery who will provide shared care for all the conditions that need it - this isn't solveable by the council as it's an ICB policy.

We are a borough that has already seen some sexual violence by men who identify as men within gender neutral facilities (Ie the incident on the beer mile a couple of years back)

I would take the angle of not excluding trans people but ensuring the council provides accomodations / spaces for both women and people who are trans to ensure everyone is safe from predatory men.

We are lucky to have some fantastic trans people within our community who do a lot of work on keeping everyone in the community safe and who are against this proposal so I'm sure they will be quietly reaching out to the council as well

Will DM some things for you when I have some time later on

Do you have the details of the incident on the beer mile please as I don't recall reading about that.

I've asked someone to give them to me as I didn't live in the borough at that time, it was just after COVID from what I understand there was a huge push from the community to ensure the toilets were redesigned following it.

I stand corrected - I've just been sent the link and it wasn't a sexual assault. It was in 2022 and a woman had to fight off a man trying to force his way into a toilet cubicle.