Do the EHRC Guidelines on "dsicriminatory adverts" help make SSE job adverts clearer - and even if they do how does that help service users?

[IwantToRetire]

Last month the ERHC published guidelines on advertising job vacancies aimed at specific groups of people https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/guidance-discriminatory-adverts

Has this meant that women's groups are now more open about jobs being open to both trans women and biological women?

For instance:
Please note, applications will be accepted from women only under Schedule 9, part 1 of the Equality Act 2010. Scottish Women’s Aid is an equal opportunities employer, all women, including women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, may apply for women-only roles.
https://womensaid.scot/news/vacancies/

As opposed to:
Our free, women-only and survivor-led service offers a holistic response to women and girls who have experienced, or are at risk of, gendered violence.
http://www.womensgrid.org.uk/?p=25202

The ads seem to vary on references to the EA:
ie Schedule 9, part 1 of the Equality Act 2010
or Exempt under the Equality Act 2010, Schedule 9, and Part 1. Section 7(2) e of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

This seems quite an obscure way of advertising but might to more understandable to those experienced in the VAWG sector.

But how does this then translate into clear and explicit advertising of services, it they too dont refer to the differeince.

including women with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment

This is still unclear. Does it refer to a male who wants to be called a woman, or to a female who does not?

If you have read the guidelines from the EHRC and check the protected characteristics it is clear who is being referred to.

But the bigger issue is that even if now service providers are being clearer about who they will employ, how does that help a service user ringing up after some traumatic event to know whether a biolgocial woman and a trans (legal) woman will answer the phone.

Most service users, and most of the service provider employees, won't have read the guidelines from the EHRC and so it will be no clearer to them who is being referred to.

So single sex includes transwomen with a grc so changed birth certificate but you can also exclude them if its justified. I can't actually think any situation where a male with a reassigned to female birth certificate is OK to include but the males with male birth certificates excluded. If 1 male is ok to include why not the rest? Make it make sense please.

I think that what you have said in a much simpler way is what I was thinking.

I can see why they want to quote what is legally acceptable, but why cant they use plain explicit english, and have footnote to whatever bit of the EA they want to quote.

I am sure 99.9% of users would have no idea or even think there could be any confusion between when something is women only and something is women, including legal women, only.

And whilst I totally support showing up the groups who are playing around with the word salad, the absolute priority should be clear, truthful description of the services women are being offered.

Its all back to front.

1st principle: women and men must be treated equally.
2nd principle: there are certain circumstances when it is legitimate to exclude one sex from situations provided for the other sex.

Re-applying this structure to individuals with the PC of gender reassignment causes the confusion. It should be:

3rd principle: there are certain circumstances when it is legitimate to include not-women-with-the-PC-of-GR in services provided for women.

The presumption is that people with the PC of GR are the same in all respects as people without that PC, and that you therefore need that permission to exclude them from single sex provisions.

According to the EA single sex provisions are permitted when they would be proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims.

But these exemptions are permitted, not required. Providers can choose whether or not to provide them dependant upon their political/philosophical position and their desire/ability to withstand bullying.

The presumption needs to be that people with the PC of GR are not the same in all respects as people without that PC, and that you therefore need explicit permission to include them in single sex provisions.

WRT my previous point about people having read the EA, I have not read these new guidelines. I can't - I can't access them on my phone. So much for equity of access!

There's a lot more to the guidelines, eg relating to race and religion, but re women only and SSE:

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.

It is lawful for private members’ clubs, such as golf and bowling clubs, to restrict membership to persons who share a protected characteristic, except on the basis of colour. However, they cannot discriminate between members, for example by offering different membership rates for men and women. Also, if the club provides a service which is open to the public, it is unlawful to restrict access to that unless one of the specific exceptions in the Act applies.

According to the EA single sex provisions are permitted when they would be proportionate means of achieving legitimate aims.

This comes up on most threads about this, that they deliberately wrote a law that means a majority have to lose their rights to accommodate a minority.

Rather than saying in all circumstance the (natural) person cover by a PC is presumed to be the target of the ad.

But the wrote the law back to front meaning in all circumstances a TW with a GRC in "legally" a woman.

And then actual women have to ask permission to say would it be okay if we only included biological women.

No other protected characteristic group has been required to open up their protected characteristic to anyone not naturally part of it.

And as such (repeating myself from other threads) this isn't really about rights, this is about social engineering.

This is about those who wrote and those who agreed the law deciding that actual woman dont naturally have as much rights as any other group.

So going back to my OP, the supposed clarity of advertising jobs doesn't seem to help. Partly because ordinary members of the public, even reading the guidelines would never think that women didn't have the right to single sex services.

But just as worrying, if the fact that there is no guidance, or even an agreed convention by service providers, as to how to advertise services offered so that biological women know that they are acessing a single sex service as permitted under the EA.

Its as I've said previously where sex matters its sex that matters not gender. If its proportionate to exclude a male without a grc then its proportionate to exclude a male with one. I can not think of a situation that its proportionate to exclude male men but not male 'women' (i hate that phrase), if any male is acceptable then they all are.

This is spectacularly unhelpful guidance. It still abandons every single rape crisis centre/lesbian knitting circle/small independent gym to bear the full costs of fighting through the courts.

Not sure that that is true.

The guidance says that where proportional you can advertise jobs as only being open to biological women. The problem is that fewer and fewer groups want to do it. Whether through mission drift or actual conviction most gropus now seem quite happy to include trans women as women.

Added to which it says:

It is lawful for private members’ clubs, such as golf and bowling clubs, to restrict membership to persons who share a protected characteristic,

and if you remember Bristol SU (I think it was them) had to back down and say that the Women's SU group could be only for biological women.

But all of this is years to late. So many groups and indvidual women have bought into the Stonewall narrative.

The reality is that unless say all those on FWR decided that we should stop posting on the internet and set up local groups its not going to change.

But by far the worst part is that none of the word play and legal guidance is of any use to a woman at a moment of crisis and trauma.

I thought the guidance had always said that @IwantToRetire but that we had no examples of what reasonable and proportionate might mean in practice (not disagreeing with you because I'm not an expert and it's a genuine question, I'd be very happy if this is appropriate guidance which will help lesbian knitting circles etc stay single sex).

The example in the EA is in fact Rape Crisis support.

That is what is so depressing it that women's service providers have apparently willing decided not to use that option.

Of course we dont know that behind the scenes, as happened in Scotland, groups are told they are more likely or will only get funding if they are "trans inclusive".

And as it is, a lot of local councils are now saying it isn't "cost effective" to have separate women's services and at least 3 local domestic violence project have all had their funding cut, and support for women fleeing domestic violence has been given to generic support services.

So its like in two directions, one from those promoting trans inclusion, and the more longer male tradition of not respecting women means that there is less and less support for women being deemed worthy to have service provision.

Its really depressing.

I think in Scotland being trans inclusive is an active condition of funding. Time was when government bodies had to do an impact assessment on their decisions, I think Scotland fudged these by getting captured women's organisations to say how wonderful inclusivity was, but could the local and mayoral authorities now be got on this basis?