Liz Truss shift

[purpleboy]

inews.co.uk/news/politics/government-no-interest-banning-trans-people-single-sex-toilets-liz-truss-tells-equalities-tsar-1474413

Is this a shift in thinking from Liz Truss?

@Kimilybob

I dont understand all the fuss, trans have always used the facilities of what they identify with? Whats changed? Its a non issue to get hung up with imo.

Go and tell that to the females with no access to rape services, refuges, the females who are affected and excluded, that they are 'non issues' and their needs and equality and access is a 'non issue'.

Fgs.

@Kimilybob

I dont understand all the fuss, trans have always used the facilities of what they identify with? Whats changed? Its a non issue to get hung up with imo.

Rubbish!

That no longer flies. Women are now more comfortablesaying that they always did actually notice and that they were usually too scared or embarrassed to make a fuss.

I am sure that man of us have had that moment when we saw a man in the women's loos, or wherever, and looked round, realised we were alone in a small space with a man and that our best bet was not to be seen to notice and to leave as soon as possible.

And that is the lightest end of the spectrum.

You @Kimilybob may have not a care in the world about men sharing enclosed spaces with you, being somewhere you thought was single sex. But many women, for many reasons, have isues with it. And you do not get to throw away their right to single sex spaces just because you think its's 'nothing to get hung up with'.

Raped women
Abused women
Religious women
Young women, girls
All women

They all deserve the full extent of the law to be applied to their safety and dignity.

Stop giving away your rights!

@HipTightOnions "But I'm suggesting the organisation might argue that that they have not used the EA exemptions and it's not a single-sex facility - it's open to both sexes but only if you meet their other (non-PC) criteria."
I'm not sure that's something they can do though?

But I'm suggesting the organisation might argue that that they have not used the EA exemptions and it's not a single-sex facility - it's open to both sexes but only if you meet their other (non-PC) criteria.

That is completely irrelevant. Here's the law: it is illegal / unlawful / verboten to discriminate against people for any reason whatsoever.

That's the default position.

Here's the exception:

There are a number of circumstances where people have particular needs that other people do not have.

There are a number of reasons why people have been discriminated against in the past, before equalities laws made this unlawful, and they continue to suffer the consequences to this day.

For both of those reasons, it may be necessary, in certain situations and under certain circumstances, to make an exception to the no discrimination default.

It is impossible to do so without rules, because the reasons why exceptions may be necessary are different and the interests of some people may conflict with the interests of another.

Prior to 2010 we had a whole range of separate laws trying to do right by these different groups of people, but it was difficult to navigate them, especially when conflicts arose.

Enter the Equality Act 2010.

It defined the groups by defining what particular characteristic it is that may lead to discrimination or that may result in particular needs:

age;
disability;
gender reassignment;
marriage and civil partnership;
pregnancy and maternity;
race;
religion or belief;
sex;
sexual orientation.

Now under UK law you may not discriminate against anyone for any reason, unless you cannot meet the needs of people with a particular characteristic without discriminating against those without that characteristic.

So no, you cannot make up anything else in order to exclude people, because the default is that discrimination is unlawful and it would therefore be unlawful to just make something up. To make it lawful, you have to show that one of these nine protected characteristics is the reason why you need to discriminate by excluding people.

(This does not apply to certain private clubs or private life. There is no obligation for you to treat all guests in your house the same for instance. So if you want to let all left-handed people have an extra gift, feel free.)

So in theory it is legal to exclude males from single sex services designed solely for Women.

But in order for trans women to live in their aquired new gender (as they can't change actual sex.) they must access the female spaces to 'live as a woman.'

Whomever wrote these laws needs to come back and rectify this mess

@happydappy2

So in theory it is legal to exclude males from single sex services designed solely for Women.

But in order for trans women to live in their aquired new gender (as they can't change actual sex.) they must access the female spaces to 'live as a woman.'

Whomever wrote these laws needs to come back and rectify this mess

No-one has to access female spaces to “live as woman”. I’ve personally never been to all but women’s toilets/changing rooms and I’m sure there are women who’ve never been to even those, if they’re rich/famous enough. Still women. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that in order to get a GRC, there’s nothing that says TW have to use them either.

Lets be frank about this.

Until five minutes ago, women's single sex spaces meant female only, intended to exclude all males, for obvious reasons.

We're now wittering around in circles about what could single sex MEAN, and of course single sex women's spaces can be INCLUSIVE (of males, while excluding females) and why? What's the reason?

Males finding females having boundaries inconvenient and looking desperately for ways to make ignoring female consent and inflict themselves upon females regardless of how it affects said females.

No. So, so done with this.

Have third spaces. Have fifth spaces for all I care. If you're female and delighted to get your kit off in front of male people then you crack on, but you do not get to compel all females to either suck up the distress and disadvantage you're so passionate that trans people should never have to experience, or to require that other females be excluded as punishment for having needs you apparently neither understand nor have the basic humanity to care about. Answers that work for all or we stay as we are.

Yep

That's the ridiculous top and bottom of it.

We ALL know what male and female are.

We are being asked to fnursle the squooze moliddle... and to smile as we do so!

The king is in the altogether...

@Kimilybob

I dont understand all the fuss, trans have always used the facilities of what they identify with? Whats changed? Its a non issue to get hung up with imo.

You’re obviously a bit hung up about it

And no they haven’t

You’re obviously a bit hung up about it

Well, yes, when that was my attitude, I roll up onto a feminist forum to announce my ignorance, I went away and did some reading, to find out what was going on.

"...when that was my attitude, I DIDN'T roll up onto a feminist forum to announce my ignorance..."

*Stonewall hasn't tried to change anything, it disagrees with some current legislation such as spouse veto"

There is no spousal veto, Disgusted. Genderists keep complaining that women are allowed to stop their husbands transitioning, but it's simply not true.

The law simply gives the non-transitioning partner (usually the wife) the right to leave the marriage, by divorce or annulment, before their partner gets a GRC. As Sex Matters explains, it's like having to end your current marriage before marrying someone else.

sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/WESC-GRA-Reform-201127-Sex-Matters.pdf

Now under UK law you may not discriminate against anyone for any reason, unless you cannot meet the needs of people with a particular characteristic without discriminating against those without that characteristic.
**
So no, you cannot make up anything else in order to exclude people, because the default is that discrimination is unlawful and it would therefore be unlawful to just make something up. To make it lawful, you have to show that one of these nine protected characteristics is the reason why you need to discriminate by excluding people.

To decide whether someone is being discriminated against you have to assess whether someone without that PC would be treated differently. This person is the comparator.

The problem arises when service providers were somehow persuaded that the comparator for TW trying to access women's services should be a woman who did not have a trans identity, rather than another male.

This is from Mike Freer's response to the Gra petition debate yesterday.

I turn to single-sex spaces. I assure colleagues that we will not be changing the Equality Act. For many years, trans people have used single-sex spaces in their gender without issue. The Government have no interest in curtailing that. It is also important that we maintain existing provisions that allow organisations to provide single-sex spaces. The Equality Act already allows service providers to restrict access to services on the basis of sex and gender reassignment, where that is justified.

A lot of media attention has been given to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and its work to provide clarity to service providers on the provision of single-sex services, which has long been called for. My hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington said that it might be time to ensure that there is more clarity about what the Equality Act allows. I have spoken to the chair of the EHRC. We had a fruitful, if frank, conversation about how we are not seeking to change the Act, while recognising that for some people—as many have saidtoday—clarity about its provisions might be welcomed. The EHRC is of course independent of the Government, which the Equality Act 2006 provides for. However, I am happy to reiterate our commitment to maintaining the existing provisions under the Equality Act 2010.

It fucks me off so much when the whole “but TW have used woman’s spaces for years without complaint”

1. No one fucking asked me if I was ok with blokes wearing woman’s clothes in my spaces
2. Who exactly was I meant to complain too? Or was it assumed that women would challenge a female presenting man off their own back. Yeah cos women challenging men is in no way potentially dangerous
3. It was decided by the government & the NHS in their infinite wisdom that Using womens spaces was part of proving you were living as a woman. Again no one fucking asked us
4. Just because I didn’t challenge the 6ft bloke wearing thigh high boots and a short skirt in the womens loos at Bristol station just before Christmas didn’t mean I was ok with him being there. I was very much not ok with it - but again who would I complain too? GWR is stonewalled to the eyeballs

Said bloke probably thought as no one challenged them we didn’t notice - we absolutely did

And what they also didn't notice was the woman who'd just come out of the toilets standing there warning other women so that they could choose whether or not to use those toilets under those circumstances. Last time I saw that was in Disneyland Paris 9 years ago. Now, no doubt, employees would remove her for being transphobic.

the ONLY solution is to repeal the GRA. Stop issuing GRCs. Stop allowing 'some' males to access female spaces. This entire problem is caused by males being legally recognised as women. Just as people have to respect speed limits or there are consequences, men have to accept they are not welcome in certain female spaces.

It's also because nobody mentioned that the transwomen would still have their male genitalia.

That's not the reason for the difference, I don't think.

It's absolutely true that if you do not mention such things, more people both male and female, support transwomen in women's spaces.

But even if you do mention it, you see some support, and I believe more women than men support it in both cases.

Which fits with my anecdotal experience.

@happydappy2

the ONLY solution is to repeal the GRA. Stop issuing GRCs. Stop allowing 'some' males to access female spaces. This entire problem is caused by males being legally recognised as women. Just as people have to respect speed limits or there are consequences, men have to accept they are not welcome in certain female spaces.

Yes. This is the only way. Men can and must "be kind" to other men regardless of what those other men wear. Men can and must refrain from raping anyone, but at least if they are so "unkind" as to rape another man, they won't make him pregnant.

(And Liz Truss might usefully be replaced)

This is the ultimate difference between men & women, if a man is raped he won't get pregnant, whereas a woman might-this is why we have sex segregated spaces FFS! this is what it all boils down to.

But I'm suggesting the organisation might argue that that they have not used the EA exemptions and it's not a single-sex facility - it's open to both sexes but only if you meet their other (non-PC) criteria.

It's an interesting question, but I'm not sure they would be legally allowed to exclude right handed people from a key service. If it was a meet up group or something, sure.

I agree with HappyDappy. The need for gender recognition has been overtaken, and gone, since the time of the Equalities Act, by a shift in the law and the public attitude.

In the days when it was a crime for a man to be gay, men would reasonably be afraid to wear 'women's clothes'. They certainly could not legally marry another man to live as 'man and wife'.

Now, neither Grayson Perry nor any other man fears to wear whatever he likes: Nobody, man or woman, has a problem marrying any other man or woman, and the general public couldn't care less.

The attack on women-only spaces is misdirected. If there are truly still men around who would "stare, or make hurtful remarks" aimed at another man entering the men's loos, prisons, changing rooms or hospital wards while wearing lipstick, then it is men who must request fellow men to "be kind" (and to catch up with the century they now live in)

Men have the right to insist on entering men-only spaces.

Women have the right, and the still extremely valid 'protected' need, not to admit them to women-only spaces.

I turn to single-sex spaces. I assure colleagues that we will not be changing the Equality Act. For many years, trans people have used single-sex spaces in their gender without issue. The Government have no interest in curtailing that. It is also important that we maintain existing provisions that allow organisations to provide single-sex spaces. The Equality Act already allows service providers to restrict access to services on the basis of sex and gender reassignment, where that is justified.

I just can't make head or tail of that. How on earth can the govt support 'single-sex spaces in their gender '? It doesn't make any bloody sense!