Is it legal for a man to use the women's toilet in England? Scotland?

[SerciteEland]

If not, can someone please point me to where I can find text of the law regulating this? I've tried searching here to no avail: www.legislation.gov.uk/search

I was always under the impression that it WAS illegal for a man to enter the women's room but now I'm not so sure and it seems a rather hard thing to search for.

I assume it must be since apparently a reading of the 2010 Equality Act has been invoked to allow transgender women to use the women's room. www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36395646

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/19

But I can't seem to find the original law prohibiting men from being in the ladies'.

Further, I've only really started to pay attention to the trans issue within the last few years (first as an ally from 2011-2014 and thereafter becoming progressively more and more gender critical after hitting peak trans in 2014/15) and I somehow entirely missed that it's now apparently legal for trans women to be in the women's bathrooms. Does anyone have links to good information on how this happened (focused on the UK)? And have there been any documented abuses of it so far?

If anyone is entering a woman's bathroom with the intention of committing some sort of sexual crime then this of course would be a serious crime which hopefully would be dealt with appropriately.

Horse, gate, bolted.

Horse, gate, bolted.

Exactly. And conviction rates for rape / sexual assault don’t offer any reassurance that women would get any help or recourse from the law.

So I’ll take your “hopefully” Tracy and say no thanks, I don’t fancy women becoming collateral damage because some people want to be “...free to use a bathroom of their preference according to whatever they identify as.”

Horse, gate, bolted.

Freedom! At last..

Women's safety is more important than men's feeling.

Not sure why people don't get that. Maybe they choose not to, maybe they like to make women feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.

This is why people with penises need to stay out of women's spaces.

Laws against males in female toilets wont help. I was sexually assaulted in a ladies toilet by a man dressed as a man, an illegal act, but that didn't stop him. Stop using the threat of male predators as a means to attack trans people. They just want to piss and shit in peace like the rest of us.

It's not about "trans people". It's about male people. And women and girls have rights too. Stop trying to give them away. I'm sorry for what happened to you but other female survivors, like me, would like ALL males to stay out of female single sex spaces.

They just want to piss and shit in peace like the rest of us.

And take pictures with phones under the door; we're talking about men, right? Well, we were.

I'm not saying males should be in women's toilets. I'm just saying we shouldn't lump genuine trans people in with predatory males.

I'm just saying we shouldn't lump genuine trans people in with predatory males.

Ok, how do we tell one from the other, given Stonewall's definition of trans?

By their behaviour, someone acting inappropriately is clearly a threat and should be ejected. A trans women, especially a post op, minding their own business should be left alone.

By their behaviour, someone acting inappropriately is clearly a threat and should be ejected.

How do you define inappropriately? And why do we have to wait for someone to behave inappropriately before they can be removed? And how do you go about ejecting them?

A trans women, especially a post op, minding their own business should be left alone.

How can you tell the difference between a genuine transwoman and a man cross dressing because of a fetish? And how would you know whether they are 'post op'? You could just guess that they're not, of course, because about 85% of transwomen keep their penises.

To suggest that trans women are inherently dangerous by virtue of an immutable characteristic is unreasonable. This is the very definition of prejudice and transphobia. A law abiding women whether they're trans or not has every right to use public services like toilets. No one has the right to deny access for simply being trans.

To suggest that trans women are inherently dangerous by virtue of an immutable characteristic is unreasonable.

Has anyone suggested that? And what immutable characteristic are you referring to? Sex?

No one has the right to deny access for simply being trans.

No, but people might be denied access because they are male.

The equality act does not give you or anyone else the right to reject a trans woman from female toilets without just cause, ie threatening or inappropriate behaviour.

The equality act does not give you or anyone else the right to reject a trans woman from female toilets without just cause, ie threatening or inappropriate behaviour.

It does actually, explicitly. Schedule 3, Part 7 (F11), sub sections 26 to 28 set out that persons of one sex can be legally excluded from spaces or services provided to the other sex even if they fall under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

And not only that, the law also makes it clear that a person without a GRC has no right whatsoever to access services provided on a single-sex basis to members of the opposite sex. A person with a GRC may still be excluded if doing so is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim.

And privacy as well as dignity are covered in the Equality Act (subsection 27, condition 6, clause b) which allow the exclusion of a person of one sex from opposite sex facilities and services if:

the circumstances are such that a person of one sex might reasonably object to the presence of a person of the opposite sex.

The key word is a proportionate means of a legitimate aim. An individuals mere existence does not meet that legal standard. The legal standard is actually a very high bar to reach and usually applies to refuges , prisons and female sports where a degree of exclusion may be considered reasonable.

"Libfems" prioritise men over women. It's should be called feminism-lite or men's rights feminism.

It's basically fucking useless.

I don't think it's been tested at all in the uk anyway as to what is legally appropriate. And such a testing would have to be repeated if the law was to change to self ID, because a lot of women respond differently towards people with medically certifiable gender dysmorphia than they do towards people without that severe mental problem

With toilets and changing areas we must surely be ensuring that trans can participate fully and comfortably and ensuring that women can participate fully and comfortably

If a significant number of women are excluded from some activities due to say PTSD being triggered by being in a vulnerable position in the presence of a male body, would it be fair and proportionate to look for another solution? What would you say would class as a significant number? or in your opinion is that irrelevent compared to the trans persons Feelings?

Dear me, Libfem37 you are all kinds of misinformed, aren't you?

The Government Equalities Office clarified in correspondence last year that in line with the Equality Act 2010 as written, exclusion does not happen on a person-by-person case but on a circumstance by circumstance case. If the reason for offering a single-sex provision is proportionate and legitimate, I can blanket ban all males, regardless of their identity.

If for instance I run a refuge for female victims of male violence, I can legally exclude all males because this is a legitimate aim and a proportionate means.

If I offer female-only and male-only changing rooms, I can blanket ban people from using the facilities set aside for the opposite sex.

That's because preserving dignity and privacy is a legitimate aim, which is noted in the EqA and explicitly stated in statutory code.

Just because a number of organisations and companies are reluctant to correctly apply the available sex-based exemptions does not mean they do not exist and cannot be applied.

Here are some examples for perfectly legal exclusion of the other sex:

The Men's Shed movement
A father and baby group
A women's rights group
Brothers in Arms, Scotland's first mental health charity just for men
A domestic refuge for women
Counselling for female rape victims
Toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons, dormitories, sleeper cabins
A holiday centre for women and their children
A support group for bereaved men
A committee at work dedicated to improving women's equality
A room dedicated solely for the use of breastfeeding mothers in an office building
A women-only swim or gym session
A festival celebrating women's empowerment
A women's library

Etc etc etc

Countless examples exist beyond those I listed. All provided for in law.

If it was up to me, I would change the law so that one would have to opt out of single-sex provision and could do so only after showing through thorough Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs) and Children's Rights Impact Assessments (CRIAs) that doing so will be better for protected groups.

I'm astonished that people actually think that

Males and females use your bathroom at home.

Is some kind of valid argument on this issue?! 😂

dear haters, I'm well informed on the equality act and I am not suggesting that males trans or otherwise should be given free reign to enter female spaces. Also, there was a case 6 years ago when a trans woman was ejected from the women's toilets in a pub. She was post op and had a grc: the court found in favour of the claimant. So to answer the threads question, trans women can use women's toilets. Finally, the best solution is simply a room with a toilet in it like the bathrooms in our own homes.

I am not suggesting that males trans or otherwise should be given free reign to enter female spaces

Except that this is what they have, effectively. Certainly if self-id goes through it will be completely unrestricted.

then you'd better make sure gender self id does not go ahead. This ridiculous notion of self Id and changing the gender recognition act has caused a shit storm and no one is better off for it. hopefully, the gender recognition act reforms will just die off and we can all get on with our lives.

Good grief, people still say "haters"?