This is just vile NHS again

[IcakethereforeIam]

I'm hoping it'll be swiftly withdrawn but someone should be fired for this. Notice it's about making women comply.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12370811/NHS-managers-told-not-offer-sympathy-female-colleagues-worried-sharing-toilets-biological-men-woke-handbook.html

I see that spokesperson Kath Griffin says that this illegal and discriminatory policy was decided upon, after consultation with staff and unions.

It's well known that NHS unions are onboard with TWAW.

I wonder how few staff members were consulted? A small number of vocal activists, or everyone?

Quite.

If It doesn't matter, then men can stay in their own toilets, in their own private cubicles. 🙄

Right I want to know what Wes Streeting and Annaliese Dodds have to say about this. Hold their feet to the fire. Will they condemn this unequivocally?

i bet Kath means they consulted the LGBTQ+ networks & the unions. I doubt the NHS even has a network for actual women to consult - all the ones I’ve seen are for anyone who identifies as a woman

It's like asking the KKK to write the BAME employees policy.

is exactly what it's like. Men wanting to use women for their own purposes are being asked to write the policy designed to allow it.

I actually don't care who or how widespread the consultation was, I wasn't asked and I say 'no'. Pretty certain I'm not the only person in the country who would say 'no'. Until there's a 100% agreement, there's no consent.

Exactly

I'm sure you've seen the US rowing rules where men are 'women' if they are rowing against women, but if it is a mixed sex race then they count as men because it wouldn't be fair to discriminate against the men in the mixed sex team.

It's unbelievable, isn't it. This isn't just a movement (movement HQ, not person, please note) that happens to abuse women. The very concept of womanhood is entirely necessary to it. Its followers require women to utilise every fucking step of the way.

Women's existence is the reason for it.

They are its target, and the means by which it sustains itself.

From taking their achievements, to validation, to fetishisation.

And it's from a political lobby that not only has no care for women and is actively prejudiced against them in the interests of men, but has extremist wings that openly believe in and advocate for punching, beating and raping women, and exort crowds in the street to do so.

Taxpayers are funding this.

we were in soft play the other day, the toilets are for male and female, my friends 8 year old came out and said a man had been chatting to her in there had handed her paper towels , her mum was worried but you know this is how people want it to be and it is worrying.

The NHS that had that horrific report regarding the number of sexual assaults taking place with its hallowed halls, that NHS? Good way to make sexual assault easier, NHS, slow fucking hand clap.

Because, of course, no harm could ever come to anybody in the care of the NHS, and if it does the NHS can deny the evidence and thus make it not have happened.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/hospital-told-police-patient-not-raped-alleged-attacker-transgender/

OK they've done a consultation but what about an Equality Impact Assessment. They can't ask staff about the impact if they are at the same time point blank refusing to listen to concerns.

Ah but you see, they will use their own dodgy definition of 'women' in their EIA and conclude that this ridiculous policy doesn't negatively impact women (meaning anyone who says they are a woman).

That's what the Trust I worked for did. I pointed out that that was illegal, they were therefore failing in their public sector equality duty, but they didn't appear to give a toss. (I also argued for the phrase female bodied to be used instead of 'cis' in policies - they replied that people on their focus group hadn't heard that phrase before and weren't sure what it meant!!! I replied that in that case their focus group couldn't be very diverse as its a well used phrase, and also that if NHS workers don't understand what female bodied means we are truly in trouble. No reply.....🙄)

I wonder wtaf is wrong with these people? But more than that I want to know where does the money keep coming from to fund this shit?!!! It's rife, there's at least one of these stories every week. The NHS is chronically underfunded where it matters, waiting lists as long as your arm and doctors striking for more pay. So where's the money coming from?!

Surely, since sex is a protected characteristic, this is illegal?!

Agree. I didn’t like the gender critical bit. I just don’t want to share toilets with men. Whatever.

Sadly not.

@JanesLittleGirl that is terrible. Fuming.

It’s not Tara Hewitt’s old Trust - indeed, that was NW England & this one’s Yorkshire & NE - so not a parting gift, which I’d wondered. (Couldn’t remember where Hewitt was based other than around that latitude of England & not east coast 🤷‍♀️)

It does seem the advice Hewitt issued last year for NHS staff to ignore ECHR guidance on correct implementation of the EA (as discussed on FWR at the time) may have had an impact though 🧐

Obviously this needs to be retracted - & it creates the issue that reasonable bits, like not refusing to use a colleague’s new name (not meaning occasional lapse/slip of tongue) become seen as unreasonable as they’re bundled in with the whole. And doubtless they’ll devote more funding to rewriting it if forced to bin it - very much doubt they’ve expended even a fraction of those resources on other protected characteristics given the blatant absence of [the application of] an equality impact assessment here.

The guidance is unlawful. They shouldn't have consulted with any women about it, because its unlawful.

I'm not sure that it is unlawful. Fucking awful, yes, but unlawful, not so sure.

The EqA is one of the greatest sleight's of hand ever perpetrated on women. You might think that it would be illegal to turn single sex spaces into mixed sex spaces but you would be wrong. The provision of single sex spaces, where that provision would be lawful under the EqA, is discretionary rather than mandatory. If the provider chooses not to provide a single sex space then that is lawful. Daft I know but that's where we are.

If a colleague changes their name for any reason and you persistently use their old name despite being asked repeatedly not to, you would be harassing them and an employer could discipline you.

The bit that I think could be overreach is pronouns. You don't own your pronouns in the same way that you own your name and choice of pronouns is up to the speaker/writer. I would guess that trying to enforce specific pronoun usage is coercion and illegal.

Please be aware that I am not a lawyer, I just spend a lot of time picking holes in contracts.

The EA comes from a first position that equality and non-discrimination must be the norm. It recognises that sometimes exemptions must be made in order to provide equity and because sometimes they may be necessary for other reasons.

So single sex provisions are permitted when they would be proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims.

But these exemptions are permitted, not required. Providers can choose whether or not to provide them dependant upon their political/philosophical position and their desire/ability to withstand bullying.

The point of that part of the Act was to ensure that women's access to single sex toilets and other such services would be legally defendable. It has appears been such an obvious, reasonable and proportionate requirement. I expect that it did not occur to any of the people drafting this Act that there would ever be a situation where organisations would refuse to provide single sex toilets.

Should the EA state that exemptions and separate provisions MUST be provided where appropriate? How would this be worded?

Why is it so hard to have male, female and disabled toilets?

Why is the third way so reviled?

Why can’t reasonable and intelligent people see that by doing this there is only male toilets?

Reasonable and intelligent people can see it. Unreasonable people refuse to see it and the law is on their side.