Last week the Women and Equalities Select Committee recommended EHRC write a new Code of Practice covering single sex exemptions. This article sets out exactly what needs to be considered.

[JackyHolyoake]

Highly recommended read:

fairplayforwomen.com/single-sex

We must campaign for all the relevant Exceptions in the UK Equality Act 2010 be made mandatory.

This way any organisation that wants to opt-out of that mandatory provision and render a single-sex space or single-sex service as mixed-sex will be required to conduct and Equality Impact Assessment and justify the purpose of such an opt-out.

This is so needed.

The haziness in the equalities act has been totally exploited to bring in self I.D through the back door.

An excellent paper. And pleasing to see that the regulatory capture of the EHRC by trans advocacy groups is clearly called out.

These paragraphs [brava to the author!]:

"At the same time telling trans people that their rights depend on their appearance is also inhumane. How can someone book a service online if they may be told at the desk that they don’t look or sound female enough? Should a person wanting a place in a female halls of residence or a female sleeper carriage be turned away on the day if they don’t look feminine enough? Who is to judge? Is someone ‘less trans’ because they don’t pass? Isn’t this imposing sexist stereotypes about what it means to be a woman? Doesn’t everyone have a right to be included in public life regardless of what clothes they wear, whether they wear makeup or not or how they wear their hair? Why should it be anyone else’s business whether someone has had surgery or not? Why shouldn’t someone be out and proud about being trans?

"The idea that the right to access to intimate single-sex spaces, or programmes intended to promote the education or health of women and girls should be based on criteria such as the quality of someone’s personal grooming and the femininity of their appearance is demeaning, unworkable and risks humiliating all concerned."

Excellent read. Very clear, reasonable and balanced. One to be shared! Thank you xx

From fairplayforwomen.com/single-sex/

"Trans advocacy groups have been closely linked to the development of official guidance. The EHRC is a “Stonewall Equality Champion” and provided funding to establish the organisation Gendered Intelligence. The EHRC’s Trans reading list is dominated by groups and authors holding this viewpoint. It worked in close cooperation with Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence in announcing the development of new guidance for schools. Gendered Intelligence also wrote the Government Equalities Office Guidance to business on Providing Services to Transgender Customers and influenced government policy placing males into female prisons.

"Stonewall tells schools that it is a “legal requirement under the Equality Act” to allow a trans young person “to use the toilets and changing rooms of their self-identified gender rather than of their assigned sex” (it isn’t). East Lothian Council said “Stonewall Scotland recommends that the term ‘gender’ is used rather than ‘sex’ as it is more inclusive”. "

Surely, EHRC declaring itself a "Stonewall Champion" and providing funding to establish the organisation Gendered Intelligence expresses a serious degree of bias?

Exactly who has control of the EHRC?

What a wonderful piece of work! Fair, balanced, reasonable.

Thank you for posting. It is a really good paper.

Written by Maya Forstater, how powerfully and expertly she nails everything, forensic analysis, detailed and objective, no wonder certain people want to silence her and how important it is that her case succeeds.

Ha! Was just coming down here to post this :)

@MForstater Thank you for writing this. It says all we women [and our girls] need it to say. Brava! Standing ovation to you, sister.

Sorely needed. BUT - if a GRC enables the holder to get a new birth certificate giving their ‘new’ sex then the single sex exemptions don’t apply to them? And if more or less anyone can get a GRC with self id then the sex based exemptions don’t give much protection?

Seconded

Maya’s a bloody smart woman. What a great piece of work

I want to quote the whole thing, but these bits caught my eye

they need a clear standard for what ‘single sex’ facilities means in practice, so that front-line staff, women, and transwomen understand what is appropriate and what their rights and responsibilities are, and no one is put in a position of uncertainty, humiliation or conflict

No separate case is needed for excluding disabled males, older males, gay males, Catholic males, Jewish males, atheist males, or any other males from a women’s single sex service. It makes sense therefore that males with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment are also excluded in the same way as all other males. People who have legally changed sex can also be excluded, since it is not someone’s legal sex, but their actual physical sex which has the potential to make others uncomfortable.

Oh, I see Maya is on the thread!

Brava!

Fantastic Maya - thank you.

There are so many insightful and clear pieces being written at the moment by many inspirational women. And they are having an impact.

Ha! Was just coming down here to post this

We'll always beat you to it!

It's an excellent piece of work. Truly.

It sounds fantastic but how will they be excluded if they have a birth certificate a la Aimee saying they were born female?

On a jovial note, I appreciate this small excerpt particularly but can't quite put my finger on why :

but also more lightly supervised situations where the person on the front desk has little to go on but superficial appearance, as well as completely unsupervised situations such as public toilets, or a woman working from home providing Brazilian waxing

@vaginafetishist

The Equality Act 2010 has specific provision for excluding anyone claiming "transgender or transsexual" status, with or without a GRC from single -sex provision.

The Trans Lobby has persistently misinformed, misinterpreted or misunderstood UK law.

Further, given it appears that our EHRC has been totally "institutionally captured" by the Trans Lobby in the UK , a redirection is required in terms of EHRC understanding of the Equality Act 2010.

The conclusion that the EHRC needs to arrive at is that the relevant Exceptions become mandatory and that service providers must justify via Equality Impact Assessment why they should opt-out of such mandatory provision.

Currently, the EHRC seems to be "unfit for its purpose"!

Exactly who is the CEO of the EHRC who does not understand this?

This is brilliant!

Brilliant, thank you Maya!

The Scottish Parliament is asking for input on “Delivery of national equalities and human rights priorities in partnership with the third sector.” by 23rd August...

www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/112216.aspx

Hi all. Thanks for the

We must campaign for all the relevant Exceptions in the UK Equality Act 2010 be made mandatory

I don't think it can exactly work like this. The EqA is really broad - it applies to private companies, public sector, charities, associations etc... and all kinds of situations. It can't specify when things can be mixed sex (most of the time) and when they should be single / separate sex (i.e. the exemptions). It is principle based.

But I think where better guidance can help is in making clear that:

• for public sector orgs changing policy (e.g. going from single sex changing to unisex changing village) requires an Equality Impact Assessment

• single sex means single sex - if you are excluding men from an all women facility then you are using the exemption. You shouldn't apply it ambiguously way

• if you are applying the single sex exemption it means that providing a single sex service has been deemed a legitimate aim. This means it must be proportionate means to exclude people of the opposite sex, as this is the only way to provide a single sex service.

-- organisations/services should be inclusive of transgender people (people with the protected characteristic "gender reassignment"), but this does not require or imply access to that single/separate sex services of the opposite sex. In most cases providing a unisex/single user/'gender neutral' option in addition to separate sex means everyone has 'somewhere to pee'.

how will they be excluded if they have a birth certificate a la Aimee saying they were born female?

You are right GRC and the legal fiction of people changing their birth certificates makes this harder to implement, but....

-- there are many more more self identified TW than those with a GRC, so its worth getting the principle right with the majority
-- I think if this is clear you can then argue that having a GRC also does not give someone the right to access single sex spaces where others are naked /vulnerable etc... (because why should it?)

I think next thing we need to do is push the govt (via Victoria Atkins? ) in its response to the WESC report , to give the EHRC as strong push to develop the new Code of Practice (with a broad scope, not just refuges, aligned to the Equality Act and the protected characteristic of sex etc...)

It sounds fantastic but how will they be excluded if they have a birth certificate a la Aimee saying they were born female?

If we can't get rid of the GRA just yet then we need an urgent amendment. At the moment it's all rights and no responsibility. There's a massive confidentiality clause in there which makes it unlawful for anyone to disclose a trans person's status if they have a GRC or are applying for one, if that knowledge has been gained in a professional capacity.

This is completely arse about face. It needs to be made explicitly legally OK to disclose someone's trans status for the purpose of upholding a single sex exception. It also needs to be made a criminal offence for someone to withhold their trans status for the purpose of deceptively breaching a single sex exception.

There are no good reasons for pulling that shit.