Government Announcement

[crunchymint]

The Government has announced that it has “no intention of amending the Equality Act 2010, the legislation that allows for single-sex spaces”.

I don't understand how GG can allow boys to sleep in same accommodation as girls & not inform the parents....how can that work from a safeguarding point of view? We don't have any mixed dormitories in boarding schools so why is it deemed ok for a GG residential trip?

happydappy I know it's unreal. I think people are just supposed to accept that 'identifying' as the opposite sex magically changes them into that. I honestly cannot see any rational explanation.

Doesn't the law mean that an organisation that wants to use the exemptions has to show that they have given it due consideration before invoking them? So a women's refuge would need to have a decent paper trail that shows their rationale for remaining single sex, along with robust guidance for staff on what to do if a transwoman seeks employment there, or seeks to access their services. (I'm sure they must already have some of this stuff in relation to male children - at what age can they be accommodated in a shelter, and when would it be proportionate to separate a child from its mother?)

The problem is that all the diversity training that the fishy group and others have been delivering to the police / schools / councils etc etc has been silent on the exemptions, so many organisations don't know that they exist - they have simply been told that TWAW, and have changed their policies accordingly

I think people are just supposed to accept that 'identifying' as the opposite sex magically changes them into that.

This is what is really baffling about the whole situation. Supposedly rational adults believing in magical thinking. Saying you don't believe in the magical thinking because you have applied rational thought to what you are being told, somehow turns you into a 'bigot'.

No Oleanna it doesn’t because that will not protect them from legal action. Even if they do all those things they can still be sued by TRAs for excluding end they will be forced to justify.

This is nonsense, the ERA CANNOT coexist with any kind of gender recognition.

Currently a GRC allows a person to legally change their SEX (not their gender). As far as the law is concerned a transgender man with a GRC IS a female. There is no way for the law to on the one hand say that these people are female and on the other hand exclude them from female spaces and female legal protections.

The only way to preserve the ERA is to go back to the gender recognition act and change it so that SEX is left as the actual sex and an addition signifier of gender is added if they like (which does NOT say male/female or man/woman - those are sexes. Since gender is a spectrum not related to sex I suggest a scale of 1 to 10, masculine to girly, including decimals, so people can identify as 5.8 or whatever they like). This gender signifier would be completely irrelevant in terms of sex segregation (as well all know sex and gender aren't the same or even closely related).

Post after post using banned a term.

Which term is banned?

Oh. I guess TIM? These new rules are just basically an opportunity for TRAs to shut down discussion by using the report button aren’t they?

Only males can be trans women
If you use a gender based definition then trans women are women
If you use a sex based definition then trans women are males

TRAs are trying to force a gender based definition only
A completely subjective definition of woman

No Oleanna it doesn’t because that will not protect them from legal action. Even if they do all those things they can still be sued by TRAs for excluding end they will be forced to justify.

Of course the paperwork doesn't stop them being sued, but it can help stop them being sued successfully

I've written gazillions of equality impact assessments over the years, and although they can be a PITA they are actually really helpful in thinking through the issues in a systematic way. My background is the public sector, where they have been mandatory for a while now, but the private sector has been doing similar as best practice too.

For example, it's easy enough for a women's refuge to say "we are a single sex space and we won't employ men or allow men to access our facilities. The same approach will be extended to transwomen, whether or not they have a GRC. Our clients are all vulnerable women, the vast majority of whom have suffered abuse by men"

On the surface that looks sufficient, but a) if they only make the policy once and never review it it becomes poor policy; and b) the more absolutionist the policy is, the more effort needs to be put in to justify it. So a blanket rule on not employing men or transwomen could actually be a blanket rule on not employing men or transwomen who have need to access the premises, but employing men or transwomen in roles such as their IT support or accountant who will work remotely.

Case law is helpful because it helps provide a yardstick against which other organisations can judge themselves and consider whether they are acting lawfully or whether they are vulnerable to a successful legal challenge. But even without it lawyers can give a decent assessment of whether a person or body is acting lawfully

For example, it's easy enough for a women's refuge to say "we are a single sex space and we won't employ men or allow men to access our facilities. The same approach will be extended to transwomen, whether or not they have a GRC. Our clients are all vulnerable women, the vast majority of whom have suffered abuse by men"

Oleanna that is not correct. It can only be used in a ‘proportionate way’ regarding the equalities act 2010 and it’s the definition of ‘proportionate’ which is the issue. The passage I quoted above is from expert legal counsel to the government. It discusses an example given by the 2010 equality act which is:

A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful.

Which sounds great, but the expert legal advice (From Claire McCann) given on it was as follows:

Ms McCann advised us that “this example is drafted too categorically”. While it demonstrates a “legitimate aim”, it gives “insufficient information […] to show that the exclusion of trans people is appropriate and reasonably necessary (i.e. proportionate) to meet that aim”. She further suggested that in the instance cited it may only be lawful to exclude trans people if they do not hold a GRC:

I would doubt that a service-provider of single-sex or separate services could turn away a trans service-user who holds a GRC because this is unlikely to be proportionate.

According to the governments own legal advice it would not be ‘proportionate’ to ban someone with a GRC from a group counselling session if they had a GRC.

So the government is telling us that we will be protected by the equality act. But their own advice on the EA is that it’s not proportionate or legal to use exemptions on people with GRC.

And they’re likely to make it much, much easier to get GRCs including if someone still has intact male genitals.

So if they were being honest they would have added to their statement that they understood women needed safe spaces where the EA exemptions would apply the caveat:

But we’re going to make damn sure you can almost never use them.

And oleanna, you probably have a very myopic view working in the public sector where ‘impact statements’ and reams of paperwork are completed every time somebody wants to take a shit and the cost is accepted.

Refuges and many victims services are charities which are extremely poorly funded and many are closing anyway. It’s an extra expense they can’t afford. Waving an impact statement at litigious TRAs is not going to protect them from the expense of legal action either. TRAs can and will use that to shut down refuges & charity services they deem non-compliant.

And only very prosperous companies can afford to do that sort of best practice. Some of the others will manage to absorb the expense. But most of them will just fold to what the TRAs want. Ditto for the thousands of small businesses and charities up and down the country who just won’t have the time, money and resources to do that. They will just by default stop any sex segregation.

I don’t think anyone would think it proportionate to allow a 20 stone, 6 foot 4, male bodied transwomen with a beard into the counselling session because they hold a certificate.
However, it does seem wrong to discriminate against some transwomen because of their size, appearance or surgery.
That is why it seems far better to make a rule that specific services should be determined by natal sex. This is clear cut and objective

Okay, Mrs Beaujangles. You might not think it. But the expert legal counsel the government has taken strongly disagrees with you and advises it would almost certainly be illegal. And she is just a little bit more qualified than you to advise:

www.chambersandpartners.com/UK-Bar/person/234926/claire-mccann

Well in that case I've got PTSD and so does DD. And my mum, my sister, my mate Catherine, all the women on the school run, my neighbour, her kids...

I find that very offensive. I have PTSD from a stalker. I had to go somewhere today where he harassed me. I broke down in tears hardly able to move. That is PTSD and your remarks are mocking and offensive to those of us who have PTSD.

Leah

We are talking about changing the law. Counsel’s opinion is based on current law is it not? If the law changes then her opinion would change

So let me get this straight @Snappity, under self-id, males will be trusted to self-id as trans, but you suggest a third space for women who will have to prove that they have a mental disorder to escape from intact male-bodied trans women? And if we don't want to tell our GPs our rape history, we just have to suck it up or stay at home? And what do we do whilst waiting for a referral to a psychologist, because that's what you need to get a PTSD diagnosis? The waiting list last time for me was six months.

This is misogyny writ large. This is what male privilege looks like: males being believed whilst women are presumed to be liars until they prove themselves truthful.

That is PTSD and your remarks are mocking and offensive to those of us who have PTSD.

It certainly is a pisser when someone carelessly identifies into your oppressed reality isn't it? God. Is there anything that could be analogous to? Wait...

women are presumed to be liars until they prove themselves truthful.

females are presumed to be liars until they prove themselves truthful. For the pedantic.

Interesting that the legal requirement that employers provide lockable sex segregated loos is one of the few laws that the EA did not repeal. The laws seem to contradict what people say they say.