Labour promises to keep single-sex exemptions

[RoyalCorgi]

From the manifesto:

labour.org.uk/manifesto/tackle-poverty-and-inequality/

"Ensure that the single-sex-based exemptions contained in the Equality Act 2010 are understood and fully enforced in service provision."

This is quite something.

I don't trust them.

I don't trust that they've actually given too much thought to the single-sex spaces policy and how it sits with GRA reform.

I've been a Labour voter for 40 years and have posted here previously that I cannot vote for them this time. Sadly I still stand by that.

I mean, this is better than the blatant fuck off that they were giving women before, but it still further embeds a legal fiction, forces women to justify applying the exemptions on a case by case basis (which leaves the possibility that they will be denied in a given case open), and leaves a whole range of situations which most women would probably like to be single sex and which probably won't clear the legal bar. And it does nothing at all to address the issues with teenaged females being transitioned in droves.

Plus something being in the manifesto doesn't guarantee that it will happen. Not keeping their promises is something politicians specialize in.

I await clarification on the question, what is a woman? If Labour include men who feel like women, this is meaningless.

Much better than the genuinely batshit LibDem and Green positions, though. Another plus is that this move may push the SNP towards taking a more reasonable position too out of a desire to avoid losing votes to Labour in Scotland.

it shifts the overton window and leaves the lib dems and the greens looking fucking bonkers

but that's about the only good thing about it in my view

I await clarification on the question, what is a woman? If Labour include men who feel like women, this is meaningless.

It's nothing to do with that question. The whole point of the single sex exemptions that Labour's manifesto says it is keeping and enforcing apply only to biological sex.

The only question feminists need to ask themselves here is: is a concession to retain these exemptions sufficient to earn my vote? I don't think it is for me but some may think otherwise.

(Stonewall et al have lobbied Labour to remove these exemptions. The inclusion of this is an explicit NO to Stonewall).

I'm not LGBTQ and so making sure they are 'centred in everything we do' doesn't interest me.

As has been said by the current Government under specific circumstance single sex (ie biological sex) services can be provided.

The issue seems to be more that some (not all) refuges and rape crisis support have decided not to exercise it!

Just out of interest for anyone who has read the manifesto do they give as many committments to women's rights as they do to LGBTQ+ rights as listed above?

(Just to note, which for some reason hasn't been widely publicised, is that just before the election was called the government, eg the Tories have committed to a big increase in funding to rape crisis centres. I wonder if a Labour Government came in they would implement this.)

People keep adding words into the labour commitment to make it mean what they want it to mean. This is no better than we have at the moment with organisations ignoring the exemptions and women continually battling to keep men out of their spaces. Labour are committed to self ID and centering LGBTQ+ and that is quite clear In their manifesto. How can anyone imagine that this will result in excluding transwomen from women’s spaces?

Ooooh - tangent - Boris promised to fund 4 London rape crisis centres 10 years ago:
He had to be harangued into it post election and I think less than half of what was promised actually materialised.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/21/boris-johnson-rape-crisis-centres

londonprogressivejournal.com/article/view/547/the-boris-keep-your-promise-campaign

leftfootforward.org/2011/11/boris-johnson-turning-back-clock-for-women-in-london/

LangCleg is right. This is an important concession - single-sex exemptions refer to biological sex.

It does mean that the issuing of a GRC will be fairly meaningless if people were hoping it would gain them instant access to women's spaces.

And it's not a mistake. Women in Labour have been lobbying hard for this.

How are the TRAs taking it over on Twitter? Lots of temper tantrums, I imagine.

It’s not going down well.

twitter.com/socialrepro/status/1197492641375621120?s=20

I think if Labour had offered this a couple of years ago I probably would have been pleased and reassured but it's been left too long and so I'm just totally sceptical that they mean what they say.

At the moment I'm still left feeling that my only option for me as a GC woman is to spoil my ballot paper.

The single sex exemptions are limitations to the entitlements conferred by a GRC. Labour is promising to a) retain them and b) encourage use of them by services and organisations.

At the same time, they are promising to make it easier to get a GRC.

The single sex exemptions are for the provision of single sex services, they are nothing to do with gender reassignment.

The GRA says:
Where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender is the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man and, if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman).

Note it says 'for all purposes'. The new transgender policy for prisons, for example, says "all individuals who are transgender must be initially allocated to part of the estate which matches their legally recognised gender".

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/825621/transgender-pf.pdf

There is something in the EA2010 about ' a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim', but it is quite vague about how this would work in practice, as is the guidance from EHRC.

The manifesto is with regard to single sex exemptions in EqA. They're saying they'll make it easier to get a GRC but tighten up the limitations to the entitlements the GRC affords - so protecting refuges, rape crisis services, etc.

This is likely an outcome of the Parliamentary Committee that we spoke about at length here and lobbying by WPUK.

It's much better than I thought it would be - they're not in full denial like the LibDems and the Greens - but I would need much more detail on how they plan to extend, make robust, and enforce application of EqA's single sex exemptions before I put a cross anywhere near a Labour candidate on my ballot paper.

Yes I can agree with all that. I need more clarity on what they mean by single sex, female, woman etc... this is undoubtedly better than the Lib Dems position. However judging by all the letters we have written many of their own MPs have been espousing a very different message right up to the point of this manifesto being published.

Do they have party buy in for this stance or is it election time obfuscation designed to win back the women abandoning them in droves? After all manifesto promises are not legally binding.

Transactivists suddenly seem to know the difference between sex and gender now that Labour are promising to do away with mixed sex wards!

twitter.com/search?q=Labour%20trans&src=typd

I hate to say it, but could this be interpreted that GC woman will be made to understand that transwomen are women and therefore covered by the equality act. Iyswim. I might be wrong but this interpretation would square better with the rest.

It's a fair question. Earlier this year people got excited when Maria Miller (Conservative) conceded that single-sex services must be protected. Then it turned out that she includes 'transwomen' in her definition of the female sex.
So I'm cynical and none the wiser about Labour's position, although I agree that it's miles better than the batshit non-man stuff of the Green Party or the open hostility we've seen from the LibDems towards women who have concerns about self ID.

I am not supported of Boris nor the Tories, but in terms of funding rape crisis they are streets ahead of Labour who for some reason have only recognised domestic violence. And then because they didn't want to hurt the feeling of men in Labour it was always classed as a "housing" issue which is why historically and stupidly, these is not core funding for refuges but they rely on women claiming HB!!!!

The articles quoted above are just people using the issue of rape crisis for an anti Boris story. The problem with the tory funding was they went with the bigger are better, so they allowed refuges to set up rape crisis lines as another source of funding, rather than allowing autonmous locally run rape crisis lines.

I think it is strange how hands off Labour still remains about rape crisis, and in fact Vera Baird who is now quite vocal was when just Labour rather than police commissioner one of the main promoters of DV as an issue and somehow rape not meriting the same need of action.

Its like finding out (sorry I actually dont know her proper title) Camilla now Mrs Prince Charles actively working with rape crisis.

Sorry rambling a bit now, but how the "left" have adopted DV as an issue and some of the right sexual violence.

But despite being critical of so many women's services that have been mission drifted by funding, continue to campaign to keep services going on stop start funding and occasional hand outs.

All of this means nothing if men can self id as women, which it looks as though they want to push through.

i know nothing about uk law...
so is there any paper providing someone's bio sex info when birth certification document changed following gender?

and is there any law provide difference sex and gender when GRA changed?

and if first GRA changed and then how can maintain the exemption place?

and school & university, gender education will keep going?
labour's LGBTQ manifesto can provide free speech right for not lgbtq pp?

Make me laugh that the TRA's think single sex hospital wards, shelters etc are vile and hateful.

Yes that made me laugh too.

It really is all about them, isnt it

This is an important concession - single-sex exemptions refer to biological sex.

The EHRC guidance says otherwise.

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.

Earlier this year people got excited when Maria Miller (Conservative) conceded that single-sex services must be protected. Then it turned out that she includes 'transwomen' in her definition of the female sex.

Yes. But not the same thing.

Labour cannot mean TW in the bit about EqA exemptions. The only purpose of those exemptions is to exclude TW from certain services and provisions.

Look: I get it. Labour has been hopeless on women. Half its activists are vicious misogynists and most of the rest are pomo-addled. But this is a real concession to XX people aka women. It's not sufficient for me to return to the fold but it's real.

It really is all about them, isnt it

You know how very small children go through a stage where they're completely self centered to the point where mummy not being always available and willing to give them whatever they want can result in screaming tantrums? Like that, but with an undercut and a pink and blue painted baseball bat.