City of London's sneaky 'Consultation' to end its Single Sex Spaces in Sunday Times

[Wanderabout]

With Man Friday's wonderful Hannah Clarke quoted:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ladies-loos-at-city-landmarks-may-open-to-trans-women-l5lxjjv0z?shareToken=73b04bbf5f255aff5836ed2572e37eab

I have submitted a freedom of information request on how the responses will be considered and weighted

excellent work Sweary

thanks for your tireless activism on this

I found it impossible to choose a relevant tick box for any answer, and had to begin every text box response with 'Assuming you mean sex not gender...'

That's pretty much what I did too. I would hope that after all the hoohah somebody will make sure all the GC responses get read as well. If only to save themselves any more embarrassment.

Timely bump as this consultation ends tomorrow so please fill it out while you can. Although reading this thread you may be in some doubt as to the fairness of the process. Rightly so. It's also likely to have been brigaded by international TRAs.

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/LLK223F

yes fill it out! although none of the questions make sense due to the sneaky conflation of gender with sex, there is a nice long box for writing what you mean after each question.

That questionnaire is such a piece of disingenuous rubbish. I hope that everyone has also made a complaint to the City of London about them being associated with such a biased and incompetent piece of work.

Of course, it highlights perfectly just how the TRAs make such traction. Get yourself into influential positions and then use them to pursue your own agenda. Totally against the Nolan principles of public life.

I don't think Edward Lord understands the meaning of the word "principle".

yy, and if I may borrow this from the Man Friday version of the survey, you should especially fill this in if you live, work or worship in the City, or if you visit any of their facilities:

City of London facilities and services:
80 Leadenhall Street Sexual Health Clinic
Adult Education
The Barbican Centre
Epping Forest
City schools
Gyms and other sports facilities
Highgate Men's Pond
Kenwood Ladies' Pond
Libraries
Mixed Bathing Pond
The Museum of London
The Old Bailey
Parks and playgrounds
Parliament Hill Lido
Public toilets
Shared supported accomodation for single women
Shared temporary accommodation for rough sleepers
Toilets and changing rooms in City Corporation schools, offices and other work spaces
Tower Bridge

That's really useful, thanks!

Filled it in - is survey monkey really the best medium for this?

That survey is ridiculous. Redefining the meaning of words and then making you make a decision based on them!

I live in one of many properties owned by the City of London. The survey has never been mentioned in any letter or email, or in person by anyone from the City since it was announced.

I did it a while ago, its a joke. SwearyG thanks. So they hold a survey and are going to discount anyone who disagrees with gender identity.

Love to see the women at The Ladies Pond when some geezer turns up. Man I wouldn't fuck with them !

That's totally unsurprising interesting Ineko

IIRC, the survey was only accessible through twitter to start with.

I found this piece too islingtontribune.com/article/transgender-survey-comes-under-attack

Professor Sullivan, who chairs a running club that uses the City’s Parliament Hill athletics track, said “They only informed the Parliament Hill running track users group about the consultation after I prompted them to do so, yet it affects the track changing rooms.”

I would say it could be challenged on those grounds. Residents should surely have been invited to respond.

I’ve had a reply to my complaint. It basically says they’ve taken legal advice and think the consultation was legal. They say the first questions aren’t filters. They do seem to be tacitly agreeing that the language is woolly though.

They say schools aren’t covered.

They invite complainants to lodge complaints if they think individuals have breached their code of conduct which EL clearly has so I will do that.

I’m writing back to say:

Corporation should be tackling breaches in the code of conduct not ordinary individuals. Since the sponsor said the questions are a filter, either the sponsor is wrong and out of order and they should censor him, or the corporation is unaware of what it’s publishing in which case they should withdraw it.

That Twitter circulation was not appropriate since it excludes people and since the channels used on Twitter used hate speech in circulating.

That they have failed to communicate clearly with affected parties by not providing a list of facilities affected and making no effort to contact them directly.

Any further thoughts ?

Excellent points.

Also worth asking which women's, faith, policing, union, etc etc groups the sponsor will consult with in the development of this gender identity policy? (Pic 1 from www.citymatters.london/corporation-announces-review-gender-identity-policies

It looks like the sponsor had clear plan to consult with groups who support trans and non binary people. Pic 2 from bit.ly link at bottom of
news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/city-of-london-corporation-to-launch-a-new-consultation-on-its-gender-identity-policies/

Has there been any consultation with other groups? If not when will this take place?

Also when will further consultation take place on the actual gender ID policy document? Per the 2nd pic that will be quite a wide ranging policy- not just a couple of survey questions on unnamed services being based on self identified gender identity.

Question 1:

Are transwomen...?

A; stunning
B; brave
C; both
D; neither (For next question click box X in top right corner)

Done it, thanks for the reminder. What an insult it is.

Any further thoughts ?

That they didn't directly contact residents who will clearly be most affected by any changes.

I think I love you MipMipMip.

How has it come to this?

London, the capital city of the U.K., one of THE tourist cities of the world, is publicly saying it doesn't care about women at all.

I'm just

And it's appalling enough that people who live and work there haven't been given a chance to fill this in but the international TRA lobby have - but actually it's also bad that "outsiders" in the U.K. don't get any say either. It's our capital city!

I still work there a lot so feel that it's fair for me to fill in the survey, but even if I didn't, why does it get to make rules like this which will affect a lot of people who don't live/work there permanently but only visit for fun?

Finally, surely some transwomen are worried too? If you've gone to the trouble of actually transitioning, would you want self-IDing men who still look and feel like men around you in your new safe space?

This has been for many reasons, not least that since 2008 it has been illegal to discriminate against trans people (more technically those with the protected characteristic of "gender reassignment") in the provision of services subject to very narrow exceptions.

I don't get this. How is it discriminating if everyone has to use the correct toilet for their sex?

UPDATE current thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3592053-City-of-London-Consultation-Results-they-cant-get-away-with-this

The screen shots upthread, of tweets (provided by sweary godmother) between Cheryl someone and Edward Lord, would really help any legal challenge. They explain why 50% of the responses were discounted.
These people make laws up as they go along.
Also above - swearygodmother did a foi request about this. I wonder what the outcome was.

SwearyG did a massive amount of work on this last year.

When the consultation was launched (on Twitter by Edward Lord) it was apparent that none of the standard accessibility versions had been released.

see:
SwearyG Thu 26-Jul-18
"I spoke to someone at the CoL today. They’re “working on” accessibility. They don’t think an equality impact assessment is necessary or required.

I have no words."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3317922-City-of-London-Corporation-consultation-is-out-this-covers-Hampstead-Ponds?pg=4