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/

Not many employers check GCSE or A level grades, but if it comes to light after taking up a position, you can be sacked for lying without a chance of winning a claim for unfair dismissal.

There's a difference between employers saving money and time checking for qualifications that aren't essential and safeguarding.

If a hospital doesnt check the qualifications of their medical staff, not only is the employee going to be prosecuted, the hospital is too - for failing to keep the public safe. If they didnt check the qualifications of the admin officer, the government wouldn't get involved.

Are SSE important enough to be seen as safeguarding or are they seen as the same as someone lying on their CV about GCSEs?

If i were a man wanting a woman only job, and the only consequence was i wouldnt get compensation if found out, i would probably risk it. Meanwhile, lots of woman have been put in a situation were they havent recieved the service they expected and needed.

If SSE are needed, shouldn't it be easy for service providers to recruit the correctly qualified person?

The orginal birth certificates is kept, just not accessible to the public. But the government has a list of all GRC holders.

If a GRC holder wants to apply for a job that needs a DBS certificate, they can apply via a special section that is allowed to hide the fact that they have a GRC, and previous names if appropriate.

Thanks to whoever posted this. Really useful information.

I am not saying it will work, but I think making it a criminal offence to falsely apply for a post under the SSE of the EA is the only way to push back.

We know all too well, the be kind approach has been ruthlessly used to undermine women's sex based rights.

But what we have now is too many people, including women, still wanting to be kind. ie as usual, and has been for centuries, women are expected to sacrifice themselves for everyone else.

Here is MW in an interview saying they were uncertain if they would even have been hired if ERCC had known that MW was trans.

Is this a true narrative?

Hadm't MW celebrated being a TW at another women's rape crisis service?

In October 2020, Wadhwa sought SNP candidacy for MSP for Edinburgh Central and Stirling constituencies for the upcoming 2021 Scottish Parliament election.

Wadhwa quit the party due to what she described as multiple attacks motivated by her interest in leadership positions within the party; according to Wadhwa, her colleagues angrily objected to her being listed on an all-woman candidate list due to her status as a transgender woman. Wadhwa stated she would still vote for Scottish Independence.

She left the SNP after MSPs backed an amendment to allow survivors of rape and sexual violence to pick the sex rather than the gender of the person examining them.

Wadhwa became Chief Executive Officer of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre in 2021.

MW ability to weave false narratives and have others accept them as facts seems to have been large part of having a sucessful career path plan!

It’s always hard to know what to believe with people like this.

MW was talking about Forth Valley RCC in that interview, not ERCC, which is a rape crisis centre MW managed before ERCC. There is zero chance that MW's trans status was secret when MW joined ERCC relatively recently.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mridul_Wadhwa

It beggars me that anyone rational can simultaneously hold the belief that being female has no connection to being a woman because a trans women is a women, and the belief that a trans woman qualifies to deliver/access female specific services and support because she is a woman.

I mean, the first definition of womanhood literally disconnects womanhood from the female body while the second relies on it.

The most fundamental belief of genderism and its most fundamental political demands contradict each other. It's total nonsense.

"Not many employers check GCSE or A level grades, but if it comes to light after taking up a position, you can be sacked for lying without a chance of winning a claim for unfair dismissal"

I was highlighting this in relation to points raised about how employers can know the sex of an individual.

Arguments are often made that it's difficult to 'police' issues relating to who can versus who should access single sex spaces (and jobs). I think these arguments downplay the significance of clarity of the law and the legal expectation to follow the law irrespective of how easy it is to break it.

Whilst there are TRAs who love to publicise that they are breaching norms/expectations/ laws by using provision/spaces designated female only, many/most prefer to seek to undermine claims that transwomen aren't allowed.

The EHRC have said the legal position is that females and males with GRCs are eligible to be employed in female only roles. Issues relating to transwomen deliberately deceiving employers about characteristics that are deemed essential for the job isn't the gotcha or stumbling block that TRAs paint it to be. I don't even think it's relevant to the recent ruling. It is no different to lying about any other criteria, it is unacceptable and any applicant who seeks to mislead on this will be in breech of contract if successful in securing the post.

Where safeguarding checks are needed for a role the same procedures should apply to all, GRC or no GRC. The issues relating to GRCs and DBS checks are a related issue but not the same one as the ERHCs this situation independently of the decision that males.

I am unhappy, but not surprised by the ERHCs conclusions. I think it highlights that the law isn't fit for purpose in terms of upholding the proportionate and legitimate aim of single sex provision. A certificate can hold a lot of power within social and legal systems, but it hold zero power or influence over biology and biology determines sex.

I don't want a man providing intimate care/ services even if he has a GRC but if I'm understanding this right, the law says he is a woman if he has a GRC and I have to accept female only services from him or I am the one in the wrong.

It depends how the service / vacancy is advertised.

ie some women service providers are "trans inclusive" and in fact more groups are being open about this which is good.

But some services / vacancies are advertised as per the SSE in the EA which means that even someone with a GRA can not apply for or provide those services.

This is not new. This has been the case since the GRA changed the status of sex as a protected characteristic.

The only thing that is new, is the statement about self identity.

Which has become necessary because some many people and organisations have fallen for Stonewall mis information.

In fact maybe this recent statement by the EHRC could be the opportunity to get service providers to be much clearer and open about their services / employment practices.

ie there is nothing to stop any or us finding their local rape crisis centre or domestic violence project to see what they say on their web site. If it refers to service with / by women contact them and ask have they seen this statement from the EHRC. And wouldn't it be better if their web site made clear which version of "woman" they are using. (I know it sounds mad but that's the result of the GRA corrupting the protected characteristic of sex).

Much better that it is clear on their web site, rather than a woman at a moment of stress and in need of help, having to ask this question. (Some rape crisis centres do already do that ie say they are trans inclusive.)

Not sure how or who to contact about any NHS service.

I can’t help feeling that the EHRC clarification + £5 GRC application + EDI organisations being all in on the Stonewall TWAW mantra is going to make achieving single sex services and spaces more difficult.

The fact that the law says a piece of official paper allows a man to override the dignity and privacy of women really shows me where women are on government’s priority lists. It’s like the report detailing Greater Manchester Police’s routine use of strip searching (and denial of sanpro/medications) to humiliate and punish women - it shows that the State is not sufficiently protecting women (and children) nor is it sufficiently interested in doing so.

Yes I agree.

going to make achieving single sex services and spaces more difficult.

We keep coming back to this.

Under the law it is possible to provide singles sex (ie the biological kind) services etc..

The problem is too many people, not because they have been transed think this is an important enough issue to campaign on.

This is about a social change in society that has been happening gradually (admittedly some using false feminist arguement about how single sex services are out of date) and not enough people, both men and women think they should do anything about it.

So what used to be a natural division that society acted on ie changing rooms, retreats, health care, have slipped from the collective conscience.

Local councils have been using this arguement for years to make cuts to women's services long, long before TRAs had any sort of public voice.

So unless we are all whether in our local area prepared to speak up for why single sex is important you cant expect groups who are under thread of funding cuts to take a stand when they aren't getting local support.

I am well aware that some parts of support services have been Stonewalled, but many haven't and get not actual practical support.

As I said on another thread, a local women's refuge had its funding cut for economic reasons put forward by a council employee. No councilors questioned it, and it seems there was no local support to speak up for the refuge.

So doubt that those who think sex matters and / or are gender critical could launch a media campaign as well resourced as the rainbow coalition that has corrupted so many institutions, we have to think of some way of raising the profile of the issue.

Not as being pro or anti trans but being pro woman.

If society as a whole values this, that is when it will be easier for groups / institutions to provide single sex services.

(As well as having a much more widely acepted fact that sex and gender are NOT the same thing.)

This guidance is still pretty opaque to my mind.

A trans woman with a GRC is legally a woman.

BUT

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. (ie you can exclude someone with a GRC?)

HOWEVER 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.

My brain feels like it is too small for all this.

They aren't legally a woman in every way, no.

There are exceptions to the GRA as well as the EA.

Sorry to repeat myself, but this is the situation since the GRA undermined the protected characteristic of sex in the EA.

It doesn't make sense because it is social engineering rather than rights. That's why your brain rejects it, because it is the law trying to say "the emporer has new clothes".

Someone with a GRC is "legally" the other sex, so that some jobs which are considered just for women can include a TW with a GRC.

But even the weirdos who wrote this law recognised that there are occassions when sex does actually mean "biological" sex. So the SSE means only biological females can apply.

What is new, or has never been written about before is "self identity". At the moment this has no legal status. But the pushing of the narrative of self identity has meant EHRC has had to issue a statement clarifying this.

And it is quite possible that in response to this not only might the GRA be amended to make getting a GRC easier (a Labour committment) but the EA may be rewritten to say that the protected characteristic of gender re-assignment will be re-written to include self identity in addition to those in the process of applying to a GRC.

Its become clear that even if the word sex in the EA was redefined to be specifically and only biological sex, that this would not impact on how the EA actually works, because the TRAs would complain that they had lost rights.

As they would if somehow enough people were prepared to campaign for the GRA to be repealed.

The concept of "legal" sex isn't about rights, it is about the state telling us we have to believe a set of beliefs that are actually only important to a minority.

But a minority that has sucessfully campaigned and captured decision makers and society - made easier of course because, as always, women are expected to put their rights second to everyone elses.

It's because the test has always been based on how "legitimate" women's wish for a single sex space was and whether excluding X man was "proportionate". Arguably the whole Equality Act works like this, but you don't tend to have people using it in the same way as conflicts between sex and "gender" (which can affect gender reassignment, sex, sexual orientation and I guess pregnancy and maternity potentially).

@IwantToRetire thanks for the detailed response!

Its a bit like the Little Red book or whatever it was called in China.

You had to be able to intone bits of it to prove you truely believed and understood.

But if having to repeat something as truth whilst your brain is going this is just rubbish, does make far too many things impossible not get provoked / worn down by.

Like the thread about a man getting fired for not agreeing to and then mocking the use of pronouns in his workplace. Some argued on the thread he had gone to far. but on the other hand if having to daily tell lies to keep your job, sometime you just snap.

Sorry to add this here, but not sure it deserves a thread of its own.

Many if not all jobs in support services require a DBS check.

Have just seen this relating to DBS in relation to an NHS job. I wonder if some women service providers do the same.

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) offers a confidential checking service for transgender applicants in accordance with the Gender Recognition Act 2004. This is known as the sensitive applications route, and is available for all levels of DBS check - basic, standard and enhanced.

The sensitive applications route gives transgender applicants the choice not to have any gender or name information disclosed on their DBS certificate that could reveal their previous identity. To contact the sensitive applications team, please telephone 0300 106 1452 or email [email protected].

hmmmmmmmmmmmm .....

https://www.nhsjobs.com/job/UK/North_Yorkshire/Scarborough/York_Scarborough_Teaching_Hospitals_NHS_Foundation_Trust/Physiotherapist/Physiotherapist-v6767892

gives transgender applicants the choice not to have any gender or name information disclosed on their DBS certificate that could reveal their previous identity

Doesn't this undermine the purposed of a DBS certificate.

If it doesn't record / show who you were known as, how can it be said to give a clear record of whether someone has had convictions or whatever.

Unsettling.

Yes it does and we've been campaigning for the loophole to be closed the tories payed some lip service about looking at it again but nothing happened and now labour don't care

@IwantToRetire It deserves a thread of its own!