Supreme Court - are single gender spaces still allowed?

[DisappearingGirl]

I have a question.

The Supreme Court judgement makes clear that organisations are allowed to provide single sex spaces, services and sports which exclude all those of the opposite biological sex.

However, are they obliged to do this?

Can they still choose to define a space or service as "single gender" (e.g. anyone who identifies as a woman)? Or would this discriminate against males who aren't trans? In which case would they have to choose between "single biological sex" or "everyone"?

In the case of toilets, I think mixed sex (including "single gender") would need to be self contained, but not sure about the rules for other spaces / services / sports.

Basically I'm wondering if organisations can just choose to say, well we've decided trans women can still use our women's spaces/services etc.

The Supreme Court Ruling is good for grabbing headlines, but the BBC news article does nothing to explain what this will actually mean in practice. Terrible reporting by the BBC as per usual.

I'm also confused as to why the BBC article offers no clarification on what this means for the definition of "man." I get that the headline of the article, and the main focus, is on women because that's the main point of social and political contention. But could we at least have had just a sentence or two somewhere to clarify whether this now means that the definition of man is now also based on biological sex? Because that wasn't clarified, so I'm confused as to whether the Supreme Court Ruling was only about the definition of "woman," or was it about the definition of "sex" as a whole.

I am wondering about clubs and hobbies. For instance, the Women's Institute? Will they have to advertise as mixed sex? I run a local branch of a hobby club (non-competitive sports) which advertises as women only but a fair few transwomen have been admitted. This has not caused any issues for the club in the past but what are the implications for the future?

Does this ruling mean that rape crisis Scotland cannot continue to allow males to access services as they are a women's organisation

But the SC hasn't ruled on the interpretation of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, and those Regs predate the Croft decision where the Court of Appeal said that transwomen can eventually gain a right to access women's toilets 🤷‍♀️

Today's judgment is a good development but I don't think it's a silver bullet personally. More work is needed to regain our rights.

Because that wasn't clarified, so I'm confused as to whether the Supreme Court Ruling was only about the definition of "woman," or was it about the definition of "sex" as a whole.

Plenty of readable highlights here:

https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-highlights-show/

Including

"For all these reasons, this examination of the language of the EA 2010, its context and purpose, demonstrate that the words "sex", "woman" and "man" in sections 11 and 212(1) mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man. These and the other provisions to which we have referred cannot properly be interpreted as also extending to include certificated sex without rendering them incoherent and unworkable."

Sandie Peggie always had an excellent case because the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 state that employers must provide single sex facilities for changing. There may have been a grey area around the possession of a gender recognition certificate which the Supreme Court has now cleared up, but Dr Upton didn't have a GRC anyway.

@MotherTuckinGenius I’m in favour of the decision made today. However your remark is childish and unworthy of the debate.

It is true, though, that men leave public loos in a far worse state than women do. Any cleaner, housekeeper, bar staff etc can tell you that. Even if all men were guaranteed to be harmless and if there were no such thing as trans, I wouldn't want mixed sex toilets for that reason alone!

Privacy v. safety issue. Unless there is an attendant or someone watching the CCTV ALL THE TIME, then such cubicles are not safe. Someone could be attacked or someone could collapse without anyone realising.

That was clarified. 'sex' means 'biological sex'. The 1975 Discrimination Act defines male and female - in the context of some jobs needing a male bodied person, for example. This act was cited by Hodge and he said that the provisions had not been modified by the 1999 Act (I think that was on recognising transexuals in some way), the 2004 GRA or the EA2010. So a man is a biological man. No more transmen in men's sports etc.

FFS unclench dearie 🥱

I can't think of anything worse, men can be disgusting creatures in public toilets.

The staff toilets on our ward are labelled ‘staff’ does the NHS now need to provide male and female?

@Grammarnut That was clarified. 'sex' means 'biological sex'.

Thanks for that. Would have been nice if the BBC had been clearer.

The 1975 Discrimination Act defines male and female - in the context of some jobs needing a male bodied person, for example.

What jobs can only be done by a male-bodied person? Care professions where a patient might specifically request a male or female caregiver, but that's it really.

I can't think of any jobs that men can do that women cannot.

I’ve seen such toilets often where I was working and that’s nonsense.

Croft was pre GRA. Does it stand? The GRA changed the way the law treated trans. It shifted away from going through transition journey to acquiring a certificate. Michael Foran refers to this when he has talked about the difficulties of repealing the GRA. He says we would effectively go back to how things were pre GRA.

My opinion is the central principle still stands - i.e. that transwomen eventually gain the right to use women's toilets at work (relying on the Human Rights Act) but employers can say that they should use the disabled toilets during their transition.

The decision noted that the GRA would be coming in and a lot of people have taken the view that the point that one gains access to the women's toilets at work is now when a GRC is granted (see e.g some of the comments in the case of R (Green) v SSfJ which was post GRA but heavily cited Croft) but that aspect seems less perhaps a little less certain following today's judgment.

But I haven't seen anything in today's judgment to undermine the central principle, nor cases such as A v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police which held that a transwoman police officer had the right to carry out intimate searches of women.

So, as I say, I think we have seen some progress today, but it doesn't change some of the troubling case law.

i.e. that transwomen eventually gain the right to use women's toilets at work

At what point do they gain the right?

Watching the WI with interest, i’d love them to have to actually serve women again.

Rape Crisis centres and Women's Aid refugees are all independent groups, but are usually affiliated to other groups like themselves.

However decisions on how groups are run and services provided are down to the governing board of each group.

There is no law that says any group has to provide women only services.

Nor for instance are funders told you must ensure you fund equally.

So in effect if a local council or funder said to a local women's support group we will fund you but you must be trans inclusive (which has happened to many groups) the group could continue to provide services but none of them would be women only.

What they cant do, and this was true before yesterday, is advertise that their services comply with the SSE (not sure if they will go on being that).

As we know from IamSarah's case in Brighton, the service provider was funded by the local council be was not obliged to provide women only services. But are local council's in breach of equality themselves if they fail to equally fund women only service and trans inclusive services. Or are they discriminating against the sex class of women if they dont fund any SSS.

Over and above the politics or policies of service providers, one of the biggest pressures on groups in the funders setting guidelines on how their money should be used.

Not forgetting that more women's project have been closed in the past year by local councils because as far as they are concerned women only services are too expensive to fund. Why should women get a refuge when they can just be sent to a mixed sex hostel. So underneath the issues of today's court case where TRAs have tried to manipulate the law, is the far older hostility and disregard of women of the overarching MRAs who seem to be just a plentiful generation after generation.

Just to add I answered the OP question on the basis that it was meant to be about single SEX spaces as gender is a social concept not a fact!

Well as I say it's not 100% clear. The quote from the case is in my first post upthread. Some people think that has been overtaken and now the point that it changes is when a GRC is obtained, but it's hard to be certain in the absence of further case law.

Porn star? Male stripper? Penis model? Maybe not mainstream, but all legal.

My understanding is the way the law works here is that the legislation supersedes previous case law. Nobody is arguing anymore that a TW needs to reach a certain stage in transition in order to do anything. This was not an argument in the Peggie case or the EBPF case. Before the SC decision the question being asked was does this person say they are trans and do they have a GRC. Beyond that there is no enquiry about how far that person has gone in their transition journey. Having a vaginoplasty doesn’t give you a greater entitlement to use the women’s changing room or run in sports. This is old pre-GRA caselaw. And it’s what we would return to if the GRA was repealed.

Hopefully, if the GRA was repealed, the recent ruling on single sex space provisions under the EA would supercede previous case law.

There is inherent regognition in the current ruling that gender reassignment never creates a situation where the person becomes the opposite sex.

If they want to argue that gender reassignment does, at some point, change your sex, then they are going to have to argue that position from scratch.

They will need to argue it, openly, without obfuscation of language, without using under-the-radar tactics and without lying about how the law works.

By doing all the above, they have set back the rights of medically transitioning transsexuals by years. They may even have created a situation where that group of males will never again find an opening for being treated politely as if they were women.

All the teeth gnashing and woman bashing is ironic, because this is a situation wholly created by deliberately deceptive transactivism.