Women’s rights to be prioritised in equality law revamp .

[Feministwoman]

Women’s rights to be prioritised in equality law revamp
Radical overhaul follows concerns about trans people using single-sex spaces.

Hopefully this will actually happen!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/bb5759c652081aa3

Thank you. This is interesting to see. But seems a partial solution dependant on whether a person holds a GRC or not. Each month seems to strengthen the case to repeal any such certificate.

I know! But presumably the journalist has an inside line to what's going on, and it is hopefully a good sign 🤞

The ability for service providers to request a GRC could be aimed at allowing the inclusion of male-presenting females (transmen) into eg women’s rape counselling groups, rather than transwomen. I don’t believe for a minute believe that’s the intent of the provisions discussed in the article, but they could be used that way.

I can’t infer which way the FWS ruling will go from this news. Either way it is clear #nodebate is dead and buried.

I hope so. But I hold out on getting my hopes too high at this time.

I did wonder if this has arisen because the FWS ruling is going to make the current situation (aka Stonewall rules) impossible.

It sounds positive, but the worry is that in opposition Anneliese Dodds as women and equalities spokesperson was promoting simplification of the process to acquire a GRC. This could end up with GRC on demand which would be much the same as self ID

I am cautiously hopeful but mindful of Ms Dodds' leanings.

As an aside, Maya is a Queen. 😍

The ability for service providers to request a GRC could be aimed at allowing the inclusion of male-presenting females (transmen) into eg women’s rape counselling groups, rather than transwomen.

I don't see how that could be the case. A woman doesn't need a not-a-woman certificate to be considered a woman. A gender non-conforming/male-presenting woman could use female services with her original birth certificate. A GRC would only be needed to exclude, not include, her. Or to include a man.

The absence of one could be used to exclude men.

The article reads to me as though this is a proposal from the EHRC rather than initiating with the government and we know how captured the Civil Service are. I also note the statement that they would look at it “in due course” which sound very much like “if we can, into the long grass it goes”.

I think that this press release is trying to prepare the ground for For Women Scotland losing the appeal.

If FWS had won then a GRC check would not be necessary as a GRC would be meaningless in terms of "sex". If FWS have lost then GRCs have a meaning in terms of sex and allow default entry into single sex spaces. Why else would we need to check GRCs unless they are an entry ticket?

The EHRC intervened in this case so they would have had the judgment earlier than it is handed down - they must know what is coming.

The Times and Twitter seem to be suggesting a technical win for the SNP with critical comments by the judges may be in the offing - see last para of the article, but that a win for FWS may see the Scottish Self Id bill go through. For technical reasons which I don’t think I understand! : www.thetimes.com/article/9f253df2-99ee-4b2f-87a1-3b30c584cc98?shareToken=5d0edab09804552c886ecf457e902a11

I cannot believe I'm alive in a time where this societal and legal absurdity is being forced on women by selfish men who just won't take no for an answer. I always thought that the big fight of my later life would be campaigning to ensuring abortion rights for women in Ireland/Northern Ireland. I did not foresee this instead becoming a battle to re-establish the legal rights and personhood that women won for themselves over a century ago.

This is clearly a briefing from the EHRC ie what they think should happen.

They have already told Labour the wording as is is hopelessly muddled.

Kemi Badenoch might have listened but doubt that anyone of the many MfW will.

Not forgetting that Baroness Falkener will not be in post later this year.

I am not sure this even had anything to do with the court case.

This is what the EHRC wrote to the Government (last December).

If the Court doesn't grant FWS appeal I think the EHRC will not really be listened to sadly.

Although the article says they have updated the Statutory Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations to the Government. But I cant find this on their web site. I wonder if they are just going to go ahead based on the fact they told the Government the wording of the EA was hopelessly muddled, and also didn't believe the Government when it said that most organisations who had been surveyed knew how to apply the SSE.

Go Kishwer! Make the best use of the time you have got.

Not like KB who was only just getting started when the snap election was called.

Oh no, its that moron Foran again giving his perspective.

Even if FWS and it annuls the block on Scotland bringing in self id, the block was because the EA / GRA are UK wide and therefore is the over riding law for each of the 4 nations.

The block was on the basis of that Scotland could not have a different set of regulations.

Half the time it is like he is drumming up work.

However ... I suppose it is just possible Labour (as Starmer also seems to have a flimsy grasp of the law and how to implement it) just might not bother to challenge Scotland having a law not covered by the UK wide laws.

Well that will be interesting.

And yet more money going into the pockets of Barristers.

Good stuff.😊

There's another article in the Telegrapph that makes it clear they are basing their remarks on the work of the EHRC.

The legal system retains, however, a systematic bias in favour of self-ID. For example, the Crown Prosecution Service still instructs prosecutors “to address trans victims, witnesses and defendants according to their affirmed gender and name”. It may be a while before courts revert to using objective rather than subjective criteria – a practice they <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/mSwVF/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/09/nhs-trust-tries-shut-public-out-of-trans-tribunal-scotland/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">should never have abandoned.

Fortunately there are courageous individuals in the public arena who are standing up against the tyranny of identity politics. Perhaps surprisingly, some of these intrepid spirits work at the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Last week, the commission submitted a 310-page revision of its Statutory Code of Practice. If fully implemented, this code would protect the sex-based rights of women and represent a welcome victory for campaigners such as Maya Forstater.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/12/labour-must-show-it-understands-womens-rights/

Article in full at https://archive.is/mSwVF

This has the feel of the government flying a kite. If you’ll have to show a GRC, it will would mean services and facilities are mixed sex. The notion that believing sex is real is on track to do the same amount of damage as issuing certificates to validate one’s inner thoughts about one’s self.

the GRA has to go, and so must the PC of GR.

whoever decided “legal sex” is a real term with meaning has a lot to answer for. GRC holders have an “acquired gender”. If that has no legal meaning then why’s that been twisted into legal sex and why’s it become our problem? Who’s allowed it to ride roughshod over reality and safeguarding?

nothing in the article restores safeguarding. Nothing stops a male teacher compelling children to affirm that person’s images of self.

theres no good news in there, just fence sitting.

I'm seriously worried about Wednesday, but would anyone actually know what the judgment says yet, apart from the judges? How advanced is the advance notice of judgment?

Same here, Utopia. I can’t get my head around it. A bunch of men said “We’re women if we say we are” and the world just said “ Yes sir, of course you are”.

I would never in my life have believed this would happen in civilised countries in the 21st century. The patriarchy is still so strong.

I'm worried now. I'm worried that MPs have had the heads-up that on Wednesday the Supreme Court are going to rule that a GRC turns a man into a woman for all intents and purposes and that the government have quickly shuffled together this new legislation in order to try to limit the damage because they now recognise the problem — that every perv and paedophile under the sun can pay £5 for a GRC and have access to women's spaces, and that in a climate of misogyny and porn-fuelled excess this is not a good thing.

I met Annaliese Dodds a couple of months ago and she is absolutely not a person to pin your GC hopes to.

I am now really confused. It shouldn’t be this complicated. The GRA has to be repealed, it’s a nonsense piece of legislation putting a fantasy into law.

My brain isn’t up to working through the apparently bad-for-women implications of either a win or a lose for FWS.

It would be extremely short sighted - and least impactful on the population of men that politicians seem so very, very concerned to prioritise - to do what appears here to be the plan: to say single sex spaces for women! Yay! But any man can show a £5 certificate and go in there!

Women: £5 subscription and a lifetime viewing and using!

Obviously, the number of certificates will just rocket
Single sex spaces will go on being mixed sex with all the issues and inequalities for women
Lots and lots more court cases that will get the general public increasingly aware, angry and wondering what the problem of these politicians is. Particularly as the next woman-harmed incident caused by a man in a woman's space (with or without a certificate) is only ever tomorrow away and they roll in very, very regularly.
Any remaining respect for a GRC in the minds of the public will be destroyed, not least because to protect themselves women will be forced to make the realities and issues crystal clear regardless of men's feelings
The GRC will have to go. It will be incompatible with women's equalities, rights, safeties and anything else, and there will be no remaining option but for it to go. However long that takes. It's already being openly discussed as an option in parliament, it won't be that long.

Unless there is a clear, supported and effective means for women to retain the exception, meaning even men with an all-access pass can be told no, without said men and their supporters then bullying, harrassing and defunding them out of existence, this cannot work. The GRC can only survive if it involves effective requiring men to accept boundaries and the word 'no' when it comes to their use of women, so that it is compatible with women's equalities and rights and needs, as opposed to the destroyer of.

Least impactful? MOST impactful. Not enough coffee yet.

To do this is not going to help these men at all in the long run.

This will stop all the bloody nonsense of police and newspapers talking about female rapists and paedophiles. And female officers having to search male criminals, etc.

But all it will do is reduce the flow, and make those men allowed access to be considered a lot more legitimate.

It is concerning that this is making a distinction between self ID and a GRC, right before the ruling.

But - scrutiny of all this is now absolutely routine, the sunlight is blinding and public opinion is dead set against any men in women spaces.

There may still be more 'two steps forward and one step back' to go.

The other thing is, of course, whether a GRC will allow men to compete in women's sport. That is definitely the most publicly controversial aspect of this.

Are we really going to get a ruling that says a GRC gives men the legal right to be treated as women, everywhere, except in sport, because really, old chap, that's not quite fair.