Single sex spaces and services question

[WomanWithoutNeedOfPrefix]

The Equality Act allows for single sex spaces and services to be provided, and states that this can mean that people with a GRC can be included or excluded depending on the situation and if this is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

So, if I've understood correctly, this means there is a two tier system within single sex spaces and services, as some may include those with a GRC (i.e. inclusion is based on legal sex) and some may exclude those with a GRC (i.e. inclusion is based on biological sex).

How can this work in practice? Most things are mixed sex, but those that are single sex are surely only designated so to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. What kind of situation would you have where a single-sex space or service would be based on legal sex (i.e. be mixed biological sex) and not fail to meet the original reason for why it was set up? How are women meant to know whether the single sex spaces and services they are accessing are based on legal or biological sex??

There are single sex services and trans inclusive services.

The problem as always is whether who ever if providing the service is being clear and honest. (and i suspect some who just dont know because the grew up in the increasingly rainbow era).

A job advertised under the EA Single Sex exceptions is only for biological women. Its in the Act, it was confirmed by Lady Haldane and even Labour who as you know like to call them Safe Spaces rather than admit it is about the reality of sex.

For women wanting to access services they can either just rely on what they see advertised, or ask directly to confirm that it is a service provided under the SSE.

So their aren't 2 single sex services. But there is a failure of some groups to be clear.

And apart from being honest with women seeking single sex services, there is also the issue that trans women who aren't looking to impose political position of biological women, also deserve to have it clearly stated is a service is trans inclusive.

What is spoken about much is that the SSE are used to recruit biological women, but then they may welll find that their new employer will not only expect them to provide servies to biological women, but also to services that are trans inclusive.

The Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre is the extreme example of this, but I suspect many small groups who are well meaning but not very informed are doing this.

But I suppose if you are being interviewed for a job supposedly single sex you need to ask the potential employer whether you would be expected to work only with biological women but also with trans women.

I dont think I have ever seen this publicly discussed.

OP the state of the law in this area is very confusing and not at all fit for purpose. I completely understand why you have questions.

BUT you also have to bear in mind that where we are today is also because a lot of NGOs (and activist EDI adherents) have been lobbying and training public sector and private sector organisations to ignore the actual law and to behave as though the law allows what the NGOs prefer in terms of ignoring biological sex. Et voila...confusion for women!

Not only is the law a mess but, as with many laws, the difference between what the law says and what happens in real life are two different things. Laws are only ever as good as the effectiveness of the enforcement mechanism and the fairness of access to that enforcement mechanism. If a law is badly drafted and does not interact with other laws properly there are issues. Our law in the uk is built on precedent so not only do you have to consider what legislation says but how those laws have been interpreted by the courts.

you only get to court if you can afford to do so. If someone decides to take action against you then you will have to pay to defend yourself and even if you win it is very unlikely get all your costs back from the other side even if they have the money to pay them. So for small businesses and organisations defending their interpretation of the Equality Act in court may cost them their business. Add to that the raft of threats from activists to business and their staff and it's a big ask to put individual businesses to be the line of defence for women and girls.

For big business they can pay the legal bills but they risk tangling in the web of woke .., not getting big contracts because procurement contracts require t EDI audits and women exclusive/ trans inclusive policies, plus risking boycotts and targeting of staff.

And for poor women and girls at the heart of this alll they are very unlikely unless they are too big to cancel and can afford private security . They do not have the money to fight or defend in courts and we have all see the abject failure of the police to
prtotect women from threats and intimidation. Unions who once would have funded for litigation are captured leaving women requiring crowdfunding or funding from other groups that leaves them open to allegations that they are funded by religious interest groups

the only way in which and girls can be protected is good law drafted properly with mandatory single sex spaces in certain spaces .. changing rooms, toilets where there is space for more than two, prisons , strip
searches; a right to same sex intimate care and this to be enforced by the government not relying on individuals and companies

It is a total fudge, now pointed out by more than one court with a direct request that government address it.

It does not work at all for women in practice.

It works very well for men who wish to invade women's spaces, and therefore works very well for politicians who believe in men's feelings and wishes being obviously much more important than women's distress, risk and exclusion. It allows a nice fig leaf to sell to the uninformed of the electorate that make it sound in theory like politicians and organisations are not insane MRAs while still permitting them to act like it unimpeded.

In a sane and equal society that was not madly misogynistic, the obvious solution would be to require that all services (and most certainly all tax payer funded ones) provided a mixed sex women's service and a single sex women's service. However men do not want this, and their quite fantastic selfishness and misogyny seems to be something to do with 'trans rights'. Which suggests that 'trans rights' in essence means the subordination of women as resources without right to consent, equality, or access should the women not be able to or wish to provide themselves for validation or whatever other male need is involved.

It is therefore the policy of male rights centric political groups that the fudge be left in peace.

Because it's only women who suffer after all, and it's not like anyone cares.

But there is a failure of some groups to be clear.

Sorry quoting myself, but thought I should add that an increasing number of groups who are providing services for women, now talk about "gender based" violence etc..

This too should be taken as a worrying concern because it is just as likely that it is staff who have grown up in an era where TRA queer politics have managed to get our language mangled, as it is likely they mean they are trans inclusive.

And also, because I dont want to present all women's groups as opting out of their responsibilities, but it can be hard to speak up in an environment where your CEO (as in ERCC) is pushing the trans narrative or a funder is leaning on the organisation.

I am really surprised that after the ERCC case more funders, LAs etc., didn't circulate guidance.

Equally surprised that groups like EVAW who claim to speak for women's groups working to support victims of male violence, haven't circulated guidance.

Nearly as disturbing as politicians pushing their personal political beliefs at the expense of women.

Or perhpas that should be worse than. After all this is the core of why they exist.

The problem isn't just about being clear (although vulnerable women are being lied to). A massive problem is that mixed sex 'gender' based services are REPLACING single sex services for women- not being an additional choice so everyone can access services.

In some areas there are no female only services for women. For some women, this won't matter - they can access services that may (or not) have a man who says he's a woman in it (and in many cases it will turn out to be female only as women are the main users).

However, for women who need single sex services- not just for changing, or for religious reasons, but also for rape support, domestic abuse/ coercive control from a trans husband, sexual assault from a father (again this may be a dad who says he's a woman)- they are totally excluded. Sometimes they are lied to and sometimes not but in the areas I know about there are NO options and NO support for these women- they are totally uncounted, left isolated, unsupported and traumatised.

I have seen a few FOI's about this but the local authorities in every case have NO plans to help these women. It's devastating the lives of women/girls affected and won't change until the law requires single sex services, not just allows them- such is the disregard of women's needs compared to everything trans.

OP, this is a really excellent question. From my very limited understanding of the Haldane judgement, the cases where you might have a situation where it's single-sex, but includes men with a GRC, are things like increasing the representation of women on company boards. On the other hand, something like a single-sex sauna would be biological women only, and would allow you to exclude men with a GRC.

But I don't know, and I hope someone else who does will turn up soon.

would allow you to exclude men with a GRC.

The "would" is the key word.

Whereas not that long ago, women only would automatically have meant to everyone just biological women, it no longer does.

The whole queer agenda in universities has led to a generation or two who think in terms of "gender", and unless have had a personal experience, accept the your sex isn't relevant.

So even though any number of organisation and funders could they dont eg Brighton Council.

And dont forget this started to happen long before TRAs were prominant.

The deeply entrenched misogynistic attitudes in society means that councils began cutting women's services because they dont see them as "good" value for money.

Effectively what we are seeing is that in what is at best 50 years of the concept of women only services being considered essential for women who have experienced male violence, this is now being undermined both by MRAs and TRAs.

To revert to OP. There is every possibility to legally provided women only, based on biological sex, services.

So it can be done, but there is no willingness or money to do it.

You also have to bear in mind that while everyone against the retention of women's spaces likes the option of single sex spaces being mentioned in the act as useful defence, in reality whenever any single sex space is protected for women, even alongside multiple options available for trans people, it is still attacked and hounded with the intent of claiming it for men too or closing it down.

Sarah Summers' case for example is about the intolerance of trans-supporting activists towards a female only group being permitted to exist, even though all male people needing services have full choice of all three existing groups. The mere existence of the female-only facility is seen as an intolerable offense.

So in theory it's helpful to say 'well of course they COULD by law have those facilities' while not adding (but in practice we won't actually permit it).

The whole thing is ridiculous. Including for women on company boards - the whole point of having a quota is to increase representation of women to something approaching the imbalance of men. If you allow males in that quota, what is the point of it?

Thanks All. As unclear as I thought it was then!

I just cannot understand how you can have a situation where a supposedly 'single sex space or service' includes someone of the opposite sex because they have (or might have) a piece of paper. If it doesn't matter that someone of the opposite sex is present, then that would mean it didn't need to be single sex in the first place and you may as well include everyone and make it mixed sex - at least that would be clear upfront, although of course many women would just self-exclude. Women miss out either way - put up with a mixed sex situation or leave.

It's all so depressing.

Thanks All. As unclear as I thought it was then!

Sorry that you dont think it is clear.

It is clear that legally service providers can offer services only by and for biological women.

The problem is fewer and fewer are doing this.

And even if the EA was changed to say that single sex provision is automaticly only for biological women, there is no reason to believe any one is going to do it.

ie if the only ones who really care are those of us on FWR then we are going to have to stop posting comments, and instead start setting up (biolgocial) women only groups.

No amount of us complaining on FWR is gong to make anyone else do it.

That is the reality.

(Sorry unless of course you and JKR and can pay someone to do it.)

How are organisations who want to offer single-sex services meant to know who is eligible for their services? I personally think that this is the most pressing issue, and the most difficult to solve.

It is easy to obtain official documents (passport, driving licence) that falsely state the wrong sex and no GRC is required for this. If an obvious male insists on being admitted to a female space and produces his official identity documents as proof of his female sex, how can he be denied?

The push for sex self-identity has had the effect of emboldening these males to transgress social boundaries. It’s also had the effect of informing them about how to get female identity documents and showing them that it’s not that hard. By making it easier to get a GRC, Labour will be contributing to both of these problems.

This is why they boldly make statements that they aren’t reducing women’s access to single-sex spaces. ‘We aren’t changing the Equality Act, which allows organisations to offer single-sex services’, they say. The problem is that they are affecting the environment in which these organisations operate. They are contributing to that sense of entitlement males have to use female spaces.

As long as males can get official documents which state they are of the female sex, women’s spaces cannot be protected, but I just cannot imagine any political party rowing back on this right. Kemi Badenoch was questioned on this a few weeks by, IIRC, Mishal Hussein and it’s the only time I’ve heard her sound shifty. Perhaps it is possible for there to be a system where organisations can discreetly check whether certain ladies have always been ladies.

Sorry @IwantToRetire, I didn't mean to suggest the replies were unclear. They are all very helpful.

It's so obvious to me that there are some situations that have to be single sex (toilets, prisons, sports, to name a few). The law allows segregation by sex in some situations, but does not mandate it, and organisations may not enforce this or are instead segregating by gender - so it is very unclear for women to know what we are actually getting. Provision for single sex does seem to be going backwards - and unfortunately I am not in the JKR financial bracket!

Provision for single sex does seem to be going backwards - and unfortunately I am not in the JKR financial bracket!

Yes - and yes sadly.

Can you imagine if somehow all of us had the money and integrity of JKR.

Talk about social change.

Off to review my future and see if there is a quick course on becoming a millionaire.

I think you just have to spend years of your life writing a number of really fantastic, outstanding books that will last in children's literature for centuries, and get made into a whole lot of films and other things.

I think maybe that market has been cornered - supremely

How about a futuristic setting when a young person realises bodies are different and sets off to challenge the social lie that they aren't.

The final scene is her saying I am a biological female and you have been lying to me all my life.

And the crowd bows down to her determination to uncover the truth.

And names her JKR II