@YesSheCan
Long time lurker, don't usually comment as chronic illness and often don't feel articulate enough or have enough energy to join the discussion. But just listened to Emma Barnett interviewing Baroness Falkner on WH and was a bit disappointed that BF could have been a lot clearer about the EHRC guidance, which I have read through.
This is what I understood, from the EHRC guidance, could apply to the changing rooms question:
A gym can lawfully choose to provide single-sex changing rooms on the basis of biological sex.
If it does this it needs to also consider how it will provide trans people with changing rooms they can use so they are not excluded from using the gym. The obvious solution would be to provide women-only, men-only and gender neutral changing rooms.
If anyone is encountered in the women-only changing room who is of the male sex, then it would be lawful of the gym staff to ask this person to leave the changing room. This is regardless of whether this person is trans or not and regardless of whether or not they have a GRC. No assumptions should be made about whether or not a male person in the women's changing room is trans based on how they present and the person should not be asked to provide evidence of a GRC - this is irrelevant because all people of the male sex can be lawfully excluded from the female sex only area.
In practice I can see how this might sometimes be challenging for service providers to implement and so some additional guidance on how to do so might be useful.
Have I understood the guidance correctly?
Yes, that's correct. And this was always the problem.
Historically, men did not enter women's spaces because custom, protocols and the culture made it taboo. Every woman would turn around and make it socially unacceptable. So if it ever did happen, the consensus would be an assumption of nefarious intent.
Stonewall and transactivists have managed to turn that around, to make it socially and culturally unacceptable to challenge a man. So now they are fully comfortable (see Manchester above), with violating boundaries, and going against what women want, with a 'well what you gonna do about it' attitude.
Saying we won't be able to get rid of someone, is admitting that the person will not self censor, because they don't think they should, they should be allowed to dominate women (again, see disgustedofManchester above).
The reason why Baroness Faulkner is struggling, is because the GRA, followed with relentless campaigning by transactivists, have allowed a loophole that is incredibly difficult to close, when you're faced with someone who refuses to acknowledge women's rights.
The idea that men could identify as women and have access to all women's spaces is where it all went wrong. (I mean, I have to say, it's so blisteringly fucking obvious where that would go wrong, it's difficult to believe any human being stupid enough to allow it.)
It's bad law. It should be repealed. And the debate should be had that no one who is not a woman should be in women's spaces, and anyone can be challenged.
If a man doesn't want to be in a male space, then that's where the discussion should lead. To a gender neutral space. It should be irrelevant to women's spaces.
Meanwhile, we can challenge men whenever we see them in the wrong space, and turn it around to make it culturally unacceptable again.