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...

Maugham has fully embraced the US viewpoint that women are at the root of all contemporary ills and retrospectively responsible for Jim Crow etc.

I still, after all this time, can't get why men like this can't grasp that making racist remarks isn't some sort of gotcha?

Because calling lesbians sexual racists worked so well last time!

Yet again, insults rather than grappling with the core issues. Almost like the EHRC got it right, so insults is all there is.

Even if that US viewpoint were true what does it have to do with the UK.

Maugham seems to be suggesting by omission that British Black women are totally fine sharing all intimate spaces with men. Can he evidence this because I very much doubt it's veracity?

I have an Indian and Chinese sister in laws trust me they don't want mixed anything it doesn't happen in their countries.

Is an organisation which does NOT provide single-sex spaces which are needed by women who have PTSD (a disablity) or women of certain religions, or just women generally, in breach of its equality duty?

It seems straightforward to me, once you strip away all the bullshit. If my local pool is allowing penis people into the women's changing rooms I don't want to go there. That's because penis people are dangerous to women and it's uncomfortable and undignified to be expected to strip off my clothes in front of a penis person.

If the pool can't provide safe spaces for women to get changed, then they are making their facilities inaccessible to women. It should be quite easy to provide evidence of this; there are loads of examples of women ceasing to use gyms, pools, yoga studios etc. because of penis people in the female changing rooms.

And that's without the additional protected characteristics of religion or disability where it's even more clear that not providing female-only spaces is preventing people with protected characteristics from accessing the facilities.

It would have been useful to have guidance on this from the EHRC.

How is it possible to link race and sex when they are completely different things?

People of all races are impacted if all facilities become unisex, whilst racism is discrimination of a specific group or groups.

Unisex facilities do not work for the majority of men as well as women, e.g. young boys in school who want separate loos an mature men in hospital who want male wards. This is regardless of race!

Maugham seems to be suggesting by omission that British Black women are totally fine sharing all intimate spaces with men. Can he evidence this because I very much doubt it's veracity?

He could start by asking Allison Bailey, Linda Bellos, Lucy Masoud and Sonia Appleby.

His point also seems to say that black women are a subset of women. Which is a other thing TRAs have said in the past which has never gone unchallenged or worked out well for them.

Basically it's a recycling of all the old stuff and no engagement with the substance.

Actually @teawamutu that part, the one with both sex and gender in it, is going to be really useful for me when I have at various funding streams this month. It will form the basis of every funding bid I make. I will explain, yet again, that we are a single sex service for females who have experienced DV. That we exclude all males regardless of the gender in which they present themselves, based on a few if the specific examples given in that document.

It gives me absolute premise for doing so, using the terms that have been thrown at me when refusing funding.

So I like it, will use it and will probably come back here and report on any response I get.

In lighter news, the LGBT Foundation are working on their own guidance, which they will issue shortly.

‘Unisex facilities do not work for the majority of men as well as women, e.g. young boys in school who want separate loos an mature men in hospital who want male wards. This is regardless of race!’

Yes. Everyone is entitled to the use of some same-sex facilities, under exactly the same laws.

@ResisterRex

His point also seems to say that black women are a subset of women. Which is a other thing TRAs have said in the past which has never gone unchallenged or worked out well for them.

Basically it's a recycling of all the old stuff and no engagement with the substance.

Yes, that old racist, homophobic & ableist trope - black women, gay women, disabled women, trans women.

The LGBT foundation, are they likely to encourage the use of third spaces and be fair, or just tell women to stfu?

Take a guess.

Oh they’ll tell us to STFU.

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.

Yes, Datun speaks sense, as always.

The problem these orgs are going to have is that they are going to have to come out at some point at plainly state they don’t think a woman should have privacy to change at work (or, instead, she should be excluded), they don’t think a woman should be able to ask for another female to do her cervical smear or breast exam, they don’t think women should have privacy in changing rooms. And in all the situations where those things are even more important (religious concerns, women who have been abused, women with mental health vulnerabilities or who are ill), all they’re going to have is ‘we don’t care’.

@Absurdle

Is an organisation which does NOT provide single-sex spaces which are needed by women who have PTSD (a disablity) or women of certain religions, or just women generally, in breach of its equality duty?

It seems straightforward to me, once you strip away all the bullshit. If my local pool is allowing penis people into the women's changing rooms I don't want to go there. That's because penis people are dangerous to women and it's uncomfortable and undignified to be expected to strip off my clothes in front of a penis person.

If the pool can't provide safe spaces for women to get changed, then they are making their facilities inaccessible to women. It should be quite easy to provide evidence of this; there are loads of examples of women ceasing to use gyms, pools, yoga studios etc. because of penis people in the female changing rooms.

And that's without the additional protected characteristics of religion or disability where it's even more clear that not providing female-only spaces is preventing people with protected characteristics from accessing the facilities.

It would have been useful to have guidance on this from the EHRC.

Yes, if women are self excluding because they are being disadvantaged, then I believe that would be indirect discrimination.

As the EHRC says, it has to balance the rights of everybody with protected characteristics.

They won't make it illegal for facilities not to have sex segregation, because there would be instances where that wouldn't be right.

But it's my understanding that if you are sued, having ignored the advice from the EHRC, courts would take a very dim view.

That's one thing, the other thing is to make it culturally unacceptable.

Again.

@tabbycatstripy

Maugham calling women racists again:

‘I tweeted about it yesterday (twitter.com/JolyonMaugham/…) and we are taking advice from Counsel. Some of the logic is v problematic - eg once upon a time lots of white women didn't like sharing toilets with black women and would steer clear of places that had mixed race toilets...’

Yes, Jolyon, but when the same toilets (rightly) were able to serve the needs of both black people and white people, they still weren’t mixed sex.

Also, I think men made those laws.

Good lord.

This is how you know there's absolutely fuck all in the arsenal.

'Places with mixed race toilets'? We have never had racially segregated toilets in the UK. Stupid man.

With the EHRC comments if I now walk into changing rooms and see a man I would be more likely to speak to the reception team rather than just leave and complain after. I would expect them to ask the man to move across to the male facilities without making me feel uncomfortable. It also helps that the gym I attend has very clear female and male signs on doors.

@Rightsraptor

'Places with mixed race toilets'? We have never had racially segregated toilets in the UK. Stupid man.

It isn't even a good analogy. We have sex segregated toilets for safety, not because of prejudice against men. And TRAs are pushing for transwomen to be in our spaces...because they say men are a threat to their safety. The man's a clown.

Is he suggesting that if random men cannot enter women's spaces then women of a specific race will feel unwelcome?

Some of the logic is v problematic - eg once upon a time lots of white women didn't like sharing toilets with black women and would steer clear of places that had mixed race toilets...

What....? This is JM saying this about his own logic, right? Too right it's problematic...! ?