Fancy dress and the Equality Act

[Xanthangum]

I'm genuinely confused about an example given on the guidance pages of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The text reads:

The Equality Act says that you must not be discriminated against because:

• of your gender reassignment as a transsexual. You may prefer the description transgender person or trans male or female. A wide range of people are included in the terms ‘trans’ or ‘transgender’ but you are not protected as transgender unless you propose to change your gender or have done so. For example, a group of men on a stag do who put on fancy dress as women are turned away from a restaurant. They are not transsexual so not protected from discrimination

• someone thinks you are transsexual, for example because you occasionally cross-dress or are gender variant (this is known as discrimination by perception)

• you are connected to a transsexual person, or someone wrongly thought to be transsexual (this is known as discrimination by association)

I mean, I know what they are saying, but it seems remarkably difficult for a restaurant owner in this scenario to know whether these are trans identified or not? How could anyone know? The second point contradicts the first; turn away the stag do and you have possibly discriminated against one or more of them, if they were in fact trans.

Does my head in.

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-discrimination

So we can discriminate against Brendan O'Carroll and his tax avoiding family then, not just on the grounds that Mrs Brown's Boys is the worst so-called 'comedy' for many years?

My point is, how on earth can anyone know just from looking whether Brenda O'Carroll, or a panto dame, or a dragqueenstorytime whatnot is a trans person, or isn't?

That was a very funny slip.

Brenda!

It's a good point. Remember the group of trans women who threw that man to the ground at Leicester Square station and gave him a kicking? You wouldn't have known from the photo whether those were genuine trans women or a stag party dressing up for fun. Luckily the judge believed they were trans women, so gave them a lighter sentence because they were provoked. Good news, eh?

Luckily the judge believed they were trans women

It is all about beliefs isn't it?

The stag do aren't being turned away because of what they are wearing, they are turned away because they are likely to be rowdy. You can turn people away if they are cross dressing but not because they are cross dressing.
Presumably for places with a dress code they should follow the same process as school uniform - list all the options, rather than men / ladies. This could present an issue for places that require men to wear a tie / jacket.but probably won't as men who don't want to wear a tie / jacket would probably not want to go to such places.

It is all about beliefs isn't it?

It's all about pretend beliefs

The victim knew they weren't women,
the judge knew they weren't women,
the transwomen themselves knew they weren't women,
even Owen fucking Jones knows they weren't women.

but everyone has to pretend we believe they are women, even though everyone knows they're not.