Trans toilets

[SharkBaitOooHaha]

I was under the impression that the supreme court ruling stating that to be considered a woman you had to have been born a biological woman, meaning…
Shop changing rooms had to be female/male same with toilets and all women only spaces.
I I live in a small village and trans people using my workplace’s toilets and changing rooms doesn’t really come up as an issue. Talking to my boss about this and he said he has had no instruction to change our current unisex toilet space or if it arises our changing rooms having to follow the new rule of.. If you’re a trans woman you need to go into the men’s changing rooms.
My question is, who is supposed to be making sure these rules are followed, how long have companies got to change their toilet facilities? Has anybody else who works in a job with fitting rooms noticed that there company doesn’t seem in a rush to change things? Until I brought this up at work my manager wasn’t even aware of the court ruling?

That's not how Supreme Court judgments work. They don't give advance warning to interested parties about what the result is going to be.

The full information is already there for anyone who can be bothered to read the Supreme Court judgment. The EHRC guidance is not going to deviate from it.

So your friend is just going to ignore the law then.

I hope someone reports her.

Interesting, I've read the judgement but missed this part, where does it say that?

There's a big gap between what the SC judgement actually says and what many, including the EHRC, want it to say.

The SC judgement says that services may discriminate by birth sex without breaking EA2010 if, and only if, the discrimination is justified and proportionate. It gives no clue what that means but everyone and her dog will have a different definition. It's a mess and the EHRC 'guidance' is making it worse.

Not true. It's appropriate by dint of being a single-sex space. I wish people would stop misrepresenting it.

Where in UK law does it say that?

It's all there in the judgment, which I can't access right now. Honestly, it really isn't complicated I'll post it once I'm back on my laptop if no one does in the meantime.

If people are finding it hard to understand, the video I linked to is helpful.

Have you read the judgment?

@FairCat, but basically it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim with that aim being providing single-sex spaces.

@FairCat
It's in the Equality act.
If it's a proportionate means of acheiving a legitimate aim, a service can be provided separately to [biological] men and women.

If it's not, then the service is provided equally to men and women, i.e. on a unisex basis.

Yes, more than once, have you? I've obviously missed some important detail, please quote the part I've missed.

And what's the legal definition of a proportionate aim? The courts don't care about the opinion of people on either side of the discussion, it is only concerned with what is written and subsequent case law.

@FairCat
It doesn't matter for the purposes of this debate. The point is the options are a service for everyone or separate services for males and females.
The "proportionate..." test is often wrongly described as being about whether you can allow males into a particular female only service, but it actually applies to having that female only service in the first place.

Several posters seem to be under the impression the single sex exemptions are new law. It's not, here are the relevant pages from the EQA 2010 legislation -

All that has been clarified is that single sex does (and has done since the EQA2010 was enacted) mean biological sex rather than self identified or 'legal' sex, despite what various lobbying groups have been insisting for the last decade -

Single sex exemptions/exceptions -

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/20/7

Sports

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/14/5

Occupational requirements

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/26/1?view=plain

And service providers can declare all they like that 'people can stay mad about it' or their pals can (hilariously) hide threads about it but it's not going to stop the legal challenges. They've already started.

She better not be labeling them as men and women's toilets then, or she's breaking the law; you can either have single sex or mixed sex, but you cannot legally have women and SOME men with special lady feelz.

Would it pee on it's own seat?

It's not 'proportionate aim' it's proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The aim must be legitimate and the means of achieving the aim must be proportionate.

This is not some new special test dreamt up by the supreme court. PM/LA runs through equality and human rights law like a stick of rock. Single and separate sex services have been lawful under the EA since 2010 if they meet this test.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/3/part/7

Note how each paragraph begins 'A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to sex discrimination ...'

Section 29 is the part of the EA that says a service provider must not discriminate against people because of a protected characteristic.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/29

The exceptions in schedule 3 part 7 say that sex discrimination in the provision of services is lawful in specific circumstances, including meeting the PM/LA test. It's this part of the EA which allows separate men's and women's facilities in the first place. Separate services for men and women are unlawful unless they meet the conditions of these exceptions.

The 2022 FWS Haldane judgment said that women includes tw with a grc but not those without, and vice versa for men, except for parts of the act where it means actual sex.

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/lgufy1zd/court-of-session-petition-of-for-women-scotland-limited-for-judicial-review-13-december-2022.pdf

The SC judgment overrules that and says that throughout the EA women does not include any tw whether they have a grc or not, and vice versa for men.

https://supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042

If the court ruling hasn’t changed then what was the point of it, and why all the celebration?

And in terms of the law being applied as it should be, the recent cases of Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses challenging being pushed out of their own changing areas or being suspended for avoiding changing their clothes in front of a man will be considerably strengthened by the clarification. The case of the occupational requirement being ignored by the board of the ERCC in order to appoint a man who told rape victims to 'reframe their trauma' can now be robustly challenged without fear of being called a bigot.

To anyone believing the bullshite of Stonewall/Scottish Trans etc who fought for the complete eradication of the single sex exemptions in my last post and also insisted that such exemptions included males who self identified into them, you were sold a lie

It clarified the law, which was being ignored by many organisations. Now, we know that the law is what we always thought it was, and that sex refers to biological sex, not gender identity, in law.

It can be enforced through the courts with a discrimination claim which will cost her money, time and stress so saying ‘I’m not going to change and no one can make me’ is pretty short sighted.

By the way she is discriminating, she’s discriminating against women. You may think her clientele don’t care, but if this is a pub open to everyone it only takes one person to bring a claim to court.

She could lose her license for breaking the law if this is reported. Seems a stupid risk to take, but obviously it’s up to her if she chooses to risk losing not just custom but her licence.

This is the absolutely damning independent review of the ERCC after an equally damning employment tribunal -

https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources/ERCC-Review-Report-FINAL1-.pdf

Rape survivors were harmed by an institution, headed by a culture steeped in an ideology which insisted that a mixed sex service was a single sex service because TWAW, supported by a captured Government who insisted that an incorrect interpretation of the law was the right one.

Your friend is entitled to provide only unisex toilets in her pub. If she claims her toilets are single sex but allows people of the opposite sex in, then I imagine she could be sued for any distress caused by someone encountering a person of the opposite sex in what she is presenting as a single sex space. There will be people who would do this who feel sufficiently strongly about the issue, so it will be interesting to see watch and see. She may feel she is discriminating if she refuses trans people use of opposite sex facilities, but she wouldn't be.

This.