@ToriaB
Where the Times article says that "Trans men and women can and do lawfully use single-sex facilities. Reforming the act will not affect this." it's in the bit written by Florence Oulds, who is policy and public affairs officer for the Scottish Trans Alliance and quite definitely interpreting the law as it not being reasonable for a woman to object to a transwoman using the same facilities.
That's a curious statement.
Men and women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment can of course lawfully use single-sex spaces - those provided for their own sex.
Men with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment can always use men's facilities. To exclude them from men's spaces because they identify as trans is unlawful discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment.
They can lawfully be excluded from female-only spaces, even if they have a GRC.
Crucially however, we have legal opinions from both sides of the debate setting out why there is a material difference between a man with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who has a GRC who is therefore considered to be legally female and another man also sharing the protected characteristic of gender reassignment who remains legally male.
Law Professor Alex Sharpe, a trans rights campaigner, for instance wrote in a paper that once a GRC has been issued, exclusion from opposite sex spaces is essentially impossible.
And there have been several papers and articles written by opponents of self-id who share Sharpe's view that a GRC conceys rights upon a person with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. Rights that another person with the same PC but without a GRC does not enjoy. (They tend to differ on whether a GRC-holder can be excluded from opposite sex spaces or not.)
The EHRC's own guidance as it stands now also makes this distinction, as does their public statement on the difference between persons with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment with or without a GRC.
More importantly, we have a number of judgements where the court made this very point - a GRC changes the legal status of a person and conveys additional rights upon a person with a GRC that a member of the same sex without a GRC cannot exercise.
And because such persons have to have a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and a second medical report from a mental health care practitioner supporting the application, there is gatekeeping in place to safeguard women's spaces and services. (However imperfect that is
So this quote is toying with us. Telling a quarter truth where we need an honest discussion about the interplay between the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act.
We don't even have any such assessment now with the gatekeeping of the original Gender Recognition Act 2004 in place. There's also been no attempt made to investigate how the sex-based exceptions would work with a projected minimum ten-fold increase in GRC-holders.