Sunak: I’ll change the Equality Act to protect women’s spaces

[Binglebong]

Sorry to dump and run but this needed sharing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/02/rishi-suank-equality-act-protect-womens-spaces-tory/

Exemptions in the EA are not affected by a GRC.

Males with a GRC can still be excluded on the basis of Section 9 of the EA.

This also means safe spaces for children as biological born men won’t be able to just waltz in to a ladies toilets where children also go with their female relatives .. so that is essential also

Haldane also made it very clear that her judgement only applied to the specific circumstance she was being asked to rule on.

My opinion is Badenoch/the Tories have fluffed it. Neither fish nor fowl. Sad if you were hoping to have someone to vote for on this issue.

The problem with Kemi's interview was that to the un initiated, rushing around in the morning, doing the school run etc, it did sound like it was all about birth certificates.

However, it's great that it's in the news - now over to the brilliant women in the media who are really good at spelling this all out, as Sodah has upthread.

And even if Labour get in, I can't see Kemi letting this one lie. This will be the cattle prod that will keep being stuck into Labour.

Apart from anything, as the law does exist, from my point of view it's being able to more openly raise these issues across all of society. Which Cass does - I saw this video yesterday of a very well respected professor of endocrinology at Oxford I think, from London, giving a street interview on America about Cass - he vocally and happily supported it.

x.com/jamiewhistle/status/1797276455333667306?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

OK

What is Badenoch proposing to change then? I though updating the EA was necessary?

Businesses don’t want to be sued

It removes that risk

Which is much better than Labour’s version where the risk stays and TRAs exploit the poor legislation to meet their aims

This is a legal battle and women need legislation to change to give them a chance

Your version doesn’t give that. Plus the increased ease as pledged is stacking much more towards men with GRCs having the power

Presumably this has been released now so that Rishi can use it in the debate tomorrow and try and get Starmer into a "does a woman have a penis" type of ding-dong?

Danger for him is that - as is quite clear from this thread - the details on the policy are actually quite confusing for someone not well versed in the issue. Labour's position on trans issues might have a big element of fudge but it's eliminated the "rapists in women's prisons" gotchas. Whether or not a business is compelled or not to have single sex toilets just doesn't have the same emotional charge.

If it gets into a back and forth on the substance Starmer is likely to be more up on that than Sunak (being an actual lawyer and all) and probably won't have too much difficulty tripping him up.

It wasn’t a great interview but the paperwork part was a mess of a focus to start with

What is being proposed is good. It’ll pick up as pro women voices start talking about it

Maybe it clarifies that they will not be sued for doing so. So that when women campaign to have a an organisation do this , they cannot claim ambiguity in law.

And it might also prevent local authorities or who ever is funding female emergency services from forcing inclusion of male people to be able to receive funding
as has been happening.

Just because it doesn’t make big changes to corporations at this time, doesn’t mean it will be meaningless.

The problem is in practice 'except when they have a GRC' also ends up covering transpeople without a GRC. One because you wouldn't routinely need to have your paperwork checked and two even where you would the GRA doesn't allow it to be checked. So shifting to biological sex swings the pendulum back from 'assume Doris has a GRC' to 'doesn't matter Doris is a bloke'.

Sad if you were hoping to have someone to vote for on this issue.

There's still plenty oif time for Labour to make clear statements on this.

Yes, I think it will make a much bigger difference in the public sector & for charities - especially smaller ones who have been worried about excluding transwomen

Labour have made a clear statement. They say this is "not needed".

Changes to protect women and children are not needed. That's their take in the face of Isla Bryson's pink leggings.

I assume that "not needed" particularly applies to the Tory proposal to make this a reserved matter. Thereby removing self-ID by the back door, driven by ideologues in Scotland or Wales, which the rest of us didn't vote for.

And I assume that is "not needed" because that's exactly the plan.

The law currently defines woman, to the extent it does at all, as a person with a female sex marker on birth certificate (including a certificate based on the GRR). It includes transgender women, in other words.

Sonia Sodha raises a good point about the comparison with race and disability discrimination. We know it when we see it and it doesn't matter if you're only a 'little bit' non-white or disabled (or not at all, in the case of perceptive discrimination).

But the right to a single-sex space is a derogation from discrimination law. It gives us the right to discriminate against men. What we additionally need is the right to discriminate against 'women' who look as if they were registered male at birth, or whom we know to have been eg because we know they have a GRC or because their penis is on show

More from Sonia

Just to be clear: if you’re on the left & you’re dismissing an Equality Act amendment to protect women’s rights you don’t understand as hateful on the basis of who’s proposing it you’re as guilty as anyone of culture wars rhetoric in a sensitive debate about a conflict of rights.

x.com/soniasodha/status/1797549966338244659?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

I’m happy with the change. I want the legal threat removed

TRAs exploit the poor legislation and I’d prefer it to stop

Labour have responded they will plough on with pro TRA policies

I don't hold much hope for Sunak to communicate this clearly, but I think it can be.
"We've been told that organisations are unclear what sex mean in the Equality Act. We want to make it quite clear it means biological sex"
"Oh but transwomen have been using <insert space> for years"
"And if businesses want transwomen to continue using those spaces they can do that, but they must make it clear that these are not single-sex spaces in the eyes of the law, and women will have a right to demand additional single-sex spaces"

I think it's important that people start being very clear that if a transwomen is in a space 'for women' it is by definition not 'single-sex'.

NOTHING on woman's hour ffs

Exactly what I thought.

Protection from discrimination on the basis of being transgender?

Already covered by the EA2010, no GRC required.

Legal recognition as female except where biological sex is important for safety and dignity?

Can you give me even one example? Isn't sex always important for safety etc?

I still don't see how this changes anything?

Businesses can carry on as before, the law is not being changed, if a charity or sport wishes to allow in TW, then can, free from prosecution.

On toilets, unless councils get funding, public loos will continue to shut down and/or charge, ones round here now cost £1 to use.

I think they re missing a trick by not focusing on safeguarding aspects of this, safeguarding law, why it exists etc

Yes. And that is a start and can ripple out. At the moment we are trying to cover all bases. But focusing on the female emergency single sex spaces and hospital accommodation etc. we haven’t really turned our attention to the corporates. Who are still there focused on inclusion at all costs to the exclusion of female people’s needs.

Being able to have confidence that single sex spaces in all public sector facilities will be single sex will allow the rest to ripple through. That might take a decade but until the public sector is doing the right thing, then corporates will get ad hoc attention.

Let’s remember that extreme trans activists focused on public sector too. Getting males into female prison estates was seen as the linchpin.

Businesses can't falsely advertise their services. That should be the same for single sex services.

If its reasonable to believe that its a womans changing room, a support group or social group, why should they be able to define 'woman' to include men?

Business arent obliged to provide single sex services, but its not right that the use single sex as a maketing ploy, but then provide mic sex services. They shoud be advertised as mix sex.

Then consumers can make informed choices and gaps in single sex provision can be seen.