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/

In 2023/24, 1397 GRCs were applied for
102 were refused
14 were withdrawn
12 interims were issued

The current tribunal rules do not automatically hand them out

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

Yes.

I thought that the Equality act was supposed to allow exceptions for women only spaces - for biological woman, never with men with GRCs -
in certain instances, where it is a proportionate means to a legitimate end such as in a rape crisis centre, or women’s refuge.

This EHRC guidance contradicts that.

Yet people in this new government have sworn the opposite, saying there is no need to clarify the Equality Act because sex based spaces are already allowed.

If the government make it easier to get GRCs, as planned, there will be more male ‘women‘ claiming this EHRC now absolutely clearly delineated right to work in female only roles.

GRCs should go.

From the guidance:
However, Schedule 9 also permits an occupational requirement to exclude transgender persons where it is objectively justified, and this can include those who have obtained a GRC.

You have the right to privacy and dignity and I believe that counts as objective justification in situations like those you describe. Those human rights are absolute, don't have to balanced. So no doubt in practice you might be faced with a man claiming to be a woman, but the employer/provider would be within the law to stick to women only and you would be within your rights to reject the MCW.

I think the problem would be more with jobs like leading Breeze rides, or taking charge of a conference about women in STEM, or indeed "gender-balanced" boards etc.
Can't wait for the Supreme Court hearing. Everything is a sort of pro tem opinion until that case is heard.

Yet people in this new government have sworn the opposite
Sorry, I meant the Labour candidates before the general election.

@Snowypeaks that's really useful and helpful to know, thank you 🙏

That was my first thought too.

IANAL - but this what I have gathered from reading.

The problem is that Schedule 9 is permissive (in that service providers have permission to exclude men with GRCs), and too many services are entirely captured and won't make use of the permission, but will continue to oh-so-progressively employ men who identify as women and have a piece of paper to that effect.

I'm not saying today's ruling isn't a step forward. It's a material step forward and should stop nonsense like the ERCC saying they have to employ a man self-identifying as a woman as their CEO. It's also a welcome signal that positive change is possible, and we're slowly reclaiming ground. We're not there yet, but the tanker has turned.

RedToothBrush · Today 14:56

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

My first thought was that he'll be applying for one tomorrow morning.

I sincerely hope that the court case clarified actual sex, not imagined gender. It beggars belief for me that anyone vaguely rational can think that a male is suited for that job, even if he's posing as a woman.

Are you allowed to ask to see a GRC?

Apparently you can, but he doesn't have to comply. If he does, you are not allowed to disclose that, without his consent. That may have been from the Legal Feminist.

So this is interesting guidance. Labour and trans activists can’t continue to argue that getting a GRC is simply an admin exercise if it opens up the right for men to work in roles reserved only for women.

It's always been a myth that it wasn't a higher bar to exclude "trans women" with a GRC. I hope this lie has finally been put to rest.

Sorry - dont understand what this is about.

As women only as per the SSE in the EA exclude TW with a GRC, why would it then be argued that those without a GRC would be eligible.

Does Fair Play for Women not understand the current law?

Baffling.

I am well aware of all that. I don't think this guidance is a step forward exactly - it's good that the EHRC state clearly that self ID is not (yet) the law in the UK, but they've been saying that for some time under Baroness Falkner's leadership, and people continue to ignore or misrepresent the law.

The OP (not sure if it is a quote from FPFW) is conflating sex based roles and those deemed "female" roles (no idea what those are).

This comes back to what is really the core of the problem that too many employers dont want to go to the bother of classifying single sex provision.

Has anyone ever drawn up a list of services / jobs that most every day women would expect to use / receive a service in another (biological) woman?

No you misunderstand.

There was confusion over the current law

The EHRC have now issued guidance to try and clarify this.

Fairplay are commenting on this new guidance which in part they like but they see the gigantic problematic loophole that completely fucks us too.

Fair Play for Women have been working on getting more or less these guidelines for the last 6 years. Not everyone agrees with their approach, certainly. But it's incorrect to claim that no one significant has ever claimed that males without GRC who identify as women are included in women only spaces under the Equality Act. Trans rights activists organisations and those that they influence, including government departments, have been claiming this for years. That's what the clarification is about.

Quote:

Occupational requirements under Schedule 9 must relate to having a particular protected characteristic as defined in the Equality Act 2010. The protected characteristic of ‘sex’ means a person’s legal sex as recorded on their birth certificate or their Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). This means that a sex-based occupational requirement that an applicant is a woman – as is common within specialist support services for women, such as rape counselling – will include women who are recorded female at birth and also transgender women who have obtained a GRC.

However, Schedule 9 also permits an occupational requirement to exclude transgender persons where it is objectively justified, and this can include those who have obtained a GRC. A ‘sex-based’ occupational requirement to be a woman under Schedule 9 cannot include transgender women who have not obtained a GRC, as they do not have legal status as women under the Equality Act 2010.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/guidance-discriminatory-adverts

This is not NEW!!!

This is what it always has been.

This is what the Lady Haldane ruling was based on.

Why are we going round in circles about this.

We need to move onto the next stage.

Getting more organisations and employers to characterise jobs as being (biological) women only.

And then confront the nonsense of the concept of "legal" women who can be used by companies to complain they have reached equality targets as in the example of Women on Boards.

The Lady Haldane ruling was news to many trans rights activists who seemed to think (and had been told by countless organisations and authorities) that the Equality Act 2010 gave them the legal right to access opposite sex spaces and services under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. Some confusion here about why the guidelines needed to be clarified.

Employers still couldn't get their head around it though and the EHRC was failing to spell it out. Stonewall had said something completely different which had further confusion the issue. Hence looking for clarity.

It's really not clear, and the case is ongoing, so the Haldane ruling will be superseded, for better or worse.

Pre Falkner and in the time of Theresa May, Mordaunt etc, the EHRC was actively producing guidelines saying that MTFs couldn't be excluded from female spaces without good reason.

Baby steps...

But if Labour make getting a GRC easier we'll be back to square one!

Indeed @RhymesWithOrange

Our best hope is that they think it's too much of a hot potato.