NEU defy the Supreme court

[ArabellaScott]

Womens conference to welcome males who identify as women.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/neu-says-its-national-womens-conference-will-welcome-trans-women

Be interesting to see.what the EHRC make of that.

Does the ruling mean that something called 'women's' has to exclude trans women or only can exclude trans women? I know that woman has been defined as a biological woman for the purposes of the Equality Act but I don't know if that definition of woman now has to apply to everything.

If you advertise something as being for women (excluding men), it has to mean biological women.

Otherwise you're misapplying the SSEs and advertising is discriminatory.

I suppose it depends if men are allowed. If so then their statement is meaningless!

If they said 'we're not calling it a women's conference to assert our single sex exemption but merely to flag the type of issues that we will be addressing' would that get around it? I guess men could turn up but probably wouldn't?

I'm just wondering if 'women's' now comes with the automatic presumption of invoking the Equality Act.

I think men must be allowed, but they've tacitly agreed not to come. It's one of those 'associations' that was exempt from sex-discrimination law under the Act - but for that to still apply they would have to be single-sex, and since yesterday, they're not.

I feel the WI may be in the same situation. In both cases, could GC delegates/members that don't want to include TWs fuck things up by getting their male mates to come along and insist on admission because, otherwise, sex discrimination?

I really feel as though one ought to be able to cater for different mixtures of people without legal headaches, as long as everyone gets what they need, including single-sex when it matters.

NEU mixed sex conference.

NEU Women's issues conference. The men all go 'ugh' and the TWs say 'where do I sign up?'

I have wondered whether now the word "woman" is effectively protected as only having one meaning.

In a way it would be good if it was. So if anything advertised said it was Women's whatever, it was about sex.

And those that were trans inclusive or whatever, would be advertised as "feminine gender".

I would like the word female to also be protected.

Maybe it means that to be clear an event that is trans inclusive would have to advertise as "women and trans women" (although if sex is now the criteria where do trans men fit in?).

Inclusive Women's Conference?

Is this the case? I’ve only skimmed the judgement but is the onus on the single-sex service provider to demonstrate that restricting services by biological sex is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim? To challenge NEU wouldn’t the challenger have to be able to show restricting attendance to biological women is required to achieve the aims of the conference (which seems unlikely to succeed)? I’m trying to get my head around it’s application in a broader context that the places we usually think about - prisons, refuges, healthcare.

to be put a simpler way - does the Supreme Court judgment mean you can exclude biological men from a women’s space, not that you must?

@ArabellaScott Today's statement from the WI. The Nat Fed admitted transwomen by stealth and refused to ballot the membership on the issue - still do. Their "put up and shut up" attitude towards the women members who are overwhelmingly opposed to men in their organisation (but too scared to voice their opinion, lest the WI trans-maidens drum them out) is symptomatic of the muddle-headed, internalised misogyny of the whole organisation. It's shameful.

"We are aware that members will have seen the coverage yesterday of the Supreme Court judgement an appeal brought by For Women Scotland. The case was focused on the definition of a woman in the Equality Act.

We know that you may be concerned or have questions about the impact of the judgement on the WI as a women’s organisation, and on our transgender members.

We are considering carefully the outcome, in line with our ongoing commitment to monitoring and reflecting the legal environment in which we operate. We will share further information, informed by advice from our legal advisers, in the coming days.

We want to reassure you that while we consider and understand the impact of the judgement, our existing inclusion policies continue to apply.

While we are considering the implications of this judgement, we note that the judgement also asserts that this interpretation of the Equality Act should not remove protection from transgender people, with or without a Gender Recognition Certificate.

We know that our membership includes both transgender women and women with gender critical views, and that our members value our welcoming and inclusive organisation. We also understand that this may be a worrying time, particularly for our transgender members. We encourage all members to continue supporting each other with respect and care, as we have done throughout our 110 years"

Note the glaring omission? No explicit support for women.

This is my understanding. But I think if you make it mixed sex then you can't exclude men.

Its down to who they exclude too
If men of any type can turn up and vote etc they dont have a problem.
If only men who say they are women are allowed to fully participate they lose the SS exemption and are discriminating against men as a sex group.
Plus in theory women as a group as they are allowing the men who attend to dilute the vote.
Plud they cant exclude women who say they are men.

The reality is, is that the court ruling does not change how the single sex exemption worked (or should have done).

ie if you advertise an event or services as a single sex service then it is about biological sex (as the SSE excluded trans men even if they had a GRC).

The difference now is that if you say a service is single SEX then the court has told us all that is means biology.

And presumably, as in the past, a trouble maker could decide that the service provider has to prove that it is proportionate to do it.

Myabe this will be the start of reclaiming language and people start re-using the word sex to be biological and that gender is anything anyone wants it to be depending of which day or the week, which season, day or night or whatever. Gender being a social construct.

ie if you advertise an event or services as a single sex service

I guess then how do you decide if something is being advertised as a single sex service. Is the word 'women's' enough? What about 'girls'?

Some could claim that Mumsnet is advertised as a single sex service by its name, but it's not.

If it says "woman" or "female" on the door
all men / males are excluded
its REALLY not complicated
and what the law has actually said for many years

But I think the issue here would be, can you have a conference that is for females and some males? And only not allow males who do not identify as females. Is that allowed? Or can the men who aren’t allowed argue that that isn’t acceptable?

Email from Maya with a link to this setting out what Sex Matters thinks ought to happen next.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/what-does-the-for-women-scotland-judgment-mean-in-practice/

Can't guarantee they're right, because
it's genuinely complex and will spawn a lot of analyses and debate of the sort previously 'not allowed'. I can't wait.

My understanding is if you state something is a single sex service ie changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards then they must be single sex, you can no longer fudge things by saying but these subset of men are really women. They aren't. If you allow any men in you must allow all or it is discrimination on the basis of sex.

I think this is it.

The court only ruled on the word sex.

So as no other word has been defined by law it would seen you would have to continue to say single sex, and remind people that a court has said this means biology.

mumsnet isn't single sex. Its focus is on "mums" but as we know any variety of people (and other beings?) have signed up to comment.

Just as a conference said to be about women in a particular area of work doesn't necessarily exclude men.

Of course if it was a meeting about sexual harrassment and worse of women in that workforce the making it single sex could be said to be appropriate.

Am beginning to think the word sex is going to be making an appearance much more often that it has in the past few decades, although more in line with how it was in the decades before that.

I never understood why notices for instances couldn't just have a footnote saying these services, event are organised under the Single Sex provisions of the EA which says sex is biological.

The default is mixed sex.

To exclude one sex you have to invoke the SSEs.

You can only do that on the basis of sex.

I'm not a lawyer, I've read most of the judgement.

The point for me is that this law needs to be at least roughly understood by everyone and therefore it needs to be clear enough that laypeople can grasp it, and that is my understanding.

Same understanding. Its pretty straightforward.

Yes, the clue will be whether someone uses 'women only' as a descriptor.

If this is just a conference about women's issues that is mixed sex then fine, although why they'd then make a big deal of welcoming transwomen is the question.

This is what I've been asking and I can't get a clear answer. I've interpreted it as that if you advertise something as single sex (F) then it has to mean biological sex only.
Not that the word Woman is protected and can only always mean biological female.