EHRC single sex guidance out

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Here: www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/separate-and-single-sex-service-providers-guide-equality-act-sex-and-gender

I'm off to read it...

Women will just have to keep taking these organisations to court. Money talks.

It is my understanding that if an organisation chooses to ignore EHRC guidance, they're on pretty much a hiding to nothing if they get sued.

@Waitwhat23

I think I've been most shocked by the NHS Trusts openly saying that they're just going to ignore the guidance. I mean, after it came to light about the rape of a woman on a 'single sex' ward who was then gaslighted by the NHS Trust, you'd think they'd at least have taken time to examine why single sex spaces are needed or shown any sort of empathy for women.

But no. Women apparently just don't matter.

It's a real shock to discover that people with predatory values are in positions of power in the NHS. I'd originally put Annexe B down to excessive bee kiiind and lack of critical thinking having been Stonewalled. But to see actual rape apologists / enablers in action on twitter defending it is sobering.

Waitwhat23 I'm also shocked.
In case it's not logged on this thread (not read the whole thing) a number of nhs ceo's and hr ppl have said on twitter that they agree with this tweet from Trans NHS Staff Network -referring to the new ehrc guidence.

" We urge all NHS Equality Teams to ignore this transphobic & hostile guidance from EHRC that is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review & continue to write & follow trans inclusive policies & guidance across your orgs. We need civic leaders to stand up for whats right."

mobile.twitter.com/TransNHS/status/1511004538936963073

If you look at the retweets, and retweets/replies to some retweet, you will see that the following ppl approve of ignoring this guidence:

-Stewart Mckenna a senior NHS hr person.
-Charlotte Leyton HR Director at Salford Royal
-Aaron Cummins ceo morecambe bay nhs trust
-Kate jarman / Burke director corporate affairs milton Keynes hospital.
-Paul gilluley chief medical officer east London NHS.
-Kathryn Thomson Chief Executive Officer at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust.
-Helen Ray Chief Executive at North East Ambulance Service
-Vicki self Regional (Midlands) Enhanced Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead.
-Emily wraw, edi lead Rotherham nhs

I'm sure there are others. My local nhs is amongst these so I'm wondering whats the best thing to do.

It's also clear from twitter that Ruth May Chief Nursing Officer England is being specifically lobbied to ignore this guidence. She is apparently leading a review of single sex wards etc in the NHS.

Good grief Manderleyagain. It's as if they've all failed to understand the clear message from the Ockenden report detailing the harm that's done when medics sign up to an ideology rather than evidence driven safe patient care.

I'm (slightly) hopeful that the secretaries of state for Health and Education will be preparing reminders for hospitals and schools that they must comply with the guidance and ensure that it's implemented. ????

We urge all NHS Equality Teams to ignore this transphobic & hostile guidance from EHRC that is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review & continue to write & follow trans inclusive policies & guidance across your orgs. We need civic leaders to stand up for whats right.

Is it true that it is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review?

Is there judicial review planned?

@ScrollingLeaves

Posted too soon.

….after the appeal. Didn’t that mean there can be lack of common understanding of words in law? ( At the time the census was first devised gender would never have meant natal sex but the judges ignored that.

Judges can only rule on what is argued before them.

I'm confused. I understand that the guidance says it can be lawful (where it's a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim) to operate single-sex services, and it gives several examples.

It also says that in other cases a single-sex service would not be lawful, but a single-gender* service, e.g. one including women and trans women but excluding males who don't identify as trans, would be.

As far as I could see (and I may well be missing something) they don't give a single example of the latter.

Perhaps they just couldn't think of any plausible cases where this would be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

I can't either.

• They don't use the term "single-gender", but I think that's what they mean.

I have just read all the guidance. My understanding of it is that a service (say a women's refuge for domestic abuse) can make the decision not to allow trans women to use the service - based on their own assessment of risk and impact on the users. They do have to individually assess whether any individual transwoman is a risk. That would be much more difficult to actually do. So I see "case by case" as referring to the case of the refuge or the case or a sports club, not the case of person x wanting to go into the refuge.
Is this how it seems to others?

If you look at the retweets, and retweets/replies to some retweet, you will see that the following ppl approve of ignoring this guidence:

IMO they all need to be put on a disciplinary. They have declared themselves against guidance which allows for provision of single-sex spaces in a very small number of spaces when there is evidence of significant harm when these are not provided - they are not fit to hold their posts.

From the MBM response:

The guidance makes clear that there is no general right of access to services based on self-declared gender identity, as has become widely misunderstood. While this guidance relates only to services and spaces, some principles here read across helpfully to the rules for single sex jobs, sport and measures such as all women short lists, which still lack updated guidance.

No wonder the TRAs are having conniptions.

@Manderleyagain

Waitwhat23 I'm also shocked. In case it's not logged on this thread (not read the whole thing) a number of nhs ceo's and hr ppl have said on twitter that they agree with this tweet from Trans NHS Staff Network -referring to the new ehrc guidence.

" We urge all NHS Equality Teams to ignore this transphobic & hostile guidance from EHRC that is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review & continue to write & follow trans inclusive policies & guidance across your orgs. We need civic leaders to stand up for whats right."

mobile.twitter.com/TransNHS/status/1511004538936963073

If you look at the retweets, and retweets/replies to some retweet, you will see that the following ppl approve of ignoring this guidence:

-Stewart Mckenna a senior NHS hr person.
-Charlotte Leyton HR Director at Salford Royal
-Aaron Cummins ceo morecambe bay nhs trust
-Kate jarman / Burke director corporate affairs milton Keynes hospital.
-Paul gilluley chief medical officer east London NHS.
-Kathryn Thomson Chief Executive Officer at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust.
-Helen Ray Chief Executive at North East Ambulance Service
-Vicki self Regional (Midlands) Enhanced Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead.
-Emily wraw, edi lead Rotherham nhs

I'm sure there are others. My local nhs is amongst these so I'm wondering whats the best thing to do.

Wow. Given the NHS' usual adherence to the most labyrinthine arse covering of every eventuality I find senior staff advocating ignoring the law very, very surprising.

@Eelicks

This bit - "If the toilets you provide for service users are also used as staff toilets, you will also need to take account of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 which require employers to provide a certain number of toilets and to provide separate toilet and washing facilities for men and women in some circumstances."

My workplace (and I imagine most "stonewalled" ones) have a policy which says anyone can use whichever toilets they like in accordance with their self declared "gender identity." The toilets are traditional separate male and female with cubicles and shared sinks. Apart from a few separate accessible toilets which are enclosed rooms with a sink and shower which have always been gender neutral.

This policy has already resulted in people using the opposite sex toilets (e.g. a woman who identifies as male using the mens and a man who identifies as female using the women's).

Does this guidance confirm this is unlawful? If so as I say I imagine loads of workplaces are breaching the regulations. Who is responsible for enforcing this?

Yes, this is what the setup at my work is after new guidelines. Will be interesting to see if there's any change.

Manderley pretty sure we are now in the pre-election rules for the public sector so that potentially makes these tweets egregious.

They're wrong anyway. They go against the political neutrality with which every public servant is charged. But doing it now is even worse.

This might be something for the Baroness?

@Waitwhat23

The foot-stamping tantrums going on on Twitter are genuinely something to behold.

Several of them, including India Willoughby, are threatening to start defecating & urinating in public. This takes ‘poo troll’ to a whole new level.

Stonewall have mislead everyone. They have made people think that male access to female spaces is a right that cant be denied. Twisting and stretching the meaning of the two laws to uphold their agenda.

It's mind boggling that clarification by the EHRC, the specific body whose job it is to explain equality law, is being ignored. And it's a testament to stonewall's astonishing influence that it is. That, despite being able to read the law in black and white, including the EHRC clarifications, there are many people, in positions of power, who still blindly believe a lobby group's inaccurate and potentially illegal spin.

There's a horrible fascination to watching so many gloves come off at once. Threatening to back out of their own conference unless the government bows to their will is a flabbergasting exercise in knuckle cracking.

Gloves off, masks flung, backed into a corner, but still squaring up butt naked.

Let's hope this is the last round.

Ding ding.

Several of them, including India Willoughby, are threatening to start defecating & urinating in public.

Good lord.

Yay 👏👏👏👏

@Manderleyagain

Waitwhat23 I'm also shocked. In case it's not logged on this thread (not read the whole thing) a number of nhs ceo's and hr ppl have said on twitter that they agree with this tweet from Trans NHS Staff Network -referring to the new ehrc guidence.

" We urge all NHS Equality Teams to ignore this transphobic & hostile guidance from EHRC that is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review & continue to write & follow trans inclusive policies & guidance across your orgs. We need civic leaders to stand up for whats right."

mobile.twitter.com/TransNHS/status/1511004538936963073

If you look at the retweets, and retweets/replies to some retweet, you will see that the following ppl approve of ignoring this guidence:

-Stewart Mckenna a senior NHS hr person.
-Charlotte Leyton HR Director at Salford Royal
-Aaron Cummins ceo morecambe bay nhs trust
-Kate jarman / Burke director corporate affairs milton Keynes hospital.
-Paul gilluley chief medical officer east London NHS.
-Kathryn Thomson Chief Executive Officer at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust.
-Helen Ray Chief Executive at North East Ambulance Service
-Vicki self Regional (Midlands) Enhanced Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead.
-Emily wraw, edi lead Rotherham nhs

I'm sure there are others. My local nhs is amongst these so I'm wondering whats the best thing to do.

I'm not usually one to dob in to employers, but given these people are actually threatening to ignore the law and disadvantage female patients I'm thinking letters to their trusts, cccing Sajid Javid and their regulators.

@Datun

Several of them, including India Willoughby, are threatening to start defecating & urinating in public.

Good lord.

Public dirty protests, as it were?

I'm not usually one to dob in to employers, but given these people are actually threatening to ignore the law and disadvantage female patients I'm thinking letters to their trusts, cccing Sajid Javid and their regulators.

If that were to be done, I wonder if it would be better as a coalition of the women's organisations that asked for signatories?

@Manderleyagain

Waitwhat23 I'm also shocked. In case it's not logged on this thread (not read the whole thing) a number of nhs ceo's and hr ppl have said on twitter that they agree with this tweet from Trans NHS Staff Network -referring to the new ehrc guidence.

" We urge all NHS Equality Teams to ignore this transphobic & hostile guidance from EHRC that is likely to be found unlawful at judicial review & continue to write & follow trans inclusive policies & guidance across your orgs. We need civic leaders to stand up for whats right."

mobile.twitter.com/TransNHS/status/1511004538936963073

If you look at the retweets, and retweets/replies to some retweet, you will see that the following ppl approve of ignoring this guidence:

-Stewart Mckenna a senior NHS hr person.
-Charlotte Leyton HR Director at Salford Royal
-Aaron Cummins ceo morecambe bay nhs trust
-Kate jarman / Burke director corporate affairs milton Keynes hospital.
-Paul gilluley chief medical officer east London NHS.
-Kathryn Thomson Chief Executive Officer at Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust.
-Helen Ray Chief Executive at North East Ambulance Service
-Vicki self Regional (Midlands) Enhanced Health and Wellbeing Programme Lead.
-Emily wraw, edi lead Rotherham nhs

I'm sure there are others. My local nhs is amongst these so I'm wondering whats the best thing to do.

The CEO of a women's hospital on that list, no less. How grim to be so deep in the upside down.

Thanks to everyone on this thread for explaining and debating this so thoroughly. Winterfire may have put it best:

What kind of fucking monster reads guidance that says it's fine to provide single sex spaces for women who are rape or domestic abuse victims and thinks ''I'm not having that, I'm going to try my best to take that away from them.''

I've just noticed this statement in the guidance, which I think may be more significant than it appears:

"You should also not make assumptions about whether or not a person is trans based on gender stereotypes, such as those based on appearance or clothing."

This means that if you see someone who is obviously male, but they are wearing a dress/heels/make-up, then the Equality Act will support you in regarding them as a man until you they give you a specific reason to think they are trans. So this makes it clearly legal within the Equality Act to challenge any male presence in our single-sex spaces, because the Act tells us we shouldn't assume they are trans simply because of clothing.

Maya on Talk Radio discussing the guidance

https://mobile.twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1511238294629138436?cxt=HHwWiICypZvO__gpAAAA

Seems to me that what it's saying is have a specific policy around which facility trans people can use, make it clear and be prepared to justify it.

I would further suggest that given properly sampled national surveys show majority think it's unacceptable for TW pre surgery to share women's facilities, and it is not legal to discriminate between pre and post surgery, it is not hard to justify the need for single sex.

Unfortunately it's liable to be challenged in court when individual facilities want to do this and that will be too expensive for many particularly smaller providers to take on. Or indeed just the public bullying when we're talking charities and small businesses. What we need is a large national organisation prepared to take a stand and defend it.