EHRC urgently reviewing guidance on single sex jobs

[IcakethereforeIam]

I suppose this is good news but, ffs, have they had their eyes closed and their fingers stuffed in their ears

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/16/ehrc-reviews-employer-guidance-single-sex-jobs-trans-women/

https://archive.ph/ejSTW I think Wales has the best anthem and flag, but this is the best link to bypass the paywall

About bloody time.
I really do hope that they prosecute Edinburgh rape crisis centres for hiring that man (he is both legally and biologically male)

Yes. About bloody time. Gaslighting of the most awful kind. Wadhwa should be first to go.

It's not like the EHRC didn't know about Edinburgh Rape Crisis. For Women Scotland wrote to them back in 2021 and the EHRC just blew them off.

It shouldn't have taken feminist groups to do the EHRC's work for them, but thank you to the women who documented the problem and insisted the EHRC take action at last.

According to what the EHRC told FWS, advertising for a woman and employing a man is only discrimination against all the other men who could have applied.

EHRC-response-28July2021.png (1153×704) (forwomen.scot)

Be interesting to see if EHRC have changed their minds.

Given what we know about the the way the staff at EHRC had been hugely biased towards trans rights in defiance of the law, and the fight Falkner has had in getting them to a more law informed place, it seems likely this is another of the messes, like the schools guidance, that Falkner’s leadership is having an impact on.

That's true.

To offer a post only to women means excluding men.

So to do so, is a kind of discrimination that is sanctioned, hence the exception.

But if they are going to allow some men to apply, then they are discriminating against other men who are not allowed to apply.

Anyway nice to see that for whatever reason EHRC have decided that clarification is urgently needed. So that all those small organisations offering support to rape survivors don't keep on getting it wrong, eh? Just think, if EHRC had clarified the single-sex exemptions back in 2021 maybe Sussex Survivors wouldn't be on their way to court now, who knows.

But better late than never.

I read the article earlier today and wondered if the Telegraph hadn't maybe not really understood the issue.

The legal issue would be whether the vacancies were advertised quoting the SSE. If they were then clearly those advertising were attempting to misuse the law.

And from the list of names in the article, it is all the usual suspects (majority Scotland) who for politcal reasons were trying to create a precedent as would be the case with Brighton and Nottingham who have clearly stated that in their eyes TWAW.

I wonder if that bizarre response from the EHRC (quoted by PP) was more to do with who had the upper hand there at the time. Not saying it was, but if it was, it would be a clear indication that institutions set up to supposedly be impartial, and provide guidance can be corrupted when the majority (or perhaps a bullying minority) set the agenda of the organisation to mirror their personal politcs.

If I remember rightly many did write to various institutions in Scotland re ERCC such as funders, charity overseers etc., and none thought there was a problem. But then when the Government is telling you it isn't, or is actively telling you that this is a condition of its funding, it isn't really a surprise.

So it would be good if the EHRC was able to make it clear what the SSE mean.

But even if they do there is nothing to stop those groups who want to, to advertise as being trans inclusive by just not quoting the relevant part of the act.

Just to add, that the real shame is that none of the groups who claim to be the representatives of differing women's services have put out guidance to their member groups to remind them what the law is and how they should implement it.

On the same theme as PPs, why is it down to small grassroots groups like FPFW to hold EHRC accountable for stuff like this? I'm grateful for the extremely hard work of FPFW and all the people who keep them going with spare cash. But EHRC is a funded statutory government body, and the women's charity sector also has funding streams that are not open to the grassroots groups.

Get out of your echo chambers and do your bloody jobs!

I don't think the EHRC's response about ERCC is bizarre, that is the law - the genuine occupational requirement exception is being misused to discriminate directly against men within the PC of GR. The Act doesn't create a legal obligation to hire women to work in a women's rape crisis centre, the law just says that you can lawfully limit your recruitment to women in certain situations. Probably because it didn't occur on to anyone that female boards or whatever would be so insane as to recruit men - and go out of their way to do so. And in 2010, nobody would have foreseen that Stonewall would turn into a TRA lobby group which would misrepresent the law to others so egregiously.
Although I think it would be discriminatory towards the users of the centre because anyone could predict that having a man in charge would make the service less usable or not usable at all for most women.
In general, though, I think the EHRC have failed in their legal duties to provide accurate guidance on the EA2010 and promote equality. Good to see that they are addressing this failure.

I hope this means they've dealt with the activists in house and are now, finally, undoing the damage/neglect. Perhaps, we'll see more stuff like this going forward.

Another vote for about time too, but this is great news, we need legal clarity to come from the EHRC so the whole weight of this doesn't fall on Lesbian knitting circles in Rochdale.

An article broadly about this in the Critic

https://thecritic.co.uk/self-id-versus-survivors/

I noted the following:

In the meantime, we welcome referrals about potential misapplication of Schedule 9 provisions and will continue to assess and take action to resolve these on a case-by-case basis.“ Employers should be aware of their obligations under the Equality Act and know that we will enforce them.”

Am I right in thinking that it means that in certain cases, it's not discretionary to exclude males from certain jobs? I thought it was like toilets / changing rooms, in that organisations could choose no trans, or trans allowed.