Disappointingly, Janice Turner is continuing with her series of transphobic articles in the Times. The transphobic tone of her article and the bias is evident throughout. For example her use of the term "trans lobby".
For months she has repeatedly and incorrectly implied that legal self-id would allow men the legal right to use the women's changing room. And I use changing rooms as this is the example she uses in her articles. Finally, after months of being called out on this, she has changed her tune.
Her argument is now
"Yet a GRC is a serious undertaking: it allows a person to change the biological sex on their birth certificate, a document of public record. A person’s identity is then sealed, only to be opened in circumstances such as criminal investigation: there is no way of proving someone is not the sex they claim to be. Only 5,000 GRCs have been issued to date. But if this process is made easier, with no careful checks for sincerity, the Equality Act exemptions are rendered almost meaningless."
I don't fully follow her logic. She seems to be saying that fake transwomen can be kept out of the women's changing rooms today as the staff can demand to see their birth certificate, which will identify them as male. But if the GRA process is simplified, without careful checks, then all these fake transwomen will have female birth certificates, cannot be positively identified as transwomen, and therefore cannot be excluded from changing rooms under the EA exceptions.
This logic is so flawed it is hard to know where to start.
Every transgender person with the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment" (they intend to, are undergoing, or have undergone a process to reassign their gender) is covered by the EA.
The case law (such as there is) is that transwomen cannot bring a claim for discrimination in being barred from using sensitive areas such as a changing room until they are sufficiently far along the transitioning process. How far is not defined - but will be assessed on a case by case basis.
Once a transwoman reaches this point, the only legal way to discriminate against her is if the situation fits within the exemptions contained in the EA; the discrimination needs to be proportionate and a means to achieve a legitimate aim.
If for example a pre-operative transwoman repeatedly exposes her male genitalia in a communal changing room, causing the other women to complain, and attempts at compromise have failed (e.g. suggesting she uses a cubicle), then it could be proportional to exclude her. [I am not aware of any reports of this situation occurring in the UK]
But the key thing is that if it is not obvious that a women is trans, then I don't see how it can be proportionate to exclude them. The EA does not allow blanket bans on transwomen - for example on an ideological basis. As the EHRC statutory guidance says "Service providers should be aware that where a transsexual person is visually and for all practical purposes indistinguishable from a non-transsexual person of that gender, they should normally be treated according to their acquired gender, unless there are strong reasons to the contrary."
So the idea that simplifying the GRA process will make the EA exemptions meaningless in practice is nonsense. The only situations where the EA exemptions apply today are situations where a problem arises because the person is trans.