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...

The BBC is alleging that the EHRC is making up the examples from thin air. How do I complain?

How ridiculous have they not read the guidance notes to the legislation itself? Where do they think these novel ideas that women's refuges can be for women only emerged from?

Ah I see, even though it's equally a women's issue, the LGBT correspondents have been given it.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Ah I see, even though it's equally a women's issue, the LGBT correspondents have been given it.

Yes because it can not possibly be presented from a women's perspective: who on earth would be interested in a perspective that accepted a woman's right to have a self-interest and perspective that was expected to be treated with parity of esteem even if it clashes with the rights of others?

Long thread by Karon Monaghan explaining what the law actually says:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1510971866944577542.html

That BBC article -

Under the Equality Act 2010, providers cannot exclude someone based on sex or gender reassignment, but for the first time the EHRC has produced guidance where there can be exceptions in certain circumstances.

Absolute twaddle!

Looks like it's a work in progress though, they've already edited the bit at the end about the TRA campaign to have EHRC cancelled by the UNHRC.

Encouraging!

who on earth would be interested in a perspective that accepted a woman's right to have a self-interest and perspective that was expected to be treated with parity of esteem even if it clashes with the rights of others?

Totally agree with you.

Important though not to use the misleading rhetoric that has enabled this agenda to slide as far as it has unquestioned. Women's sex based rights are set in law. What is being sought by this political lobby is not equality or equity but privilege for members of the male sex over the female sex. Regardless of impact on those females, and openly on the understanding that said males are more important. This is not a 'right'. It does not exist anywhere in law. Whether it should be a 'right' is what should be being very vigorously questioned.

We are not talking about a clash of rights. We are in fact talking about women's rights being an unwanted boundary to male privilege.

Could someone kindly post a link to Sex Matters, my browser is claiming there are no results

sex-matters.org/

@Lovelyricepudding

Ladies hairdresser.

Ha, most hairdressers around here seem to cut men's hair too. It is the men''s barbers that exclude women.

Yes, so does that mean that barbers can't refuse a 10 quid trim to women who proclaim that 'gender'. At the moment, far from bending over to 'be kind' to women, they are shown the door in barbers. Yet those of the male sex are even allowed to access very sensitive spaces which may increase stress and trauma of women, e.g. women who have been raped or traumatised etc.

So, even at the moment, men are not under any duress to refrain from telling women to eff off. They don't appear to have to worry about not including women. The problem is that women are being treated as if we are less than human. Even when it is dangerous or stressful to have men included because of their say so 'gender' proclamation.

[quote LangClegsInSpace]sex-matters.org/[/quote]
Thank you

The BBC is alleging that the EHRC is making up the examples from thin air. How do I complain?

So the BBC don’t even know the bloody law! It just shows what we’ve been up against. Ignorant twits!

@LizzieSiddal

The BBC is alleging that the EHRC is making up the examples from thin air. How do I complain?

So the BBC don’t even know the bloody law! It just shows what we’ve been up against. Ignorant twits!

The BBC, amongst others, has a problem with the partiality of some of its journalists when they write their reports.

I'd be sad if the 'replacement' is showing similar lack of impartiality that was so evident with previous inglorious correspondents who moved on.

If you complain about their bias however, they just reply to say they identify as not being biased and they're sorry that you don't agree.

So I identify as having paid the licence fee. I'm sorry that they don't agree.

It's not just a partiality problem, it's a journalism problem. They're getting basic facts wrong.

Under the Equality Act 2010, providers cannot exclude someone based on sex or gender reassignment

Yes they can, that's why there are all those exceptions in the equality act.

but for the first time the EHRC has produced guidance where there can be exceptions in certain circumstances.

Any decent journalist would have had a quick nose around EHRC's website, where they would have come across reams of previous guidance produced over the past 12 years explaining these exceptions (sometimes quite badly, tbf).

@LK1972

DadJoke, I love the way you think you are cleverer than the government lawyers, who undoubtedly went over the statement you deem 'simply untrue' with a fine tooth comb and a trained legal eye, all the kudos to you for self esteem. Can you please share how you've managed to achieve, it's truly inspiring!

Other legal opinions are available, and the EHRC's previous guidance did not say this. Which set of EHRC lawyers do you agree with?

If you can just point at the reference in the EA2010 to "biological sex" which the EHRC is the EA2010, that would end the matter.

They edited it again!

It now says:

Under the Equality Act 2010, providers cannot discriminate against someone based on sex or gender reassignment, but there are exceptions where access for certain groups can be modified or limited if there is what is described as a "legitimate aim".

This is the first time the EHRC has published guidance with specific examples related to the circumstances where this can be allowed to happen in England, Scotland and Wales.

They're still wrong, all EHRC's previous guidance provides examples.

How are they so shit?

I agree with Naomi Cunningham:

“The examples are at the heart of the guidance. They show how single-sex spaces are legitimate in a wide variety of everyday and specialist situations. We hope they will give service providers and others the confidence to establish and enforce clear, simple rules. Now the EHRC will need to update the Code of Practice to make it clearer and bring it into line with the Equality Act ”

sex-matters.org/posts/updates/statement-on-ehrc-guidance/

If you can just point at the reference in the EA2010 to "biological sex" which the EHRC is the EA2010, that would end the matter.

Here:

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

They say:

"We use the term ‘biological sex’ because this is how legal sex is defined under the Equality Act for people who do not have a Gender Recognition Certificate."

I think this stems from the fact that birth certificates reflect biology ie sex observed at birth. And a birth certificate can be changed if you have a GRC eg here:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/what-equality-act-says-about-protected-characteristics-sex-and-gender

"Under the Equality Act 2010, ‘sex’ is understood as binary, being a man or a woman. For the purposes of the Act, a person’s legal sex is their biological sex as recorded on their birth certificate. A trans person can change their legal sex by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate. A trans person who does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate retains the sex recorded on their birth certificate for the purposes of the Act."

Is some of this unclear because people aren't clicking through at the bottom of the page? I saw Allison Bailey saying it would better as a PDF, which it might.

[quote TheAbbotOfUnreason]It was a first tier tribunal so not a precedent and didn't actually rule that anyway.

Whilst Taylor v JLR was a first tier tribunal, I'm pretty sure it did find that NB and gender fluid falls within the category of gender reassignment:

This case is important as it is the first case in which the Tribunal has held that a person that identifies as gender fluid or non-binary falls within the definition at section 7 of the EqA. The Tribunal held that Ms Taylor was covered by the definition and accordingly the way she had been treated amounted to discrimination.

www.tayloremmet.co.uk/blogsite/gender-reassignment-taylor-v-jaguar-land-rover-limited-et/[/quote]
But the point is it is not a legal precident - it holds no standing in other cases. It does not impact on how the law should be interpreted. Because it is only a first tier case. They were also deemed covered not because they were non binary but because they were perceived as having the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

Sex is defined in binary terms. Men & women are biological males & females, respectively (s.11, 212, For Women Scotland v The Lord Advocate & A’or).

Karon Monaghan QC from the linked Twitter thread.

‘If you can just point at the reference in the EA2010 to "biological sex" which the EHRC is the EA2010, that would end the matter.’

In the EA, sex means biological sex unless the person has changed their sex through legal means.

TRAs having a normal one.

Why are people employed at tax payers expense in the NHS allowed to take their political views to work

twitter.com/SAMcKenna1/status/1511015654022782980

"This guidance will not be forming part of my teams advice" says Stuart McKenna (He/Him) "Senior HR Professional, NHS; former clinical cytogeneticist....Trans and Non-Binary Ally....views are my own"

His views are is own and he is entitled to have them but that freedom should start to get curtailed at work where your actions and words start to impact other people, not in a hurt feelings kind of way, but in a practical safe-guarding way. He is not just saying he does not agree but that his actions at work - in the NHS! - will be political.

This makes me so angry.

Goaded on by this lot

twitter.com/TransNHS/status/1511004538936963073

And Em Wraw (she/her) also an NHS employee jumps in with a reminder about the Annex B provision that mean women's rights mean nothing.

"Quick reminder to NHS colleagues that the NHS England guidance on Delivering Same Sex accomodation (2019) remains in force, including Annexe B - single sex wards in the NHS are trans-inclusive"

twitter.com/emwraw/status/1511023126053855233

Em Wraw (she/her) is helpfully pointing out that until the government make it the law that women have to be given single sex spaces in all the places we keep mentioning then women will not get single sex spaces.

Not as long as Em Wraw (she/her) and Stuart McKenna (He/Him) are employed by the NHS.

I particularly like the capitalisation of McKenna's pronouns - suggestive perhaps of a God complex.

A Stonewall spokesperson said: "Far from clarifying how the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act should be used, the EHRC's latest non-statutory guidance is likely to create more confusion.

I love the way they emphasise "non-statutory" when in the past TRAs said the previous guidance had more weight than the wording of the EA itself.