New EHRC guidelines - women only jobs

[RedToothBrush]

Fairplay for women
BREAKING: New EHRC guidance relating to ‘women-only’ job adverts.

“A ‘sex-based’ occupational requirement to be a woman under Schedule 9 cannot include transgender women who have not obtained a GRC” /1
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/guidance-discriminatory-adverts

We have been calling for this guidance for a long time. We have been reporting rogue employers each time they misuse the law by advertising for ‘self-identifying women’ to fill women-only roles. /2

In March this year EHRC promised to publish new guidance. From now on no employer can say it didn’t understand the rules. /3

This new guidance that makes clear men who self-identity as women are not female and should not be recruited as such. This makes it fairer on the women who apply and the people who rely on a woman being in that role for reasons of privacy, dignity and safety. /4

However this new guidance also says men who change their legal status to female by obtaining a GRC can be recruited into a female role. This highlights the absurdity of a law that expects a woman to waive her need for privacy or safety simple because a man gets a certificate. /5

The new Labour Government wants to make it even easier for men to get these certificates. /6

This is why Starmer must take seriously calls to clarify that sex means biological sex in the Equality Act.

Otherwise when you next ask for a women to perform your intimate exam you might get a man with a certificate doing it. /7

This new guidance is a step in the right direction. It bars the majority of men who identity as women from getting jobs reserved for women. Most transgender males do not have a GRC. But it leaves open a loophole for a small number to access these jobs with a GRC. More progress is needed before this is truly fair on women. /8

https://fairplayforwomen.com/new-guidance-for-employers-on-women-only-jobs/

Also this is your regular reminder that Mridul Wadhwa is still in a job and does not have a GRC.

🤬

Thassorl.

So essentially, the new guidance says men can be women. Nothing changes except a meaningless piece of paper telling a legally allowed lie.

It is saying men with a certificate can be women, in services where women are at their most vulnerable and female employees are indicated.

Whilst the clarification is welcome it does mean that men with a GRC can apply and plans to make GRC's easier to obtain mean we'll be barely better protected than with self ID.

Is an employer permitted to ask to see a GRC? If not how can it be policed?

The EA needs to clarify that sex means biological sex and not gender identity.

Remember how few men actually have GRCs
(around 3000 of working age across the whole of the UK)

This is a massive change as (for now) it stops self ID into inappropriate places.

THen again with the mess the DVLA and the Passport Office have made of sex markers on legal documents ....

So all jobs are open to both sexes???!

Can the advert exclude those with a GRC? (I thought you could exclude "women" with the protected status of Gender reassignment?)

Remember how few men actually have GRCs
(around 3000 of working age across the whole of the UK)

They will be making them easier to get, so they will be much more common and it will be considered more likely that a given MTF will have one.

They are also making the GRC more desirable. A lot of men who thought it was not worthwhile will change their mind.

I think the number is more than 3000, since the Tories reduced the cost of the application to £5. In recent interviews, Helen Joyce has mentioned 8000 - 10,000 GRCs having been issued.

I completely agree with you about the unhelpfulness of the DVLA and Passport Office accepting self-ID on official state documents that are frequently used for ID purposes.

So the nice, friendly, wouldn’t impose on anyone kind of transwoman is not going to be applying for these roles. We can be fairly sure that any men who are invading intimate female spaces where women are at their most vulnerable are fully aware and intent on doing so. Why does any reasonable person think women don’t deserve protection from this? 😡

To March 2024, 5,524 certificates have been issued to those born male, 8,464 in total.
To March 2024, 2,097 certificates have been issued to those born before 1959
so around 1,300 of those people will be men of above retirement

leaving a maximum of 4,224 male GRC holders of working age
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/tribunals-statistics-quarterly-january-to-march-2024
(table GRP 4)

#RepealTheGRA

A step in the right direction - but useless if individuals can still falsify their history and sex on official documents with a GRC, especially if any plans to make it easier to obtain a GRC are carried.
Repeal the GRA

Talkinpeace how many women could each of those men be traumatising each year if they are eg working in a hospital doing intimate examination on women who don’t feel able to say no? Multiply that by your approx 4000 to get a truer indication of the impact

@Runor
Indeed. Predators predate.
Remember the head of a certain Yorkshire boarding school who bought the place to get access to children.
Certain roles should NOT be available to those who deny the reality we can all see (teaching, healthacre, police)

None of it is reasonable. None.

Repeal the GRA, it's the only sane position.

Question:
If you are a manly man, and kinda incelly and thought that men were being unfairly discriminated against, give me one reason why you wouldn't apply for a GRC that was easier to get?

Genuinely, why wouldn't you just get one?

deleted

Agree - repealing the GRA is the only logical way back. It would have been a tough call under the Tories - it will be an even tougher,virtually impossible one under Labour. But we need to start having that conversation publicly because when the wider public finally understands that any old bloke can get a piece of paper that permits access all areas, and the most he has to do is put on a bit of lippy (if that), then the Overton window will shift to finally put repeal in the frame. At the least, opening up the debate on it will provide a counterbalance to liberalising getting a GRC.

In the meantime my hopes are pinned on FWS Supreme Court appeal in November.

It doesn't matter whether there's 3000 or 3, none of them belong in women's spaces 🤷‍♀️

Does this mean that a male to female trans woman with a GRC, a penis and stubble can work in a women only rape crisis centre? Or if I request a female doctor for an intimate examination, they could be sent in?

I agree. Repealing the GRA is the only sensible way forward. A piece of paper does not make a man into a woman.

Absolutely. A GRC only costs a fiver.

@TheColourOutOfSpace crikey. I believe everyone should be treated with dignity and respect no matter what but as someone who has learned the very hard way to assert my boundaries, and who requests female doctors, my answer will be NO as and when I choose. It's not negotiable.

I do think everyone would benefit from more legal clarity on this though. (We won't get it under this government.)