Keep Prison Single Sex closing

[TinselAngel]

Just announced on Twitter.

x.com/noxyinxxprisons/status/1798973161276412028?s=46&t=PSGltfjrMyZmBtYq2-AVIQ

"After considerable thought we have decided to close KPSS down. Our last day of operation will be 30th June 2024.

We have agreed that Kate will continue to support and work with the individual prisoners, former offenders, and CJS whistleblowers with whom we have relationships. Kate is contacting everyone individually to advise them of this.

We have some materials still available and can post these out to whomever wants them: our email address will remain live, so please use this to contact us. All reports and leaflets are also available on our website which, together with our Vimeo, we will maintain as a resource, although content will not be updated.

It is no longer possible to make a donation to KPSS and all regular donations have been cancelled - however, please do check your own accounts. Our PayPal account is now closed. Both KPSS shops have been closed.

KPSS USA is unaffected by this decision. Their work will continue. Please give them a follow @NoXY_USA Any funds remaining after closing down KPSS will be transferred to them.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Between us we achieved some truly great things, including two Ministry of Justice policy changes that centre the safety and rights of women in prison. Be proud of what you have done, because none of what KPSS achieved would have been possible without you."

The problem with services not using the exception allowed in the EA is that it's easier not to. If they don’t have to, they won’t. We need to make it obligatory to provide women only facilities, rather than leave it optional.

They know men will complain if they can’t have access wherever they want. For Malaga related reasons, or just out of spite because men don’t like being told ‘no’.

Another issue is the ‘sex positive’ ‘boundary negative’ direction of lib fem travel over the last many decades, that has too many individuals, businesses and institutions convinced that having fewer boundaries around women’s bodies is super progressive.

We have to change the culture around women’s facilities as well as repeal the GRA. even with the GRA gone it would still be too common to see men using women’s toilets, changing rooms etc. Repeal would solve the problem in places where women are admitted on the basis of legal id, such as hospitals and prisons, but we still have a fight on our hands in less formal settings.

Are Labour going to the UK supreme Court to argue that @Signalbox ?

No. It’s the FWS appeal case re what does sex mean in the EA. Labour can make all the guidance it likes but it’ll be the outcome of that case that matters.

Isn't @Hepwo more asking if, if Labour win, they'll stop defending the case and it will not go to the Supreme Court? I might be wrong but that's how I read it.

Labour have nothing to do with this case. FWR are appealing the Haldane Judgment in the UK Supreme Court. The initial JR was against the Scottish Government.

Plus afaik you can’t prevent a a case from proceeding by not defending it. It would just carry on regardless without you.

Exactly, so Sonia''s analysis you quoted is muddled and misleading.

Labour claims that the law in this area is clear, despite the fact it is so unclear that, as the result of a judicial review that has made its way through the Scottish courts, in the next year or so the supreme court will have to try to interpret what parliament meant by “sex” in the Equality Act. Labour will argue that the problem can be fixed through statutory guidance, which is nonsense: guidance cannot change the law; only parliament can. As one lawyer I spoke to said, Labour’s position is to uphold the problematic status quo. If it goes ahead with its plans to make a GRC easier to get without first clarifying the law, it will make things worse.”

Why can't she properly explain this?

I’m sorry you’ve completely lost me. Sonia’s article makes perfect sense to me. What’s more Michael Foran commented that she has a firm grasp on the issues and had explained the complexities of the current situation very clearly.

Why do you think SM want to clarify the meaning of sex in the EA? It’s because the current situation is uncertain. Uncertainty does not make for good law. Even the lawyers do not agree which is why this will end up in the SC. Labour putting out guidance will change nothing because the law is interpreted by the courts not the government.

All law is meaningless if there is no mechanism for enforcement.

The right to single sex spaces is only an exception for a provider to provide one. It isn't enforceable as the prisons judicial review showed. If a provider washes their hands of it because of cost and time, all you can do is for each affected individual build a case for sex discrimination which is expensive and takes forever. Meanwhile women and girls suffer.

This quote is taken from the daily mail regarding male police officers searching women. No mention of SSE laws, just engagement with stakeholders. Its using the idea of balancing rights, not safeguarding and dignity to inform policy. If the police are unwilling or unable to follow SSE, who can be?

An NPCC spokesman said last night that the review of the guidance on custody searches carried out by transgender staff 'includes engagement with colleagues across policing and partner organisations, community groups and associations. The review is ongoing, and no decisions have yet been made'.

Ah yes it's vs the Scottish government. I got muddled. I also thought there was something about that case that had somehow stopped the UK government from doing something about sex in the EQA. There was: x.com/kemibadenoch/status/1797707541691957401?s=46&t=WHoOZ_3Kv5G6-FyQuvE0LQ But probably my getting these things mixed up

Yes I know.

The supreme court will remove the uncertainty about biological sex.

The status quo will change, labour will be upholding the EQA which is now clarified in the same way as Kemi Badenoch proposed last week.

I'd really like to see @Hepwo and @illinivich and others who agree that statuatory guidance is all that's needed respond to @ResisterRex's thought experiment - it's 2003 [(except somehow also 2013 so same sex marriage is legistlated for)], explain why we need to introduce a GRA or add GR to equal rights legislation?
I guess I'm curious to know if others think the current legal setup is good so long as better guidance is issued, or if that's a comprimise, because this is where we've ended up so let's make the best of a bad situation.
I think I've probably defaulted to a "balance of rights" position, thinking the problem is that the balance is way too far in one direction now. But more recently I'm more fully understanding the arguments of people like Coleman.
I think horrifying outcomes like disenfranchised women being locked in prisons with sexually violent men shift the focus so much to stopping that from happening with a patch, rather than looking at the madness of the underlying situation of having something as nebulous as "gender" written into legislation.
Imagine if there was legislation which outlined how Births, Deaths and Marriages could issue certificates of full exorcism, which proves that the recipient is no longer possessed by demons. I think that's where I'm at with "gender" now. There isn't a stable, tangible condition of being in need of gender reassignment. There are a host of human experiences including sex-atypical personalitites, body-based distress, fetishes, responses to trauma, strongly valued identity categories. Some of these things are disabilities, some are beliefs worthy of respect. But they don't fit together in a new, coherent category that needs its own legislation.
(Grammar edit)

I haven't said that statutory guidance is al that's needed.

Neither have I.

So out of interest what else do you think is needed? Up thread you said that “more hard-hitting statutory guidance might be the answer”. But if the SC find that men can be legally women (as per the current situation with the Haldane judgment) then men will continue to count as women for some purposes and there is no will be no way to exclude them. For instance as far I’ve read associations cannot use the exceptions in the EA to exclude men who have a GRC. Also men with a GRC are counted for the purpose of Gender Representation on Public Boards Act (Scotland).

Honestly look at this shit. This is why we need KPSS and their no nonsense approach.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13511543/Fury-police-chiefs-fail-stop-transgender-officers-born-male-identify-female-permitted-strip-search-women.html

No, I don't think I did say that.

I don't think that's the answer.

In several threads now I've said that once sex is confirmed as always intended to be biological then the threat of legal action goes away.

Kemi Badenoch said this a week or so ago. She also talked about making it absolutely clear in the guidance but that's for assistance in formulating policy.

I don't believe the supreme court will judge that biological sex is not protected in the Equality Act and that the words female of any age mean female in your imagination of any age.

Once biological sex is spelled out, imaginary sex becomes something left leaning service providers that are disposed towards not disappointing men will continue to serve, but that's what left wing voters will be voting for. The opposition to that will continue to grow through the networks now appearing within the public sector (SEEN).

Good grief. This needs a thread of its own.
It's grim thought that men determined to erode women's safety and privacy from men are in such senior positions in the police and the law that they're able to influence practice in this way.

Out of interest (as I don’t know what the answer is), as the majority of younger people transitioning now are Female to Male, where do you think they should go if they go to prison? I would assume female prisons? Though they may now well be stronger as would be taking testosterone, and may even have had an op so they now have male genitalia?

It was me who suggested that hard-hitting statutory guidance might be worth considering, although not with any great enthusiasm.

For: quicker than changing the law, can include 'worked examples' including examples of where trans inclusion can be discriminatory against women and religious minorities, can address the PC of GR as well as the legal sex v biological sex issue, forces a sub-committee to think about real world impact and developing case law. And the Haldane appeal might succeed.

Against: Labour want it - why? Doesn't solve the whole problem.

The law is a complete dog's breakfast and shouldn't exist, but politically we might make more progress by interpreting and adding to the existing law than by trying to dismantle it, which would meet massive resistance. Because it looks like trying to ban trans people, and the hard of thinking can't cope with that.

The GRA will have limited scope in law, it becomes a bit of a pointless cul de sac all the men are corraled into.

Bannatynes manage to use the exemptions for single sex services now. Other providers could be as confident but are risk averse for financial reasons. Left wing barristers and their clients use money to intimidate service providers don't they? They are the culture war proponents on the whole.

No, I don't think I did say that.

Apologies to Hepwo I misread a previous post as being yours.

Kemi Badenoch said this a week or so ago. She also talked about making it absolutely clear in the guidance but that's for assistance in formulating policy.

KB wants to make a legislative change to clarify sex means sex. Labour are against this change and think clearer guidance is the answer.

I don't believe the supreme court will judge that biological sex is not protected in the Equality Act and that the words female of any age mean female in your imagination of any age.

You think that the SC will find that the Haldane judgment was wrong in law. I hope you are right but time will tell and a small legislative change by Labour (if they win the election) would quickly circumvent the need for a challenge in the SC

There was one transman in a male prison in Scotland when last report was released - I can't recall where but can look later

I mean, 'having an op' doesn't give a woman male genitalia, to be clear.