Britain's equalities chief intervenes after Labour insisted tightening law to protect single-sex spaces would be unnecessary

[IwantToRetire]

Britain's equalities watchdog has intervened after Labour insisted that tightening the law to protect single-sex spaces would be unnecessary.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has demanded to see the transgender policies of hundreds of public bodies after concerns about them were dismissed by ministers.

Baroness Falkner, chairman of the EHRC, said it would examine these and decide whether the Equality Act – which allows organisations to restrict access to women-only spaces such as bathrooms to those born female – is being followed correctly.

Article continues at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14226447/Britains-equalities-chief-intervene-Labour-single-sex-spaces.html

Hope we can trust the DM is an accurate report.

Late last night I posted on another thread that the EHRC should stand up to Labour who continue to claim that the SSE are enough, and women should be grateful, that even though they prioritise TW they have allowed biological women a small concession!

Baroness Falkner is another women who could also have been named woman of the year, standing up to the trans bullies and now Labour!

Thanks for posting, will have a better read tomorrow.

The government seems to be blind to the reality of what is happening.

SSE are not mandatory because its not always necessary or practical to provide them. But very often when SSE are not being provided, gendered services or opportunities are given instead. And crucially providers are using sex language to advertise them. For example, when i go into a changing room advised as women only, i dont know what the providers definition of women is.

If SSE are not necessary or practical in these situations, how are gendered services? If the argument is that its difficult to police sex segregated services, surely its even harder to police gendered segregated services?

Also, service providers cannot just make up a protected characteristic and ignore the impact of that new characteristic on legally protected characteristics. They seem to be assuming everyone has a gender or that they can include gender and sex into one new characteristics.

The government isn't blind. They're doing what they said they would do. This is the party that gave us the mess of GRA and EQA, and they're proud of both.

I never for a second trusted Labour to protect women and unfortunately I was right

The judgement ( expected soon) in the For Women Scotland case recently heard at the Supreme Court - have a Google - will impact this question. I think it’s being ignored here because for some reason posters think it will only affect Scottish law - it won’t. The court are looking at both the U.K. wide Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act and the statutory definitions of woman etc.

Same here.

I think it’s being ignored here because for some reason posters think it will only affect Scottish law - it won’t.

What aspect do you think posters are ignoring?

This is good news, and it's good that they used a photo of a bloke in a dress with an obvious boner.
A bit more from the article for people wo don't want to click on the link:
"Her comments came after the Office for Equality and Opportunity last week brushed aside fears many public bodies are allowing people to access services based on their self-identified gender rather than their biological sex.
It said it had found a few examples where the guidance was not being interpreted correctly, after members of the public raised concerns about 404 organisations.
However, it claimed this was simply down to ‘confusion or a lack of awareness’.

In response, Lady Falkner wrote to equalities minister Anneliese Dodds, thanking her for sending the EHRC 42 cases where the Equality Act 2010 was identified to have been misinterpreted.
She added: ‘We would find it helpful to see the remaining 362 examples submitted to you.
‘This would enable us to form a better judgment of the overall picture of compliance with the Act and guidance, inform the development of the statutory Code of Practice and our broader regulatory activity, and have confidence that the Act, on the whole, is being applied correctly.’

Thank you but I'm surprised you think we need to Google it. I've seen lots of discussion about it on this board including at least one long running thread. What makes you think we're ignoring it?

It was fully live streamed so there are a series of live threads by those following online and lots of discussion on other threads, as you say,

The majority of the cases where providers are ignoring SSE and implementing gender services instead aren't using the GRA but the protected characteristic of GR.

Its already clear in law that the PC of GR alone doesnt change a persons sex, isn't it?

Just adding Arbella's thread here as a reminder to those who haven't replied to the consultation.

Rejoice! For there is another consultation! (EHRC) www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5235061-rejoice-for-there-is-another-consultation-ehrc

And thank goodness for Baroness F.

Good for the Baroness. So 42 complaints where the Minister thinks the law has been misinterpreted and 360-ish complaints where the Minister thinks the law has not been misinterpreted.

If there is "confusion and lack of awareness" about the Equality Act then the EHRC needs to review its own guidance, and if there is not then the EHRC needs to have a look at the law and advise the government accordingly.

Nice to see the EHRC is doing its job.

And yes let us not forget the EHRC's consultation about its own guidance, we have 1 more day to comment!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/5235061-rejoice-for-there-is-another-consultation-ehrc

(Thanks ArabellaScott and @CarefulN0w )

Labours position, I think, is that where provision is single sex, providers are not required to apply SSE, but if they do, sex must be defined as natal sex, not gender identity or GRC status.

I think there are very few circumstances where the law requires single sex provision. Mostly, organisations are permitted to provide this if this is a proportionate means of delivering a legitimate aim. It is difficult to make sense of how the justification for single sex provision can be made without the assumption that the SSE is applied. I would have thought failing to apply the SSE nullifies the 'legitimate aim' element of the EQA requirement. With the Labour Party making it clear that organisations can choose for themselves whether or not to apply the SSE, and not requiring this decision to cohere with their justification for single sex provision, they are paving the way for a free for all.

I think we all need to start requiring providers of single sex services/provision to start disclosing the 'legitimate aim(s) for their single sex provision. We can then challenge them of their rationale not to apply SSE.

With public sector organisations and charities, this can be achieved through FOIs.

Ive heard more labour MPs talk about safe spaces than about single sex services. And statements regarding sse always talk about trans people, so i dont think their message is particularly clear.

To me is more that the know sse exist, but want to world were women just accept men as women and shut up about it.

No politician seems to want to acknowledge that 'women' on a changing room door could mean anything.

Typically, the legitimate aims that underpin provision of SS services are:

⁃	Privacy and Dignity- where bodies are exposed and/or intimate care provided
⁃	Safety - protecting certain groups where the context presents risk
⁃	Health and Well-being - addressing specific needs that may be better met in a single-sex environment
⁃	Effectiveness of Service - where provision is more effective if organised by sex

When thinking about sex and gender in relation to the above, it is difficult to think it’s f a single reason as to why males with a trans identity should be included in a single sex provision for females. I think all of the above could provide a legitimate aim for providing a trans specific service/provision, but there is a significant error in reasoning to think the solution is to include male trans people in provision for females. The only way this would make sense is to consider them female - which Labour are admitting they are not.

They talk about “safe” spaces, not single sex ones so that they can let men in. And I don’t believe for a moment Labour is “blind” to the problem, it’s just politically more convenient to pretend there is no problem.

The policies EHRC want to see are to do with the provision of services and public functions where schedule 3 part 7 para 28 already makes clear that tw can be excluded from women's spaces and services regardless of grc status.

The FWS case is to do with other parts of the EA where that specific exception cannot be used, e.g. associations and representation on public boards (and, as those who have been following this for quite a while now will know, all women shortlists for parliamentary candidates).

So I think it's being ignored here because it's not really relevant, rather than because of any confusion over jurisdiction.

Just seen this article in the Times

https://archive.ph/A3cmN

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/trans-police-can-hold-multiple-warrant-cards-for-different-genders-2b5kg5q0f

Seems pertinent.

Also in the Telegraph, but it's essentially the same article.

Forget anything else, but focus on what this is about.

The then Government (Labour) ammended the EA to take into account the provisions of the GRA ie that those with a GRC legally became (for all purposes) the opposite sex.

This meant that when anyone was providing services, or carrying out EO monitoring, a man with a GRC could legally be counted as a woman.

These changes to the EA included those who were intending or in the process of obtaining a GRC could be included. (Anyone interested could look up the exact wording.)

However, Labour even in its absolutely committment to trans rights, dimly realised that there might be occassions (eg rape crisis support) that biological women should have the right to be provided with support ONLY from other biological women. ie the SSE.

99.9% of the population, companies, schools, etc., had not idea about this and many still dont.

But Stonewall and others then started circulating incorrect information about self identify, TW with a GRC being included in SSE provision.

So the situation is that most people have never had a proper explanation about the right to invoke SSE.

And perhaps worse still, those who should have been mostly widely publcising and enacting them, eg the federations of Rape Crisis Centres, and Women's Aid projects didn't and still dont.

So in this vaccumm the Stonewall reality took hold.

So it isn't that it is difficult to set up services or whatever under the SSE but most people dont know about. But with the passage of time many have been persuaded that anyway nobody wants them because nice women eg not terfs, would never be so mean as to say TW aren't welcome.

So it isn't that it cant be done, but that those who should have been publicly countering Stonewall misinformation haven't been doing so.

None of this has anything to do with the FWS court cases which is about them saying the word sex in the EA is wrong.

So far the court cases have resulted in the courts affirming that, like it or not, Labour wrote the EA to give TW with a GRC more rights than biological women.

If the judicial review finds in their favour then all these consultations become irrelevent, because what both the Government (unless they challenge a judegement in favour of FWS) and the EHRC will have to write to literally every institution, company club etc., and say if you are saying something is women only, then that means you are saying it is only for biological women.

And you can bet that Stonewall, loads of Labour MPs and both main stream and social media will create such public outrage that Labour may well challenge the court ruling, because they want at least one group of people to like them. And as they prefer TW to actual women it is more likely they will challenge a court ruling that says in terms of the EA the word sex means biology.

At the moment however, unfair and disrespectful of women it is, it actually isn't that hard to define.

The real problem has been that the only "education" about it has been by TRAs who have deliberately misled it. eg self id doens't exist as a legal right.

Made worse by those women's groups and equal rights campaigner who never thought it, or women, were important enought to mount a counter campaign.

All we have now is random newly formed groups (which at least was one good outcome of the consultation on reforming the GRA) but who do not work together.

For instance, some decades ago now, in response to the threat to abortion rights, a whole range of groups agreed to work together an oppose changes to the Abortion Act.

This not only meant that information was coherent, but that by having a National Abortion Campaign made up of a range of groups, it made it clear that it wasn't some fringe or minority faction.

So at the moment different groups, campaigns are doing different bits of tinkering.

eg
petition to amend the wording of the EA to make clear the word sex is about biology.
court cases to say the EA/GRA intersection was being misused to give TW more rights than the should have
various local or national campaigns re toilets etc.

I am not sure if it is lack of political experience, competing narratives (or egos?!) and the obvious members of such a campaign (women service providers) too scared of funders to go public, that this hasn't happened.

I just dont understand why neither Rape Crisis or Women's Aid federations haven't felt able or committed enought to put out some statement saying the SSE provision is essential, they know and provide it as their primary function, but also offer other services, whether to men or TW.

Why is this so hard for them.

Because quite honestly without them being part of it, to the public it just looks like fringe groups are being a bit over zealous.

Without those most impacted by this muddle, women service providers, being public about why it is needed, it is just a mess.

NB in writing this I do not in any way give up on my primary goal which is to repeal the GRA.

At the moment all this endless going over and over and over what are the SSE, what are legal women, blah blah, blah blah, is in fact holding us back from getting to the real issue.

For information purposes I think this is the letter and press release from the EHRC that the DM has based its story on. In fact a couple of weeks ago now.
https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/news/ehrc-statement-examples-incorrect-single-sex-spaces-and-gender-self

(Its strange because not only this but the other consultation didn't appear in news feeds I have that pick up on this issue. Have search engines been transed?!)

The EA has not been amended. The GRA had already been law for 6 years before the EA was passed.

There were already single sex exceptions in the sex discrimination act which is what we had before the EA. This was amended in 1999 to make provision for gender reassignment in response to case law.

Gender reassignment worked differently in the sex discrimination act - there were protections for those who were proposing to undergo, were undergoing or had undergone gender reassignment the same as now, but they had to be under medical supervision. There were exceptions which could exclude tw from women's spaces and services while they were proposing to undergo or in the process of undergoing ... but an end point was envisioned where they would have completed their transition and from then on had to be treated as women and could not be excluded so in that way it was worse than the EA.

This was all before the gra. As far as I know the SDA was not amended in response to the GRA because a tw with a grc would be considered to have completed their transition and therefore would have to be treated as a woman anyway.

Anneliese Dodds is not fit for purpose.

None of this has anything to do with the FWS court cases which is about them saying the word sex in the EA is wrong.

This is not correct. The FWS case has as much to so with single-sex services as it does with any other aspect of the EA where sex is mentioned. The list given above by Brainworm of examples of legitimate aims for single-sex services simply don't work unless sex refers to biology. Women require privacy and dignity from the opposite sex, it doesn't make any sense to object to the presence of one man but to be fine with getting undressed in front of another man, just because he has a certificate that no-one even knows he has.

And no matter how s26-28 of Sch 3 are wrangled, if sex means 'certificated sex' a service can never provide for women as a biological class, because those women with a GRC (so they are deemed to be men) will always be excluded. They should not be, and this matters.

So far the court cases have resulted in the courts affirming that, like it or not, Labour wrote the EA to give TW with a GRC more rights than biological women.

Says who? FWS1 is final and binding and ruled that woman by definition excludes biological males. The second case did not overturn that, and is still under appeal with the Supreme Court decision yet to be handed down.

And you can bet that Stonewall, loads of Labour MPs and both main stream and social media will create such public outrage that Labour may well challenge the court ruling, because they want at least one group of people to like them. And as they prefer TW to actual women it is more likely they will challenge a court ruling that says in terms of the EA the word sex means biology.

Labour are neither the appellant nor the respondent in the Supreme Court case so they cannot appeal its decision. It's statutory construction of domestic law rather than a human rights case for an individual so not suitable for ECtHR anyway. They had the opportunity to intervene in the case but chose not to. But as the UK Govt they may, if they don't like the judgment, take action to amend the Equality Act.

NB in writing this I do not in any way give up on my primary goal which is to repeal the GRA.
At the moment all this endless going over and over and over what are the SSE, what are legal women, blah blah, blah blah, is in fact holding us back from getting to the real issue.

The FWS case put the problems with the GRA and its interaction with the Equality Act (if indeed there is any interaction) on the highest platform in the country. If you think the media, public, legal and political discussions that come off the back of that are "holding us back" then I think you're sorely mistaken.