Women’s sports - EHRC say trans people can be excluded

[FindTheTruth]

I was really surprised to read this….

the Equality and Human Rights Commission to the Gender Recognition Act GRA consultation 18 October 2018, saying the trans people can be excluded from women’s sports:
www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/consultation-response-gender-recognition-act-18-october-2018.pdf
Page 23
Question 12
Sections 76, 77, 78:

76. Sections 195(1) and (3) of the EA 2010 permit the exclusion of men or women from competitive sports events or activities where the average physical strength, stamina or physique of one sex puts them at a disadvantage compared to the respective average of the other sex.

77. In addition, trans people can be excluded from gender affected activities, under section 195(2) EA 2010, where it is necessary to do so for reasons of fair competition or the safety of competitors.

78. The EA 2010 permits an inclusive approach towards trans people while setting out safeguards for the rights and interests of others. Under the EA 2010, fair competition and the safety of competitors (and not possession of a GRC) will be the critical considerations to determine if gender reassignment discrimination is permitted. The lawful operation of this exception will still depend on a fair and reasonable assessment by responsible bodies, applying the above- mentioned factors on the relevant evidence on a case-by-case basis, and not on prejudices, unwarranted assumptions and stereotypes.

Holy blooming moly. Thats all so reasonable - can we not just go with This, please?

And Rugby World have just said - no transwomen in women's rugby.

Bloody hell! It seems the court case has been the kick up the ass they needed

They were arguing that 'self id' to get a grc wouldn't affect sport or other 'gender affected' areas, so it would be OK to go ahead and introduce self id.

That doesn't necessarily mean they support excluding tw from female services in most cases.

I think they are supposed to be producing guidence on the single sex exemptions but are dragging their feet. I wonder if they will emphasise the lawfulness of gender reassignment discrimination, or talk so plainly about sex, when that is the focus rather than the justification for self id.

It is pretty plain speaking though isn't is, which we can point to as we manage to get the general discussion onto single sex spaces.

yes @Manderleyagain, EHRC arguing for self ID having no impact on sports because these sections of the Equality Act say the gender recognition certificate will not be a consideration, and that fair competition and safety will be a consideration.

interesting that they're producing sex exemptions... didn't know that

has anyone talked about this or used it before? can't find these specific sections on fairplayforwomen

@ArabellaScott

Holy blooming moly. Thats all so reasonable - can we not just go with This, please?

yes please, lets

This needs bumping.

It's dated October 2018. It's not a new EHRC policy but their response to the consultation? Looks like them describing the EQA?

Yes @beargrass it's the EHRC response to the GRA consultation. I've posted it now because it might be useful for 'womens sports and the equality act' arguments. And because it's surprisingly reasonable.

would love to know what FPFW make of it or if they've used something similar...

Where it states it must be a case by case basis, am I to take that as, depends on the sport. Or depends on the player? Because I can read that both ways, both in case by case depending on area, eg. rugby - nope. Or a very strong tall TW could be excluded, but a smaller one would be fine, depends on the case.

Hopefully the former. As the second is a bit ridiculous. TRAs make out the case by case thing for single sex spaces means a blanket ban is not allowed (like, a refuge could not specifically say no, they have to determine each single person seperately) but it depends on the person/situation, but I know how much they..twist things so, wondering.

fairplayforwomen.com/resources/law/

FPFW cover this, the exemptions are in the EA2010 UK.

The problem is, all organisations apply "Stonewall Law" rather than actual law, hence the mess we're in.

Case-by-case has never really been tested, as we're all supposed to think it doesn't exist.

case by case and 'sport by sport'

I can't understand why the other sports aren't using the equality act.

Citizens advice make it clear too Separate sporting competitions for men and women

so why aren't the other sports using the Equality Act in their guidelines?

Until a woman can legally self id or acquire a GRC by whatever means and claim an hereditary title or inherit an entailed estate as if AMaB, I won't believe that the powers-that-be are really behind sex change in any meaningful way.

That exemption has been there fro the get-go and doesn't look like changing anytime soon.

Both the GRA and The Equality Act list situations when sex is the defining characteristic, not gender reassignment.

Where a sport or service is women only it should remain single sex, because single sex spaces and services exists to fulfil a need, and are permitted by law.

The problem is not that the law is unclear, the problem is that activists have been misinterpreting the law. This is what many of us have been saying and campaigning about for several years now.

The problem with this guidance (which is wrong) is ‘case by case’ . It’s Impossible to prove that a particular person has an unfair advantage over the average female competitor as the advantage can only be established by conparing at the average male competitor or perhaps the average MTF competitor, with the average female competitor . ‘case by case’ prevents any club saying to any TW ‘you cant compete because you are male’ ie it prevents clubs from having blanket ‘ female only’ policies. The EHRC are well aware of this and this WHY they frame their guidance in this way. There is nothing in the EA2010 which prevents blanket policies and no need for a ‘case by case’ approach .

Until a woman can legally self id or acquire a GRC by whatever means and claim an hereditary title or inherit an entailed estate as if AMaB, I won't believe that the powers-that-be are really behind sex change in any meaningful way

That exemption has been there fro the get-go and doesn't look like changing anytime soon

I actually agree with you, but cant some people get a brand new birth certificate with the opposite sex on it? Far as I know that then superceded the original. A well known person showed their new certificate on Twitter, and to me it looked exactly like mine.
Wouldnt that new BC prove what you needed to claim a title?

Dont know, just asking.

There is nothing in the EA2010 which prevents blanket policies and no need for a ‘case by case’ approach

Yes, but isn't that what case by case means anyway? Case = individual sport/activity/club, rather than an individual.

Thing is, trans people aren'# "excluded" by any of this, are they? They are merely restricted, like everyone else in sport, to competing in the appropriate sex categories, just as eg, sportspeople are often required to compete in the appropriate weight categories for their sport.

We need to change the language around this. Nobody talks of "excluding" a 26-stone wrestler from a flyweight category, we just talk about them being included in the appropriate category.

This whole topic bends my mind.

I don't sign up for gender stereotypes myself. I believe you are born a sex and that shapes how you are perceived and treated in the world and each individual person chooses to what extent they want to or are comfortable conforming to the gender stereotype of that sex.
If you believe a trans woman is a woman despite their biology, then what denotes them being a woman? If a trans woman is "living as a woman" surely playing rugby is a stereotypically male sport which goes against "living as a woman". The argument seems to be a woman is not a biological reality nor a socially defined stereotype, it's just a meaningless word.

This is why I refuse to bend to this argument. Women are not meaningless.

We need to change the language around this. Nobody talks of "excluding" a 26-stone wrestler from a flyweight category, we just talk about them being included in the appropriate category.

Exactly. In women's sports, a "transwoman" is any male who wants access to a women's team or category based on his self-declared gender identity. Their "inclusion" means that the activity becomes mixed sex, male and female.

The discussion should be about whether it's reasonable to turn women's sport into mixed sex. It's absurd to frame it in terms of an undefined (and unverifiable) identity concept.

@Gurufloof no, a trans man can obtain all the certificates under the sun, but is not allowed to inherit a male-line title or estate. Or join the Catholic priesthood. Exemptions to exclude natal females from male property and professions were built into the original GRA legislation. It's up to you to decide whether no exclusions to keep male bodies out of women's prisons were put in because 1) this was always about misogyny or 2) no one imagined that such a batshit move would be made or 3) parliament basically thought it was discussing the gender transition of homosexual men.