Trans bathroom access - the equality act is 13 years old so why is there such a challenge on it now?

[Snufflebabe05]

Really trying to understand views I’m hearing online, at work, in media.

Anyone who is transitioning, has transitioned, proposing to transition is legally allowed to use the bathroom which is aligned to the gender they see themselves as. No evidence needed, no proof of medical info etc. This has been the case since the Equality Act launched in 2010. Any business who doesn’t allow this is breaking the law. Unless there is a proportionate and reasonable reason (gym changing rooms can be an example). The majority of locations wouldn’t fall into the exemption though.

Toilets are aligned with a relevant Health and Safety legislation, where bathrooms are provided for men and women, so by gender.

So why is the uproar now? Why is it now that we are hearing about “women-only spaces”? Is is the media? What has changed?

Genuine, honest question as keen to understand.

I don't understand why you think man and woman are gendered terms in the first place? They have never been used to mean anything other than sex, hence the terms tw and tm existing.

Yes, this.

https://sex-matters.org/

Consult Sex matters as they're legally trained and can offer you guidance. Lots of information on the website.

EHRC

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/advice-and-guidance/gender-reassignment-provisions-equality-act

The op seems to want a ball. 🦭

That's because they are still men,nothing they do will ever change that.

Sex and gender are not the same thing. Of course a trans man is biologically a woman but that doesn't stop his gender from being male

Gender is nothing but a collection of stereotypes. It's not an innate thing that everyone has. It's just someone's own perception of the extent to which their own collection of personality traits and aesthetic preferences align with an outdated set of sex-based stereotypes which should have long ago died out. It certainly is not something on which laws should be based, or for which there should be compelled recognition.

" Gender is ... an outdated set of sex-based stereotypes which should have long ago died out. It certainly is not something on which laws should be based "

Well put @AllProperTeaIsTheft

I don’t understand what this means?

Similarly, the earlier post from someone asking “which side am I on”. I’m trying to understand the legal position, and the discussion on why this is challenged. Perhaps this is to form an opinion, I’m not sure yet. But ultimately it’s about trying to understand such a topical issue which is gathering so much media attention, and is being raised in the workplace.

I’ve spent hours researching and thought this forum would help me understand.

Do you need to see someone's cock to know for sure if they are a man in that case? Or do a full analysis of their chromosomes

Obviously I didn't actually think there was an omnipotent being. I was referring in general to how information spreads online

Apologies OP. Like others, I thought you weren’t posting in good faith, hence being snippy with you. Google sealioning. Your response to RTB has made me reconsider.

Good luck in your workplace discussions - I hope you (or your colleagues) manage to secure penis-free female facilities.

Why do you keep equating male bodies with being men? Do you not believe a man can be male or female? You seem to fundamentally think that male means man and female means woman yet you are trying to argue with us?

No. You can tell from their secondary sexual characteristics. There is much evidence to show the accuracy of that.

Not really, however if they were in front of me without any added accoutrements of hair extensions/wigs/make up/eyelashes and everyone in plain leggings and a tshirt it'd be quite easy to tell someone's sex, it's usually all that stuff there that's the gendering things.

Some excellent and thoughtful posts on this thread.

A problem also seems to be where work policies wrongly refer to gender rather than sex being the protected characteristic. At one time the two words were generally used interchangeably, and they haven’t caught up, are stonewalled, or employees don’t feel able to point it out.

So you were infantilising women or maybe just again projecting your own experience of repeating one person’s opinion as being your own or what?

Because you really seem to very determined to spread your prejudiced view about feminists on threads today. I can only assume that your opinion has been derived from the same process that you accuse feminists of.

In the vast majority of cases it is trivially obvious from secondary sex characteristics whether an adult is male (i.e. having passed through male puberty) or female. Why are you pretending otherwise? Butch lesbians really don’t look male.

this is a vital point. there's no such things as trans if man just means someone who feels like a man. There would also never have been a reason to just put urinals in the men's.

I think perhaps you need to go back a step from sex/gender and think about what discrimination means in the EA.

A man who develops a gender identity and intends to transition, so meeting requirements for protection, must not be treated lesser than a man without a gender identity/plan to transition.

It does not use women as the reference category when looking at discrimination. Stonewall just wants you to think it does by exploiting the places gender was used in place of sex.

A woman who develops a GI, still has women's rights, such as maternity leave and access to female spaces, they don't lose these with an intention to transition, neither does a man gain them. They relate to your sex.

It’s a minority that believe sex and gender are two different things. Most people don’t but into gender ideology.

Time for these again - no amount of surgery or hormones change your skeletal structure so yes, you can tell

And, somehow, unable to use a search engine to look at it for themselves and formulate clarifying questions.

It's baffling.

Transwomen are men. You have to be male to be a transwoman, by definition.

I don't think there are that many issues which are quite as fundamental ( or of more importance) than the issue of women's rights, child safeguarding and being ale to correctly name reality without suppression.

a lot of women are too frightened to ask a self ID trans women to leave a loo.