question: Protected characteristic under the Equality Act versus single sex provision

[bobthebuilderofstars]

When asked how people are allowed to use changing rooms this response was given by my gym.

Q : Are people free to use the bathrooms and changing rooms of the gender they identify with rather than their biological gender?

Answer: People will be using rooms for the gender they identify with as this is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

Q: How does this fit in with safeguarding?
As with other protected characteristics under the Equality Act, being transgender is not in itself an indicator of a safeguarding concern and it would be discriminatory to regard it in this way.

Which is true.
But I want to point out that women should have access to single sex provision. How do I do that concisely? So far all my replies just waffle on.

The "gender they identify with" is not a protected characteristic, so you could start there!

I could be wrong but I thought gender assignment was a protected characteristic, not gender identity? We don’t have self ID yet?

Send them a link to the Equality Act and ask them to actually read it.

They may well have misunderstood the EA, in which case maybe better just to be concise and point that out. Someone more knowledgeable will be along to explain, I’m sure.

You need to point them to the single sex exceptions.

There is no legal requirement anywhere in British law that women must have access to a single sex space which excludes trans women.

@SevenWaystoLeave

There is no legal requirement anywhere in British law that women must have access to a single sex space which excludes trans women.

That's not entirely true. Often a lack of single-sex provision will lead to discrimination against women.

OP, some of this page (and website) may be useful sex-matters.org/posts/publications/on-toilet-provision-for-men-and-women-technical-briefing/

They are conflating sex and gender. There are single sex exemptions in the Equality Act 2010 which allow services to provide single sex provision - examples given in this document include separate changing rooms - www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/16/20/7. For single sex spaces, those with the protected charactistic of gender reassignment can be excluded due to their sex (rape crisis services are an example given).

Gender reassignment is the protected characteristic, although it now seems to have morphed to include those who indicate a desire to transition rather than solely those who have transitioned

It doesn't really matter what someone's gender is in regards to single sex spaces, they can legally be excluded due to their sex.

They sound like they've been (deliberately) given false information by Stonewall.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

You need to point them to the single sex exceptions.

For the thousandth millionth time, the exemptions, even where they could apply, are optional, service providers are always allowed to choose to include trans people. Absolutely nowhere in British law is there any obligation for service providers to provide a single sex space which excludes trans people.

For the thousandth millionth time, the exemptions, even where they could apply, are optional, service providers are always allowed to choose to include trans people. Absolutely nowhere in British law is there any obligation for service providers to provide a single sex space which excludes trans people.

However, where service providers have provided a single-sex space, there is nothing in law that entitles some people of the opposite sex to enter them.

Their response is muddled up.

Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic. This means that you can't sack someone for being trans.

Under the Equality Act, the benchmark for discrimination for gender reassignment is whether the person is treated less favourably than they would have been without that characteristic. For a transwoman, the benchmark is another male who is not trans.

Transwomen are not excluded from single sex services because they are trans, it is because they are male. This is not discrimantory as they are treated the same as every other male.

Well yes, providers can choose to exclude women who require a single sex space as we've seen by the fight by a regular poster who has asked a rape crisis service to provide a single single sex group in addition to the various other groups available to transwomen within the service.

That providers choose not to provide this service and cause traumatised women to self exclude from services they need is what is making increasing numbers of the general public start to see the harm in what gender ideology is espousing.

And providers making this decision to exclude women who require single sex services are currently being legally challenged by various organisations and individuals for failing to provide goods and services to their service users.

This will only grow in pace, thankfully.

There is no provision under the EA for single gender exemptions. Only single sex and where it has been decoded it us necessary to provide single sex services/provisions in order to prevent discrimination then only those of that sex may use then not anyone who identifies that way or prefers them. That is clear in the EA and has just been reinforced in Scotland by the Court of Session

That's not entirely true. Often a lack of single-sex provision will lead to discrimination against women.

Can you please provide an example of such a scenario, where including trans women in a space has been demonstrated to constitute discrimination against natal women?

And by that I mean an example which has been tested in court or is explicitly written in law, not an example you've made up in your own head because you think it should be recognised as discrimination but which is actually just your unsupported opinion.

Like this example stated specifically in the Equality Act 2010 exemptions that I linked above?

'Effect
739.This paragraph contains an exception to the general prohibition of gender reassignment discrimination in relation to the provision of separate- and single-sex services. Such treatment by a provider has to be objectively justified.

Background
740.This paragraph replaces a similar provision in the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

Example
A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful'

@SevenWaystoLeave

That's not entirely true. Often a lack of single-sex provision will lead to discrimination against women.

Can you please provide an example of such a scenario, where including trans women in a space has been demonstrated to constitute discrimination against natal women?

And by that I mean an example which has been tested in court or is explicitly written in law, not an example you've made up in your own head because you think it should be recognised as discrimination but which is actually just your unsupported opinion.

There is no such lawsuit as most women just work around male people in the spaces meant for female people. Probably because of attitudes like yours of 'why should you care/stop being hysterical/just get used to it'. So women self exclude or go at different times or leave and wait for the male to leave. What woman has the money to spend fighting this in courts or face attitudes like yours?

Doesn't mean that it isn't discrimination of women to not provide single sex spaces because that is exactly what it is. Organisations are deliberately discriminating against women as they know most women won't use mixed sex changing rooms etc.

If they're so keen to provide EqA protections, remind them that not only are they misquoting one, but there are eight others.

Some of which will prevent access to females using this mixed sex provision, due to their protected characteristic.

If they're going to use that argument then they have to cater for all protected characteristics, which means facing that 100% female accessibility and inclusion requires access to female only spaces. Provide this alongside mixed sex by all means, that would be the inclusive option, but otherwise they are discriminating against females and making a hierarchy of the characteristics.

It would also be hard to argue that this does not discriminate against women on the basis of sex - in that this mixed sex space benefits males and provides them with additional options but will obviously and inevitably exclude a percentage of females from any space - and also that males who do not define as TQ+ could also argue that they are being discriminated against since what is the ascertainable difference between a male who identifies and a male who doesn't?

There is no such lawsuit as most women just work around male people in the spaces meant for female people.

I would add the word yet to this sentence. As we know there is at least one case that will be brought because a woman was unable to access single-sex rape crisis services, which hopefully the court will agree is a travesty.

Equally the recent judicial review around men in women’s prisons didn’t fail because it was demonstrated there had been no harm. Rather it failed, as the judge indicated, because the current procedure was not demonstrably illegal. The implication was that individual court cases demonstrating harm would be a way forward as that would demonstrate the current regime is discriminatory against women.

The cases will come. It takes time for bad law to be proven bad, and longer still for it to be revoked.

Q : Are people free to use the bathrooms and changing rooms of the gender they identify with rather than their biological gender?

There is no biological gender. Only sex.

Answer: People will be using rooms for the gender they identify with as this is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act

Gender identity IS NOT a protected characteristic. Sex is though.

Up to now, most businesses and workplaces have been happy to provide single sex facilities which legally allow them to discriminate against ALL males based on sex. The safety, privacy and dignity of all females being a legitimate aim.

Stonewall has been telling them they must allow access to males with 'gender identities' under the equality act, which is bullshit.

Some males just can't fucking bear females having anything of their own. They genuinely have no fucking clue about the reality of being female.

You can't change sex.
'Gender' is not innate. It is sexist, social sex role stereotypes.

Claiming that all trans women are potential threats and banning them from female changing rooms therefore acheives a legitimate aim has been thrown out already. Claiming that a predatory man might pretend to be a trans woman cannot be used either.

"protected characteristic" does not mean literally "protected". It means you cannot be discriminated against because of that characteristic.

Absolutely nowhere in British law is there any obligation for service providers to provide a single sex space which excludes trans people.

A 'single-sex' space which allows members of the opposite sex to use it is no longer a single sex space, it is mixed sex.

Exactly. And blanket policies that would exclude people with that protected characteristic are discriminatory.

So knowing that women with some beliefs, faiths, disabilities, cultures are not able to access mixed sex spaces because of said characteristic recognises in law means........?

Gender identity IS NOT a protected characteristic. Sex is though.

This is semantics and probably only means anything within GC circles because legally its well accepted that the original language of the EA is now outdated. People can post this millions of times but the interpretation is and will probably always be in law that beig transgender is a protected characteristic becuase ... surprise surprise... it means gender reassignment is happening / happened. Every time I see this I have a picture of Veruca Salt stamping her feet shouting "no its true I tell you!"

Claiming that all trans women are potential threats and banning them from female changing rooms therefore acheives a legitimate aim has been thrown out already.

Nobody has said that all men who claim they are women are a threat. The point is they’re excluded as they are men.

Arguing your own pretend claims, which nobody here has made, won’t work.

And the idea that the EA is outdated doesn’t fit with the current activity, where new clarification is to be issued, presumably because the old information is notably not working as it is skewed against women due to influence from lobby groups.