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

Do we have any case law yet? Existing case law is about beliefs, not SSSs. Darlington, the Pool case, Survivors Network case and David Lloyd gyms all potentially bring in sex-discrimination.

Regarding the error in the article, I posted this earlier:

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.

On reflection, the rules are tighter against legal males, but it's a subtle point. It's hard to make any of this clear to the casual newspaper reader.

Even men with a GRC, which indicates they've made a legal gender (not sex) change, can be banned from single-sex spaces/activities/jobs, if doing so is a proportionate means for a legitimate purpose.

I think women & girls' safety and dignity is a legitimate purpose (and a pretty low bar for this EA2010 exemption).

Lower court cases, as I said. There was a successful discrimination case in a hospital, and one in a pub, both in Yorkshire, and I think another on a ferry but maybe that one was in Jersey or something. Nothing explicitly stating yes or no to the matter of these males using women only spaces, but implying that they should be able to.

I recall the hospital changing room case. The transwoman sued and won because he was made unwelcome in the CR and no alternative was provided. To test the sex-discrimination point, we need the women to sue.

Toilets were also an issue in the successful Jaguar Landrover case for which RMW et al claim that even non binary men can be protected under section 7 of the EA. I disagree, but it’s another example of what I’m talking about. The claimant took great offence to being asked to use the disabled toilet while “transitioning”. And the judge found in this male’s favour.

Absolutely, I’ve been of that view since 2018 or so.

And in the hospital case the judge found that the question of whether he was going to use the female changing room was inappropriate and intrusive specifically because an actual woman wouldn’t have been asked. This gives the impression that she thought he was entitled to use it in exactly the same way.

Thank you I shall look it up. Presumably using the disabled loo was too 'insulting and unpleasant' 🙄

I don't understand how this will work unless trans women who have a gender recognition certificate are also banned from women's single sex spaces.

It's not like there are bouncers on the doors checking IDs.

That’s pretty much the gist.

Doesn't this all come unstuck, though, because the legal gender change of the GRC changes the legal sex shown on the birth certificate?

And so here we are.

Yes. This is the thread of inconsistency and confusion that runs through the whole ideology. Even the GRA uses the words sex and gender interchangeably for no apparent reason without any proper definition for gender (very poor practice for a law).

HMPO, the NHS, the police and DVLA were all persuaded to record ‘gender’ instead of sex despite there being no actual definition or possible verification of this concept. It really is quite horrifying how they abandoned fact and reality on the say so of a tiny handful of trans activists.

Repealing the GRA would not repeal the GRCs already issued
therefore a long term view needs to be taken

No, because the guidance distinguishes between birth sex and legal sex when determining who can be excluded, for instance from a women's refuge.

Wednesday's decision is about situations not covered by the guidance, such as clubs and shortlists, where safety etc is not an issue.

Wednesday can't possibly make anything worse, anyway. I think....

Only around 9,500 GRC have been issued - 6,000 to men.

Which indicates that most transpeople don't need or want them, and repealing now wouldn't be insurmountable.

I've always thought, when you have a document like a GRC, the obvious question is, what rights does it confer? Does it enable the holder to do something that a person without a GRC cannot? And it seems the answer to that has always been unclear. So now, will this judgment clarify that, one way or another?

...can be excluded...

Can be, that's the problem. IIUC the Equality Act expressly permits men to be excluded from women's single sex services under certain circumstances. This exclusion is a permitted exception.

Does the Equality Act expressly specify anywhere that women have the right to single sex services?

If people/organisations/businesses/funders choose not to exercise this permitted exception, do women have any right in law to demand it?

Obviously it is unethical to expect women to be available for men who wish to see them undressing, hear them weeing, share their prison cells etc. But that's not what I'm referring to.

Does the Equality Act expressly specify anywhere that women have the right to single sex services?

No: to construct this right, we have to cobble together several things. Say, workplace regulations, or the Prisons Act, and the fact that the EA permits trans-exclusion, and the fact that trans-inclusion = sex-discrimination against women. Its a right Heath-Robinson affair.

Exactly.

I am perplexed that your confident omniscience has deserted you wrt 2 simple words. Particularly when you seem to be falling to explain your superior grasp of complexities and nuance to other reasonably experienced and informed posters. Yet simultaneously deprecating your reliability and ascribing this to me.

In which case, I can’t assist you. I resist overtures to textbook transactional analysis exchanges as they’re rarely helpful and usually end with incivility.

Too late to edit, but...

Another problem is that every space ends up trans-inclusive, whereas everyone's needs could have been met with a mixture of types of space (given that some women don't mind). But nothing short of 100% compliance will satisfy the TRAs, and they constantly misrepresent the mere existence of genuinely single-sex spaces (even if surrounded by a sea of trans-friendly alternatives) as Denying Their Existence 😡

It will refreshing if we get current legislation that we could rely on that focuses on safety.

As it stands in the current DfE secondary school specification there are no toilet designs suitable for children with invisible disabilities such as diabetes, heart conditions and epilepsy who are more at risk of collapsing. Nor for poor mental health. Public/school toilet cubicles need a degree of visibility which they should have as a (very) reasonable adjustment. If an Equality Impact Assessment had been done this should have picked this up. Children are being harmed, particularly girls. The risk assessments should have picked up that, due to the amount of sexual abuse in schools, including reported rapes every school day, that mixed-sex private spaces aren’t a good idea either.

When I discussed their 2023 specification with them, the DfE referenced Health and Safety at Work legislation from 1974!
Over 50 years old.

That’s what most TRAs want. It isn’t a genuine desire to be accepted for the most part. It’s a power trip. So no concession will or ever can be enough. It doesn’t bear thinking about where it would end.

Doesn't this mean, though, that the sex marker on the birth certificate is now meaningless for all of us, because it doesn't have to match bio sex? We can't use legal documents to prove bio sex any more because they can be legally falsified.

How do you exclude a man from a female space when you can't prove he's a man (I mean you can, it's easy, but there's now no agreed method of doing so)

Yes, this is a massive problem, although not the one that tomorrow's decision is about, exactly.

We are allowed to take birth sex into account sometimes, but how can we if it's personal private information, as set out in the GRA? (And if it's ppp for GRC-holders that makes it ppp for everyone. )

It works where there's an authority with the power to get the information (prison authorities, sporting regulators), but not for Jane public trying to keep a man out of her changing room (or social club, if we win).