Important - The Equality Act guidance has just changed

[WatchThePotatoesBoil]

I've just this minute been told by the EHRC that the Equality Act guidance has been changed, and the new version was published on Friday as promised to Fair Play for Woman.

It no longer states:

Where someone has a gender recognition certificate they should be treated in their acquired gender for all purposes and therefore should not be excluded from single sex services.

It now states:

Transsexual people should not be routinely asked to produce their Gender Recognition Certificate (if they have one) as evidence of their legal sex. If a business requires proof of a person’s legal sex, then their birth certificate should be sufficient confirmation.

There will of course, now be a new Twitter war on what this actually means.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/what-equality-law-means-for-your-business-2018.pdf

This is a good point, actually. How will this affect the consultation, given a fairly important factor has changed halfway through? Will the deadline be extended?

I raised this point with the Sports and Recreation consultation because they specifically referred people to EHRC guidance so that they would understand how to do the consultation responses.

I wrote to tell them that the EHRC guidance was wrong and that the corrections were due to be published last Friday so asked them if they were going to extend their deadline for submissions and let those who had already submitted know about this change in case they needed to amend their submission.

The Sports and Recreation people did not respond to my emails until just on 17:30 on Friday. They thanked me for highlighting the issue and said they would not extend the deadline.

I've followed up to ask them if they're going to contact the people who have made submissions to invite them to amend those submissions if they followed the flawed guidance.

more crickets

I don't understand what the change of wording means. Am I alone in this?

WarmWishes no, you're not alone in this. I'm unable to make sense of it.

I knew I had seen discussion of this here before.
This short thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3297961-Not-only-do-we-need-to-stop-self-ID-we-need-to-row-back-on-some-existing-laws

someone with a GRC explains quite a few things about how it works including: "The original certificate is not destroyed and is linked to the new one and the two can be seen together for legitimate purposes such as a police investigation."

This thread (from December) about debates in the chamber in drawing up the GRA, and some more recent legal defining:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3103653-Gender-Recognition-Bill-2004-Hansard-records

someone with a GRC explains quite a few things about how it works including: "The original certificate is not destroyed and is linked to the new one and the two can be seen together for legitimate purposes such as a police investigation."

What about for DBS checks I wonder?

Is very opaque, until they decide what to do with GRA, its impossible to know how the 2 will interact. Birth Cert is useless for services, if someone can get a new one.

The people drawing up the guidelines were driven by trans advocacy. The fact they've been forced to row back is good under any circumstances as I don't doubt they are still driven by trans advocacy.

There are no GC people drawing up guidelines anywhere. It's all transadvocates. This shows that though slow and painstaking, policy can be rolled back to be fairer to women.

•Charliethefeminist* hmm yes, thanks for that, I'm feeling very down about all of this today.

I don't think people should get a new birth cert, there is no need now.

Amending the word Gender to Sex is a very bad thing indeed, as it prevents women objecting to the GRA consultation/Self ID outcome from pointing out that Gender is a social construct and Sex is a protected characteristic.

It basically ratifies into legislation that all of these bloody 'essence' feelings that are driving this, are in fact, equivalent to Sex.

And they are trying to allow people to change 'Sex' at will.

And if that research is going in the direction that we suspect and as a result, Sex is no longer legally recognised/noted, then women's rights (because Sex in EA2010 replaced the Sex Discrimination Act) are well and truly over.

I find this very difficult to make sense of too. It's so confusing. At first I read it as a destruction of the single-sex exemptions too but I have posted about this on Facebook and most people have said it's good news because this new guidance specifically reference transsexuals. It nails down the original intentions of the GRA which was to address the specific needs of transsexuals. So changing 'sex' would entail more commitment than changing 'gender'?

From what I understand that means it's specifically about transsexuals who have 'changed sex'. That would mean, I guess that in a legal sense only women and transsexuals would be part of the sex class female - women by birth and transsexuals by having 'changed sex'.

I'm still not sure if I've read this right though.

Also, exemptions apply to transsexuals even those with a GRC. In certain situations transsexuals with a GRC can still be excluded i.e. rape crisis services etc. As legal females they would be able to join the GG as a leader, but they could then be excluded from sleeping and sanitary facilities.

This may be useful fairplayforwomen.com/legal-rights-transgender-people-biological-women/.

Hey TL;DR

I've seen a lot on twitter and FB, to clarify, the EA has not changed, the EHRC have just been reprimanded on their guidance and clarified that transwomen with a GRC can be exclused from female only spaces in some situations (ie they were reminded of the exemptions). And various other bits of good news mobile.twitter.com/OnlyObjectivity/status/1049340702507913216

This changes nothing about the consultation, and we're exactly where we were before, knowing what we know.

To quote Dr Nic (it was she who pressed the EHRC to correct their mistaken guidance) "The ehrc have clarified that having a GRC does not stop someone being excluded under single sex exemptions. There was a mistake in their original guidance that suggested the opposite. This is a useful clarification and doesn’t change anything that we already know"

Here's a reminder of what women's rights are in law fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/EA2010_womensrights_-factsheet.pdf

So, the issue is with the relaxing of the GRA (self ID) - if any tom dick or harry can get a GRC, then he also gets MASSIVE privacy protections, it's THIS that affects the interplay of EA and GRA. See here: fairplayforwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/FPFW-printable-guide-1.pdf

I don't know what eejit is telling people this updated guidance is bad news, or more laughably that the EA itself has changed (that'd require parliament, they can't willy nilly change the law!) - we're exactly where we were, apart from the fact that the Gov body charged with interpreting equality law, the EHRC, is on the naughty step and had to eat humble pie.

Sorry to hit and run, v busy, but just thought I'd dive in as seen a fair few panicked women. It's the opposite, this is very positive for us indeed as the EHRC are a statutory body that people rely on to interpret the law, and they got it wrong, we were right!

Thanks Girlscout for the clarification. That's very reassuring.

So, just to be clear, it's not bad news, the EHRC are idiots (I think I knew this anyway, as I am aware that their helpline has been giving people dodgy advice about all this for a while)

But we still need to double down on spreading the word before 19th October and getting as many people as possible to fill in the GRA consultation.

The fight to prevent Self -ID is still on!

(Although that King's Research is one to watch)

Exactly that. Self ID will mess up how these two laws interact in practice.

Also staggering EHRC are giving mistaken guidance.

I hear on the grapevine that Gov not very happy with EHRC and obvs the Gov consultation on application of the EA (separate to GRA consultation) closed on Friday and I know a lot of women responded specifically highlighting the extremely poor understanding and information about the application of the exemptions.

The EHRC really aren't fit for purpose are they? Wonder whether they will ever be held to account orwillthegravytrainjustchugon

GirlScout, I agree that our underlying rights according to the EA have not changed and it's good news that we have got the EHRC to change their guidance and FPFW have done a fantastic job in highlighting this and getting it changed. It's absolutely shocking that EHRC have been misinforming us all for so long and have only changed their guidance at the 11th hour.

We're not where we were before though. We know a lot more now. We have seen that faced with the task of amending their guidance to comply with the equality act the EHRC have replaced a statement that blatantly contradicts the EA with a statement that makes use of a massive great loophole around the EA. It has brought into sharp relief the effects of the massive privacy protections afforded by the GRA and how they can be misused.

I welcome the fact that EHRC have been shown up for the stunt they have pulled but in practical terms nothing has changed. We've gone from 'you can't exclude tw with a grc' to 'you can exclude tw with a grc but you're not allowed to know who has one anyway' It's technically more in line with the law but we are no better off.

I'm one of the eejits saying this is bad news, not because of this change, but because of another change that's in there:

• as opposed to the physical sex they were born with
• as opposed to the sex recorded at birth

Sex is no longer a physical thing, it's just admin. Many bad things flow from this change.

Stats for children killed in the uk by men in familial roles?

Oops sorry.
Wrong forum

I’ve had to request a FOI on this though.
Staggered that this is not important enough to be a routinely quoted statistic.

It is an exercise in using different words to continue to deny physical reality. Not any sort of gain.

I hear on the grapevine that Gov not very happy with EHRC

Yes I got that impression just from the tone of the questions in the EA consultation.

This will be used to bin all of the responses that relied on the old wording and the new wording will be deemed acceptable as a compromise. Womyn who have put in submissions need to put in new ones.

I think this is it. I think many have replied to the consultation stating the wording and where there is clear issues with the EA/GRA. I think the government does not like that so many women have pointed out that self ID WILL affect single sex spaces (instead of just accepting when the consultation said it wouldn't ) and they are now attempting to just discount the replies that mentioned this now.

'Changing sex' is terrifying in law really, as its impossible.

I do appreciate them not sticking the 'assigned at birth' nonsense, but recorded at birth sounds...off. Especially given the GRC changes birth records (mistake also)

In short, I don't think this is good news at all. But I may be paranoid.

PersonWithAVulva

I would suggest that anyone who is concerned about the fact they filled in the consultation prior to the wording of guidance changing or has come across any new information since filling the consultation in, emails their MP with their concerns and asks that they’re added to the consultation.

I'd like to do that, but have got a bit lost with it

Could someone with working brain cells do an A B C of the changes and ramifications please? Thanks.