Letter from prominent lawyers highlighting what women's legal rights are under the EA2010

[PlectrumElectrum]

Handy to have if you are ever in the position of being either denied the right to female only space/service/safe & fair competition in sport or being told by anyone that even asking for this is evidence of any sort of "prejudice".

Taken from Joan McAlpine's twitter posts.

As Errol said on another thread, that's a silly comparison:

A loo which has a call button, no possible means of a perpetrator escaping... sure, yes those are exactly like mixed sex loos in other locations.

I am expecting to have an elective surgery within a few months and am already worrying about being in a ward with, or even in the next bed to, a man or a TW. This is utterly unacceptable to me and am delighted to know the law is on my side. I'd like to raise the issue before the op, so seeing this letter to the hospital looks like a good option. But who do I address it to, anyone know?

AncientLights

Be aware that, via the Equality Act 2010, hospitals are 100% exempt from any provision of any mixed-sex environments or services:

Schedule 3 [General Exceptions], Section 27 [Singles Sex Services]
sub-section 5a:

(5) The condition is that the service is provided at a place which is, or is part of—

(a) a hospital, or

(b) another establishment for persons requiring special care, supervision or attention.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/schedule/3/part/7/crossheading/singlesex-services

Amoregentlemanlikemanner

The lawyers' letter is on our website here:
forwomen.scot/30/03/2019/tie-letter-legal-response/

Brilliant thanks for this.

This is the response I got from GGUK when I challenged them about letting in boys.

GG I got a similar response from my law firm. Completely overriding my concerns. This letter is very helpful thank you for posting.

They didn't say where the legal advice had come from ThePuportedDoctress.

Their response was very much fingers-in-ears, la-la-la, we're not listening.

They were grossly over charged for their legal advice then, no matter what it cost. Given that it’s completely wrong

So JackyHolyoake does that mean a hospital could put a woman on a men's ward and she could do nothing about it apart from discharge herself?

AncientLights I really don't think you should be too concerned. Obviously provision varies from one hospital to another. I believe the worst abuses occur within psychiatric provision sadly.
Most wards in general hospitals are mixed in the sense of serving both sexes but accommodation is arranged in a mixture of same sex bays and single rooms. Hospitals are fined for breaching the same sex directive with special exceptions for areas like ITU. I very much doubt you will find yourself with a man in the next bed. I think most wards would tend to put a trans person in a single room for avoidance of unease in either direction. If you are very concerned maybe you could request a single room if one is available.

Standing For Women have some new stickers out, which make the same point..

Obviously you should only put these up in establishments you are responsible for, or with permission

www.standingforwomen.com/shop

FULL TEXT HERE:

A group of senior lawyers recently wrote this letter in response to the TIE letter which was printed in the National and the Herald earlier this month. We believe it is vital that the misrepresentations of the legal position as expressed in the TIE letter are corrected, and are pleased to be able to publish this rebuttal.

Letter begins:

We write as lawyers who wish to raise concerns about the TIE open letter which claimed that male to female transgender people already have rights in law to access women’s spaces and services. This statement is incorrect. The Gender Recognition Act 2004 provides trans people with the right to be recognised in law as the gender they have transitioned to when, and only when, an application to change legal sex is approved by a Gender Recognition Panel following a formal application supported by medical and other evidence and a statutory declaration. It does not create a general right for any person, at any stage of transition, to be treated as a member of the gender they are seeking to transition to.

The Equality Act 2010 provides trans people with the important and necessary protection from discrimination on the basis of gender re-assignment. This is not the same as a general right of access to single sex spaces and services in all circumstances. It is established in case law that the comparator for a transgender person claiming discrimination in relation to gender re-assignment is not the sex which they are seeking transition to but that which they are seeking transition from. There are a number of exemptions for single sex spaces and services, for example sports (section 195) and communal accommodation, such as youth hostels or other shared sleeping and sanitary accommodation (Schedule 23 paragraph 3), which can be invoked for biological women only. These exemptions are equally important and necessary, for many different reasons, such as enabling women to compete safely in contact sports or to use shared sleeping accommodation where otherwise they might be unable (for example due to their religious or cultural background or past trauma).

Signed,

Rosa Freedman
Professor of Law, Conflict and Global Development, University of Reading

Beth Grossman
Ely Place Chambers

Amanda Jones
Great James Street Chambers

Anya Palmer
Old Square Chambers

Maureen O’Hara
Solicitor and Senior Law Lecturer, Coventry University

Rosemary Auchmuty
Professor at Reading Law School, specialising in Gender, Sexuality, Property Law and Legal History

Thank you.
It may be that we are at the point where we need a thread explaining the different status of statements made by different individuals within and (in the case of Stephanie) on the fringes of the legal profession.

Also for the lawyers it would be helpful if someone would be kind enough to put in a brief cross-reference to the authorities at a level suitable for non-specialists

Those of us who subscribe to practical law for companies or to Lexis may also wish to see what this much used resources are saying. As with medicine, much law is practised defensively. The two principal aims of the solicitor are usually A Not to get sued and B to meet their billing target for the year

AncientLights

"So JackyHolyoake does that mean a hospital could put a woman on a men's ward and she could do nothing about it apart from discharge herself?"

No .. it means the opposite ... that no males should ever be placed in female spaces and vice versa in any hospital. That is the 100% exemption.

Sub-section 5a

I have just look at the PLC note on Gender Reassignment Discrimination.
This is the single most used resource for lawyers giving advice on the topic.
I’m very concerned that this is going to be causing busy solicitors to give incorrect advice.
I think there is an urgent need for the authors of the letter referred to in this thread to engage with the employment team at the practical law for companies.
I have to go now but can be contacted by a personal message in the unlikely event that my help is needed to obtain access to the practical guidance note that I referred to

That’s a very clear and powerful letter. Thank you.

That’s fantastic. Thank you OP and thank you to the wonderful lawyers who wrote that.

I know a young man who has to teach so called LGBT rights and he says it’s all about the T. Part of the teaching is using the line ‘transwomen and a subset of women, the same as black and disabled women are!’ It makes me fucking furious. I’ll be printing that off and giving it to him.

And* = are

Useful for when I get the next response in my ongoing correspondence with the council who run the gyms in my area...

That’s actually in the training instructions? . Black women are now to be considered a subset of actual women?? And anyone who’s disabled is only a weak facsimile as well...

This CANNOT be happening?? What the fuck is going on?

no males should ever be placed in female spaces and vice versa in any hospital. That is the 100% exemption.
Sub-section 5a

I thought NHS accommodates patients according to gender, not sex?

medium.com/@anneharperwright/sex-gender-the-nhs-1e8f4e6363a6

"Despite what the public were told, the policy was always explicitly based upon segregating by ‘gender’ and not sex, right from its inception.

NHS documents and records dated from 2010 show that before the policy was implemented, whilst still in its design stages, the specifications always related to gender, not sex. And yet the name of the policy, and all references to it to the general public were explicitly instructed to be sex, not gender. The opposite of the truth.

The deliberate use of the word SEX to name the policy, whilst using GENDER to facilitate it, was a Department of Health mandate from Andrew Lansley.

The NHS Information Standards Team who were tasked with creating the infrastructure to execute monitoring and reporting on breaches of this policy understood their task. To utilise patient data relating to gender, not sex. To segregate wards by assumed or self-declared ‘gender’, not sex. Discussions at that time between the NHS team and the DOH left no doubt; what was being created was a standard that measured breaches in mixed-gender, not mixed sex wards. Mixing people of differently sexed bodies was acceptable, whilst ‘psyches’ were separated.

The NHS team told the Department of Health that the name of this policy was misleading. They insisted it should truthfully be called “Eliminating Mixed Gender Accommodation’. A source within the NHS confirmed that they fully understood that this policy related to gender, but that the DOH was explicit in its directive:

Segregate wards by gender. But definitely tell people it is by sex. “To ensure a better public understanding”."

thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3396859-Weve-been-lied-to-about-Single-SEX-wards-since-2010?pg=1

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/10/nhs-trans-row-men-get-access-womens-wards-identify-female/

"Hospitals routinely allow male patients to share female wards if they self-identify as women, an investigation by The Telegraph has found.

Despite official guidance intended to eliminate mixed sex wards, none of the NHS trusts in England require a patient to have begun transition for them to be treated as their preferred sex, according to responses to more than 100 Freedom of Information requests.

One trust even advises staff to consult with the transgender patient if a female victim of sexual assault objects to sharing facilities with someone who may be biologically and legally male."

That’s actually in the training instructions? Absolutely true. He said that he actually rushes through that part as it makes him feel really uncomfortable. I have noticed that it mainly seems to be trans people or men that does that training. I wonder is it because men have nothing to lose so don’t care and we know what the trans have to gain.

One trust even advises staff to consult with the transgender patient if a female victim of sexual assault objects to sharing facilities with someone who may be biologically and legally male.

I remember that. It makes me absolutely furious, as it means that a woman has to be prepared to inform total fucking strangers that she doesn’t want to share because she was abused. If she doesn’t volunteer that distressing information, them she has to put up and shut up. Why the fuck should his rights over rule hers.

This is the advice and information being given to schools. What happened to sex as a protected characteristic?