Trans women ban in single sex spaces

[Cismyfatarse]

This was in the Times today. Do we dare to hope?

Trans people who self-identify as women face single-sex space ban

https://www.thetimes.com/article/68423de4-3325-4af8-b2f0-7c7f12900899?shareToken=f012cc8892c9e09b8980831f5adc89e6

But what about those who do have a gender recognition certificate? There'll still be a man in what should be a womens only space, but it's okay because he has a certificate?

Let’s be accurate; no one is surely suggesting banned transwomen from single sex spaces, only the single sex spaces reserved for the female sex.

Exactly. Very welcome to spaces consistent with their sex, just like everyone else.

I don't even see it as a 'ban', it's just not capitulation to their demands!

I'm.so tired of this. If men felt vulnerable and tables were turned it would never have gone this far. It a travesty

But it is a start. And redefining (not that it should need it) single sex spaces as excluding all men, including those who self identify, would give clarity. If GRA men get it will be decided on Wednesday.

This and Labour have always said they intend to make it easier for people to get a GRC, so this has the potential to enable more men to be able to say ‘legally we are entitled to be here’ and make it harder for service providers to exclude males from female spaces. We need the guidance and legislation to be explicitly clear that:

a) Women/female in legislation refers to biological sex
b) A GRC does not entitle males access to services/provisions reserved explicitly for females and that exclusions that are in place for a legitimate reason are legal.

This is exactly what the FWS case is about. Judgement due in Wednesday.

It may be a partial improvement. I think it will be rather concerning though when combined with the cheaper and less rigorous approach to get that GRC.

The Gender Recognition Act needs to be repealed. That was a big mistake.

Or, “Men still excluded from single-sex spaces designated for women”.

I wish media felt confident to frame this correctly. It would help people to understand what the core issues are and what is at stake.

The EHRC are giving guidance based on the minimum that all parties agreed in FWS - that we do not have self-ID. The guidance says that and that providers must not operate as if Self-ID was the law. They also put paid to the ideas that access to SS spaces should be decided case-by-case and that anyone with a trans identity ought to be granted access to facilities which accord with their GI except in exceptional circumstances, neither of which ever had any basis in the EA2010. It's basically correcting the errors of the TA-influenced statutory guidance of 2011.

The question of whether MCWs with a GRC can join women-only gyms, lesbian groups etc is what will be decided on Wednesday. If I understand correctly, regardless of the SC judgement, women's RCCs and communal changing rooms etc can still be off limits to males with a GRC.

But given that you're not supposed to be allowed to ask for sight of a GRC (apparently that's outing and denies them the right to a private life), how would no self-IDing into opposite sex spaces be managed.

You can't come in here - this is a single-sex women's space.
I am a woman.
You're male.
I am legally a woman.
Prove it.
Don't have to. You can't make me.

I still don't understand why a birth certificate is amended. If someone gets a GRC, that does not change the fact they were born as a particular sex. Unless people truly believe in the 'assigned as ' thing.

This is true, there will be men who will fuss and kick off and try to intimidate women's boundaries away - plus ca change - and those who will come out with the truly stupid line (usually while being 6 foot plus with stubble) that unless you do the 'genital check' you 'can't tell'.

Men behaving very badly and having no respect for women is no more reason to give up on protecting women in law than burglars having no respect for property being a reason to give up on prosecuting it in law. It would have been much easier to turn around if we had an establishment - and a male sex class - that didn't see women as things for men to use and no right to say no to men, and to have protected women's spaces years ago. It would have been nice if women didn't have to continually defend their own existing legal protections in law from men when it's very clear that it's law existing only on paper for the look of it and not in actual practice until women spend thousands of pounds and years of their life in a court room.

But the situation is now a total mess, and hopefully those legal cases are now forcing a phenomenally misogynistic and male dominated establishment to realise they have to do something about these men. The cases will just keep on coming.

I guess we'll see on Wednesday what the first step looks like.

That's where the single sex exemption will come in and it won't be a case by case assessment but entire service assessment, if the ruling on Wednesday goes in favour of the Scottish government. However if we win even those who have a grc will be barred entry🤞

And if we lose - men with GRCs cannot be denied access to anything for women at all by law - this will demonstrate clearly that men have been awarded a legal, sex based right over women (a born woman cannot have one of these certificates of power or use it in the same way and that one man with his bit of paper will outweigh every single woman in that service and her needs/characteristics) and men can strip search, use and abuse women's hospital wards and prisons and changing rooms, invade women's health groups and lesbian groups and women can either submit or surrender their access .

Getting changed in front of a man who wants to be there when you take your clothes off for your job for example will be a legal demand to make of a woman.

If that's proven to be the law as it stands, and the government can no longer deny it, then strap in.

It's a massive step forward.

Remember the number of males this applies to and which males in this group who have been vocal and caused various legal problems.

It still doesn't solve the problem - especially if the intention is to make getting a GRC easier.

Then there's the paradox of the GRC - the certificate you can't ask to see.... Which ISN'T resolved by this.

There are a number of individuals who make a point of not saying what their legal status is and whether they have a GRC on principle for this reason.

From the article:

"The change would prevent those who rely on self-ID from being able to access women-only care homes or domestic abuse refuges without an exceptional reason. Those with a GRC may still be allowed because that is the present position in law."

I don't think this is correct. Transwomen - with or without a GRC - can be excluded from such spaces under existing law, and that will not change.

The problem is institutions not availing themselves of the law and thus disadvantaging women. Telling them they can't call it single-sex unless they at least keep out all the legal males is a start, but only a start.

If we win, those with a GRC can be barred both from the changing room and from the lesbian club. I don't think we'll win, because it was clearly the intention of the legislature that they be allowed in the lesbian club, and the concessions for safety, fairness and decency (changing rooms, sport) were clearly made grudgingly.

The onus is on the MCW to prove it. The provider just has to say no, women only. The new guidance also says that if they do have a GRC, you can ask to see it. Otherwise, no is sufficient.

I disagree, the original aim was not to make heterosexual MCWs with a GRC into lesbians.

No, RCCs, communal changing rooms, strip searches etc engage women's human rights to dignity, privacy and safety and that is specifically covered by the SSEs.
It's rights of association and lesbian rights especially which would be affected. That's all quite bad enough.
Apart from the sheer outrage of women being deemed not to be a biological sex class in all and any circumstances.
IANAL, just passing on what I have read.

Anyway, I'm sure the implications of the judgement will be spelled out to us by Wednesday afternoon.

It was originally to allow two people of the same sex to get married (back when same sex marriage was still illegal) by making one of them legally the opposite sex, in other words pretending two gay men were a heterosexual couple.

What it's for now is a question no one seems keen to answer.

My understanding is that, with a GRC, the birth certificate is updated? Therefore, males with a GRC and females without a GRC would both have a birth certificate that states female. Self identified transwomen (I.e. without a GRC) might have a passport or driving licence that states female, it their birth certificate still states male.

That means that you can ask to see a birth certificate, instead of a GRC to exclude self identified transwomen