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?

Oh please, as if those same business were doing all this hand wringing before they started illegally letting men into women single sex spaces.

All the pub lady has to do, if she is determined not to allow her female customers a single sex toilet, is put a little male stick figure and a little female stick figure on all the doors. what she cannot legally do is put a little female stick figure on a door, then allow males as well as females into the space.

Lots of laws aren’t enforced, people are expected to act lawfully in general, we don’t live in North Korea! There isn’t a speed camera on every road or a policeman at every till, yet most of us manage to drive within the speed limit and not shoplift

As for businesses wanting full guidance, the full guidance is in the judgement. All they have to do is read it. This "wanting the guidance" is just a delaying tactic by people who don't want to implement the law as it has always been because they want to stay with Stonewall law.

Because prior to the ruling people were mixing up 'gender' and sex and thought that if someone identified as having the gender of a woman that was enough to give access to any spaces designated for women. The SC had now clarified that sex and gender identifty are not the same thing and that to access single sex spaces you have to be a member of that sex classification, not identify into it through 'gender'. It's important because it (should) put a stop to the argument about whether trans people should be treated in every way as though they are the opposite sex, even when this impacts on the rights of people who are that sex. The SC has said not.

Re: changing rooms which are designated single sex, they're single sex. If some companies chose to ignore the EQA2010 and make such spaces mixed sex, then they need to follow the law. At the moment they are breaking it.

That's it.

Because a lot of people, organizations and institutions, were not following the law. So For Women Scotland had to take this to court, to find out exactly what “woman” meant in the Equality Act.

Now that the EA has been confirmed as being what everyone sane knew it was, there’s lots of squealing and outrage that those who got it wrong have to put it right. Now. Right now.

But trans women from what I’ve seen are determined with the mindset of I am a woman and I will go where I like, unless this act is enforced then do you really believe trans women are just going to start using the men’s facilities?!? Of course they won’t, like I said my manager didn’t even know there had been a court ruling and it hasn’t been passed on to him that the staff in our store changing room have confront any trans woman trying to use the female changing area.

Perhaps it's easier to understand if you look at the cumulative effect of the legislation itself and the Supreme Court judgment.

1. Sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act. (This is true of both the male and female sex.)
2. Various parts of the Equality Act deal with situations in which things are provided on a single-sex basis. One of the most significant examples is found in paragraph 27 of Schedule 3 (single sex services).
3. In order to justify providing a single sex service, you have to satisfy one of the criteria in the section, AND demonstrate that it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The criteria are fairly wide ranging. Some are very specific, for example, hospital or personal care situations. Some are quite broad, for example, the service may be used by more than one person at a time and a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.
4. The Supreme Court judgment goes into more detail on this point. Paragraph 211 is particularly useful. It gives examples of single sex spaces or services which include changing rooms, homeless hostels, segregated swimming areas, medical and counselling services. Paragraph 211 makes it clear that parliament's intention must have been to allow for the exclusion of trans people from single sex services for the opposite sex, regardless of whether or not they hold a gender recognition certificate.
5. Paragraph 213 of the Supreme Court judgment then goes to compare and contrast the effect of these exemptions if sex means biological sex (and concludes that it is clear and straightforward), against if sex means certificated sex (and concludes that this would be fraught with difficulty). The judgment also says, quite rightly in my view, that if a service provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a gender recognition certificate even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify their refusal to provide the same services to men who also look like biological men.
6. Paragraph 217 of the Supreme Court judgment deals with the "might reasonably object" criterion in the Equality Act and concludes that if it is reasonable for a woman to object to the presence of a male person, the reasonableness of her objection cannot be founded on whether that male person has a gender recognition certificate or not.
7. For these reasons and the numerous other reasons which are explained at length in the judgment, the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the word "sex" in the Equality Act can only mean biological sex, not identified or certificated sex.
8. So now let's take another look at the famous Schedule 3, paragraph 27 of the Equality Act. It allows the provision of single sex services where the relevant criteria are met. And we can take a common sense approach as to when those criteria might be met. The Supreme Court has already given some specific examples in the judgment, but broadly speaking, we are talking about all situations in society where single sex spaces or services are provided because we, by common consensus, consider this to be reasonable. Nobody is seriously advocating for all changing rooms or rape crisis groups to be made mixed sex. Some people might say, "Why do we even have communal changing rooms anyway? Surely in this day and age everyone should be in their own private lockable room." But nobody is saying that the creepy guy who sits at the bus stop opposite the local girls' school at 3pm every weekday but never catches a bus should be getting changed in the same space as those girls down at the local swimming pool. So we do all understand on some level that single sex spaces are in some circumstances desirable and necessary. And the Equality Act, passed by our own sovereign parliament and upheld just recently by the Supreme Court, expressly acknowledges that there are circumstances in which single sex spaces and services are appropriate. There is in fact a broad consensus about this in society. The fact that it exists in society and that this has been accepted by the majority of people is your evidence that it has been accepted as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.
9. So, then. The Equality Act permits the provision of single sex services and the Supreme Court has confirmed that sex means biological sex, and cannot possibly mean anything else.
10. Show me where the Equality Act permits the provision of "single sex plus" services. By which I mean single sex plus a select few members of the opposite sex. Because if you cannot find such a clause in the legislation, that means you have no legal basis on which to provide single sex services to women plus trans women. You can either apply the single sex exemption in the Equality Act to provide a single sex service for members of one sex only (which would exclude trans women from a single sex service for women), or you can provide a unisex service. You cannot do a weird hybrid of the two.

So really, the question is not, "Where does it say in the law that you have to exclude trans women from women's spaces and services?"

The question is actually, "Where does it say in the law that you can have a single sex space or service for women but also exercise your discretion to include trans women in that space or service?"

And the answer is, it doesn't.

A couple of prosecutions and fines might concentrate his employer's mind.

I'm confused by your thread tbh op, maybe someone can clarify for me what you're actually asking - what I'm reading it as is that you currently have designated male / female spaces for customers to try on clothes but your staff facility is a unisex toilet? Are you questioning whether your employer will be obligated to install separate male/female bathrooms for staff? Or is it handling customer changing should anyone trans come into your shop?

If the toilets, I've worked loads of places with unisex toilets (not cubicles, sink in with the toilet floor to ceiling lockable rooms) and my employers simply wouldn't have had the space in the premises to be able to create a second toilet, especially if priority in space was given to create an accessible bathroom. If there was a ruling that this had to be provided a whole lot of employers couldn't maintain their current premises.

If the changing rooms, I think it's incredibly tricky because this issue will only ever affect trans people who do not 'pass'. It's totally unenforceable and I think could create real issues if staff start challenging female customers who appear more masculine or male customers who appear more feminine. That's an actual minefield.

That is a very male mindset, isn't it?

Your manager has to comply with the law though. And it's easier to enforce in a workplace than anywhere else because if someone is trans your employer will know about it and they can take disciplinary action against them if they insist on using the wrong toilets.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could simply trust trans people to abide by the law, do the right thing and not invade spaces they have no entitlement to?

So it will affect about 99% of trans people then.

The idea that trying keep male people who wear women's clothes out of women's toilets is going to primarily affect female people who wear men's clothes is quite hilarious. I can't think of two groups of people who look less alike.

How would the staff normally deal with a man trying to use the female changing area?

And this is a massive stereotype and tbh part of the sensationalism around trans issues. Obviously there are a handful of trans people who are very vocal and determined and have a clear agenda, but I certainly don't think this applies to the majority. I know a number of trans women and trans men, a lot of the trans men still use female changing because they feel safer around women than men.

And a lot of trans women actually shop online. I'm a tall biological woman - I do all my shopping online- when was the last time you saw a decent tall section in real life shops? I'm the same height as an average uk man. I think we need to be really careful to seperate out people who are harmful and malicious from trans people in general when having these discussions. And before someone jumps in with "but how can we tell who's malicious or not", you know that's not the point I'm making.

Of course it’s the point you’re making. I’m sure there are plenty of decent men out there - doesn’t mean that we can tell the bad apples from the good, so we keep them all out of our spaces where we are vulnerable.

A man who wants to use (aka invade and colonise) a female space is, de facto, a predator.

There are plenty of trans people who do this though. None of the trans people I know invade female only spaces apart from trans men who were born female. In fact the trans women I know will avoid trying clothes on in shops and won't use any toilets because they feel uncomfortable doing so and unsafe in the men's for obvious reasons.

No the point I'm making is that blanket statements shouldn't apply to trans people just as they shouldn't apply to any other cohort of people. ALL trans people are not desperate to use the ladies and shouldn't be represented as such. SOME do.

Yes, I know a few who don't use women's spaces either, but lots do, and I don't see why we just have to put up with it or why because it'll be hard to keep them all out, we just shouldn't bother. It's the ones who breach women's boundaries who are making life harder for us all. It would be nice if they accepted this and stopped.

Single sex spaces make blanket statements about men, though, don’t they?

Why do you want to treat people with a trans identity as a sacred caste? There’s now stackloads of evidence that doing so hasn’t worked out well.

The relevant Act was passed in 2010.

Good point, Safeguarding is all about making blanket statements about certain demographics. We know not all men are a risk, but we know men are most likely to be a risk, so we keep them all out. That doesn't mean there aren't tons of lovely men who would do us no harm. It's the same with transwomen.

OP your boss needs to learn how to google.

Work places have by law to provide
• spaces for men which have no women
• spaces for women which have no men
when the employer provides a shared area for two or more employees.

So if that pub owner has emoloyees she needs to provide a fully serviced lockable single unit which only one person can use at a time or provide single sex provision.
The Pub owner can choose to break employment law and but if she falls out with current or ex-employees they have a case winable or not it will be avoidable expensive management time.
She is also waving an Audit Here flag to any tax inspector etc. because people who ignore the law in one area tend to do so in all areas.
Public house license laws normally have a catch all Obey the Law too.
And Insurance companies love a Get Out of Paying breach of T&C.

And Primak and its mixed sex changing room is gaining a reputation for non contact child sex abuse images but that may change as the new CEO is trying to expand their US market.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/3004/regulation/20

Sanitary conveniences
20.—(1) Suitable and sufficient sanitary conveniences shall be provided at readily accessible places.
(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), sanitary conveniences shall not be suitable unless—
(a)the rooms containing them are adequately ventilated and lit;
(b)they and the rooms containing them are kept in a clean and orderly condition; and
(c)separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.
(3) It shall be sufficient compliance with the requirement in paragraph (1) to provide sufficient sanitary conveniences in a workplace which is not a new workplace, a modification, an extension or a conversion and which, immediately before this regulation came into force in respect of it, was subject to the provisions of the Factories Act 1961, if sanitary conveniences are provided in accordance with the provisions of Part II of Schedule 1.

And wa wa wa bla bla bla to anyone trying to say that the word woman in that body of that legislation is some how different to the word woman in the EA

PS urinal provision is lawful provision only for men.

But what is a single sex space other than a blanket statement that the opposite sex are not allowed?

We are making a blanket statement about male people and saying that that blanket statement should apply regardless of any particular male person's feelings.